Posts

Happy Holidays!
Wishing you all a very happy holidays and a wonderful new year ahead! Here is an edible fruit tree I had made last year, hope you enjoy it too... have a safe festive season. Check here  for instructions of how to make this edible fruit tree.

Celery root soup (Celeriac soup)
Have you ever cooked with a celery root or a celeriac before? It resembles the shape of misshapen turnip with beards growing here and there. At first glance to be frank it is not very appealing, particularly when seated next to the rows and rows of beautiful pink perfect red carrots of the season; but since I had heard so much about the delicate celery like flavors of these root vegetables, I could not pass up the chance to pick one up in the farmer's market yesterday. Celeriac is a root vegetable in celery family. For a long time I thought celeriac is the root bulb of celery but that is not quite the case! The stalks and leaves attached to a celeriac are _not_ actually celery; I was planning to use them up in my soup but a bit of Googling told me that they may not be edible so I skipped them and used regular celery instead. In texture celeriac is simlar to the Mexican Jicama with a dominant celery flavor with a slight bit of sweetness like an apple! Preparin…

Couscous with roasted butternut squash and dried cranberries
I don't know about you but I have always been a side-dish kind of person. What do I mean by that; well, for one, I usually relish the side-dish just as much as I like the main-dish! Infact, I have been known to be making meals out of side-dishes.. one pot quinoa salad for a quick lunch, smashed yams with a drizzle of honey for desert, soup as the main-course for dinner.. well, you get the idea. Needless to say, whenever I am invited to a Thanksgiving dinner, I am perfectly happy bringing a side-dish. Nothing screams fall to me like this dish with roasted, camelized butternut squash and dried cranberries with couscous! The dish is wide open to variations and experimentations. I tried it with orange flavored dried cranberries from Trader Joe's and loved the orangy after-taste it gave. Occasionally I also add pumpkin seeds or pistachios for a crunch at times. As for the herbs, I suspect fried torn sage leaves would pair really well with the squash but I haven…

Buttermilk pancakes
Pancakes is the ultimate lazy Sunday morning breakfast for me. I get up late (hey, daylight savings ended!) then spend another half an hour gazing over my morning cuppa mindlessly peeking at my friends' posts on Facebook while watching the rains drizzle outside on a gloomy Sunday morning. After an hour or so my tummy rumbles in protest which is when I go to the kitchen and start randomly opening and closing cupboards and refrigerator until I see an about to expire buttermilk carton that I used last week to make some very tasty whole-wheat pumpkin muffins. Buttermilk is not a regular ingredient in my pantry so finding it on Sunday morning meant this was a sign... to make some buttermilk pancakes. This is a recipe I followed from Joy of Baking . I usually prefer banana pancakes but having buttermilk at hand I decided to give buttermilk pancakes a try instead. The pancakes were moist and fluffy and had a slightly tangy taste of the buttermilk. You can easily subs…

Batata rassa (Potatoes in curried gravy)
People deal with stress in different ways. I have a few friends who splurge on chocolates or sweets when they are stressed, then there are others who go nuts for snacks and still a few others (and now the pie-chart is dwindling) who work-out a lot or take walks during lunch-time to beat the stress. I have never been a sweets person (note the 's' in sweets, less you would think I am not a sweet person :D) I rarely if ever crave anything sweet and I like dark chocolate but don't really crave it either. For me it has always been savory comfort food from my child-hood which acts as an instant stress-buster. It is unfair how a few regional cuisines (like Maharashtra for example) are just so absent in the array of cuisines featured under the global "Indian cuisines" tag. Even in the heart of the bay area, there is hardly any restaurant which serves authentic Marathi food that I can turn to. Anyway, so as a result of a few stressful work weeks, I ha…

Pumpkin dal
I have always been the one (shamelessly so you might add!) who sneaks in a new untested recipe on unsuspecting guests. It always scares my Mom whenever I tell her I am 'experimenting' on a new recipe when there are guests in-house. But really, for me, trying out a new recipe is like a cook's reward, something that keeps me going. Sure, there have been a few mishaps and last minute runs to Safeway to activate backups, but more than often the new dish has been a great hit and has kept the fun going for me in entertaining! So we had an unplanned visit from a few close friends last night. As luck would have it all I had on hand was pumpkins - two small sugar pie pumpkins which I had picked up on my morning TJ's visit. Together we brain-stormed a lot about what to cook and finally decided to be brave enough to make it a pumpkin night.. afterall isn't Halloween just around the corner! I made the traditional Marathi lal-bhoplyachi bhaji (red pumpkin s…

