Ladled

There's nothing like finding a solution to a problem you have faced. Some time ago I struggled with softening hardened brown sugar. If I had access to page 13 of What Einstein Told His Cook , I would have known the reasoning. Until then some easy and some difficult tips . 10.15.11 have the book now. The author suggests putting the sugar in a tight lidded container, covering it  with a plastic wrap, then placing a damp paper towel on top ans seal it for a day. Other things I learnt from the book: Instant noodles  are deep fried, so they can retain shape.

Man Ray's creation A critic compared The Slave Ship  to "a cat having a fit in a platter of tomatoes." - What the Great Ate

About Jackson Pollock "He was very fastidious about his baking - marvelous bread and pies," said his wife, Lee Krasner."He also made a great spaghetti sauce." - What the Great Ate Henri Matisse could cook three different kinds of onion soup, a popular dish in Northeastern France, where he grew up . - What the Great Ate Even regular chefs can miss the traditional cheese topping on the French onion soup.

While going through a post on French idioms  related to cooking, I wanted to write one such too. The one that first comes to my mind is ulli chesina melu thallaina cheyadu, onion does more good than mom. I dont like raw onions. Raw onions are had as salad in North India. They are had along with lime juice while eating non-vegetarian food in Telangana. They are also used in perugu chutney . I have mostly had this in weddings. Other foods that I associate with weddings is Spinach with Chanal Dal left whole instead of mashed. As a child I have seen elders in villages have small white onions along with buttermilk. Those onions were not agreeable but I wonder why they still had them. On onions: "I don't like food that talks back to you after you've eaten," Chanel said. - What the Great Ate When it comes to food talking theres an idiom in Hindi kal ke chole aaj ko bhole about chole announcing themselves flagging the end of digestion. But so do onions. Actors and...

All kids love icecream and chocolate. You might say except one and each person might know just one person who doesnt like them. Given the popularity of icecream, if I am in the vicinity of kids, I will break into icecream making. Between icecream and hot beverages, I will opt for the hot stuff but recently I did have tutti frutti ice cream . Its a great flavour.

On our train trips mom often packed Pulihora Judith Choate  calls Macaroni and Cheese, a great traveler in her book A Readers Cookbook . Maple-Mustard sauce in this book piques my tongue. Garlic Almonds doesnt. Pollo borracho Cranachan Pissaladiere Liberian coconut bread This bread needs coconut water. Although I can find canned ones, I want to use a fresh coconut for this. Today at Safeway I walked by Zico coconut water . In the last month, I have offered some coconuts to God and each was an experience. Once I broke the coconut and forgot to save the coconut water. Another was so tender that I ate it even before it could get home. One turned rot and thats believed to be a good thing. Ma'amoul Dal Pancakes . I happened to have Patoli  for lunch today which requires yellow split peas to be soaked. I should have soaked them longer for the dish to be more palatable. Yesterday a colleague of mine passionately recalled  dal puri  being made in Caribbe...

The menus in Comfort Table  come with a playlist. I am reminded of MasterChef Australia  where in the contestants had to prepare  a dish that would mimic the sin they chose. nutella french toast sandwiches  fits gluttony. There's a recipe for oysters on the half shell with mignonette sauce. I looked for the mignonette sauce but that didnt follow. I forgot all about the word until I came across it in Near a thousand tables: a history of food . Mignonette  is also a ship with a history and consequences to law.

Reading the story of baba au rhum  in What Great Ate , I am reminded of the pineapple upside down in custard sauce served on Qatar airways flight.

The Art of Eating In spruce up muffins with almond custard tartsh with leftover muffin crust  recipe Taktouka Caipirinha I once made pistachio cupcakes using club soda and hadnt used all of it. Heres a good  pancakes  recipe that would have prevented the soda from staying in the fridge for nothing.

I have always given ariselu  the high brow. I saw them as these hard goodie for nothing. Recently, I had fresh ariselu at my relatives and I realised how I was in the bland (forgive my replacement for 'in the dark' in food context) all the while by not having them as soon as they were made. Now I can feel the taste of the rice in it or is it because I know what goes into it.

