Cooking&more

It's 9:40 pm, kiddos asleep, dinners over, dishes are washed and stacked away. Kitchen counter is spotless and I'm free free free :-). This time is what I like to call my "me time"- time to relax, unwind and enjoy one of my favorite "me time" activities.  One day it could be pouring over recipes from different blogs and dreaming about making them some day. Many a recipe I have tried out has it's source in this pastime of mine. Another quirk of mine is I never look at a recipe and say. "okay, I'm going to buy all the stuff I need and make this recipe tommorow." I prefer to wait patiently for our weekend shopping trip and buy the ingredients. Sometimes if the recipe calls for exotic stuff that I normally wouldn't use, then I would sit on it for months. Day dreaming about it, planning the recipe out to the last detail, but I would still hesitate to buy the ingredients. Then finally one day I would summon up enough courage to buy the ingred

Made Bhareli Mirchi last week. Seeing the recipe for Bhareli Mirchi on one hot stove, brought back memories of my college days, where we would share our lunch boxes. A Maharashtrian girl in our group would bring this dish sometimes and we would eagerly look forward to it. So seeing the recipe made me want to try it out myself. Went to the grocery store and bought jalapeno peppers and made them the very next day. One small change I made to the original recipe is, I added about 1/2 tsp sesame seeds and 1/4 tsp saunf to the tempering Bhareli Mirchi 6-8 Jalapeno peppers 1 cup chopped cilantro 1 cup besan Salt to taste Red Chilli powder to taste Dhaniya jeera powder a pinch Oil for stuffing 2 tbsp oil for sauteeing wash and slit peppers leaving ends intact. Deseed and keep aside. In a bowl combine cilantro, besan, salt, red chilli powder and dhaniya jeers powder with enough oil to form fists. Stuff this mixture in the peppers.Finally in a pan heat 1 tbsp oil. Add

DS hid my peeler, and to share a guilty secret, I absolutely don't know how to peel with a knife. In the weekend DH bailed me out. Later I borrowed a peeler from the neighbour. But midweek I realized I had to make something that wouldn't need a peeler. Opening the refrigarator I saw a tomato and a big block of paneer, I knew I had onions and, that there was a bag of peas sitting in the freezer. Now, I know (humble, lowly, novice cook as I am) that tomatoes, onions, peas and paneer make a great combination. So I decided to make, what else, Paneer with creamed peas. Psst!! Another secret, there is no absolutely no cream in this recipe. Paneer with creamed peas 1/2 tsp Jeera/cumin seeds 1 cardomom 2 pepper corns 1 Block of paneer (12 oz appx) 2 tomatoes 2 medium sized onions 1/2" piece Ginger grated 3-4 garlic flakes/1-2 garlic cloves minced 2 tbsp cashew almond mix ( recipe below) 2-3 pieces of pineapple diced (optional) 1/2 cup green peas 2 tsp salt or to taste 1/4 tsp chil

Coconut chutney is the usual accompanient with idlis. But, at my in-laws place i learnt this unique and tasty recipe for a chutney with roasted peanuts and pudina. It goes very well with idlis, upma or any kind of dosas. Roasted peanuts and pudina chutney 1 cup peanuts 1 bunch pudina leaves (seperated from stem) 4-5 green chillies (slit vertically in half) 1 tsp salt or to taste 1/8 tsp tamarind paste For tempering 1/4 tsp mustard seeds/rai 1/4 tsp cumin seeds/jeera 2 red chillies asefotedia Dry roast the peanuts in a kadhai. keep them aside in a plate to cool. In the meanwhile, heat about 1/2 tbsp oil in the same kadhai and saute the pudina leaves and green chillies until the leaves darken a bit. Take care that the leaves don't become too dark. They should still retain their original green color. Grind the roasted peanuts, pudina and chillies along with salt and a little tamarind paste dissolved in water. The chutney should be the consistency of a thick porridge. Finally for the t

It's been a while since I got round to posting. I was so busy playing hostess that didn't get round to blogging. Who was my guest you ask? Well, it was the cold virus. I really don't know why it chose our humble abode for it's visit for we surely did nothing to invite it, but it came nevertheless and our entire household was held in it's sway. All three of us, DH, my son and me were down with bad colds, and if it were not for really kind neighbours who sent up meals for us, things would have been very difficult indeed. So after all that convalescing and not having any mood to do any cooking, and turning up bland, insipid stuff, today I decided to shake off  the listlessness and made mango pickle. I made the pickle in small quantities as it wont stay for more than 2 weeks. although, ours generally gets over much before that.   Mango pickle 2 raw mangoes 2-3 tsp salt 4-5 tsp chilli powder 3-4 tbsp  pickle masala (recipe below) 1-2 cups sesame oil or any vegetable oil

This is one dish that really celebrates the culinary diversity between my moms place and my inlaws place. Both my mom and mother in law have their own patented recipe for this dish and both taste equally yum. My moms recipe calls for stuffing the eggplant with a mix of powdered dals and spices, whereas my MIL's recipe uses a stuffing made of fried and pureed onions. Either way it's a perfect dish for the maincourse when guests arrive, and goes great with both rice and rotis. And what is more it's really quick to prepare with a microwave Guttivankaya koora (a la moms recipe) 10-12 medium sized eggplants take care to choose all of similar size for the stuffing 1 cup channa dal 1 cup urad dal 1 tbsp dhania salt to taste 2 tsp chilli powder Dry roast the dals and dhania. Cool and grind to a fine powder mix salt and chilli powder into dal mixture. Adjust for taste. Next make a deep cross on each eggplant to create a hollow for stuffing the mixture. Stuff the mixture in each eggp

Whenever someone mentions roasted eggplant, the first thing that comes to mind is Baingan Bartha. But one of the frst dishes I learnt to prepare at my inlaws, was a dish with roasted eggplant which is extremely simple to prepare and finger licking good. So continuing with my theme of eggplant based dishes here's the recipe. 1 large eggplant 2-3 green chillies 1 medium sized onion 1/8 tsp Turmeric powder 1/4 tsp Chilli Powder Salt to taste For Tempering 1 Tbsp oil 1/4 tsp channa dal 1/4 tsp urad dal 1/4 tsp mustard seeds 1/4 tsp Cumin seeds 1-2 dried red chillies pinch of asefotedia Roast the eggplant on an open fire. (Roasting it on hot charcoals will enhance the flavor of the dish). Place it in cold water, peel, mash and keep aside. In a frying pan, add oil, channa dal and urad dal, once dal starts turning reddish brown, add the cumin seeds and mustard seeds, once mustard seeds start to pop, add the red chillies and asefotedia, then add onions,green chillies, salt and turmeric po