Pumpkin kheer/pumpkin pudding
Nothing screams fall like the rows and rows of neatly arranged pumpkins and squashes! The pumpkin display in front of our local Trader Joe's stores is so adorable that no visit to the groceries is complete for me now a days without picking up a new squash to try. Last weekend I bought a small sugar pie pumpkin for a pumpkin pie. I halved the pumpkin and roasted it for an hour and half until sweet and moist. Just when I was mashing up the pumpkin I realized I had no eggs at hand. A last minute change of plans and some scavenger hunt later, I thought why not try some pumpkin kheer instead... All I had was non-fat milk at hand but the kheer was still extremely creamy and wonderful tasting due to the freshly roasted and mashed pumpkins. Trust me, I am not a person with much sweet tooth, but this kheer was so simple and tasty that I gobbled half of it myself for dinner and next day breakfast! Afterall it is the festivities and what better way to celebrate than so…

Roasted butternut squash soup
Fall has finally arrived! Leaves are turning red, evenings are just a tiny bit chilly, Starbucks is serving its pumpkin latte and what all that means for me is one things.. time to make lots and lots of soups again! I bought a butternut squash on sale at Trade Joe's. I was thinking of making the curried butternut squash soup I had made earlier but feeling a bit adventurous with extra extra pumpkin caffeine, this time I decided to try a long lost Cooking Light recipe that I vaguely remembered reading a few years back at a dentist's office (have you noticed how you never forget a recipe that you read at dentists's office, guess its the pain of whats coming ahead or something...) The recipe is very simple. Original one called for chopping the squash into cubes and then cooking with stock and then slightly spicing it up with nutmeg. When it comes to butternut squash I always prefer roasting rather than chopping (the squash is way too tough to cut using a…

A Mexican fair.. tacos with sun sugar tomatoes and peach salsa
What do you do when life showers you with cherry tomatoes? Experiment with different versions of salsas of-course! Last spring a very dear friend of mine gifted us this tiny sun sugar tomato plant which to my utter amazement has grown over 5' tall (yes, thats 5 feet!) and is bearing fruits like crazy! When I planted it I expected a regular sized tomato plant only to realize within a month or so that the plant is growing frantically crazy. I had to quickly research my caging options. A trip to Home Depot later, I managed to cage the plant but two months later is looks like we should have bought the larger cage. Who knew a tomato plant could grow that tall!  A fun aspect of being a first-time gardener is you learn through mistakes. Now I know that there is something like an indeterminate tomato plant and the sun sugar variety falls into that - what it means is the plant will grow indeterminate only capped by the length of the season. In the world of indetermi…

Yes, I'm here...
I know this space has been a bit quiet recently so I thought I'll stop by and say a quick hi. Incidentally, this is my favorite time of the year! Summer is slowly turning into fall. There is a slight welcoming chill in the air (or may be that's because the summer never really came to the bay this year). I have been working a lot, weekdays and weekend, and cooking whenever I get a chance. Largely though I have been surviving on 20-min dinners and batch-cooked Sunday meals. I haven't been cooking anything fancy or new, just the everyday food that we somehow take for granted and never photograph :) On the outdoorsy side, the garden is in full-bloom. My tomato plants are thriving; guavas are maturing, squirrels are devouring the figs and basil never looked any better. After a long struggles even the baby hummingbird who had nested nearby learnt to fly! I know the recipes are missing recently but I am planning to be back very very soon. Yes, I promise :) …

A photo journey through Seattle's Pike Place market
This year summer never came to the bay. It rained a lot till April and somehow we slipped into a late-winter/fall like weather, skipping the summer entirely. Not that I am complaining. I am one of those people who are perfectly happy spending my weekends cuddled on sofa reading a good book with a cup of coffee instead of sun-bathing on beaches. This weekend we were in store for another such chilly trend. Having put off my plans of an outdoor lunch for a more warmer day, I was resigned to stare into the foggy day sitting on my porch and what better past-time to engage in than mind-lessly browsing through pictures of some old happy chilly days, spent with family, laughing and having fun. That was exactly our last Thanksgiving's Seattle trip! Visiting Seattle's famous foodie-hangout Pike place market was definitely on top of my list. Seeing those old photos rekindled the memory of that market so much, that I thought I will share a small photo journey with you…

Poached fish tacos (with a vegetarian alternative)
At our house we love our Mexican food. Of-course staying at San Diego for years didn't hurt either ;) If you visit San Diego, I definitely recommend visiting an area called Old Town which is famous for its spectacular Mexican restaurants and fresh produce and pottery markets. Whether you are in mood for some fine dining or merely a roadside devouring of tortilla wraps, Old Town is the place for you! For me the best part of Old Town are the fresh tortilla stalls. There are restaurants on the strip which have an extension overlooking the street where a lady makes fresh corn and flour tortillas . For about 50cents a piece you can enjoy a tortilla hot off the gridle lightly brushed with butter and seasoned with home-made hot salsa! Heaven wrapped in a foil indeed! The only thing is now you can't be skimpy about eating on the roadside ;) Anyway, I digress. Looking at some of our old SD photos, I got nostalgic for some Mexican today. Fish tacos can be quite gre…