I caught some of Kunal's Foodie show episodes  on Qatar Airways flight. In an episode in Delhi, the blackboard had a list of parathas of which parath parantha  (also called 16 layer paratha) and khurchan paratha  (sorry for just a line reference) caught my eye. But Khurchan is  not all sweet . I like crisp samosas, but for those who like flaky puffs there's Japani samosa .                                                     On the same flight I enjoyed the mixture of food and art in  Eating art  by  Oliver Peyton . The snacks of broad beans and other things had me want another packet of it. Just what my neighbor was thinking too. Lunch had kumara  in it. Never heard of it.  ...

Bawarchi  is busy even at 11 in the night. A family arrived at that hour so non-chalantly like it were 3 in the afternoon. I tried chicken biryani and mutton biryani there. Mutton biryani was more steeped in the masala than the chicken biryani. In my favorite pastime of looking for new items on the menu, I found Chicken Reshmi .

About seven years ago, I had a snack called Khandvi . I am not a fan of the taste but the procedure looks interesting.

I attended a wedding today and had Qubani ka meetha . Its too sweet for me. Friends at masters college touted this dish as the ultra Hyderabad thing, so had to check out the deal.

Today I had  a yummy breakfast, Appam . I have heard of it before but had it for the first time.

In a cooking show on TV, maa voori vanta chutney was made using nalleru kaada, botanically called Cissus quadrangularis .

Yesterday I visited relatives in Andole . I was served what they called Avisa podi . Turns out its a powder made from Flax Seeds . 2.15.16 Finally I made Avisa podi with V iva labs Organic Ground Flax seed.  All I had to do was add some red chili powder and salt. I was all set to have this new mixture as a healthy side for various dishes like dosa, idli. You can add peanut powder too.

For dinner, I had stopped at a eatery and decided to have a dosa. A word 'Gutchi appeared many times on the menu. I am not sure if this is what I'm looking for: guchi

On a wintry day, after darshan at  Tuljapur and a exploratory stop at  naldurg fort , food sounded great. At a roadside dhaba, one dish on the menu that caught my attention: ambada bhaji After seeing how comlicated it is, I wish I had tried it.

That can be a rough draft for a definition of heaven. Even though I have been to one and found the food not much worth talking about, still the idea of a Thai buffet 'arouses my senses' like chuao  wishes to. Once the two tables were joined for a party of five, we were still two steps away and the waiter asked us about our drinks. How do waiters remember the orders? Especially if we are in a jumble with no 'fixed by seating' advantage. The order was easy enough. He just had to remember that one girl had ordered water. My colleague liked that the lemon tea was unsweetened. I shy away from noodles and pasta as I do not want to have the whole of the serving. But a buffet is a good place to try just enough. I enjoyed pad thai and should hit myself for wanting a local freshly made noodles store to have the sweet and sour variety instead of basking in the glory of its kitchenivity. I had Thai omelette and liked it and couldnt say if I liked it because I like omelette. That ...

My Year of Meats Mens Japanese

My soul food these days is freshly made chapathi, soaked in lentils.

The Hunger Cappicola mortadella speck bresaola ficelle Huitlacoche poissonnier - fishmonger Hijiki Branzini Mizuna e-fu Tumbleweed

Malvern pudding in The Stone Diaries

in The Green Kitchen Silicone baking mats. Yan Kit so Marcella Hazan Barbara Kafka Fergus Henderson

Thats in your tomatoes, says Mary ann Esposito in Ciao Italia . Carbonara is coal miners style. Hot Red Pepper Pesto. Black olive sauce.

Apple Serenata, a dessert at Spinato's has a flame roasted fuji apples baked on a crispy crust with loads of vanilla bean gelato on it. After some shoveling, when you get to the bottom of the dessert, what you have is the crust soaked in melted icecrem now soft. Its the same texture that I like when puris are soaked in tea. Why does food texture play such a role? I prefer thicker noodles as I tend to pick flavor of the noodles better. Yesterday, I had ultra thin Sevai noodles, but the food escaped me. Kind of like it went into the blind spot of my taste buds and skipped evaluation. In industrial zones, you need a permit to sell wine. Roma Cannoli cream. Calzone stuffed with sphagetti reminded me of the recent craze of spaghetti on tacos. 10.25.10 Having had the vermicelli kind of noodles at a Thai Buffet, these were a tad thicker than sevai but very long. does the sense of continuity alter the taste?

