The moments that make us wince!!!

When my daughter gets hurts and returns home, she tells me that she had an "ouchi ouchi" day. I realized today that fortunately or unfortunately for them, the ouchi ouchi is still almost always confined to physical rather than intangible issues.

Well, I had an ouchi ouchi moment earlier this week. I send someone some of my work, something that I thought was pretty good and then realized I had sent the wrong proofs... Most utterly embarrasing!!! I could confess, frankly at this point I do not know what is worse. So, I have decided to lick my wounds and start afresh!

This afternoon, I went shopping to the closest Shop Rite, among other things I stumbled into the international section. I was quite pleasantly surprised to see an Indian section containing real Indian spices and lentils. It was small but actually carried a mainstream Indian brand - Maya. I did try to find their website but for some reason had no luck. But I was excited, it is probably the most common question that I get in my classes. Honestly, I have to tell you the fewer stores that I have to travel too when doing my shopping the happier I am. Well I was out of besan and was happy to find it at the store.

To celebrate my delight I made some pakoras, very lightly spiced ones with the radish and the scallions I had in my refridgerator.

Scallion Radish Pakors - Radish and Scallion Tempuras with Chick Pea batter

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Serves 4

Ingredients

6 red radishes

1/2 cup scallions

1/2 red onion

Lots of freshly ground black pepper

3/4 cup besan or chickpea flour

1 tsp sea salt

1/2 tsp cumin seeds

1 cup water

2 tbsp freshly chopped cilantro leaves

Oil for frying

Method of Preparation

1. Thinly slice the radish.

2. Chop the scallions and the onions and toss with the radish and freshly ground black pepper.

3. Wisk the besan, salt, cumin seeds with the water to make a medium consistency batter.

4. Mix in the scallions, onions, radish and cilantro leaves.

5. Heat the oil and place tablespoonfuls of the mixture into the oil.

6. Cook for about 2-3 minutes and turn and cook for another 3 minutes.

7. Remove lightly and drain.

8. Serve with chutney and enjoy!

I am sending this entry to the this months edition of My Legume love affair the creation of Susan at the Well Seasoned Cook , that is being hosted this month by Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska, a blog that I like following!

Class Pictures 3-25

In times like this, I like my classes. I find their safety and familiarity comforting. I enjoy their creativity, I like the company of other people who enjoy food like me. This Sunday cheered me up. I think I am going to label Thursdays - Therapeutic Thursdays..

Some Pictures

Sweet Potatoes are good for you!!!

I love pototatoes in almost any form, recently however I was struck by a remark someone made mentioned that they used sweet potatoes in lieu of white potatoes, I had simply assumed that sweet potatoes being sweeter had some more sugar and a prettier color. Well, shows you what I know! Sweet Potatoes talk to your body very differently than regular potatoes and therefore result in a significantly lesser amount of blood and that pretty color is power packed with nutrition and most importantly my daughter loves sweet potatoes.

So, here is what I did with them, alu gobi fans , give this pretty dish a try!

Ginger Cumin Sweet Poatoes with Peas

Serves 6

Ingredients

1 large sweet potato, peeled and cubed

1/2 tsp red chili powder
1/2 tsp turmeric
1.5 tsp salt or sea salt

Olive oil cooking spray

2 tbsp olive oil

1/2 tsp cumin seeds

1 tsp freshly grated ginger

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp curry powder

1 large cup (about 1 head) of brocolli floretts

1/3 cup peas

Lime juice to sprinkle

Cilantro to garnish

Method of Preparation

1. Toss the sweet potatoes with the turmeric, chili powder and half the sea salt.

2. Drizzle with the olive cooking spray.

3. Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees, spread the potatoes in a baking sheet and bake for about 10 minutes on each side.

4. In the meatime, heat the oil and add the cumin seeds and ginger and cook for 2-3 minutes.

5. Add the curry powder and the brocolli and peas.

6. Cover the cooking pan and cook on low heat for 10 minutes.

7. Remove the cover and stir in the baked sweet potatoes and mix well.

8. Drizzle with lime juice and garnish with cilantro.

I recently found a website called contest cook, that mentioned a sweet potato contest being held by the NC sweet potatoes comission and I thought that this might a good recipe to send over.