Zucchini soup
My work weeks have been so hectic now-a-days that every Saturday morning's farmer's market has become sort of like an unwinding kick-start-into-the-weekend ritual. Sipping a hot cuppa coffee and idly strolling through the stalls overflowing with fresh produce, fruits and flowers is meditating and exactly what I need to melt away the stresses of the week to get into my lazy relaxing weekend mode!  Have you seen how all the markets now a days are overflowing with summer squashes and zucchinis? I can never resist staring at those mounds and mounds of neatly arranged zucchinis and colorful squashes. This weekend I couldn't resist but buy a few fresh zucchinis, some leeks and a nice fresh celery. Once I reached home I googled for zucchini recipes and finally settled on this zucchini soup from Kalyn. This soup had one more thing going for itself, it used rosemary; ever since I saw that bushel of rosemary growing in the backyard I have been itching to try it…

Ridge-gourd with cauliflower sabji
This was a last minute kitchen sink sabji experiment that turned out exceptionally well so I thought I'll quickly post about it. I had one sole ridge-gourd  at hand. Now one is not enough to make a sabji for two so I kept it in the fridge hoping to use it next time with a sambhar or in some mixed vegetable concoction. Now a week later, the ridge-gourd was still sitting alone in the fridge so I finally decided to quickly make a kitchen sink sabji with it. I had some cauliflower at hand so thought of making a cauliflower potato sabji and adding ridge-gourd as an extra kick. A lone red bell pepper was threatening to go bad so I added that too at the end. Overall I wasn't expecting much but the sabji turned out to be really good!

Carrot ginger and roasted leek soup
Life has been crazy recently.. well, more specifically, work has been crazy recently. If it felt like I have abandoned you all, that was because of the crazy work schedules for the past few weeks. I have even started batch cooking and freezing on Sundays. Always a sign of crazy times ahead. I don't know though, I have still quite not gotten used to the idea of eating defrosted food. I freeze ~4 different portion size dishes for two on Sundays and defrost a new dish everyday morning before leaving for work. The plan goes well for may be till Thursday; somehow by Thursday I always start feeling that I am eating stale food. May be its just a mental block; it is still freshly defrosted food, right! Do you eat frozen foods much? Do you feel the same way? What do you do to liven up defrosted food? Anyway, so coming back to the point, last Thursday my mental block came back in full-swing and we finally decided to dinner out to this nearby salad & soup place where…

Black bean curry
Of all the beans I got introduced to after moving to US (and wow, isn't there a variety!) black beans are the ones I got adapted to most easily. Black beans are sure an integral part of the Mexican cuisine but their hardy taste and pair-ability with many spices makes them an ideal bean to be experimenting with. In particular, over the years of cooking with black beans I have realized that black beans and dried oregano is a match made in heaven! I always keep a bottle of dried oregano in my pantry just for the black beans :) This black bean curry was born out of necessity (don't they always say necessity is the mother of invention ;)). One day all I had was a can of black beans and a few tomatoes at home so I made a quick black bean saute with onions-garlic-tomatoes and it was a big hit with both of us. Over the years I have tuned this recipe in more ways than one. It still remains my go-to recipe when I have 20-mins or less to bring something to table. Inc…

Tandoori chicken
Summer is here and so are the outdoor grilling parties and picnics! Tandoori chicken is one of my go-to grilling dishes (not that I am any good with grilling, I rather prefer indoor roasting). It cooks up super fast with minimal preparation (except the ahead of time marinating) and the best part is, pretty much everyone (yes, even people who generally dislike spicy Indian food) end up loving this simple moist roasted chicken when served with some yogurt mint raita. And not to mention this dish is also very economical to feed a large party because this is one chicken dish where drumsticks and legs actually work better than costlier chicken breats portions. I always buy all-natural organic chicken and anyone who has seen the prices recently will attest when I say that buying organic chicken cutlets enough to feed 10-12 people will cause anyone to go broke ;) Tandoori chicken is prepared by marinating chicken with yogurt and Indian spices and then roasting it in clay…

Pav bhaji
Pav bhaji (translates literally to fluffy Indian bread with a spicy vegetable concoction) is a very famous street food in India (or Pune/Mumbai to be more precise). Bhaji is a pan-fried vegetable concoction with tomatoes, peppers, cauliflowers, potatoes and of-course a special blend of pav-bhaji masalas which give it that tangy, spicy chaat-like flavor. Pav is an Indian version of a small fluffy bread which is served pan-fried with butter and spices.  On a typical pav bhaji platter, you get a few butter toasted pavs, a mound of spicy bhaji and a lot of condiments like chopped fresh onions, chopped cilantro, chopped tomatoes, lemon wedges and of-course to finish off more butter :) Some people eat the pav-bhaji like they would eat roti and vegetables, mopping up the bhaji with slices of pav while others make a small sandwich for themselves by stuffing the bhaji and condiments in the slits between the paav. Either way anyone who has ever had this dish in India will v…

