Delectably yours,

Pesto Pinwheels....and oh, were're back :)

2013-05-08T23:16:00.001-04:00

Wow it’s been 14 months since the last post. It’s interesting how the pursuit of resources (read earning for your living) to pursue your passion (read cooking/baking) often engulfs you and you don't actually pursue your passion!

But that doesn’t mean we haven’t been cooking. If there is one thing that keeps us sane among the vagaries of life, it is food. The medium of sharing our culinary experiments and adventures, however, has expanded beyond this blog, namely Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. I have just about become more active on social media. Well, after a lot of initial hesitation like anything else I do.

However, the blog is special for many reasons. A lot of recipes are associated with events and when we think about them, it takes us back to all the excitement, goof-ups, road trips, events…basically all the little things that make our lives fun.

So we have decided (again) to consciously revive this food blog. Last weekend, we made some pesto pinwheels. In one sense, it feels full circle as attempts to bake bread when we were in the US really spurred us to post more on the blog then. Now that we’re in India, the smell of bread has pretty much had the same effect on us. So here’s to a new and hopefully more sustained inning J

Ingredients

1 ¼ c maida (all purpose flour)

1 c aata (whole wheat flour)

½ c + ½ c and another tbsp. water*

3 tsp vital wheat gluten**

¾-1 c pesto sauce (we used homemade but store bought is just as good)

2 tsp salt

½ tsp sugar

1 ½ tsp active dry yeast

1 tsp olive oil

1 tbsp melted butter.

* the amount of water depends on the extent of kneading and if you’re using machine versus hands to knead. The idea is to use as less water as possible to make nice, smooth dough that doesn’t stick to your hands after kneading.

** we’ve realized that maida and aata, particularly aata in India have less gluten content than most all purpose flours available in the US so it is good to add some gluten for some spongy, porous bread.

Take ½ c lukewarm water and add sugar to it. Then add the yeast granules. Cover and let it rest for 10 mins. The water should be frothy, which means the yeast has ‘woken up’. If it isn’t, stop immediately and get a fresh batch of yeast and repeat.
In a stand mixer (hands are just as good) with the dough hook attachment, add the flours, salt, gluten, olive oil and mix it dry for a few seconds. Then add the yeast water and knead for some time.
Add the next ½ c water and knead some more. You’ll have to scrap the sides with a spatula and knead again a couple of times.
Keep kneading (5-6 mins.) until you have a nice, smooth dough without any dry spots. The dough shouldn’t stick to the hook and when you press it against your fingers, it should (more or less), come off cleanly without sticking. Add the remaining 1 tbsp water only if the dough is too dry. If the dough is too wet and sticky, try kneading for some more time. If it continues to be sticky, add some flour.
Remove the dough from the mixer, shape it into a ball and place it in a greased bowl. Cover it with a wet kitchen towel and let it sit for 2 hrs or until double in volume.
Remove the dough and release the air gently. On a floured surface, roll it into a rectangle (about 15” x 8”). Basically, the rectangular sheet should be at least ¼ inches thick.
Spread the pesto uniformly on the sheet, leaving an inch gap on all sides.
Now roll the dough into a cylinder and cut pinwheels with a knife.
Place the pinwheels into the final baking dish. Make sure they’re separated by at least an inch.
Cover with a wet kitchen towel and let it rise for another 1.5-2 hrs or until (nearly) double in volume.
Preheat oven to 200C. Place a rack in the lower third.
Remove the kitchen towel and apply melted butter wash to the dough.
Place the baking dish into the oven and bake for 12 mins. Then lower oven temperature to 180C and place the dish in the middle rack and bake for another 10-15 mins. You could even broil it for a minute from the top.
Remove from the oven.
Dig in! These are had best when they’re hot.

The pinwheels came out pretty well. Thanks to the gluten, they were soft and quite porous. Overall, quite soft, pillowy and delicious. Give it a try. Nothing beats baking bread and sharing it with your loved ones. I think we’ll be doing it more often.

And posting here more often too, hopefully!

Tomato Saar

2012-02-16T22:10:00.000-05:00

Raji's death has left me a little more than shaken and I wanted to come back and blog more and keep at it on working on my promises. I wanted to get to know all of you a little better, so here I am with a different recipe today. Something that is homely and something that you need to eat with your hands and lick your fingers for. Something soul-satisfying. Food does cure. After the previous post, I haven't made Brinji yet, but I made some South Indian food. The food I grew up on. Remembered my grandmother who fed us for over 50 years continuously and who I tremendously missed in the last one month.

January has been a hectic month for us and our families. 2 weddings aren't easy to organize or even just attend. Clothes co-ordination, inviting people, socializing, arranging for a million little things, travelling, guests - all this and more can drive one crazy. However, I think we managed it with aplomb!

One of my cousins got married in Chandigarh and we were guests to an absolutely amazing spread of Punjabi food. I don't think any restaurant- five star or not can equal the kind of food served at this wedding. The Dum Aloo was to die for and I could kill for a meal like that. I hardly ate though. The tension of the wedding, running around and everyone falling sick around me made me gobble food just so I could eat something. A, of course, did full justice to the food and can possibly write another Ph.D thesis on the food at this wedding. Brilliant, brilliant food. That said, the next wedding was down South. My sister's, to be precise. I think it was just right because after an overdose of paneer and Rotis up North, we were more than ready to settle down to 'elai saapadu.' (elai = plaintain leaf, saapadu = meals)

My sister got married to a Konkan guy. So, I'm trying to master some Mangalorean/Konkan recipes. Not. It doesn't really matter for A and me which region good food belongs to :D We are both on a regional food spree and loving it! So, we tried this Tomato Saar from Arch's blog The Yum Factor. I've tried several recipes in my non blogging days from her blog. I love her simple style of writing and that she posts a modern take on authentic Konkan recipes.

Tamilians are known for their Rasam. And Tamilians like us, settled in Karnataka make the #worldfamous Mysore Rasam on most days. I grew up on one type of Rasam and ended up hating it for most part of my life. I saw it just as spiced water. I think it was because the same Rasam was made every single day. Of course, my mum tried to change it up once in a while with her fantastic Lemon Rasam and Pepper Rasam. Now when I cook on an everyday basis, I love Rasam and I love trying out different types of Rasam. We don't cook South Indian food enough thanks to sheer laziness. But there are weekends and some weekday nights that I crave for Rasam Saadam and Thair Saadam (curd/yogurt rice).

The South Indian that I am, nothing equals slurping your Rasam Saadam with Rasam dripping down your arms. And Thair Saadam or curd rice? That dish belongs to the heavens, I'm telling you. Also, I firmly belong to the category that says eating rice is satisfying to one's soul.

It was one such day when we were in Atlanta when we tried this Tomato Saar. I was bowled by the flavours in this Saar. I'm not a fan of coconut and was rather sceptical about coconut in Rasam. Isn't Rasam supposed to be light and all that? But this totally changed the way I looked at Rasam. Now this is a regular. I love, love, love the addition of jaggery in this Rasam. Karnataka cooking is known for adding jaggery and it lends that caramelly sweetness to our cooking. Most people ridicule this and call our Sambar sweet. I say, so be it. There has to be some regional variation, no? This is ours. We like it like this. A little sweet from the jaggery and the coconut, sourness from those tomatoes and the thickness of this Rasam could qualify for a soup too. No need to call it Mulligawtany anymore ;)

I made this recently, after a long time and remembered that I should post this in honour of my new brother-in-law who smiles for everything :) This Saar should make anyone smile. Do try it as an alternative to your everyday Rasam. You will love the change in flavour that it brings to your mundane, everyday Rasam.

Thanks Arch for a wonderful recipe. One of those recipes that have stuck with me irrespective of the minor variations.

Here is the recipe.

Thank you.

2012-02-14T22:26:00.004-05:00

A lot of bloggers have written about Miri of Peppermill or Raji. I didn't know her, and didn't make an effort particularly to know her. My loss.

I first saw her name as a very 'composed and grounded' commenter on Anita's blog. Soon, on Manisha's too. I have to admit that I didn't go to her blog to check it out even when she was reading all my favourite blogs, all my friends' blogs. You know how it is. Way too many of us and way too much food to talk about in a day. And her blog was postponed to check for another day.

I visited Manisha in June 2011. It was visit long due and we knew we wanted to meet after all those email conversations. We thought similarly about a lot of things and I really wanted to meet Medha. That girl fascinated me. I ate well, keeping true to the belief that grad students don't leave food when they see it. One night, I think it was Medha's birthday night, we decided to cook something special. She suggested Brinji - something that she'd eaten when she'd visited Anita's home in Delhi where she met Raji. She thought I'd know about it since I was a South Indian. Frankly, I have no clue about ingredients or food or the Science behind cooking. I had no clue if this was part of my heritage as a South Indian. The mixed rices in my home were very conventional. Brinji was something I'd never heard of. She made Brinji that night. We had some guests too, Medha's friend and her family who came to visit. It was a table full of food and a house full of people eating that Brinji. I wasn't sure how it'd be. You see, I'm not a huge fan of anything coconutty. I've only lately (shamefully enough, after eating Thai food) come to appreciate the nutty sweetness of coconut. I took a small serving in the name of 'oh, I can't eat much, been eating all day' and didn't want to stop eating. Only, I wasn't in my house to put my feet up and stuff my face.

I have this stupid rule that I wouldn't eat much in front of guests. Why? Not because I want to tell them I eat less, but because I'm worried it's not going to be enough. That night, I wanted to sit down and polish that Brinji off because I LOVED it. I guess Miri was like that. She seemed very unassuming, someone who didn't really write about her illness or her struggle with it. Or, how she had to change her career because of this illness and the pains she went through being a modern woman (the pressure on us to have both- home and career is unimaginable - again my narrow focus). But all this made her the wonderful person she seemed to be. It's a pity I didn't take the time to write to her to tell her how much I enjoyed that Brinji of hers.

I came back from the US a couple of weeks after, and at my first coming back party, I made Brinji. I made it consecutively for 3 parties after that. Once at my parents', then at my friends' and twice at my place. I should've written to her and let her know how much this dish had taught me - my own food heritage that I had no clue about, cooking rice on the stovetop without a cooker, falling in love with coconut and just my own happiness and satisfaction of coming back home.

As I write this post, I realise that every single time I've eaten Brinji, I've been insanely happy. Happiness because of achievements, because of events, because of the people around me. Manisha's family and friends, my own family that I came back to, that quiet night when A and I snuggled and ate this Brinji at 12.30 AM when we had one of those conversations, with my friends who went ballistic over Brinji. I was going to make Brinji in memory of this woman who I never knew. There was this sense of shame and guilt that I crib way too much about my life, my weight (without working on it), my career, people around me, trends in food blogging, and there was this one person who just did what she wanted because she loved it and lived what, in my eyes, was a pretty full life. I was stunned when I read the news on Facebook and it shook me enough to stop thinking of my own problems. I have none. I kept making Brinji, remember?

I kept back all the ingredients for Brinji the night Raji passed away. It's okay. I'm going to make it again this weekend. For me and A to sit down and make a pact that we wouldn't crib. About anything. I'm going to draw strength from that Brinji. That thought itself makes me feel so much lighter.

This post is possibly more about me and Brinji, but then I didn't know her to talk about her. And this is the legacy that I think Raji left for people like me - good food and a strong sense of spirit, to appreciate my own life and people around me more. So, thank you, Raji.

RIP.

Pasta Sauce/Marinara

2012-01-02T12:23:00.001-05:00

Happy New Year to all of you. Or, rather the 4 of you who read our blog :D This post could be reflective and sentimental for rather obvious reasons. It's the end of the year and no one thinks and analyses and dissects every event in 2011 and every person met in 2011 more than me. It has been a fantastic year in all senses of the word. I graduated from the top school for communication studies (Yeah, baby!), came back to India, my beloved India. And of course, to the best husband in the world. I get to praise him once a year, so do tolerate the mush.