I made some bread!

Gosh, I cannot actually believe I actually made some bread

that was quite nice. I do not bake, but I had bought this rye flour, which my children did not like made into rotis. My new commitment is to waste as possible. I have to tell you if I can stick to this very small rule, it shall be kinder to the earth, be conscious and caring to the wallet and in general make me more sensible about what I buy. Well, to use this rye flour I looked for some recipes, this one, seemed nice and simple. I did make some changes to it, but it worked out pretty well.

I actually made bread upama with the leftovers, will talk about that later.

Love and Potato Salad Pictures

I don't know if I am the only one, but I often feel that the results of the way we tend to take pictures is also reflective of the way we feel about the subject that we are photographing. My brother is an amazing photographer but cannot really understand the deal with taking food photographs. He loves good food, concentrating almost exclusively on the eating aspect of it. Well, this is his picture of a potato salad I made earlier this week. The salad was quite good despite the mediocre picture. It was lighter almost a hybrid between a classic salad and alu chaat and best of all takes very little time put together.

Valhalla Indian Potato Salad

Serves 4

Ingredients

4 potoatoes

1 lime

1 tsp sea salt

1 small red onion, diced

2 tsp mustard or olive oil

1/2 tsp cumin seeds

1/4 tsp mustard seeds

1 tsp minced garlic

A few curry leaves

1/4 cup light mayonaise

1/4 cup lowfat greek yogurt

1/3 cup chopped cilantro

Lots of black pepper

Method of Preparation

1. Wrap the potatoes in plastic cling wrap and microwave for 3-4 minutes.

2. Cool slightly and remove wrap peel and cut into chunky pieces.

3. Squeeze the lime juice and add the salt on the potatoes while they are still warm.

4. Mix in the onions.

5. Heat the oil and add the cumin and mustard seeds and garlic, when they begin to pop add the curry leaves and after a few seconds drizzle the spice infused oil over the potatoes.

6. Mix in the mayo and yogurt with the cilantro and mix well.

7. Grind lots of fresh pepper over the potatoes and enjoy!

As Easy as Pie

My personal contribution to these troubled times is to try to minimize the amount of food that I through out. Well, I hate to admit it, I do tend to buy food things very spontaeneously and as I have bemoaned earlier that the general tendency our stores have in that they sell us more that we really need, this tends to be bad in several ways,

1. Bad for the planet, yes once in a while I think about that.2. It can be bad for business, in that it turns off people who do not want quite so much.

Anyhow, I am so not a baker, baking for me is just too precise a culinary form for me. However, I think I have finally figures out the baking form that might cut it for me, with a little bit of help - making a pie. The little bit of help is the readymade piecrust. Well, the pie I am blogging about is my third exceedingly successful creation just this year and guess why the pies work for an experimental indian cook like me - they do not need to be exact. Now, I am sure the pie too have their challenges but not these once that I have tried. So here is a pretty good effort. I will confess however, what I used here will be most of the creadit for this dessert belongs to a lovely jam that I had found in the farmer's and is made by a company called Harvest Song.

So this is how I did this,

Pear and Apricot Pie

Serves Six

Ingredients

1 premade pie crust
2 bartlet pears
1 cup apricot jam
1/3 cup apricot nectar
2 tbsp butter

Method of preparation

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Cook the crust for about 10 minutes.
3. Thinly slice and core the pear (do not peel).
4. Arrange the pears around the pie shell in an overlapping circle.
5. Mix the jam, nectar and butter in a bowl and heat in the microwave or stove top till mixed.
6. Pour over the pears and bake for 30 minutes.
7. Serve warm.

Fruit of the refrigerator

Maybe everyone cooks and comes up with recipes this way, but it never ceases to surprise me when what my husband usually labels as "fruit of the refrigerator", turns out to be pretty decent. I do have misses, but I do not tell about them, for two reasons - look it takes time to post and do people really care about what did not work out..., not unless there is a moral or you know how to fix it. The first usually does not happen because because people thing the kind of ingredients that I combine to make food is plain weird anyway so if works they might be induced to try it and if it does not, well such is life.