A peek into the garden
When we moved in about four months ago, three fourth of the yard was cemented and half of the remaining one fourth was occupied by a small lawn patch. The only open space to plant any new vegetables was around the perimeter of the yard. The perimeter was largely occupied with rose bushes with spaces in between. People who lived before us must have been rose lovers because at the last count we had 21 rose varieties! Yes, we have white roses, yellow roses, pink, red, crimson.. you name it and we probably have it. My husband is specially happy because now even if he forgets the anniversaries and the birthdays all he has got to do is run to the garden and pluck a few different roses :) The roses probably deserve a post for themselves, so this post I'll stick to the vegetables and fruits instead. One of the first two plants that were our addition to the house were a fig tree and a lime tree. This mission fig tree is about eight to ten months old but is already bear…

Moroccan couscous salad
Couscous is one of my favorite quick cooking grains. Its the perfect food to cook when you have had a long hard day and all you want to do is curl up in front of the television eating a big bowl of fresh homemade food but don't want to spend more than 10-15mins in the kitchen. Cooking couscous couldn't be easier. You boil one portion liquid (stock or water); turn the heat off; add equal portion couscous; stir; cover and let sit for 5minutes. After 5minutes, remove the cover, fluff up the couscous and that's it, its ready! How easy is that! Couscous is a grain made out of semolina, rolled into really tiny small rounds. There is a whole-wheat variety of couscous that Trade Joe's carries which I particularly like. Like any pasta, couscous lends really well to many sauces, dressings and sides. I sometimes chop up whatever veggies are sitting in the fridge and then make an olive oil-lemon juice dressing for a quick couscous salad. On other days when I …

Fish curry with salmon
I was raised a vegetarian. My father occasionally eats poultry and seafood but my mother is a strict vegetarian. Growing up meat dishes were never a part of our household meals. However when I left for college to a state halfway across India, my diet suddenly suffered due to the hostel (dorms, as they are called here) food. In our hostel vegetarian meal was included in the standard meal-plan while you had to pay a hefty extra amount to get non-vegetarian food served three times a week. Needless to say, extra costly non-vegetarian food was much nutritious and wholesome than the standard meal-plan included veg food (note that vegetarian food can be in-general completely nutritious; but the way it used to be prepared at our hostel made it especially unappetizing and thereby non-nourishing as we would mostly skip the meal and snack on chips to satisfy our hunger). Due to the heavy school-work and the unbalanced dorm diet, over the years I lost some weight and my health…

Lemony pasta primavera with lemon basil
It is amazing how good a simple dish can taste when all the ingredients are fresh and the preparation is minimal. This simple pasta primavera was a big hit with us yesterday and a lot of credit goes to the discovery of lemon basil in addition to all the other fresh ingredients. Did I tell you I have found my new best herb-friend in this lemon basil ;) I have read about a few bloggers who grow and cook with lemon basil. I am always curious when I read about a new vegetables or a new herb, so lemon basil was sure something in my to-try list. Needless to say I was so excited when I happened to stumble across this lemony herb yesterday at the farmer's market. Usually my Saturday morning lunch menu is decided right when I am doing the groceries. I pick up whatever looks good that day and then cook something around it. A lot of fresh tomatoes are adorning the markets these days I suppose as a sure sign of approaching summer. I picked some up and settled on mak…

Lentil stuffed pita pockets
Ever since I saw this Mark Bittman's sloppy joe pita recipe in Cooking Light I have itching to try it out. Honestly, whats not there to love when you have warm toasted pitas stuffed with warm and spicy lentil stuffing, some cool mint yogurt sauce and cucumber!  I always have a pack of Trader Joe's whole wheat pitas at hand. Came home from work late. Quickly chopped some onions, tomatoes and garlic and put the lentils to cook (hardly 10min prep time). The lentil cooking time of around half an hour was largely unattended in which I made myself a hot decaf with a slice of toast and watched some mindless television to unwind the day :) Once the lentils were ready, the whole assembly took another 15mins and thats it, dinner is served! I substituted fresh avocado slices for the cucumber slices and finished with a tangy sweet jalapeno sauce that I found at a local Afghan grocer for some extra kick. All in all, a dinner well served!