Now letting the past slide away gently, moving onto 2012- I have a ton of plans, ideas and this year is possibly going to be the culmination of a lot of plans that remained 'unstarted' in 2011. Cooking lists is one such plan. Since I came back in 2011, highly excited beings that we were, we made a cooking list. A cooking resolution of sorts to say that we will try making, say croissants this year. Of course, I spent most of my time ducking from butter in 2011 too. We have a similar list this year. Only, I don't remember where I kept it! So, fodder for the next post, that will be.

One of the things on my cooking list that I can cross off is Marinara sauce or the tomato sauce for pasta. Every single time I read posts from people saying they made their sauce, I'm all enthusiastic to be this perfect woman making my own pasta sauces and achaars (Indian pickles) Who am I kidding? I love to eat and I'm the most impatient cook in the world. So how will I let Marinara bubble on the stove for 3-4 hours? And pickle? Really, who waits until all the spices are soaked in? This time, I decided to. Plus I saw that the tomatoes were super cheap at Town Essentials (Check this out if you're in Bangalore. Uber cool!) So, the last weekend of 2011 was kept aside for Marinara. Also, I really missed my class #MM2011 and our themed dinners. We had an Italian dinner for which my classmates, H, S and A had brought some family classics. Each of their Marinara sauces tasted different and I asked them to send me recipes! This is more like S's mother's recipe that he described to me. Thank you, S!

What happened was this. We hosted, entertained and met more people than A has ever met in his whole life, or dreamt of in his nightmares. Cousins, second cousins. mother's sisters, mother's brothers, uncles, aunts, uncles of cousins, Golu/Navratri visits, Gruhapraveshams, weddings, visiting families, friends from school, friends from college, friends from work, friends from the online world, tweetups, neighbours - you name it and we've socialized with them. In fact, through December, we had guests continuously until the last weekend. We love guests. Okay, I love them. I love people. I love having them over, cooking for them. Fine, will accept. Making A cook for them while I hold intelligent, sparkly conversations laughing at everyone else and bitching about everything else. So, for the last weekend, since A is getting really old, we decided to take it slow. 'No human contact' was the brief I received. Yeah, I'm a sexy kitten, but we'll leave that for now ;) I settled down for a weekend with endless cups of chai and a pile of books and a cooking list comprising of Marinara and this achaar that didn't end up getting made this weekend.

Then Nandita called. We succumbed. We went to their house for a New Year's party. Thankfully, it wasn't one of those loud, hajaar people all over the place party. So, we made gougeres and this dessert. Turned out pretty well. I had several awkward moments while I was stuffing my face with gougeres and someone came and praised our efforts. That said, the party went well and we got back home the next morning to crash. Then, in the evening, Nandita came home again to drop stuff off and we ate yummy leftovers. Biryani always tastes best the next day. I should know after weekends of 3 years in Hyderabad eating previous night's orders. I knew I'd not get the Marinara done if I didn't start it off. Especially considering how impatient I am. Plus who likes chopping onions right? :P So, I made Nandita chop them for me while I busied myself cleaning the kitchen - parts of which she hadn't seen yet, thankfully! I quickly peeled the already blanched tomatoes (ever heard of super efficient women who leave the tomatoes to blanch and take a 3 hour nap?) and threw it all in together along with some Italian Basil and Thyme (all locally grown, yo!) and let the mixture simmer away. Then she suggested I add some Balsamic Vinegar that I'd forgotten all about. Added some and got this rich wonderful colour. She left soon after but only after stirring the sauce a couple of times which I totally give her credit for :) considering how tasty this sauce turned out to be. Super easy, flavorful and this can be bubbling away on the stove while you do everything else on the side. This sauce surely gets all my tomatoey points and I'm going to make it a quarterly activity going forward.

Ingredients

Tomatoes - I had about 20-25 large ones

Garlic - a palmful, finely chopped.

Onions - about 3-4, finely chopped

Butter - 6 tbsp

Balsamic Vinegar - 2 tbsp

Olive Oil - 1/2 cup

Basil - A bunch roughly chopped, or just thrown in

Thyme - a sprig or two

Salt

Paprika or Red Chilli powder

1. Heat water in a large wide bottomed pan, add tomatoes and blanch them, until they are mushy enough for the skin to peel off. A suggested I use a pressure cooker and I did just that. I dumped the second batch of tomatoes into the pressure cooker and they got done wonderfully. A little too mushy but worked very well for the sauce. Keep aside after blanching and recover from the nap and the shock of leaving your gas on. Peel the tomatoes when cold.

2. Add butter to the same cooker (emptied after you take the tomatoes out, of course), add onions and garlic and salt and let it cook well. I didn't caramelise them, though I'd love to try that the next time. I was in a hurry, so added the tomatoes without chopping them. Don't worry, you can run your blender through it later. Take a wooden ladle/spatula and mash the tomatoes. Now is the time to let go of the previous year's stress.

3. After about half hour of the tomatoes stewing, add the basil and the thyme if you wish. I added thyme only because I had it and I thought the basil might be a little less. Upto you. I'm guessing adding mushrooms or any other vegetable like bell peppers (?) now will be fine. Nandita mentioned that she does make her Marinara with mushrooms. Next time, I'm going to try that.

4. Another half hour later, add the rest of the salt, chilli powder or paprika, the balsamic vinegar and stir well. Let it cook.

5. After it's cooked for about 3-4 hours, taste it and season accordingly. Or, let it cook further. I cooled it down completely by keeping it in the fridge overnight and blending it later the next morning. If your sauce is not chunky because you were not lazy to chop up those blanched tomatoes, good for you :) Otherwise, go ahead and blend it. I like my sauce chunky for pasta and pizza, but I like it sauce-y to use as a dip as and when I get the ' I want to eat all the garlic bread in the world' craving.

As you can see, it's a freewheeler of a recipe. You can change the herbs you decide to put in. Add a woody rosemary or keep it simple with basil. It's upto you. Add mushrooms for a heartier sauce. Maybe next time, I will add some carrots, some beets (Indian tomatoes are not sweet, so adding beets may not make it sweeter) and some mushrooms to up the nutrition quotient plus make it a complete meal if I run out of veggies. Roasted garlic would be awesome. But remember the patience bit? Yeah.

Also don't miss out on the butter and olive oil. I easily had about 6 medium sized (average Indian store bought pickle bottles) bottles of sauce. So, all that butter isn't consumed in one go, plus you can go low on the butter/olive oil when you make your pasta :) The oil helps in preserving the sauce.

We hope to post more regularly this year since we have a resolution of about 25 posts this year. About 2 a month and thankfully, I'm all pumped up, so it's going to be a little busy around here :)

Thanks for coming along regularly!

Bharwan Karela

2011-12-09T10:00:00.008-05:00

Boy, has it been long since we posted anything around here or what! Sigh.

I'm someone with severe OCD. Especially with date/day and time. I don't start exercising on Sunday, because work starts on Monday. I don't start anything randomly anytime. I need the beginning of the month/week/year to start it. Yeah, so you see the picture, don't you? So, I postponed blogging to the first of every month. Only that date never arrived. So, finally when December started, I figured I will seize 2012. The Year of the Reluctantchefs, it shall be called, I said to A. Okay, Reluctantbloggers (before any of you point out!)

Then why today, you ask? I actually sat and thought about what I wanted from the next year. My resolutions list was made. Nothing, nothing stops me from making lists. I even know that if I start eating non vegetarian food (which may be never!), I have a list of stuff I want to eat. Remember OCD? Ya. Then, I thought I should kickstart with some of my resolutions BEFORE January, so I have time until the 1st to modify them :D This idea came about mostly because I had the wild idea of running a marathon next year. After two days of trying to stick to my resolution, I've decided to shelve that dream. See? Good I started a good month earlier ;)

With that logic, I should have started blogging too. So here is the ever popular 'Bharwan Karela recipe. So, Karela or Bitter Gourd is something people either hate or love. I fall into the latter category. A doesn't mind it and likes it when cooked well. In fact, when I was unsure what I wanted to do with the Karela and asked on Twitter, a friend @Calvinator_18 gave me his rather ingenious recipe. He says,

"Take 2 karelas. Put oil in pan, add chopped onions, salt, chilli powder, garlic, diced potatoes etc. Throw away the karelas. Serve warm."

This is reason no. n+1 why I love Twitter.

My love for Karela goes back to when I was a kid. My grandmother made this most awesome, lip-smacking, tangy Karela sabzi. Ya, I know tangy isn't one of those adjectives used with Karela, but she did this South Indian curry, which had tons of tamarind, jaggery, slow cooked to perfection. Even as a 10 year old, this was one of my favourite curries. Give me some rice, ghee and this curry, and I'm set for life. However, I'd never tried a North Indian Karela recipe. And A's colleagues spoke to him about a Bharwan Karela and we decided to try it out. We made a filling recommended by his colleague, R, added some of our own twists and I loved the end result.

Here is the recipe. The stuffing used here is my maternal grandmother's #worldfamous Besan-onion stuffing for her amazing stuffed capsicum sabzi. My cousin and I are known to eat the stuffing separately apart from the stuffed capsicums. That I love Besan is an understatement. This, I found is a unique filling because R suggested we use the Karela seeds. Even with all my Karela love, the seeds are a different story. But surprisingly enough, they tasted fantastic and weren't all that bitter. And hey, it provided for the right texture between the soft, but caramelised Besan filling with the crunch of the seeds. With that statement, I've done my quota of food writing for the year. Phew!

Ingredients

4 Bitter Gourds
1/2 cup Besan (Chickpea/Gram flour)
1 cup onions, finely chopped
1 ping-pong ball size chunk of tamarind
1 tbsp cumin seeds
1 tsp turmeric powder
Salt to taste
3 tbsp oil
cayenne/chili powder as per taste
2 tsp garam masala

1. Bring some water to a boil in a saucepan. The saucepan should be wide enough to contain all the bitter gourds in their entirety.

2. Peel the bitter gourd partially, meaning do not remove the entire skin. Add 2 tsp salt and then dunk the bitter gourds into the saucepan. Let it cook for 7-8 mins. until tender but not overcooked.

3. Remove the bitter gourds and pat them dry with a towel. Then take a bitter gourd and snap the ends. Then cut it into 3 equal pieces. Scoop out the flesh and keep it separate. Repeat with the remaining bitter gourds.

4. In another pan, add 2 tsp oil under low/medium heat and then the gram flour. Keepstirring until the flour turns slightly brown. remove it and keep it separately.

5. In the same pan, add 2 tsp oil and the cumin seeds. Once they splutter, add the bitter gourd flesh with the seeds and fry them. Add the turmeric, chili powder and garam masala. Cook for 3-4 mins.

6. Add the onions and cook it for another 4-5 mins. Once done, add this to the gram flour. This completes the filling.

7. Stuff the scooped bitter gourds with this filling. Rub the exterior with as little salt as possible.

8. In a bowl, add about 1/2 c water and the tamarind ball. Heat in a microwave for about 1-1.5 mins. take a fork and smash the ball to dissolve the tamarind in the hot water as much as possible. strain and set the extract aside.

9. Add the remaining oil under high heat. Add the bitter gourd pieces and fry them. When the face exposed to the heat turns golden brown, rotate them and continue till all the pieces are golden brown.

10. When you're working on the final side of the pieces, add the tamarind extract. Toss the bitter gourd pieces and then close the pan. Let it cook for 2 mins.

11. Garnish with some coriander (optional) and serve it hot with rotis.

Be a little more patient than usual with the recipe and you can make it with less oil. Of course, if you are running short of time or want it really deep-fried crisp, go ahead and add a lot more oil. I like the roasted variety. Next time I may even bake this and broil it to see how it works out.