Last night however was a major hit, the picture does not show the nice tomatoes but otherwise looks ok and this dish certainly made a quick party dish. What made this interesting was some bay scallops that I had bought but for some reason placed in my freezer, not a good thing to do to fresh fish. I thawed them and this worked well.

Cauliflower and bay scallops in a light cream sauce

Serves 4

Ingredients

2 tbsp olive oil

1/2 tsp cumin seeds

2 shallots, minced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 tsp freshly grated ginger

1/2 tsp crushed fresh red pepper

1/4 tsp turmeric

1/2 a head of cauliflower, cut into florets

1 tsp salt

1 tsp sugar

2 large ripe tomatoes, cut very finely (note this will be a somewhat liquid mass)

2 tbsp mustard oil or butter

1/2 lbs fresh small bay scallops

1/2 tsp fresh thyme

1/2 cup light cream

1/2 cup broth

1/2 tsp saffron

8-10 fresh cilantro leaves

Method of Preparation

1. Heat the oil and add the cumin seeds and cook till they begin to sizzle.

2. Add the garlic, ginger, red pepper, turmeric and the cauliflower and cook of low heat stirring frequently till the cauliflower begins to brown. (this takes about 10 minutes)

3. Add the salt, sugar and tomatoes and continue cooking.

4. Rub the mustard oil or butter on the scallops with the thyme and microwave on high for 2 minutes.

5. Mix this into the cauliflower with the cream and the broth and simmer for about 10 minutes.

6. Stir in the saffron.

7. Serve with rice garnished with cilantro.

Hands on Cooking Time?

It tends to be usually a fun layer added to daily cooking - the layer of taking photographs and then adding them to the blog. I do enjoy keeping the recipes in the blog, it is always fun for me to peek at an old recipe, this also tends to be helpful for me when I teach, it keeps me from re-inventing the wheel. I do sometime think that not all food photographs well, however quite often this plain looking tastes pretty good, this sometime detracts me from posting about the dish, I think I need to stop doing this.

This week, one of the dishes I made, yes when I had company was really great. It took a long time to cook, but about 30 minutes to assemble dinner. This gets me to one of the interesting elements of Indian Cooking, very often people get turned off when looking at the prep time or time taken to prepare a dish and get rather turned off. I think we should really be classifying recipes into categories of passive cooking time, (which would include things such as marinading, or like in the case of this recipe the time that was spent cooking by itself, versus active I am needed time).

Well, in anycase, this recipe marinated overnight and then cooked in the oven when I was out off the house for three hours and when I came back, I re-prepped this for 30 minutes and it was ready for dinner. I would actually highly recommend it for a weeknight, with just a little planning.

Masala Lamb Shanks

Serves 6

Ingredients

2 tbsp red chili pepper
1 tbsp salt
2 tsp turmeric
5 cardamoms
1 black cardamoms
1 large stick cinamom
1 tbsp cumin seeds
1 tbsp coriander seeds
1 tbsp whole blackpepper
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 cup coarsely torn cilantro leaves
1 large piece ginger
4-6 pods garlic
1-2 tomatoes
4 lamb shanks
Cooking Spray
1/3 cup yogurt
1/3 cup walnuts
1/3 cup raisins

Method of Preparation

1. Take all the dry ingredients - chili pepper to sugar and grind very finely, in a coffee grinder.
2. Place the vinegar, cilantro, ginger, garlic and tomatoes in a blender and grind into a purree.
3. Place the lamb, wet paste, dry spices in a zip lock bag and shake throughly and place in the refrigerator.
4. The next morning, tear a large piece of heavy duty aluminium foil and spray with the cooking spray and place the lamb and spices onto the foil and cover well.
5. Place in a 350 degrees oven and let this cook for 3 hours.
6. Cool the lamb.
7. Open the foil carefully and remove the bones from the lamb.
8. Place the meat and juices carefully in a casserole and stir in the yogurt, nuts and raisins and cook for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.
9. Serve with rice or salad or both!

