Cooking&more

I tried my hand at baking cookies with fenugreek leaves for sankranthi. With both DH and me getting to be so health conscious, I decided to break away from the traditional deep fried crunchies or ghee filled sweets. I googled for methi biscuits and found this recipe on foodinthemain . I tweaked it a bit and added multigrain flour to make it more healthier. The biscuits didn't turn out to be as crunchy as I expected, but were soft and chewy like oatmeal cookies or little hot cakes. They were very flavorful with just the right hint of fenugreek Baked fenugreek Cookies 2 cups multigrain flour 2 bunches fresh fenugreek leaves 1/2 tsp carom seeds 2tbsp oil salt and chilli powder to taste. enough water for kneading In a frying pan, dry roast fenugreek leaves till they emit a nice odor. Take care not to burn them, to this add the flour,spices and enough water to make a stiff dough. shape into rounds and press gently between your palms to shape it like a cookie. grease a baking t...

Vegetable market in Jaipur: source-Internet Going vegetable shopping is an experience in itself, especially in India, where vegetable buying involves a lot of bargaining and hunting for the freshest produce.  A seasoned vegetable buyer would not only, know where she would get the best bargain,but also, the time at which the vegetables are likely to be  at their freshest. I have childhood memories of my mom, winding up her morning work, getting dressed and leaving for the vegetable market at around 11:00 am, so as to be in time for the fresh produce, which were invariably being offloaded from gigantic trucks as we entered the market She always carried with her a small purse with a pocket for notes and another for coins, and another bag folded neatly to fit in the purse, for the groceries. (recycling years before it became fashionable). She had her own favorites among the vendors, and they in turn recognized her and gave her a special discount over the vegetables. later ye...

One of the best things about being married, is that after a point of time, when the dust over cultural and behavioral differences settles down, and you finally work out the non zero sum game of ‘who gets the remote, when’ and ‘who does what, when’, that’s the time, when you start imbibing the best of each other’s qualities, As my husband, always very modestly acknowledges that he  learnt the art of spending from me, In passing, let me mention that me and DH are a great team, He is excellent at finding ways to earn money, and I pride myself on being an excellent spender One thing I have imbibed from DH, who is an absolute health food freak, is the art of cooking healthy. So much so, that most recipes are tampered and tinkered with, till they are far more nutritious than the original. So here is one more such recipe. The original recipe asked for carrot slices to be deep fried and then tossed in a cream sauce made of all purpose flour, butter, milk and lots of cheese. Very tempt...

I am someone who absolutely loves crunchy munchy stuff. I can have it with breakfast, lunch and dinner, and of course with tea. Of late, since coming back to India, and not having my trusty range at my disposal here, my experiments with cooking have come down drastically. I have a teeny weeny tabletop OTG here, which is nowhere close to the real thing. Moreover temps are in Celsius and most recipes give temps in Fahrenheit. What’s the problem you say? Why can’t I just convert to Celsius and continue? But how can you be sure you are using the right temperature, when the recipe asks for 400 degrees Fahrenheit, which converts to 204.44 degrees Celsius, and your oven has temps marked as 100-180-200 and so on. So generally speaking, I'm not as cook-happy nowadays. But today I just craved for something crunchy, something flaky, something fresh baked and something that would be a perfect accompaniment to my cup of tea – Homemade khari biscuits. I took the recipe mainly from Tarla dal...

  Like most mothers of preschoolers, it’s a daunting task to get my child to have his apples, spinach and beans, when he would rather have pizza, cake and candy. But  of late I am beginning to learn that with a little planning and preparation I can coax  him away from unhealthy eating habits. I guess these tips could be of use to any mom hassled with a fussy preschooler. So this is my new found knowledge shared with the World at large Most kids have three basic food cravings craving for something sweet craving for something crunchy craving for something starchy Craving for sweet leads kids to demand chocolates, cakes, pastries etc. craving for something crunchy leads to demands for potato wafers and craving for starchy foods leads to demand for burgers and pizza.  Some simple steps outlined below can help tackle each of these basic cravings 1. Always have fruits stocked in the refrigerator. chopped mix of fruits, arranged in a colorful bowl with a dash of hon...

Most of my blog posts are about food and how I love experimenting with different cuisines and trying out different exotic dishes, so that anyone reading my blog would easily assume that me and my kitchen are the best of friends, Which fact, would be true, when I am cooking something special and blog worthy. But most of the days when I have to juggle dealing with a demanding three year old, clearing up last minute clutter by the time hubby arrives from office and cooking, even the simplest of stir fry's can seem like a five course meal. Its during those times that I want my kitchen and equipment and ingredients to rally around and co-operate, and its exactly those times that they all decide that a mutiny is in order. Times when, I decide to go all healthy and cook potato fry with only two teaspoons of oil and the potato starts sticking to the pan mid way,and the only way I can bail out the dish is by adding two tablespoons more of oil and frying it on a high flame, at the end of w...

  Last week I travelled the Mumbai-Hyderabad route by train with DH and son. It was a route I had taken many times before as a kid. So obviously it was one full of memories. Memories of playing silly paper games with my siblings, of snuggling down in the topmost berth with two paper backs-one to read, and one just incase, of looking at the various streams, rivers and trees pass by, of looking forward to the double engine being added at Karjat station, because it meant that we would be travelling through scenic locales of Lonavala and Khandala, and most of all the food. Food on a train has a charm of its own.  The culinary journey begins as soon as the train rolls out of the station.Cries of ‘chaaai-kaffi-kaffi-chaai’ are heard, as men balancing gigantic steel drums with taps in one hand,and a tower of paper cups in another enter your compartment as a wonderful aroma fills up the place. Even if you’ve just had a heavy lunch, you couldn’t possibly resist the lure of the pippi...