All this said and done, sudden mojo has been rediscovered for cooking. And we're back together making stuff that goes beyond Roti-Sabzi or Rasam Saadam. I promise that you will find a post every week. I haven't figured out a particular day to post yet, but then, I'm never going to do that, am I?

And hey, welcome us back! :D

P.S.- I know it doesn't look particularly appetising, but if you like Karela, this is a must-try. Trust me.

Butterscotch blondies

2011-08-30T06:58:00.014-04:00

You know how our social life was always in shambles in the US, right? Because A wouldn't talk, meet or greet anyone remotely human. He spoke to me but I don't count. I'm superhuman. So. However, after coming back to India, all we do during weekends is either go to my mum's house which is a good 30kms away and pig out and I sleep while A watches cricket or holds hilarious one-sided conversations with my dad. Or, we are figuring out the house cleaning bit. We've decided not to have a maid and clean the house ourselves. Only, the first part of the previous sentence is about A and the second part of the sentence is about me.

Rarely, in between visits to my mum's house or my grandmother's house or trips to Chennai, we visit friends. Okay, we've visited this person precisely twice. She is A's colleague and a wonderful person. Very unlike A, highly social with something to say about everything always. A's office is full of Bengalis and I've heard and I can confirm personally now that Bengalis love their food. Or any food. A is also known to be very popular among the women in his office thanks to his Monday morning baked goods parcel to office. So, we were invited to this friend's house for chai and we took these beautiful butterscotch blondies for them. I remember seeing them on Nags' blog and the pictures stuck in my head.

However, this recipe was adapted from Dorie Greenspan's method for making classic brownies. The chocolate chips were replaced with butterscotch chips and some other minor modifications.

Ingredients

6 tbsp unsalted butter

6 oz butterscotch chips + 1/4c extra

3/4 c sugar

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

a pinch of salt

1/3 c + 3 tbsp AP flour

1. Preheat the oven to 160C

2. In a bowl, melt the butter and 6 oz butterscotch chips. Once melted, add the sugar and stir for 1 min. Then add the vanilla extract. Let it cool.

3. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs. Do NOT over-beat them as brownies should be dense and not 'airy'.

4. Once the contents of the bowl with the chocolate mixture become lukewarm, add the whisked eggs and mix well.

5. Sift the flour. Add the remaining 1/4c butterscotch chips.

6. Fold this into the wet ingredients and stir until combined.

7. Pour the batter into a greased 8" square pan (about 2" deep). Place it on the middle rack and bake it for about 25 mins. or until a skewer comes out clean. You could choose to line the pan with greased aluminum foil and then pour the batter into it.

I found these a tad sweet and couldn't eat more than one. A, the one with the sweet tooth too felt it was very sweet. The recipients, of course, very politely declared they loved it. I'd have cut down the sugar a little bit. Given a chance, I wouldn't use butterscotch chips. As much as I love butterscotch ice cream, I think I prefer chocolate or fruit desserts any day compared to something like butterscotch. A loves it though and plans to gorge on them irrespective of what I think. But then, we have a ton of butterscotch chips in the fridge courtesy my sisters who love A and his baking and shower him with chocolate or butterscotch chips. A's list to his sister who is visiting end of this year begins and ends with chocolate. The snob that he is, he spends hours reading ingredients behind a chocolate slab here and declares them unworthy to be baked by him.

So, tell me dear Indian bloggers, where do you source your chocolate from?

Oatmeal-Lemon Cookies

2011-08-03T21:19:00.012-04:00

Shocked? Don't be. I'm back in India, back being A's most loved guinea pig. It took me a long time to settle down and finally, I'm all settled in. Not had a weekend without friends and family. I love it like I hate it #getit?

Sometime back in Syracuse, while chatting with a friend, who had gotten interested in baking had just started, we'd both decided to bake some oatmeal cookies together. Virtually, that is. Just like one of the groups. But with just both of us. Ya, we swing like that. She found a recipe and baked it and posted it here. I'm proud to say that it took me less than 6 months to make it and it took me another month to post it.

On July 5, it was her birthday and I was sitting around at home doing nothing. It had been over 15 days since I'd landed and except unpacking for the most necessary stuff (read toothbrush), I was being extremely lazy and didn't even want to cook everyday meals. So much for my 'I want to go home to cook, to eat' spiel I gave you all. Finally, when the whole of Twitter was wishing her, I thought it was time to get off my behind and make these cookies in her honour. Also I had to use the new KitchenAid without A interfering with 101 instructions. New only to me. When A came back to India last year, he bought himself a shiny red KitchenAid that he used to make cake and bread for our parents. I figured I was no less. So, decided to use the KitchenAid to bake up this really fresh tasting cookie.

I'd never have mixed oatmeal and lemon together. I like my oatmeal with chocolate or with spices like cinnamon and ginger, thank you! But thanks to her (do click on this link, coz she has a hep food blog now!), I tried this out. Another reservation was that I'm not good with cookies. Both A and I constantly mess up with cookies. If you notice, the only other cookie we've baked are the shortbread ones. We don't have the patience to cool it on a cooling rack and mostly never take it out on time. Plus, the amount of butter that goes into it? Makes you feel that a pound cake is better. Don't ask me why. My non Maths calculating brain has decided that cookies are far more dangerous.

Anyway, this took all of 10 mins to whip up and was so, so easy! I burned the first batch. No surprises there, I guess. I wasn't still used to the oven we have here. So, I had to adjust some temperature details with my oven and watch it like a hawk the second time around.

Mine weren't as flat and thin as hers. Hers look crisp, while mine came out looking dense and fudgey even ( the batch I took out really early because I was reminded that this is A's work :P) But I loved it. The delicate hint of lemon without overpowering the rusticity of the oatmeal in the cookie worked wonders with chai. The cookie wasn't sweet either. That's another thing about lemon cookies - they are overpoweringly sweet.

Do try it and tell me how you liked it!

P.S.- A is trying his writing skills (ha ha!) on Burrp these days with some rather hilarious (for me and you) reviews. Here's a sample for which he won a movie voucher. Yeah, lucky bugger!

"Typically, herbivores (a.k.a us) and Bengali food are considered antipodes. However, our love for regional cuisine got the better of us and we went to 6 Ballygunge Place for dinner tonight. Blah, blah, blah."

You are very welcome. I love making people laugh, yes.

Chocolate Eclairs + Old post alert!

2011-05-18T09:39:00.007-04:00

As I was poring through our previous posts and drafts, I was shocked to see that I never hit the 'publish' button on this post! Since I'm too lazy to edit the post to confirm to present, I'm going to just hit the publish button :P I don't pride on my literary but try to bear with this rather anachronistic post ;)

This has not just been on my baking list, but also on my to-eat list :P N & I managed to have a few GOOD ones at Alon's. Since then, I've been wanting to make them at home. It's a pity that I ended up baking these AFTER N left had left for New york. I was browsing through Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From my Home to Yours and I came across her Peppermint Cream Puff Ring's recipe. While I wasn't in the mood to bake the gargantuan looking ring, I did scale down the recipe for the choux pastry dough.

I have to admit that this was one of the easier things to make. Very few ingredients are involved and I didn't even use an electric beater. And it came out pretty darn good. I got too lazy to make the pastry cream, which is typically used as a filling in these eclairs so I just whipped up some cream. The eclairs are just not the same without the pastry cream, but the cream puffs themselves came out rather well. I'm definitely keeping this recipe for future needs since these are fairly easy to make and look pretty cool ;)

For the Choux Pastry

1/2 c all purpose flour
1/2 stick butter
2 large eggs, beaten (should amount to 1/2 c liquid)
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 c milk (I used 2% reduced fat)

For the whipping cream

1c heavy whipping cream
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

For the chocolate drizzle

I have to admit that I ramdomly added some of the leftover cream to some chocolate chips and melted them over a double boiler so I can't give any measurements ;)

1. Preheat oven to 400 F.

2. In a heavy bottom saucepan, bring the milk, butter and sugar to a boil.

3. Reduce the heat to medium-low. Add all the flour at once and then stir vigorously with a spatula. Cook for about 2-3 more mins.

4. Remove from heat and let the dough cool down until warm. In order to accelerate the cooling process, continue mixing with the spatula.

5. Once the dough is warm (if you can stick your finger in for 10 seconds without wincing, it's fine!), add the beaten eggs to the dough. Mix well to form a smooth, uniform and a somewhat shiny/silky dough.

6. Pipe the dough on to a baking tray lined with a silicone mat. I piped it without a tip into wide stripes. If piping is not your thing, just take a small ladle and scoop the dough and place mounds on the baking tray.

7. Bake in the middle rack for about 12-13 mins. Then reduce the temperature to about 375 F and continue baking until the top is golden brown and 'crusty', about 20-25 mins.

8. Remove from the oven and cool them completely on a cooling rack.

9. Cut them in the middle. Sandwich the two pieces with whipped cream and pour some lukewarm chocolate ganache on top. Refrigerate until the chocolate has hardened.

10. EAT!

The sight of the choux pastry dough 'stripes' rising in the oven to take the form of cream puffs was really neat. The cream puffs themselves were almost 'hollow' and porous on the inside. I finished a couple even before I filled them with cream ;)

Needless to say, N was not too happy to see the pics. I mean she loved the fact that they came out well but wasn't too excited about her not being there to grab a bite ;) I told her that I'd try to make up for this audacity by baking her a Croquembouche some day ;)

Cooking with mom...

2011-05-14T00:09:00.012-04:00

One of the perks of settling back home is that you get to eat food prepared by your favorite chef...in my case, my mom ;) Typically, folks from our parents' generation are averse towards international cuisine. They're quite happy sticking to Indian food. But on one of my parents' visits to the US, N and I took them to Top Spice and they really loved the Kari Sayur Kampur served in clay pots and the Buah Mango Tofu. Since then they've at least opened up to Malaysian and Thai food.

My mom and I relived their visit to Atlanta and I told her that if one doesn't use real ingredients like Thai basil, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, galangal etc. then one would have a tough time replicating the taste and authenticity.

Thanks to N and the information she sources from local Bangalore food bloggers, we found some really fresh Thai Basil at really low prices (Rs 10 for a coriander-bunch sized portion) at Namdhari Fresh. They also have Italian basil at similar prices. But that's a different post ;) Also, retail stores like M K Ahmed among others have started selling Tofu at prices lower than paneer so one doesn't have to rely on "Nasoya" brand, which is almost 5 times more expensive.

We decided to have some simple Thai inspired Noodles for lunch the next day. My mom and I did the cooking. She told me that it was pretty easy to make and she'd probably try it again at home ;)

Ingredients

Peanuts - 1 c
Coconut Milk (w/ cream) - 100-150g
Sesame seeds - 2-3 tbsp
Green Bell Pepper, chopped - 1.5 c
Carrots, chopped - 1.5 c
Onions, chopped - 3/4 c
Tofu, cubed and fried in oil - 1.5 c
Chilli Oil - 3-4 tbsp
Cooking oil - 1-2 tbsp
Thai Basil Leaves - 20-25 leaves
Salt to taste
Honey - 2-3 tbsp
Ginger, chopped - 1 tbsp
Pasta (sphaghetti) - 300 g
Red chilli powder - 1-2 tsp

1. Bring water (with 1-2 tsp salt) to a rolling boil in a large, heavy bottomed saucepan. Cook the pasta until al dente.

2. Roast the peanuts and sesame seeds dry and powder them in a blender.

3. In a wide saucepan, add 1 tbsp oil and fry the onions. When they're half done, add the ginger and all the vegetables. Add salt, red chilli powder and 2 tbsp chilli oil and continue frying.