Maple Basil Wings

There has been a lot going on, but in general this has been a good cooking week. I played around with a whole bunch of flavors. I had been shopping at Stews and was totally drawn to the herb section, they have a good selection of fresh herbs there, the only problem is that the amounts are a lot for most homes for a week of cooking, which is usually how long I feel fresh herbs stay "fresh" in my house. I sometimes feel that this is a general problem with a lot of things we buy, our packages tend to be supersized. I realized I have a yet to try anything that seems interesting ending up with hit or miss results, but still I so often wish there were smaller sizes of most things. Anyhow, last week I came home with this large bunch of this amazingly fragrant fresh basil. I used them in a somewhat different different combinaton, this turned out pretty good and the bonus was that my son LOVED it!

Note: This can be done with other chicken pieces as well.

This is my submission for the Blogger Aid children's cookbook project.

Flashworthy Alu Palak

A heavenly medley of tomatoes, potatoes and spinach.

Made this at a class, at the request of one of my students. It is one of my favorite recipes, it covers all the bases for a good weeknight recipe - it is healthy, it is comforting and pairs beautifully with most dishes actually makes a complete side since it works and both the vegetable and the carbohydrate.

What makes it practical is that I use a baby spinach mix - anything you find in the local store, Dole or Earthbound Farms usually works for me. These packages come tripple washed and all I need to do is through this into the cooking pot.

other variations, and tastes closer to a warm salad. Now, I told you we had this houseguest visiting us. He had been sitting on the table working on his laptop which was right oposite me cooking in the kitchen. I am so used to taking pictures while cooking, well, he suddenly sees the flash and the next thing I knew he was in the kitchen wanting to know what spice caused that effect...
I think I might have impacted this young scientist's thinking for life. Oh well, for what its worth he like the dish.


Alu Palak - Spinach, Tomatoes and potatoes

Serves 4

Ingredients

2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1 whole dried red chili crushed
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 tsp minced ginger
2 shallots chopped
1 potato peeled and cubed
2 tomatoes, coarsely chopped
1 16-oz package of baby spinach
1 tsp garam masala
1 tsp chopped cilantro

Method of Preparation

1. Heat the oil and add the mustard and cumin seeds and let them begin to sizzle and crackle together.
2. Add in the turmeric, salt, garlic and ginger and shallots and stir for about 2 minutes.
3. Add the potato and cook stirring occasionally till the potatoes are lightly browned and half cooked.
4. Add in the tomatoes and cook covered for about 5-7 minutes till the tomatoes are soft and pulpy and the potatoes are very soft.
5. Stir in the baby spinach leaves and cook for 2-3 minutes till the leaves are wilted and just cooked through.
6. Sprinkle the garam masala and cilantro and serve hot or at room temperature.

I am sending this over to Deepa for this months cooking with kids event, originally started by Sharmi .

This and that for the little one's birthday whims - Spicy Sweet Potato Fry Medley

What fasinates my daughter is unusual food, it is less that she wants to eat is as much as hear about the possibilities. She cannot handle a lot of spicy chili peppers but loves smelling fresh herbs and is a little nutty about lemon and lime. More often than not, once I complete a dish I have gotten programmed to adding chopped minced green chillies as a garnish or folding it towards the end. What I did with these potatoes was a shoestring crisp creation, drizzled with fresh lime juice and spinkled with some crushed roasted peanuts for crunch, they were so good..., now I had bought five of these potatoes, I have to figure out what to do with them.