For a year or so, I had lunch at a company where the Chef was Kashmiri. That was my fascination for picking this book Chef. Chef's main character likes Sandhurst curry . I have never heard of this one. The beginning reminded of a picec I heard on npr . Kebab Nargisi , Karam ka saag , gongloo, Gushtaba Chenar tree Kagzi almonds Chicken Yakhni Navratan Paneer Kakori Wagah Biryani Tarami plates An idea worth pursuing is chickpeas with Artichoke Jerusalem.

I was looking at Korean street food and came across a pan with red sauce and pasta like things in it. It was called rice cake, which didnt quite seem like it. Its clearer with the recipe for Ddukbokkie . The key being 'tubes of rice cakes'. I think I am becoming a window shopper of food, even online.

Twains feast has the author Andrew Beahrs recreate what Twain craved for after a long trip in europe. Porterhouse Steak. Juliet Carson Horseshoe toast Aunt Babette Mary Newton Foote Henderson Does anyone know why caramel cakes are making appearance at all grocery stores at the same time? Had apple crumb muffins from costco. Even before eating it, I knew it was soft. I was holding it to cut the jumbo and I was amking indentations in it, it was queasy like holding a living thing. I have had 3/4 of the jumbo nut muffin before going for Havasupai hike. Louis Jolliet a French explorer in IL, was fed Sagamite . Teligbo from Benin. Martha McCulloch Williams Baked milk, Margarettes , Potatoes Lyonnaise , a samp recipe, Macaroni and Apricots from Rufus Estes . Old cookbooks do not have measurements. Paul Laurence Dunbar's poetry Edna Lewis The recipes in the old cookbooks call for loaf sugar . Scolloped tomatoes from Eliza Leslie . 'Throw it away' is the last thin...

Cuisine foundations is a fun book with step by step pictures on the many ways to cut vegetables. I love Brunoise. I will try Batonnet Ciseler seems so cool. Macedoine is like sugar cubes. Parisienne is hot Bouquet garni . I am at loss for words.

Cooking for friends is yet another Gordon Ramsay's cookbook. Mrs Beeton Alnwick soup sorrel soup whiting fillet brochette Beef olive pared lemon and oraange zest in pulav. retro menu Cannon of Lamb - I learn of the cannon bone. Fennel and Onions Ramsay says have silimar quaities: Both become tender,sweet, and mellow when cooked, and caramelizing them helps to bring out their natural sugars. This explains the choice for fennel in polelu. Dark chocolate marquise Bakewell tart. I havent seen cookbooks with pictures of same dish served in many plates.

When I read of Broccolini this morning, it did not register as a new vegetable. I saw celery root and horseradish too. Mini peppers. chuckle Potato fingerlings.

Reading Badger Clark's poem ridin', I am reminded of Nopales. I have not had this yet.

I have not had artichokes much. There are many recipes for asparagus, artichokes in Mediterranean vegetables . This book is a James Beard winner. Cuisine foundations book had a step by step picture of cutting an artichoke in three pages. But that was two variations. Still it is a one and a half page for one kind of it. I am glad I bought only one artichoke. I started peeling it and I almost got to the centre of it and found it heartless. Disappointed, I made a curry out of it. It is above average. Just some part of it has the lemongrass texture. The tender ones agree more with my taste buds. I need to learn to pick chokes with hearts. Jerusalem Artichoke.

A restaurant that has a seasonal menu. Hot and Hot Fish club

This book Food, Ecology and Culture starts with a study on diet of Tasaday people. Robin Hemley in 'The Loneliness of the Long_distance Writer' tells how he took a break after an intense personal book to research and write on this hoax. The rest of the book looses its credibility for me.