4. Once the vegetables are half done, reduce the heat to low and wait for a minute before adding coconut milk.

5. Add the coconut milk, thai basil leaves and let it simmer for 5 mins. Add the peanut/sesame powder and continue simmering for 5-6 mins. If the 'gravy' appears too thick, you could add some fresh coconut water.

6. Add honey and mix well.

7. Drain the cooked pasta and toss it with 1 tbsp chilli oil.

8. Add this to the gravy and mix well. Let it sit at low heat for 4-5 mins.

9. Serve hot!

We decided to skip the lemongrass/kaffir lime leaves and galangal. We could have added some lime zest to compensate, but we chose not to.

It came out pretty well. All of us enjoyed our dinner and topped it off with some kadalai urundai for dessert ;) Well, only I did because my parents are trying to control their sugar levels!

N will be back soon and regular jabber, better stories, better writing and certainly highly opinionated posts will follow. Until then, I struggle to weave a story around a recipe and keep thinking how lucky I am to have married N.

P.S.- the last line in this post has been added by N. Obviously ;)

Mixed Vegetable Curry

2011-02-25T19:49:00.009-05:00

One of the most redeeming lessons being a graduate student and being in America has been about money. 2 years ago, I didn't have a job and the feminist in me became stingier (I've always been stingy) by the day before I asked A for money. Being a graduate student and paying through my nose without a loan has brought out the stereotypical inner South Indian in me (My rather bindaas about money and generous parents will be horrified) and I think 100 times before doing anything. And the tree hugger in me, of course, wants to buy only food that is 'good' for the body and the world. Unfortunately, these two factors clash in my life right now and I'm forced to be stingy all over again. To this dilemma, let's add a no sugar, most of the times no polished carbohydrates diet and watch the fun unfold.

It has truly been fun - this past year. Customizing food, cooking quick-fix meal, making cakes with honey and applesauce, eating mostly vegetables, eggs, beans (God bless them!), Dals or lentils, fruits at almost every meal has made me way fitter and way more determined to stick to my diet. I tweeted a couple of days ago how my comfort food has moved from Dal-Chawal or Curd rice with pickle to a quick roasted vegetables or quinoa with dal or veggies on top. I do indulge once in a while. Wednesdays are bad days for me. I come home at 9 PM after a rather exhausting day. It's no fun in the cold at least. And I don't take to hunger that well. Earlier, during such times, I'd come home to eat a tortilla while I was cooking or make rice and gobble it up with some curd. Nothing more comforting for a Tamilian :) Nowadays, thanks to my diet, I'm way more creative. I end up using canned beans or frozen veggies on Wednesdays and quickly make myself a meal. Last Wednesday, I made this curry. It was really quick and absolutely lickable, dare I say so myself. This doesn't even require a recipe considering this blog's followers, but this is for all those Twitter friends of mine who tweet every night about food :)

Ingredients

2 small Potatoes - sliced lengthwise

1 carrot - peeled and cut lengthwise

1/2 an onion

1 Jalapeno/Green Chilli, chopped

Any other random vegetable - I didn't have anything else!

1 tsp Kalonji (Substitute with Jeera/Cumin seeds)

2-3 tsp Garam Masala

1 tsp Cayenne Pepper (Chilli powder)

1 tsp turmeric (I didn't use it because I didn't have any!)

2-3 tbsp water

1-1.5 tbsp oil

Salt to taste

1. Heat oil, add the Kalonji or Jeera. Let it splutter. Add the onions and jalapeno or green chillies

2. Let it cook for 2-3 mins, add the potatoes, sprinkle some water and close and let cook for 7-10mins. Thinner the slices of the potato, the better it is.

3. Add carrots to this mixture and the rest of the spices, some more water IF the mixture is dry and let it close to let it cook.

4. Once they are partially cooked, take the lid off and let it cook for a good 5-7 mins. Stir if you think it's getting burned.

Voila! It's done. The spice level may be high for some people. I love spicy, hot food and so, the cayenne pepper, the Garam Masala and the chilli. You can adjust it accord to your preference. The quantity should be enough for one really hungry person or two people who behave decently when there is food around!

I didn't pay much attention to this curry. I throw one ingredient, wash the vessels lying in the sink or clean up. On this day, I made rotis along with the curry and that kept me occupied. One can think of a 101 vegetables to add to this mixture. Adding cabbage or beans, peas or bell peppers could work brilliantly. Or, even peanuts for the crunch factor. If you are the type to use the Microwave which I admit I have become, you can zap the potato or carrots in the microwave for a quick 3-4 mins before adding to the onions on gas. You can add some coconut milk to make this a gravy or some tomato sauce. I ate a satisfying meal that night - yogurt sprinkled with some Garam Masala (friend's care package again!) and rotis and this curry. The pictures certainly may not scream, 'make me now.' But then, this blog hasn't been about that at all. So, this is all I can manage in the kitchen I have with yellow lights with a camera whose battery is dying as I click and a grumbling stomach at 9.30 PM on a weeknight :)

Sometimes, I'm so exhausted, just the thought of cooking when I have assignments and deadlines to catch up with tires me. Like this time, I didn't think I was going to make rotis. I thought I'd stuff my tortillas (I always have a pack of Whole Wheat tortillas in my fridge and readymade Rotis just in case) and top it with some cheese or an egg and make a meal out of it. But when I started working on the vegetables, new energy took over and I cleaned the kitchen, made rotis and washed vessels - all by the time this sabzi was ready to eat. Cooking meals like this everyday in order to keep to my resolution of not buying food to eat has made me feel more productive and I feel better at the end of every week. Twitter friends help me a lot in this regard. Every night, someone posts about the #dinner they're eating or they want to eat. And I end up thinking how I can't skip a meal or how I can't eat crap. I feel responsible. I feel responsible as a food blogger who is aware of the positive effects of food and cooking, as a person who believes earnestly that good food makes me and this world better. Then, I cook for myself. It isn't as bad. It is emotionally tough sometimes, but it is liberating most of the time.

Try cooking yourself a meal today. It doesn't have to be as fancy as we food bloggers make it out to be sometimes. It doesn't have to involve a lot of money or eating out. It could be something as soul satisfying as a bowl of dal or a curry made in 15 mins in a pressure cooker. If I can do it, you can do it. There's no one lazier than me and I've been spoiled all my life with adoring grandmothers, fantastic room-mates who didn't let me enter the kitchen, a mother who got interested in cooking for our sake, a food and cooking crazy husband and a chef of a mother-in- law.

Cook something. Eat well. You will help yourself and without knowing, this world that we live in.

Chocolate cookies

2011-02-12T16:45:00.007-05:00

And with that, I'm back. Hopefully, for longer than just this one post. So yeah, a lot has happened in the last 4-6 months that we haven't done anything related to this blog. After a rather cheesy post (in retrospect) and several good wishes later, I have 4 months 19 days, 19 hours, 13 mins and 10 seconds to go as I write this line. My solitary cooking and eating habits have improved vastly thanks to some New Year resolutions. My resolution this year or at least for this semester is to cook at home and eat home cooked food only. I'm not eating any sugar or sugar substitutes (slowly cutting that down) and eating only brown rice/quinoa. I spent most of last year, from June, to be precise, eating only bulgur/couscous/quinoa with occasional rice indulgences. I don't quite regret it. I'm way fitter now and way stronger physically. However, I lost control a couple of times last year. Once, when I had Finals week breathing down my neck and cookies, random food and anything that made me happy and stuffed. Next, in December, I went to California for a cousin/sibling reunion. While I ate normally most of the time in LA/SFO, the last 4-5 days when we returned the car and did nothing but lie around watching TV, we lost it. In order to show sisterly love to our baby brother, we baked a lot. And ate a lot thanks to his emotional blackmail.

This cousin of mine stays an hour away from me. We didn't talk much to each other over the last so many years. Suddenly, we all seemed to bond on this mighty California trip. How, why and what happened is anyone's guess. While he likes to point out that we never spoke to him, I think I have the whole family nodding their heads in agreement when I say that he was a very quiet kid. It is also quite shocking these days for me to see kids like him and my youngest sister act like adults. Because they are adults now. I don't feel old or anything, but just that as this cousin of mine pointed out, I have become rather maami-like (like an aunt- very maternal; feminine version of avuncular, I suppose) So, anyway back to food. This kid loves food. I remembered all the times in my granny's house when we'd all stuff ourselves with food and eat dessert too. While some of us ate dessert much later or skipped it sometimes, he never did. He has a sweet tooth and everyone in the family knows that. My aunt, granny and my mum have been known to send sweets, bought or home-made through every other person who goes to Chennai. I remember the days we drove to my granny's house to pick up the 'bhakshanam' (snacks) and bought Chiroti from Subbamma's (an old store in Bangalore selling amazing snacks and delicacies. Sigh) for him.

So, when I came back from California, we started talking more. More emotional blackmail ensued from his side. And since he loves chocolate (and how!), I decided to bake him these. I saw them on Tastespotting and haven't stopped thinking about them ever since. I cut the recipe by half for the sake of good health and made them. While mine don't look like hers by any standards, I have to say that they were tasty. I didn't get the dark chocolate colour she got probably because of the difference in the kind of cocoa powder she used. I also cut down on the chocolate chips. My cousin may not be too happy about that!

All said and done, several of my friends on Twitter have been asking me to come back to blogging about food. And some of them ask for simple recipes, some just want to see pictures. I hope that this post is just the beginning and both A and I blog more regularly going forward. He is currently busy with his sister's wedding and I can't believe I'm missing the biggest event in my in laws' house after I got married. Calling them, hearing how much they miss me and all the noise behind makes me home sick. Terribly. But like someone pointed out to me on Facebook, this too shall pass and soon, I will be cooking and baking with A on my side (who'd have figured out a way to get that dark chocolate colour and wouldn't have skimped on ingredients!) I also don't have pictures for this post since my house is pretty dark thanks to the never-ending winter in Syracuse. I'm going to try to take pictures during the weekends to post with recipes going forward.

V, this one goes out in a mail to you on Monday. For Valentine's Day ;)

We are not blogging...

2010-10-01T18:10:00.008-04:00

Because we are not cooking. I'd love to say like every other time or every other blogger, that we've been cooking but just not found the time to blog. A has found the time to blog and I've just about figured that I need to realign my priorities to still do what I want to do, apart from what I hate- studying :P

But the truth is that in spite of the foodies that we are, we both haven't cooked good meals in quite sometime now. A left for India in August and spent a month at my parents' eating my mom's food and helping her cook (She is touched, shocked, amazed and rather happy -since she hates cooking :P)

I had the most hectic summer semester with classes and enough readings to last me a lifetime. I'm currently in the Fall semester and finally settled down. Today, I spoke to A for a long time after a long time. Its funny how we haven't had a heart-to-heart conversation in ages now. And we are husband and wife. Yes. Still. I've had people either expecting me to cry at the drop of a hat missing him. Or, there are feminists who think that I should totally be nonchalant about my relationship status and act like he doesn't exist. Sorry to disappoint you, folks. I'm in the middle somewhere. I miss him terribly every single time I eat. Because he cooked most of the time and I just ate. Now I have to cook and eat. And every single time I have to clean the house. I'm only used to supervising and now I have to do it myself. Albeit, it is being done once in 3 months.

Today, during our lengthy conversation, he was talking of returning to cooking now that he's settled in his own apartment. He said he'd been trying to bake bread and cookies for a week now and every attempt was a failure. I was quite surprised. He is a master baker. He may make mistakes, but they don't repeat. I spoke of how I've been planning forever to make bread and never got around to doing it. I told him how I went to our favourite food blogs and kept telling the blogger am going to try their latest recipe, buy the ingredients but never end up making it. We laughed saying we've become lazy.