Black bean and summer squash enchilada
I know, I know, I have been posting a lot of Mexican recipes in a row recently but I *promise* this will be the last Mexican recipe I post for quite some time! See, ever since I ate this black bean and summer squash enchilada at our office cafeteria, I have been itching to try it out and though I knew I have been cooking a lot of Mexican recently; I figured this enchilada would be the perfect season finale to my self-induced Mexican cooking bonanza :) The head-chef at our office cafeteria hails from Southern America so while the Indian food featured is a bit dismal with its chicken curry, chicken tikka masala and chicken vindaloo all looking and testing _exactly_ the same, Mexican, Peruvian and Brazilian food is quite the different story! The salsa bar is exquisite and ever so often we get to taste a dish so unique and flavorful that it makes eating there quite enjoyable. Needless to say everyday the first thing I do when I visit the cafe is check the South Americ…

Spanish rice
At our house we love Mexican food. So much so that I have made a lot of inter-cuisine concoctions that we flavor with Mexican condiments just to satisfy our Mexican cravings. For example, I regularly make 'tacos' with whole wheat pita breads or 'burritos' with some mild curry and salsa. I always buy a pack of pita bread whenever I visit Trade Joe's (their whole wheat pitas are the best!). On some weekday evenings when I come back from office craving Mexican, all I do is put the Spanish rice on stove and while its cooking make a quick guacamole and a black bean tomato salsa (frozen avocados, frozen corn and canned black beans all have permanent reserved places in my pantry). I stuff the pitas with salsa, rice and avocados and may be some Monterey Jack cheese and thats it! A satisfying Mexican meal on table in less than 30-minutes and without a trip to a grocery store! So, that brings me to today's recipe: spanish rice. I have been making thi…

Polenta and spring vegetable ratatouille with pattypan squash
Am I the only one who buys certain vegetables because they look good? I mean, c'mon, look at these pattypan squashes (picture below) don't they look like they must have been planted by seeds from some alien ships years back! Pattypan squash is a type of summer squash. I started seeing them very recently (within the last week or two) at our farmer's markets. They caught my attention instantly. First week I figured I had no idea what to do with them so I resisted the impulse of buying them. Next week I still hadn't done my homework but now I was more worried - what if the squashes are like green garlic available just for a week or two and then gone! So I quickly add some to my basket thinking I'll figure out what to do with them later. Today nearly a week later I am pondering the usual what to make for lunch question. End of the week and there isn't much of a choice when I suddenly remember these pattypan squashes sitting and waiting nicely i…

Broccoli Thoran (Broccoli and coconut stir-fry)
Broccolis are one vegetable I have always had a hard time incorporating in our diets in a way that I really like. Sure, I make a broccoli sabji that I enjoy and I add broccoli to noodles and stir-frys , but I felt I hadn't still hit 'the' broccoli preparation. Something that is super fast, super easy, super healthy and super tasty - afterall broccoli is a super food, right! Then once while I was visiting my brother we went to an Indian restaurant for lunch (thanksgiving day, everything else was closed). The buffet was quite the regular fare with the usual suspects like this paneer and that curry and so on; but right there between aalo palak and chili paneer was hidden a large bowl of shredded broccoli with some coconut pieces lurking around. The dish was named broccoli thoran. To be honest, that was my first encounter with a thoran. It being a broccoli dish I was cautious and took a small sample. My husband however loves broccoli in any form and he pr…

Chocolate brownies
Sunday summer afternoons are meant for lazying around, aren't they? Last summer when the heat would be unbearable to do any outside chores, my husband and I used to drive upto a nearby Starbucks adjacent to a California Mission. We would buy some coffee, snacks and then sit under the cool shade of the large ancient oak and beech trees overlooking the mission, savoring our treats and chatting mindlessly about this and that. My favorite treats were the chocolate brownie bites that Starbucks used to carry which I used to LOVE! I say used to because unfortunately atleast in the area where I live Starbucks doesn't carry them anymore. They were the best tiny indulgence ever! Just tiny enough that you won't feel guilty about eating them and oh so tasty! A perfect companion for an impromptu coffee picnic. We would get 3 brownie bites for $1 - one for each of us and the last one was guilt sharing one that both of us would try to pass on to the other but at the e…

Salsa two ways: salsa fresca and roasted tomato salsa
Past week has been crazy! Work-wise, I mean. Don't you always feel like there are so many things to do and so little time. My library books are waiting patiently for me to pick them up. My 3/4th done knitted summer vest is still on the hooks and summer is so fast approaching (guess I should just add sleeves and make it a winter vest, ha!). My brand new painting stand is waiting for its inauguration AND I am having more and more late evening urges to just order a quick dinner outside. Life just seems to be on fast track sometimes.. and this sure seems like one of those times. I don't know about you but sometimes I wonder how we get so tangled up in the walls made out of our own expectations and lure of luxuries. Every time I read a Jane Austen novel it always makes me feel so nostalgic about the good old days when people had time. Loads of it. Time to pursue their hobbies and passions. They seemed to live their life just wonderfully and perhaps, in a more r…

Split green mung daal with green garlic and how not to be predictably irrational
To a foodie like me spring in California means two things: lots of strawberries and a lot of green garlic! Okay, I may be the only weirdo you will see who writes about strawberries and green garlic in the same sentence but I do really love the onionish-garlicish flavor of the green garlic . I don't know about where you live but over at my place I hardly see any green garlic in supermarkets or large grocery stores. Infact I never knew green garlic is available here until I started visiting our local farmer's market where they are in season early spring. Green garlics is just a young garlic. It looks like a slightly big spring onion and has a delicate garlic taste (more a mix of garlic and spring onion). You buy it fresh, then clean it, chop off a bit of top and some tough green ends and slice the rest of the tender whites and greens and use them wherever you would use garlic or spring onions. Today I am sharing a simple split mung daal recipe with green g…