Spicy Sweet Potato Fry Toss

Serves 4

Ingredients

3 sweet potatoes
1/3 cup good olive oil
2 tsp cumin seeds
1 tbsp freshly grated ginger
1 tbsp grated garlic
2 tsp salt
1 fresh lime
2 green chillies, minced
Lots of freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsp roasted powdered peanuts
1 tsp grated fresh coconut (optional)

Method of Preparation

1. Cut the sweet potatoes into thin matchstick/shoestring fry sized pieces.
2. Set aside.
3. Heat the oil and add the cumin seeds and ginger and garlic and cook for 3-4 minutes.
4. Heat the oven to 375 degrees.
5. Spread the sweet potatoes in a baking sheet without crowding them, do this in batches if needed.
6. Drizzle the oil over the potatoes taking care to fish out the cumin, ginger and garlic.
7. Cook for 13 minutes, turn and cook for another 5 minutes.
8. Bring out of the oven and toss with the salt and squeeze the lime juice over the fries.
9. Toss lightly with the remaining ingredients and enjoy!

Closing out the weekend with Comfort Food!

I find the combination of eggs and potatoes totally comforting. Paired with a good bread - indian such as luchis or just a nice crusty bread, I like whole wheat ciabatta's. Ah, well..

I made a good amount this egg curry friday night to close out the weekend. I had a lot of weekend cooking to do as we are going to have house guests all the way through the next weekend. My daughter turns six tomorrow - I cannot help wondering where are the years going.

Dimer Dalna - Egg Curry with shallots, potatoes and peas

Serves Six

Ingredients

8 hard boiled eggs
2 tsp red chili powder
1.5 tsp turmeric
2 tsp salt
1 large idaho potato
1/3 cup oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
2 tsp grated garlic
4 shallots, corsely chopped
2 tsp cumin-coriander powder
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tomato, chopped and pureed in a food processor with 1/3 cup lowfat yogurt.
1 green chily minced
1/2 cup frozen peas

To garnish

2 tbsp chopped cilantro
1 tsp sliced almonds
1 tsp shredded cheese

Method of Preparation

1. Boil the eggs till hard boiled.
2. Cool and shell the eggs.
3. Cover the eggs with half the turmeric, chili powder and salt.

4. Let this sit for 5-10 minutes.
5. Heat half the oil and add the eggs and cook till lightly browned.
6. Cover the potato with cling wrap and parcook in the microwave for 2 minutes.
7. Cool, peel and cut into cubes.
8. Drain the eggs on paper towels and set aside.
9. Add the remaining oil the pan and add the cumin seeds and garlic.
10. Cook briefly and add the shallots and cook lightly till translucent.
11. Add the potatoes, with the remaining salt, chili powder and turmeric and the black pepper, cumin-coriander powder and cook on medium heat stirring well for 10 minutes till the potatoes are well browned.

12. Add the tomatoes and peas and green chillies and cover and cook for another 10 minutes on low till the potatoes are very soft.
13. Cut the eggs in half.
14. Stir the eggs gently into the curry.
15. Garnish with the cilantro, almonds and the cheese.

Enjoy!

Leek and Tomato Soup with Lentils and White Beans

Back from vacation, it takes a while to get back into sync. I am still fighting jet lag. Today, I began with a soup that is more complex that what I usually do on weeknights, but well worth the effort. I paired this with some jalapeno and mushroom melts on a whole wheat baguette and we had one hearty dinner. I also managed to get out for a walk, the brisk cold air was really refreshing!



Leek and Tomato Soup with lentils and White Beans

Serves 4

Ingredients

2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
2 leeks, very thinly sliced (the whites and the tender greens)
2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 tsp red pepper
2 large tomatoes, coarsely chopped
1/3 cup chopped cilantro
4-5 basil leaves
2 tsp salt
1/4 moong dal
1/2 cup cooked white beans
1/3 cup lemon juice
2 tbsp black pepper
1/2 cup whole milk

Method of Preparation

1. Heat the oil and add the cumin and cook briefly.
2. Add the garlic and the leeks and cook on low heat to saute and brown the leeks.
3. The process takes a good 10 minutes, but is the only really lengthy aspect of this soup.



4. Add in the pepper and the tomatoes, followed by the remaining ingredients (except the milk) and 1 cup water.
5. Cook in a pressure cooker for 10 minutes.
6. Cool slightly and puree with milk.
7. Serve immediately with lots of black pepper, extra lemon and cilantro