Suddenly, he banged his fist and I had a tear rolling down my cheek. Its no fun anymore. Before getting married, I couldn't identify one Dal from another. And he'd cook the usual, sabzi, chawal, dal, sambar. Nothing special. Ours was an arranged marriage. We fought every single day until we got married and after we got married. We've had a turbulent time together. Except for food. Until we discovered how much we liked food and cooking and eating. We took our own sweet time getting to know each other and it was hell until we figured it out.

I knew I'd miss him and he'd miss me. I mean, who doesn't miss their spouse when you're away from them, right? And we were ready for the heartache and what not. But this is something else! I just can't seem to make anything more than random one pot meals or worse, Maggi noodles for dinner. While he is struggling with basic cooking and baking in spite of spending on a new kitchen with all the equipment. It struck us today that its going to be a bad year for our foodie-selves. He said he'd not made Pasta in ages while I thought of the rotting pasta in the fridge. That is his favourite meal. I haven't made Vethe Kuzhambu in ages while he has it often. My favourite meal.

I broke down after a long time. Ever since things have been working - read university admits, job in India etc, I've not worried about anything. Today was something else. I was scared I will never eat good food again. Ya, I'm like that. I get scared about missing out on food. You can safely call me a lunatic now.

Then the calm voice spoke ( certainly not me, it was him!). We figured it out. Its going to take us time to come back to this blog and write about the joys of eating. Right now, we're hardly cooking anything much. And for those of you whose recipes I've bookmarked, I promise I will get to it sometime. Or, maybe we will. In a year or so. And credit you too.

Please bear with us. We are humans after all, though I know I seemed like I was a super woman. I assure you, I'm not. And he has never been a super man. So there.

Chocolate Eclairs + Old post alert!

2010-07-26T18:14:00.013-04:00

This has not just been on my baking list, but also on my to-eat list :P N & I managed to have a few GOOD ones at Alon's. Since then, I've been wanting to make them at home. It's a pity that I ended up baking these AFTER N left had left for New york. I was browsing through Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From my Home to Yours and I came across her Peppermint Cream Puff Ring's recipe. While I wasn't in the mood to bake the gargantuan looking ring, I did scale down the recipe for the choux pastry dough.

I have to admit that this was one of the easier things to make. Very few ingredients are involved and I didn't even use an electric beater. And it came out pretty darn good. I got too lazy to make the pastry cream, which is typically used as a filling in these eclairs so I just whipped up some cream. The eclairs are just not the same without the pastry cream, but the cream puffs themselves came out rather well. I'm definitely keeping this recipe for future needs since these are fairly easy to make and look pretty cool ;)

For the Choux Pastry

1/2 c all purpose flour

1/2 stick butter

2 large eggs, beaten (should amount to 1/2 c liquid)

2 tbsp sugar

1/2 c milk (I used 2% reduced fat)

For the whipping cream

1c heavy whipping cream

2 tbsp sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

For the chocolate drizzle

I have to admit that I ramdomly added some of the leftover cream to some chocolate chips and melted them over a double boiler so I can't give any measurements ;)

1. Preheat oven to 400 F.

2. In a heavy bottom saucepan, bring the milk, butter and sugar to a boil.

3. Reduce the heat to medium-low. Add all the flour at once and then stir vigorously with a spatula. Cook for about 2-3 more mins.

4. Remove from heat and let the dough cool down until warm. In order to accelerate the cooling process, continue mixing with the spatula.

5. Once the dough is warm (if you can stick your finger in for 10 seconds without wincing, it's fine!), add the beaten eggs to the dough. Mix well to form a smooth, uniform and a somewhat shiny/silky dough.

6. Pipe the dough on to a baking tray lined with a silicone mat. I piped it without a tip into wide stripes. If piping is not your thing, just take a small ladle and scoop the dough and place mounds on the baking tray.

7. Bake in the middle rack for about 12-13 mins. Then reduce the temperature to about 375 F and continue baking until the top is golden brown and 'crusty', about 20-25 mins.

8. Remove from the oven and cool them completely on a cooling rack.

9. Cut them in the middle. Sandwich the two pieces with whipped cream and pour some lukewarm chocolate ganache on top. Refrigerate until the chocolate has hardened.

10. EAT!

Needless to say, N was not too happy to see the pics. I told her that I'd try to make up for this audacity by baking her a Croquembouche some day ;)

Eggless Jalapeno Corn Cheese Muffins.

2010-07-21T00:31:00.004-04:00

One of the things that I'll miss the most about the U.S - friends and family here. In certain cases, friends have pretty much become family! One such family (the Gs) are not only a source of moral support for us, but also a source of inspiration. One of the family members is battling cancer and the resolve that person has shown has been nothing short of astounding. It is unbelievable to see the smiles, the sheer appreciation for life and the unfettered determimation to fight through adversity. I truly run out of words to express my amazement!

I recently invited them for dinner. While tikki-chholay was the main course, I knew they liked baked stuff. While they weren't particularly averse to eating baked goods containing eggs, they really preferred if they didn't. I didn't have much time and I consider Dorie Greenspan's basic muffin recipe to be a life saver in such circumstances. I have tweaked it enough to remove the egg and be able to retain the texture to a reasonable extent. However, this time, I decided to give it a savory touch. Hence, these Jalapeno Corn Cheese Muffins.

Ingredients:

3/4 c cornmeal
3/4 c whole wheat flour
2 tsp salt
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
1 medium jalapeno, finely diced (you could choose to retain or remove the seeds)
1 stick (8 tbsp) butter (I used Parkay), melted and cooled.
1/2 c corn kernnels (if you're using canned corn, make sure to dry them)
3/4 c buttermilk
1/2 c milk
1/4 c shredded cheese (I used Mexican cheese blend sold at Costco)
1/2 tsp Hungarian paprika powder (you could replace this with Cayenne pepper)

1. Preheat oven to 400 F

2. Beat the buttermilk and milk in a bowl and keep separately.

3. In a large bowl, sift the flour, cornmeal, baking soda, baking powder, sugar and salt.

4. Toss the jalapenos and corn kernels into the sifted ingredients.

5. Add the wet ingredients (butter followed by buttermilk+milk mixture). Whisk until the ingredients have barely combined and you don't see any uncoated flour.

6. Spoon this batter immediately into a well greased 12-muffin pan.

7. Bake in center rack for about 13 mins or until a skewer comes out clean.

8. Remove from the oven and let it cool on a cooling rack, but inside the tray for about 10 mins.

9. Remove them from the pan and eat them right away ;)

This recipe makes 12 muffins.

Chocolate Almond Brownies.

2010-07-16T22:42:00.006-04:00

In the previous post, I alluded to the soccer world cup that concluded recently. I had the opportunity to watch the finals with a good friend of mine. His family has a sweet tooth and I am always looking for guinea pigs to try my experiments on ;) I baked these brownies the night before and let them sit so that they got sweeter with time. The recipe was inspired by Dorie Greenspan. I took her basic brownie recipe and tweaked it a bit.

These served as dessert after a nice home cooked meal at my friend's place. I'm glad they liked the brownies and to top everything, the finals was one heck of a game. It started off a bit slow but picked up pace after the first half. If it weren't for a red card, the game would've ended with penalty kicks. But again, Spain played better than the Dutchmen and certainly deserved to win the world cup. To cut a long story short, good food+good friends+good game=Great time!

Ingredients:

2/3 c flour
3 large eggs
7 tbsp butter
6-7 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips
2/3 c almonds (toasted and coarsely chopped)
1 tbsp coffee extract
1 tbsp freshly brewed coffee decoction
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 c granulated sugar
1 pinch salt

1. Preheat oven to 325F.

2. Melt the chocolate and the butter in a bowl. I used a microwave. When the mixture is hot, add sugar and stir to dissolve. This will also help the mixture to cool down. Allow it to cool until warm. If you can stick your finger for 10 seconds without discomfort, the mixture is cold enough ;)

3. Add the extracts and decoction to the bowl and stir to dissolve.

4. In a large bowl, beat the eggs, one at a time with an electric beater. Do not overbeat since we're not baking a cake here. We want dense, moist, fudgy brownies ;)

5. Pour the melted chocolate mixture into the egg, stirring continuously with a whisk.

6. Add the flour and fold in the chopped nuts. Do not overmix.

7. Pour the batter into a rectangular pan, lined with aluminum foil. I leave a long strip on one of the corners that lets me pull the whole thing after it has baked easily. Pour the batter into the pan. I used an 8" X 10" pan that was 2 inches deep.

8. Bake in the middle rack for about 50-55 mins. or until a skewer comes out clean.

9. Place the pan on a cooling rack and allow the brownies to cool completely in the pan. Then, pry the aluminum foil out of the pan and cut into squares.

These brownies had a nice crunchy crust on top and were pretty chewy and fudgy on the inside. The coffee was a nice addition. the almonds imparted additional richness (as if chocolate wasn't enough :P).

Bok choy with Tofu and Cashews.

2010-07-16T20:56:00.005-04:00

I hope everyone has gotten over their world cup fevers! For some, it must have ended in disappointment as their favorites got knocked out earlier that anticipated. I'm one of them since I am a huge Brazil fan! But at least they lost to Netherlands that eventually finished second. I don't intend to consume this space with my personal analysis of the world cup but it suffices to say that Spain really deserved to win. They outplayed their opponents in every facet of the game.

Things have taken a turn the personal front as well. I'll be moving to India for good! The support I've received has been tremendous, including the food blogosphere. People have been kind enough to answer some of my inane queries regarding availability of ingredients, oven-related concerns and so on ;)

Coming to Bok Choy, it is something that has been flying under my radar for a long time. No real story about it! I've been wanting to try it for quite sometime and after googling for recipes, I got the hang of how to handle Bok Choy and then came up with this recipe on the fly.

Ingredients:

2 medium size Bok Choys
2 c tofu, cut into 1" cubes and lightly fried on both sides
1/3 - 1/2 c roasted cashew nuts
4-5 dried red chillies
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp finely chopped garlic
2 tbsp finely chopped ginger
1 tbsp rice wine vinegar
4 tsp honey
1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds
1 c water+extra for blanching the Bok Choy leaves.
salt to taste.

1. Cut the Bok Choy stems into 1" pieces after separating the leaves. Blanch the leaves in hot water for about 30 sec. Remove from water and place them on a kitchen towel to dry.

2. Microwave the dried red chillies with 1/3 c water for about a minute. The water will turn red. Allow to cool. Grind into a paste with some salt and a couple of cashew pieces.

3. In a pan (or Wok), add the vegetable oil, garlic and ginger and set the heat to medium-high.

4. When the oil gets hot, add the stems. Sautee for about 3-4 mins until somewhat tender.

5. Add the chilli paste, the blanched leaves, vinegar, tofu cubes and the roasted cashew nuts.

6. Cook for another 2 mins and then add the remaining 1/3 c water.

7. Cook until the stems are tender to your liking.

8. Stir in the sesame oil and top it with toasted sesame seeds.

This goes well with rice and serves 2 pretty hungry people.

Kuzhi Paniyaram

2010-06-16T07:25:00.008-04:00

I love recipes that salvage leftovers, or make more interesting stuff with leftovers than the 'main' dish. This is one such meal. While a lot of people actually make their dosa/idli/paniyaram batter for Kuzhi Paniyaram and make it regularly, we don't. Not because we don't like it. Just that I've never thought of it. We never had this, as kids at home. I mean, who had leftovers of Dosa! :)

However, I saw Cham's recipe for this and wondered about how cute they look! We tried it once. And I loved it. I mean, I'm obsessed that way. Obsessed about figuring out interesting recipes for what I think is leftovers :D Like the way I ruined a good lemonade by adding a highly concentrated 2 tbsp of strawberry syrup left over from a dessert experiment. All because I couldn't see it lying in the fridge. I love emptying the fridge. I feel efficient :D Which is why I can plan meals for the next two years and dream about an empty fridge. It gives me peace of mind when I plan and make a things-to-do list. Okay, I digressed. My OCDs don't end and this post isn't a forum for that!