Middle eastern fava bean dip
I had a packet of dried unshelled fava beans lying around in my cupboard for the longest time. I had bought it initially hoping to make Ful Medames but then later I realized that the fava beans used in Ful Medames are Egyptian small brown fava beans and what I had instead was a pack of regular dried fava beans. I put them in the back of my cupboard right next to the fancy cranberry beans and some unknown grains which were also picked up on whim at some such other times. I finally decided I would make a fava bean dip with these dried favas. I soaked the beans Saturday night hoping to have the dip ready by next day afternoon. On Sunday morning, I shelled the soaked beans, mashed them up, added some olive oil, zatar and garlic. The dip tasted so wonderful. Whats even better was that I  just happened to have some whole wheat pitas sitting in my bread basket! Sure a toasted pita chips with fava bean dip was on cards for that lazy Sunday afternoon! I absolutely loved t…

Paatvadyachi bhaji (chickpea flour dumplings in curry sauce)
You know I have a theory. You might become the most famous or the most creative chef out there, but I bet you will still crave your Mom's food (or Dad's - essentially the food you grew up with) every now and then! There is something magical about the foods you grow up with, isn't it.. their flavors stay fresh with us long after we have last eaten them and their aromas draft us towards those golden care-free times of our childhood so effortlessly. Somehow the foods we grew up with get so intertwined with our childhood memories that no matter how great a cook you are, you are always going to crave your Mom's food as long you as live! Needless to say my Mom is a great cook! I wish I had learnt a lot more about cooking from her than I did. In my defense though I grew up as this preppy girl who would refuse to step foot in the kitchen unless it involved munching. I used to always think that somehow studying Mathematic (which was by-far my favorite subje…

30-minute Chana Masala and some blabber
Ever since I heard that a renowned Indian food personality was going to be answering home-cook's and reader's questions on preparing Indian food at home in the  New York Time's dining blog , I was looking forward to the Q&A. Afterall, she is an author of various Indian cookbooks and she also hosts an Indian cooking class so I was interested to hear what advice she would give to the home-cooks worldwide. Unfortunately though I was disappointed. Why? Well, I felt her views were a lot rigid for my taste. For example, she says that store bought spice blends like garam masala (or even cumin powder) have 100% loss of flavor compared to roasting and grinding spices at home and hence one should never buy store-bought blends but instead make our own every 3-4 months. On a question about improvising Indian spices in various dishes, she answers that the spices can not and should not be improvised in Indian dishes; there is a logic to which spice should go in…

Potage parmentier (Julia Child's potato and leek soup)
Simplicity itself.. thats how Julia Child had described this soup - in one of her b&w television episodes which had aired on PBS a while back. And then I picked up the book 'Julie and Julia' and heard Julie Powell rave about this simple few ingredient soup all over again. Now I have never been a minimalist at heart.. I mean, okay, I don't regularly sweat cooking recipes with 20+ ingredients (or may be only rarely when I am crazy enough) but making a soup with mere 5 ingredients (potatoes, leeks, salt, pepper, butter) as a main-dish for dinner needed guts from my part. But then, when you see a great chef like Julia Child convince you in her commanding voice calling this soup 'simplicity itself' and then you hear Julie rave about it in the book, this recipe just becomes too difficult to pass by! There was a problem though; I am one of those people (aptly described in the book as 'wimpy') who cringe when adding generous quantities of …

Easy breezy pad thai
I have always had a love-hate relationship with pad thai. I ate pad thai for the very first time at a Thai restaurant in San Diego. An evening dinner out on a student budget used to be a huge treat then! A group of us had once visited a decently good Thai place which was bus-accessible (bus-accessibility was a must for any outing!). As it was our very first Thai experience, we had pretty much asked the waitress to order the menu for us and she had suggested a spicy pad thai followed by some sweet coconut ice-cream! I absolutely loved the flat rice noodles drenched in a tangy, hot and sweet sauce and crunchy peanuts on top. Over the time though I realized that a good pad thai is not easy to come by. Many times either the sauce is too strong or the whole dish is soggy or oily! After a few unfortunate encounters with pad thai I eventually changed my thai restaurant go-to dish from pad thai to a green curry dish which probabilistically is always decent. But the cravi…