Coming back, we met her and she fed us fat, juicy looking, crisp-on-the-outside-but-spongy-on-the-inside Gunta Panganaalu. I love this name :D Reminds me of Shetty uncles from my childhood in Bangalore. Anyway, I loved the recipe and decided to pester my mom-in-law to finally get me an abel-whatever pan from India. She got me a non stick pan which was small. I wanted a large cast-iron one dreaming of making rounds of Kuzhi Paniyaram to feed hungry people. I have this vision of my house being the abode of abundance with people forever coming over to eat and all that. Much like the old times in India used to be. Its a different thing that A thinks rather differently about this! He gets scared at these harmless dreams. Okay, again, I digress.

So, when my mom-in-law got me this, the time was opportune. Want to know why? I thought I will show her how efficient a home-maker I was and how well I fed her son who looks so scrawny that people thought I ate his share of food too! So, the day before she landed, I ground up TONS of Idli/Dosa batter, so my fridge will look like the classic South Indian housewife's fridge. Big utensils with nicely risen batter. To make anytime and everytime. Since the word efficient doesn't apply to me for any part of my life, let alone my home-maker self, the idlis turned red. Ya. Red. I threw a tantrum because now, I didn't know how to show I was a good wife. I didn't wake up at 4 AM like the mom-in-law. I didn't pack fresh lunch for my husband. He took leftovers because I believe food tastes better the next day :P, I didn't get up lovingly to watch him eat cereal in the morning. Now, this Idli batter also threw me off course!

In sheer anger, I threw a lot of batter and sat there waiting for her to come. Come, the next day, without any pretence of jet lag, my mom-in-law was up at 4 poking in the kitchen. She saw the rest of the batter and decided to make dosas for bfast. She realized something was awfully wrong with the batter in probably 10 seconds. So, then she made this. Her son, after 2 years, ate hot breakfast and left for work, happy! She made sure I had my fill since I'm the breakfast person and I snacked on these the whole day.

*scene change - time moves - a year later*

I come back from India to see old batter in the fridge. While I've become really efficient, my OCD hasn't really gone down. I decided to make a weekend breakfast out of this batter. I could've made Dosa, but, but, the memories of my mother in law rustling up some Kuzhi Paniyaram was too hard to forget. So, A got this for brunch one Saturday morning. It turned out to be brunch thanks to picture-taking. And may I say that it was brilliant! I loved the way it looked and how fast it cooked and how much less oil (oxymoron there!) it took.

Its a great idea of breakfast or even a snack and a great idea to finish up your batter. Add some onions and some coriander and ta-da, you have a spicy, filling meal ahead of you! I'm not posting a recipe since I've linked Cham's recipe to this. I make it more or less similarly and her recipe has worked wonderfully for me. Thank you, Cham :)

"Grilled" Pineapple and Tofu Quesedillas.

2010-06-04T20:51:00.015-04:00

Recently, N and I went for a little picnic. The problem is, our perceptions of a picnic are polar opposites. N's idea is to go to an enchanted place, sit down, talk, relax, eat, relax and then head home. My idea is to go there, grab a quick bite, canoe or kayak if possible, relax, , go for a hike and then head home. You get the picture ;) But I must give it to N for being a sport and playing along with me more than often. This was one such occasion. We went to a state park. We decided not to eat out because we had dinner outside the previous evening. So we decided to make these quesedillas and take them with us for our little picnic. They were very easy to make and it took us literally 15-20 mins. to make.

The pineapples, however, weren't really grilled...as you're about to find out ;)

Ingredients (Makes 3 whole quesedillas)

3 pineapple rings

1 cup tofu, cut into 1 inch cubes

2 jalapenos, chopped finely

1 small onion, chopped coarsely

2/3 c corn kernels

salt and pepper to taste

1/2 tsp cumin powder

1/2 tsp Chipotle chili powder

2/3 cup shredded cheese (we use the Mexican cheese blend available at Costco)

1 tbsp vegetable oil

6 tortillas

1. In a pan, heat 1/2 tbsp oil. Add the jalapenos and onion. Let it cook for 2-3 mins.

2. Use the other 1/2 tbsp oil to fry the tofu cubes until golden brown on two sides. Set the pieces aside.

3. On this hot electric stove, place one pineapple ring and wait for about 10-15 seconds. Flip it. If you see 'grill-marks', continue. Otherwise, flip back until you see some marks. Repeat with remaining slices of pineapples. Once done, cut them into 1/2 inch pieces.

4. Add the corn kernels, cumin powder, chipotle powder, salt, tofu cubes and pepper and cook for 5 more mins. Add the pineapple pieces and set aside.

5. Take little butter on a flat bottom pan. When hot, place a tortilla on it. Sprinkle cheese on top of the tortilla. When the side exposed to the pan begins to brown, remove it from the pan. The cheese should have melted a little.

6. Repeat this with three out of the six tortillas. Fix the remaining tortillas without cheese.

7. On the tortilla without cheese, spread the veggie mixture and top it with a tortilla with the cheese. That makes one whole quesedilla. Similarly, make the remaining two.

Enjoy!

We really enjoyed the flavors. The heat from the jalapenos was countered by the sweetness of the pineapple. The smoky nature of the chipotle chili and the heartiness added by tofu were also great. We had a great time and these quesedillas were more than enough to keep us energized!

Chocolate-Chip Shortbread Cookies

2010-05-31T20:46:00.015-04:00

N and I are usually pretty bad with cookies! What a lovely, encouraging way to start writing a post after ages ;) But it is the sad truth. The recipes are pretty easy to follow, we use all the right ingredients, and thanks to my profession, we even try to measure as accurately as possible. But when they come out of the oven, they do not look or taste like the ambrosia we so desperately crave for. Instead, we get these adobes that could shatter out jaws into smithereens. But N and I love to bake and we typically never give up on anything. We even had the gall to try macarons recently. Needless to say, we failed ;) OK enough that is self-deprecation!

One fine Saturday, N and I decided to bake a funky cake. Something we had never tried before. We tried to get some inspiration from books so we decided to call upon Dorie Greenspan. As we opened the book, we stumbled upon a particular page, thanks to a bookmark placed randomly. N and I smiled at each other after seeing what was on that page. It read "espresso-chocolate shortbread cookies." Reveries of unsuccessful experiments and attempts started to flood our brains. But on a whim, we decided to give cookies another shot. N told me that shortbread cookies are apparently very soft, buttery and delicate. Considering our luck with cookies in the past, we even realized that we didn't have any espresso powder. And I was quite averse to expending 2 sticks of butter on something I wasn't confident :P So we even decided to halve the recipe. Since we made these subtle changes, I think I can go ahead and post the recipe for the cookies without getting into copyright violations ;) Suffices to say that Ms Greenspan, N and I LOVE you and credit you (partially :P) for these fantastic cookies.

Ingredients

1 cup unbleached all purpose flour

1 stick butter, cut into cubes and softened

1/3 cup powdered sugar (obtained by pulsing granulated sugar in a food processor)

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 c mini-chocolate chips

1. Beat the butter and sugar in a bowl with an electric beater until smooth and creamy, about 3-4 mins.

2. Add vanilla extract and beat a couple of more rounds.

3. Add the flour in 3 batches and beat until just incorporated. Do not beat excessively.

4. Fold in the chocolate chips with a spatula. Cover the bowl with Saran wrap and refrigerate for an hour.

5. On a floured plastic (we used a zip loc bag), roll out the dough into a 1/4 inch rectangle. Before you do this, make sure the dough is hard and not too soft. This can be tested by trying to roll it with a rolling pin. If the dough is hard enough, it'll offer some initial resistance and then rool out fairly easily. If you do not observe this initial resistance, it means that the dough needs to be refrigerated again.

6. Take another zip loc bag and place it on top of the rolled dough. Refrigerate this sheet for another hour or so. This helps cookies retain their shape upon baking.

7. 10 mins prior to taking the refrigerated sheet, preheat the oven to 325F.

8. Line a cookie tray with parchment paper. The dough has plenty of butter so it is not necessary to grease the parchment paper further.

9. Cut about 2 inch squares while the dough is cold. Place the squares on the tray and bake it for about 20-22 mins. Note that the cookies won't turn very brown. They'll have a pale yellow color.

10. Cool them until they reach room temperature. This is very important. N and I, in our fit of joy, tried to eat one straight out of the oven and it disintegrated easily. So we had to learn things the hard way, as usual ;)

We are SO glad we tried these cookies. The buttery aroma filled the house during the whole process and the cookies turned out to be pieces of heaven that just melted in our mouths. Absolutely superb!

We are over our cookie-baking fears and ready to bake some more. We've had our share of disappointments in the past but well, as they say...That's the way the cookie crumbles ;)

Eggplant in spicy ginger-garlic sauce

2010-05-28T17:38:00.011-04:00

Do you like eggplant? I know there are either 'haters' or 'lovers' in each of us when it comes to eggplant. I love eggplant. My eggplant fascination goes a long, long way. Back when I was a kid, I used to wait eagerly for my granny to make her Vangibath recipe. Nothing, nothing can pull me away from tamarind and other sour food. I love tamarind and could possibly eat it by itself. Okay, I have done that too. But then, I digress.

Actually not. That is the major reason why I love Chinese cuisine. Or, at least the Indo-Chinese food. Its sweet, sour and spicy - all at the same time. However, for all my eggplant fascination, I'm no fan of soggy eggplant in a Chinese sauce. A is. He loves all kinds of vegetables and anything Chinese. So, every single time we go to a Chinese restaurant, he is always wanting to try this dish and I keep avoiding it. Thanks to me being the dominant one in the relationship (I needn't have specified that now, right?), we've escaped the eggplant dish so far.

That said, beggars can't be choosers. Especially, when you beg your husband to cook fantastic food when its your turn to indulge him. How much A loves cooking is actually an understatement on this blog now. And in my life too. I take it for granted every evening that A will come up with something. This is one of those dishes that I couldn't him stop him from making. I agreed on a sulky note to just make do with the gravy and tofu in the dish.

Well, what do you expect, ladies and gentlemen, I was wrong. Yet again. This is one of my favorite Chinese dishes now. I can't claim that all eggplant haters will love this dish, but surely, do try it and let us know how you liked it! Here is the recipe.

Ingredients

1 large eggplant, cut into 1 to 1.5" chunks

1 large onion, coarsely chopped

1/2 cup tofu, cubed and fried with minimal oil until crisp on both sides

2 tbsp sesame oil

1 scallion, bulb and green part separated

3-4 large garlic cloves, finely chopped

3-4 tbsp coarsely chopped ginger

3 tbsp brown sugar

2 tsp molasses (optional)

1 tbsp vinegar

1 tbsp rice wine vinegar

2 tbsp canned tomato sauce or puree

2-3 tbsp soy sauce

salt and cayenne pepper powder to taste

1-2 tsp red chilli flakes

1/3-1/2 cups water.

1 tbsp sesame seeds

1. Get started on the sauce. Take 1-2 tsp sesame oil when hot, add sesame seeds, garlic and ginger. When the garlic starts to turn brown, add the tomato sauce. When is almost cooked, add the molasses, brown sugar, soy sauce, cayenne pepper powder, salt, both vinegars and water. Reduce the heat to medium-low and let things simmer for 10-15 mins. Add the tofu at the 5 minute mark so that it absorbs all the flavors.

2. While the sauce simmers, in a separate pan, fry the eggplant on medium heat until tender but not mushy. Add some salt and red pepper flakes to it while its cooking. Keep it separate.

3. In the same pan, fry the onions with some oil, salt and red pepper flakes.

4. Add the eggplant and pour the sauce on top. Cook until the eggplants almost turn soft, about 5-6 mins. This will also let the flavors to absorb further.

5. Top with chopped greens from the scallion.

Enjoy it hot with rice!

It has this nuttiness thanks to the sesame seeds and the crisp tofu works great against the soft eggplant. I'm sure this'd go great with whole wheat noodles or rice vermicelli too! We had it with hot steaming rice and ate it with our hands :D I think, for meals like this, eating with hands wins hands down (pun unintended!) as against with a fork!

What do you think?

Barley salad

2010-05-18T23:59:00.006-04:00

So, when I saw this salad last summer on Soma's blog, I just knew I had to do it. And I've made it several times since then. I love trying out new grains and barley was casually added to the list. I'd bought barley, but hadn't figured out what to do with it. Just when I think this way, Soma, very helpfully comes up with a post :D So, I figured, might as well do what she did.

Its amazing how filling this dish is, and how easily it can be put together. It requires a lot of chopping work, what with the myriad veggies thrown in, but trust me, its all worth it. Now, again, come this summer, I was determined to make it, click it and post it!

As Nandita and I were discussing on Twitter, sometimes, some dishes come out so well. And mostly during dinner at my place thanks to that being the only major meal cooked! Either I find the photos not great, or I just don't take any pictures. While I don't want to put any pressure on myself to take a picture of every thing I eat, I don't want to skip posting great recipe ideas on this blog. What do you guys do? How do you cope?

Here is the recipe!

Ingredients

1 cup barley

1-1.5 cups mixed veggies (carrots, beans, corn- we used the frozen mix :D)

1 cup spinach (fresh leaves) - no need to chop them.

1 small onion, diced

1 tsp cumin seeds

1 star anise

1 tsp garam masala

1/2 tsp red chili powder (or cayenne pepper powder)

1 tbsp oil

salt to taste

1. Cook the barley. We did so in a microwave. Cook until its tender but not too chewy/mushy. We ended up using about 2-3 cups of water. It took us about 15-20 mins. to cook the barley. Once cooked, drain if there is any excess water remaining.

2. While the barley is cooking, add 1/2 tbsp oil to a skillet. When hot, add the cumin seeds and star anise. When they crackle, add the onions and the veggies (except spinach) together. Let them cook for about 3-4 mins.

3. Add the spinach and all the spices and let it cook for another 5-10 mins.

4. When the veggies are almost tender enough to eat, add the cooked barley with remaining 1/2 tbsp oil. This will avoid individual grains from sticking together.

5. Cook for 2 more mins. Let it rest for a couple more minutes.

And you're ready to go!

Make it this summer. This works great as a salad or as a pulao too. We try to create different flavors every time we make this. Last time we made it, we experimented with Thai flavors. When you cook the barley in the microwave like we did, there is no need to soak it even. While I cut the vegetables, this cooked in the MW and it was drained and ready by the time I got done with cooking the veggies. How easy can it get?

Blueberry mousse with fresh berries

2010-05-13T11:06:00.025-04:00

I came back from India, all happy and ready to be back. One wouldn't believe that, but I was. You see, when I was in India, I got some wonderful news. I'm going to move to Syracuse for a year to do my Masters in Media Management at Syracuse University. This one (little) thing has done so much to my mood, to my life in general that its not just random news anymore. Its a life event for me.

I came to the US after getting married to A with a work permit. Wall Street crashed the day I received my permit authorization and life hasn't been the same since. I turned from an active, bindaas, cool person to a whining, moaning, crying, depressed wreck. This food blog was supposed to give me a purpose, and it didn't. Nothing did. I hated going out, I hated meeting people (which was a shocker!), I put on obscene amounts of weight (It is like the movies) and spent day and night cribbing about this country, about how I'd given up everything. You know, its very easy to love a person if things are okay with you. When things go wrong, and when you, in your head, pinpoint the reason to one thing/person, you lose control. In my case, my marriage changed my life in more ways than one. A changed my life. While I can see that I've grown as a person, and become stronger after the two year crisis in my life, it wasn't always like this.

Amidst all the cakes we baked, he sat and watched me as I ate and plunged into a hell-hole. He stood here, baking for me, cleaning after me, taking all the jokes on him - just waiting for things to change. He is a man of faith. I'm the confused one. Still. And he won, partly. Through me. With his irreplacable faith. I changed some marvellous things about him. And it is not necessarily good for him. But we are picking up the pieces now.

Just as I kept thinking and finally reached a place where I figured I'd be okay if I don't have that financial independence, I'd be okay if I'm 'happy' doing fun stuff not necessarily work stuff, the news of the University offer trickled in. I didn't want to write the GRE. It involved Math. And I was terrified of failing. Lately, everything was a failure. From cooking Dal to just my whole life. Every time I spilled something, I cursed myself for being clumsy. It never struck me that, that is the kind of person I am. These two years didn't make me any extra clumsy. But then, who really thought in these two years. It plays like a bad movie in my head.

I know a lot of you may say, 'oh a job is nothing.' With due respect, its not about the job. Its about fulfillment. And it took me this crisis to figure out that a job is not necessarily the way I live my life fully. I needed this lesson. I needed this crisis to test me. I almost lost it. I almost gave up. Thanks to phone calls to my parents at the oddest of times, to good friends, online and offline, and thanks to A, I'm wiser. And calmer. And smarter.

Now, after all the gyaan :D, let me move to this super healthy dessert. A friend came over. We don't have too many friends, so any chance of making friends is welcomed and they are invited home to be our guinea pigs. Without warning. I just had this dessert in my head. As a picture. I had to, had to do this. Plus the blueberries we picked last year had to be finished, IMO. We are going picking again and I'm picky that way. Pun totally intended.

And I'm no dessert expert. I'm just an expert at bossing over and supervising and screaming when things don't work ;)

Ingredients

For the Blueberry syrup

1 cup blueberries

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

4 tbsp water

1/4 tsp cornstarch

For the 'mousse'

10 oz silken tofu

2 tbsp sugar

2-3 tbsp blueberry syrup.

For the whipped topping

1/3 c heavy whipping cream

1 tbsp sugar

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

For the strawberries

2 c strawberries, each cut into two pieces vertically.

Lemon zest, blueberries, chopped almonds for garnishing on top.

1. In a saucepan, put all the ingredients for the blueberry syrup and heat until the liquid starts to boil.

2. Lower the heat and reduce until you see the syrup thicken. Take care not to crush the berries.

3. Strain the mixture and retain the syrup. You could retain the berries and use them in pancakes etc. or in step 4.

4. Drain the silken tofu well. Then, in a blender, mix the tofu, syrup and sugar until it is a smooth paste. Take care not to turn this into a runny puree. It should be a jiggly mass. You could use the berries from step 3 if you like a more 'grainy' texture, but we skipped the berries. Let it set overnight. Or at least until it is not runny any more. It usually takes anywhere between 8 hours to overnight. It is pretty good-looking when you pour this into dessert bowls/glasses to let it set.

5. When ready to assemble the dessert, whip cream. In a bowl, take the whipping cream and add the vanilla extract. It helps if the bowl and the beater's blades have been refrigerated for an hour or so. Start beating until stiff peaks form while adding sugar as a continuous stream.

6. Top the set mousse with chopped strawberries. Then add a layer of whipped cream. We piped them. Garnish with fresh blueberries, lemon zest and some chopped roasted almonds.

When we finally got this right, I swear I could have cried and yelled like I won the Olympic Gold Medal or something. We started experimenting two days before the guest came. A, the resident fat-lover-since-he-doesn't-put-on-an-ounce decided to make blueberry cream. Can you believe it? Blueberry cream. Nothing I said stopped him from trying it out. So, a blueberry coulis was made, strained and the syrup was used to flavor cream and was whipped in all its glory. It was poured into serving glasses at 2 AM and left in the fridge for it to set. A had a not-so-brilliant idea of doing the same with ricotta. So, we slept at 3 AM that day dreaming of blueberries and mousses. We woke up on Saturday and found that the cream was beautiful. Heavenly. Well-set. Lovely colour and what not. The ricotta mixture wasn't the best. It was gritty - a texture I wanted to avoid with the mousse. We made pancakes out of those :P

I wanted to try a healthier option and silken tofu fit well in between the existing tires on my body. So, a silken tofu mousse was made with the coulis again. This was simpler than the cream. We let this set and in the arrogant confidence that silken tofu will work, we ate up all the cream sitting and watching an Agatha Christie movie.

The D-day dawned and we found the mousse had set and then, I stepped in to complete my vision :D I chopped strawberries and arranged them on top of the mousse, whipped some cream, piped them onto the glass and basically acted like I made the dessert myself and that A was only going to eat it :D

When the dessert was served, my guests were astounded by its beauty and craftsmanship (LOL!) and were amazed that it was low fat. Each person got about 1-2 tbsp of cream for their dessert and that certainly wasn't heavy! And this was the right time. It was cold, fresh with berries- summer's abundance and colourful.

What made it special for me was that we worked together again. We reminisced on all the fun we had picking berries and when you turn it into something as beautiful as this, you realize team work always works. In cooking great food and in life.

Thanks for listening to my yarn :)

Spaghetti with Meatballs (vegetarian)

2010-05-02T12:55:00.007-04:00

One of A's favorite cuisines is Italian. When we were newly married, I had to listen to him everyday in India of the promised sights and eats of Amreeka ;) And he kept mentioning Pasta. While I'd eaten pasta before, I wasn't a huge fan of the blandness or the cheesiness of Italian cuisine. Apart from pizza, of course, properly done with Amul Cheese back in Pizza Hut :D

The first time we went out, we went to Olive Garden, a chain Italian restaurant in the US. While this visit gave me an inkling of what fairly okay Italian cuisine was and the innumerable pastas and the sauces, it also showed me a preview of my life with A. A turned from a respectable married man to a hungry grad student (who starves himself because he is eating out that night, though A didn't really starve that day!) He gorged on the free breadsticks (which are really good, and a tad salty for me) and the salad. I struggled with the salad initially, though now I love it. He ordered his most favorite pasta of all. Fettucine with Alfredo sauce. While I gagged at the cheesiness of it, I quite enjoyed my spicy tomato sauce based pasta. However, after every such meal at any Italian restaurant, A had one misgiving. That he could not find vegetarian 'meatballs' because he loved the idea of a tomato sauce with meatballs and spaghetti. Over time, I've realized that my favorite kind of pasta is the Spaghetti family - the fettucine, the linguine, and the spaghetti itself, but of course :)

So, we tried to make these faux meatballs in the past. When I say faux, I don't mean we used TVP or something like that to get the meaty texture. The texture wasn't really what we were looking for. We looked for solid cutlets/or dumplings with veggies in them. The first time we tried it, we used just tofu-crumbled, and bread crumbs and some olive oil to bind them. While it tasted great, it wasn't firm enough. The next time around, we tried adding a beaten egg to the dumpling mixture. It turned out okay, nothing spectacular. We still wanted to achieve something without eggs. In the true Indian essence of vegetarian :)

This time around, in fact, just last night, I decided to surprise A with a Spaghetti-meatballs. I forgot about our previous attempts and went ahead and made my dumplings my way. Crumbled tofu, some chopped spinach, bread crumbs, some olives and olive oil. I was surprised it just took just about 10-15 mins for me to make these dumplings. I baked them instead of deep-frying them and they worked out fine, in my opinion. A wanted them to be a little firmer, and since I baked them, they also flattened them a wee bit. And A felt that they weren't rounder. Fair enough :) There's always the next time. I don't think I wanted to give up on baking them.

This is how I made them.

Ingredients

For the 'meatballs'

Half a block of extra firm tofu

A handful of spinach leaves- chopped

A fistful of olives - finely chopped

1-2 tsp dried oregano

Bread crumbs - 1/4 cup

Olive oil - 1-2 tbsp

For the tomato sauce

1-2 tomatoes, roughly chopped or a can of crushed tomatoes. We preferred the fresh ones.