Gobi matar masala (Spicy cauliflower with peas)
While I was preparing this gobi matar masala (spicy cauliflowers with peas) last night I wondered why this recipe is not yet on my blog! Some variation of this cauliflower dish is very often made at our place. Come to think about it, very few of my everyday I-am-so-tired-so-let-me-whip-up-something-fast recipes are on this blog. I suppose because they are so simple and common-place that subconsciously I might not have thought of them as blog-worthy (this is one question we have often come to ponder as a family now a days -- is the dish blog-worthy? :)) but thats an unfair disadvantage to the simple everyday go-to recipes of every food blogger, right. So here it is, finally, it sure is simple, it sure is everyday, but by no means any the less tastier! The recipe is very flexible and this is usually a kitchen sink sabji for me. If I have tomatoes I'll add them instead of red bell peppers; if I have mushrooms I'll add some, if not, I'll skip; if I feel l…

Green split pea soup
I am the sort of person who gets an irrational amount of fun and excitement when I can whip up a healthy and filling dinner with an almost empty fridge. A bit weird, isn't it. It gives me the satisfaction of saving a last-minute restaurant trip and of my pantry keeping efforts. See, all those times when I am buying pantry staples my husband occasionally says, why do we need all this; but a meal entirely out of pantry is exactly the ticket to convince him of all its goodness.  Yesterday I came back home late after visiting the new gym (so many things change when you change a place, isn't it, like driving to a new gym rather than walking a few steps to the apartment gym). Fridge barely had anything and even my freezer was running low. My long scavenger hunt ended with 3 bread slices, an onion, few last bits of a celery and a very oldish looking carrot. Whenever I see the onion-celery-carrot trio, soups always jump to my mind.. but I did not have limes or lem…

Soba noodles with mushrooms and lime ginger dressing
The weather God has been quite unpredictable recently. It seems it can not quite decide between whether to shower us with bright sunny spring days or to go back into the cold rainy lapse. I do not mind either. Rainy days like this weekend is just another excuse to finish up the ever pilling indoor work -- like say doing taxes! I spent the whole of yesterday afternoon sitting on the dining table finishing up my taxes (phew, done finally!). The weather was getting cloudier by the hour but once in a while sun would shine through the tiny pockets between the clouds basking the surrounding foggy green hills with a warm glow. It was so easy to just give up the laptop and take a nap for a while or just stare outside mindlessly. I lost count of how many times I refilled my coffee cup after three. Just as I was finishing up the last of the state taxes I thought wouldn't it be nice to have some chinese takeout for dinner today? Telling you, its the weather making you cr…

Apple crisp for two!
Am I the only weird one out there who likes to eat just the filling of an apple pie and throws away the crust? I know what you are thinking, that's unheard of indeed.. I mean, who does not like the moist, flaky, buttery crust! Well, me. And precisely for the same reasons.. its flaky, too buttery and way overpowers (in my opinion) the flavors of freshly baked apples with cinnamon, nutmeg and a dash of sugar! Which is why I love this apple crisp so much! Remember that Seinfeld episode where Elaine's boss steals her idea of selling just the top of the muffins instead of whole muffins as she reasons people like to eat only the top anyway? Apple crisp is something like that for me.. its my perfect 'top of the muffins for me'!  Bad analogy, never-mind, coming back to the apple crisp: it is a baked dessert with just the apple pie filling without the crust . Instead of a crust, it has a topping which is mostly made up of rolled oats, sugar and a little bu…

Suralichi wadi (chickpea flour rolls with coconut stuffing) and a bookclub book review
(I am so happy now that all the packing, moving, unpacking is all done; internet is setup at the new place and I am finally back in the blogging and the cooking world! I know I missed a lot of excellent posts but I am going to try to catch up with everything that has been happening in the next week or two!) Can you imagine what would happen if suddenly all of your secrets were out in the open? No, not the real big secrets just some small little things that we all would rather keep to ourselves. This is exactly what happened to Emma from ' Can you keep a secret? ' book by Sophie Kinsell. This was my first read of Simran's book-club . This month's pick was a chik-flic about Emma who happens to blurt out all of her everyday secrets to a complete stranger on a turbulent air-plane ride only to discover that the stranger is none other than the big boss of the firm she works at! One thing leads to another and suddenly all her secrets are out in the open.…

Banana walnut bread
What is it in human nature that makes you crave precisely those things that you _know_ you shouldn't crave? Its like reverse psychology or something... So, listen to this: the other day I took a day-off from work to finish my catch up packing (makes me wonder actually how a 2-bedroom apartment can even stock so much STUFF! but the stuff kept coming out and we kept packing!). I was in the midst of packing when it first happened: Four sad looking over-ripe bananas were staring at me from over the fridge almost scolding me for letting them go to waste. I ignored their plea, see, I am quite fussy with bananas and won't eat an overripe one unless I am starving. A banana bread came to my mind, but I quickly stashed the thought in a deep furthermost inaccessible corner of my mind. Few more boxes packed and its time to clean the fridge itself. Now a lone egg and a used stick of butter are staring from the egg basket, okay, now that's it, too many divine sign…