1/2 an onion chopped

1 tbsp of butter

1-2 tbsp of chopped garlic

1-2 tsp dried basil ( Use fresh basil if you have them!)

2 cups of Tomato sauce ( we used a 16 oz. can)

Salt

Chilli Powder

For the pasta

Follow instructions on package and prepare the spaghetti accordingly.

1. Mix all the ingredients in the 'meatballs' list and form into balls. If you find them breaking off or not binding well enough to stay, feel free to add some more breadcrumbs.

2. Roll these 'meatballs' in bread crumbs and arrange on a baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil. I added a drop on each dumpling.

3. Bake for 20-25 mins and broil for a minute or so. It could even take 30 mins. Bake for 10-15 mins on each side. Then turn the balls over very delicately and drizzle another drop of olive oil. Once they are done, switch off the oven and then let them be. Don't touch them. They will get a little firmer as they are when they cool down.

4. For the sauce, add 1/2 tbsp butter onto the sauce pan, fry the garlic and the onion. Once they are cooked, add the chopped fresh tomatoes and salt and chilli powder. Let the tomatoes cook down. Then add the sauce, the herb -basil and the other 1/2 tbsp butter and let them cook for a good 30-40 mins.

I usually start the sauce first and then move on to doing the 'meatballs.' The sauce tastes best the next day. So, you could make the tomato sauce the previous day and use it for the dish the next day. The same goes for the 'meatballs' as well, though you can't resist eating some :D on their own.

When the pasta is ready and the sauce is bubbling, add the 'meatballs' before you eat them up and let it be for a good 10 mins. Now, its time!

While the pictures shows you a very delicate bowl with pasta and sauce with 'meatballs' on top and cheese on them. We savagely mixed everything up (okay, make that delicate thanks to the meatballs) and ate it up quick!

The reason why the 'meatballs' ingredients are not exact measurements are because of two reasons. One, that it is totally upto you. You want more spinach - go ahead and add them. Or any other veggies for that matter. I'm planning to add onion and carrot the next time around. Also, I didn't really take care to 'dry-squeeze' any of my 'meatball' ingredients. I should have. I chopped the tofu into long thin strips and went crazy with the knife, hacking them left, right and center :D, chopped the spinach after washing them and my olives came from a can, so just chopped them after draining them. Either way, I didn't spread them on a paper towel and dry them. Maybe that is another reason why they weren't 'rounded' and weren't as firm.

Second reason why those ingredients are not exactly measured is because :D I forgot about the food blog. Its been so long and after the India trip, its easy to just throw things together and hope it turns out the way your mom or your mom-in-law makes it since the measurements are the same!

This worked out quite wonderfully, though I'd avoid the olives next time. I don't like olives. I made this huge sacrifice (sacrifice no. n+1 :D) for the sake of surprising A. He, of course, came and gave his expert, unasked for, unsolicited opinion and advice about these dumplings.

You know, my father-in-law told me once that it was better to be like him - he does not know how to boil water, than to be like A. He told me, when you marry men who know to cook and enjoy it, your food is always an object of an all-knowing critic's opinion. While I laughed it off that time, thanking God that my husband could cook, I sometimes think he's right. But then, what is the fun of living with A if he praises me all the time. Considering :D I never even think of praising him!

We are planning to grow some herbs and some veggies this summer. Ours is a small patio and we can only keep pots. Any advice and all recommendations are more than welcome. Not all of you are A, after all ;)

P.S. - Sala at Veggiebelly has a great Spaghetti with spinach-'meatballs' recipe on at her beautiful blog right now :)

3 months later.. Spinach-Apple Salad

2010-04-26T20:47:00.017-04:00

3 months later, I return to 'my' home in the US. I was in India starting January and spent time until the beginning of April. While the whole idea was to spend time until mid-March, A's visa delays ensured that we made a quick trip to Kerala, put on an extra 20 pounds in the last 15 days, fall ill, meet some more people, answer more questions about having a baby, smile more at unknown people and watch A getting pampered more. I also made sure to make up by meeting some food bloggers - Sra, Srivalli. Anu couldn't make it, so we missed her, but overall, a wonderful time was had by all :) I also spoke to Deeba and Aparna on the phone and had tons of fun doing so. I hope to meet them the next time I hit India! This trip also meant that a lot of snacks made its way across seven seas to the US. Murukku, Seedai, Mixture, Laddoo, Halwa, Burfis - you name it and we have it. All home-made by my granny whose exploits should be written in the NYT! Really.

We came back only to fall ill with fever and cold and cough and some other very exciting things happened. No, I'm not pregnant yet, but other interesting avenues have opened up and I promise to update you on that soon. Just waiting for one last thing to click. Anyway, we haven't been cooking anything major though our social life has been quite happening ever since we returned! It was the same old stuff we were making. A and I have fallen into a rut. Same Thai curry, same pasta, same Aloo-Gobi, choley, Kadhi, same vethe kuzhambu, rasam, usili happened, until one day, we just thought to ourselves how we had just NOT tried anything new. No new ingredient, no new dish, let alone an ingredient!

I decided to change that by making this salad. I don't make too many salads at home thanks to my generous hand with dressings which in turn makes my salads quite soggy and unpalatable. This time, I made A do it. He's always cautious with his ingredients. There is no flair, there is no passion, there is no random generosity, there is no swish of the hand, there is no need to finish that extra drop of dressing just because I don't want to find a box to store it. He is the boring geek, the scientist who measures out milliliters of chemicals to create that perfect 'I dunno what.' So, he naturally excelled with this salad. He recreated an Apple Gorgonzola salad we ate at Buca Di Beppo, only without the luscious Gorgonzola cheese. We didn't have any and did not have any patience to go run and get some.

Its a different thing that we realised we had NO pasta at home. This realisation dawned on us just at the right time. When the water came to a rolling boil, when the sauce was ready and when the veggies were all ready - to be thrown together. Fortunately for me, this was also the time that A decided to run out to get pasta and the salad was ready. Just for me. I'm not kidding you. I made sure to clean the bowl of ALL the cranberries, walnuts and apples. I decided to show pity to the salad maker and left him some sorry looking leaves. Now since this post has gotten really boring thanks to a brilliant writer's block, (Read it as you want. Brilliant writer has a block or, the writer's block is so brilliant this piece is everything but brilliant. Get it?) and since I've also thrown in a story in brackets, I shall take pity on you, my poor blog readers (still!) and give you the almost-nothing great recipe. But the taste was great. Promise. Try it this summer and you will be hooked.

Ingredients

2 -3 cups baby spinach (Get the pre-washed ones. Saves you the very little time that you spend washing it :P)

1 large apple, chopped (We used Golden Delicious)

1/2 cup cranberries (I'm being nice here. I added a 3/4 cup :D coz I love these dried treats)

1/2 cup roasted, chopped walnuts (I speak the truth here :D make that 3/4 cup if you are a nutty person like me)

1-2 tbsp Olive oil

Salt and Pepper to taste

1. Chop the apples, roast and chop the walnuts. Mix and keep aside.

2. Heat some water and add the cranberries to it to plump them. Reinvigorate them and once they look plump, add them to the apple-walnut mixture.

3. Add olive oil, salt and pepper to the above mixture and mix well

4. Add the spinach in the end and toss well.

That's all. Yes. And if you have a husband, you don't even need to do the above four steps. You just need to do one.

1. Watch :D

Sorry, make that two.

2. Eat.

The pictures prove how hungry I was to, eat it. I took one picture. Just one and I post that here with great pride and love :D

In other news, like always I promise to be regular and better with my writing and A promises to make more good, better and fun stuff for this blog. At least we try! ;)

Eggless Chocolate Banana Bread

2010-01-21T21:01:00.006-05:00

First of all, a very happy new year to everyone! I hope 2010 has been treating you alright so far. N is in India so you'll have to bear with my geeky posts for sometime now ;)

Things have been rather hectic over the last month and a half. But it has a lot of fun! N's sister flew in for her Christmas break. Then we also had a food-blogger friend visit us (who shall remained unnamed :P). N's friend from grad-school days also flew in. So a lot of people and tons of fun. Playing Charades, UNO, Clue, visiting the Coke Museum just to name a few. We also baked a couple of things...

OK that was a lame attempt to transition into the crux of this post but well, there is a reason why N writes the posts usually ;) I, on the other hand, asked her if Shakespere was British or American :D

I tried a banana bread when 8 hungry folks were having a ball chatting and playing games and it came out pretty well. But it wasn't eggless. We have a friend U, who always insists on eggless baking. Its not that she doesn't eat eggs. She feels a lot better if the same thing can be made eggless. After all the ravenous guests had left, I tried this banana bread on a whim and it came out super moist and very delicious. I have memorized a basic Dorie Greenspan muffin recipe and since then, I've been trying to make some breads by leaving out the eggs and throwing my own substituents in.

But honestly, I do not think that there are any real 'substituents' for eggs. I have immense respect for food bloggers who even take on Daring Baker projects and execute them superbly without eggs, but I really do think that there are no real 'substitutes' for eggs. Eggs act as binders, apart from imparting additional fat and moisture to the cake. Its the binding capabilities of the egg that makes it very unique. The addition of eggs gives the cake a certain sponginess and a texture that can't be matched otherwise. But it is certainly possible to make delectable cakes and loaves without adding eggs. At the risk of sounding immodest, here is one ;)

Ingredients

1 1/2 c all purpose flour

1/4 c cocoa powder

1/2 c milk (i used 2% reduced fat milk)

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

3 small to medium sized bananas, ripe

1 c sugar*

1/2 c semi sweet chocolate chips

1 stick (8 tbsp) butter

1 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla extract

* the amount of sugar really depends on how sweet the bananas are. The ones I had were not too sweet. You might want to add about 1/2-2/3 c first and then add extra if necessary.

1. Preheat oven to 350 F with a rack in the center.

2. Puree the bananas, 1/2 the sugar, vanilla and the milk in a blender or food processor. Strain out big chunks of bananas.

3. Melt the butter and the chocolate chips in a microwave or a double boiler. When everything turns into a uniform melt, add the remaining 1/2 c sugar and mix with a spatula. Let the mixture cool down for sometime until lukewarm.

4. Sift the dry ingredients in a separate bowl.

5. Add the sifted dry ingredients and the banana puree alternately into the bowl containing the chocolate melt, ending with the puree. I mixed the ingredients with a spatula rather well to make sure there were no lumps, but I didn't find it necessary to beat the ingredients.

6. Pour the batter into a greased medium size loaf pan (9" X 5", 2.75" deep).

7. Bake for ~30-40 mins. If you oven has a light, use it and do not open the door until you see cracks on top of the loaf. If your oven doesn't have lights, there is no need to open it for at least 25 mins. After that, check with a skewer every 5 mins. until it comes out clean.

8. Take the loaf pan out of the oven and let the loaf cool inside the pan for about 45 mins. I placed the loaf pan on a wire rack. At the 10 minute mark, I ran a knife along the borders of the loaf.

9. Run a knife across the edges of the loaf one more time at the 30 min. mark. You could remove the loaf from the pan and eat it but N and I had some errands to run so we ended up leaving the loaf in the pan to cool down completely.

The loaf was really moist and didn't have any 'doughy' banana spots in it. I haven't changed anything in the picture. I took simple ISO mode pics with Macro ON and under a regular tubelight/fluorescent lights with our digital camera in order to show the color of the loaf.

As a twist, you could thrown in 1/2 cups of chopped toasted pecans or walnuts. That'd be a killer combination! and as the case is with most cakes, it tastes better when eaten after a couple of hours. The flavors really develop by then. Some warm banana bread with a scoop of Vanilla ice-cream would be great too. Well, I'll let you guys figure out from here onwards ;)