Spiced lentils and mushroom rice and an update!
Everyone has a select list of kitchen appliances that they can't live without. These are the ones which occupy the very precious counter space in your kitchen. For me its my coffee maker and my rice cooker. A few years ago I was debating very heavily whether to invest in a rice cooker or not. Our old pressure cooker was working fine and buying a rice cooker on student budget seemed like a luxury.  I bought my rice cooker when I was newly married and I must confess one of my main motivations for buying a rice cooker was that even simple things like making a perfect rice were not my domain then! To add to my misery, my husband would almost always churn out a perfectly cooked rice using our old pressure cooker and mine would always be a bit overcooked as I would start the pressure cooker and wander off in my own world forgetting to turn the cooker off at the right time.  So, well, you can imagine, the allure of a perfectly cooked rice everytime without human in…

Jerusalem artichokes (sunchokes)
You know, if there were to be a competition for the most oxymoron of a name of all the vegetables and fruits, I bet Jerusalem artichokes will win the first prize! No competition whatsoever! Why do I say that: well for one, no, they are not artichokes and for two, no they are not native of Jerusalem either. I mean why would something that is not Jerusalem native nor an artichoke be named Jerusalem artichokes?! Jerusalem artichokes, or sunchokes , as they have been known recently, are tubers of a sunflower family tree. Sunchokes are native to the eastern side of the northern america. The tree produces bright yellow sunflower like flowers and these delicious tubers. The tubers to me look like ginger roots or the arbi found in India. So whats with the name you ask? Well, the theory goes (sources: here and here ) that sunchokes were being cultivated by native americans long before the Europeans came over. The great French traveler Samuel de Champlain brought back the…

Sweet carrot dessert with saffron and orange zest and my first guest post!
Have you read the book ' Namesake ' by Jhumpa Lahiri? I am sure some of you have probably seen the movie. The movie is very well done but like with any other good books I feel the movie is no match to the book. In a nutshell the book traces the story of a second generation Indian-American son's (named Gogol Ganguli) coming of age years. The movie is named namesake because Gogol is named after the memory of a rare near-death accident that occurred in his father's life before his father moved to America. Name 'Gogol' for his father resonates with a new beginning, the fact that he survived, the fact that he moved to US and made a new home for his family, a start of all good things! Gogol though is confused and awkward about his identity and heritage. He quite can not have the same feeling of 'home' towards India but at the same time feels a deep void and a disconnect with the western world surrounding him - even his name does not seem…

Moroccan fish stew over couscous (with a vegetarian alternative)
What is your favorite memory of a lazy Sunday morning? When I was a kid every other Sunday my mom  would make her special anda-curry or paatvadyachi bhaji (Marathi curry delicacy - I'll post sometime). It was a reward for working hard over the past week. My favorite memory of a lazy Sunday was sitting in front of TV watching Chhayageet (a songs video show which used to air at 1pm on Sunday) while smacking on the awesome curry with rice and lime wedges! Now ofcourse all the fun is in starting my own lazy Sunday morning traditions! The idea is that you get up late, drool over coffee for another hour, then stroll to the fridge and make an otherwise not so quick cooking dish as a treat for the craziness of the week left behind. Today I had some salmon fish fillets and some olives that I picked up on sale yesterday. Some sort of moroccan fish stew sprang to my mind. A little bit of Googling and I settled on adapting this wonderful recipe. The stew was perfect over…

Red chard daal and an interesting grocery smackdown article!
Recently I came across this very interesting article  Walmart Vs. Whole Foods  (link courtesy Mark Bittman's  bitten  blog). When it comes to my food shopping I am not a fan of either of these grocery chains. I like to buy my fruits and vegetables local, seasonal, organics (when feasible) and direct from the source as much as possible. Bulk of my produce shopping happens at my local farmer's market. For the rest of the pantry staples (like onions, potatoes, milk, eggs, bread etc.) I rely on Trader Joe's (yes, I am a big fan of TJ!). I have shopped Whole Foods multiple times before but the place is a bit costly and beyond my budget for most part. For the not-so-common items (like quinoa, teff etc) that only Whole Foods stocks, I instead buy them online from a local grain producer farm (Bob's red mills).  Coming back to the article: the two company's images could not be more different. Walmart's impression as a corporate super-power who merci…

Ethiopian Sambussa -- healthy baked cousins of samosas with phyllo dough!
Don't you find it very interesting how two objects in two vastly different cultures still have such similar names! Origin of the words or its etymology as its called has always fascinated me. Particularly for words that were derived centuries ago when the means of sharing/communication about cuisines, spices and techniques was so limited (not like today where one can post a new ingredient and the rest of the world gets to know about it right then and there, thanks to the ever-spreading world-wide web!) So when I visited a local Ethiopian restaurant a year or so ago and saw an appetizer named ' Sambussa ' with the description of 'thin dough shell stuffed with lentils and spices" I was pretty sure that this was a variation of Indian samosas.  A quick peek at  wiki told me that the name samosa derives from the Persian name ' sanbosag ' (having to do something with the crescent shape apparently) and from their many cultures have their ow…