At Whole Foods I had Chicken Marbella . I wonder if Chicken Marengo in The Good Home cookbook is anything good like it. Chicken Kiev. Chicken Divan. When a colleague got this for a potluck I misheard it as Chicken Divine. Spaetzle reminds me of a sweet dish that my neighbor made during my childhood. She cooked rolled wheat dough tortillas cut into diamond shape in water with sugar and cinnamon. It reminds me of Kubba from the Iraqi cookbook too. Noodles with cabbage. Saffron is the stigma from the fall-flowering crocus flower. Beets in orange sauce. According to Richard J Perry, unlike spoonbread, corn pudding doesnt contain any cornmeal, so the texture is smoother. On the other hand, it is not as light because the egg whites are not beaten seperately. Okra is a member of the same family as hibiscus and cotton. Cooking Okra with acidic ingredients, in this case tomatoes, complements the slippery texture of this vegetable. Peach Honey Butter. I saw caramel frosted yellow cakes at Fry...

is what Nigella calls her way of coming up with recipes like Pumpkin and Goat's cheese Lasagne in Nigellas Christmas cookbook. Prosecco and Pomegrante Gelatin Chestnut soup Chestnut chocolate pots cornflake wreaths

While there are books that are all about just one ingredient like Flavored oils and vinegars there are others that are about a gamut of things. Everything Pizza cookbook has recipes for all the kinds of pizza that there can be with different crusts, sauces, cheeses, toppings. Smoked Salmon Pizza, Polenta Pizza. Cooking for engineers Tasso Ham . When I read that Tasso is also the name of an Italian poet, I wanted to point to his work too. I looked for it but found it in prehistoric language. It so happens that I am reading poems about horses and recognised Tasso's name beneath his poem translated. Second paragraph has life infused in it with equine motions. Another poem that I like in this collection is 'New Foal' by Ted Hughes.

Morocan flatbread in this book has 2tsps salt for 4 cups flour. Thats so normal compared to the one I made last with 4 tsps. Sourdough starter with pineapple juice, I cannot imagine how that will be. To know of more breads lets see what Mary Karlin has to say of breadmaking in Wood Fired cooking Grilled Cilantro Mint naan. Romesco sauce.

Gordon Ramsays maze has a recipe for corn sorbet. Arbroath smokie Zucchini flowers. Candied Eggplant. Lychee Granita. The chocolate souffle recipe uses egg yolks too. Parmesan icecream. Basil sorbet. Pineapple carpaccio. Black olive caramel. Chocolate Moelleux. Pistachio Sabayon. sable (sandy - Isle of Sable - Sandy Island from 'Unruly Places') cookies. Loch duart salmon Chocolate paper made from creme patissiere by baking for 7-8 min on a silicone lined baking sheet. For creme patissiere I would like to use Julia Child's recipe.

carrot cake cookies. Chipotle butter. Coconut butter. Cat cora's classics elaboration for vinegar being one part acid(lemon juice) and three parts oil is a break from the chemical vinegar. I have had herb butter at Red Sage. Combos always surprise me. I dont like butter by itself, but peanut butter or herb butter do it for me. Same with cheese spread. When they have chipotle or nuts and sugar in it, I like them. Amatriciana Guanciale Angostura bitters

When I read of the Sourdough bread in Bread and Sweetrolls, I was scared to leave the milk out to spoil it. Afraid that the Arizona heat will decompose the milk. I will wait until winter, then I know that it is a natural process. Yesterday I wanted to make Eastern Mediterranean flat bread from Mediterranean Clay pot cooking . It called for a starter, which means I had to wait till today. Sponge. I read that it is made with equal parts water and bread and some yeast. This recipe calls for 1/2 proportion of water to bread. Wonder how it will figure in the bread making. When I took the sponge out to mix, I was tickled at the consistency of the sponge. This recipe calls for a 500F. Now I have never gone that high before. With so much wait time in between of 2 hours while the yeast is let to do its charm, what do boulangers do? I was reading 'Writing creative nonfiction' edited by Carolyn Forche and Philip Gerard. Back to the oven, I reduced some times by few minutes. It being the f...

Well, agreed I took the first part of the title from a pasta book. Tyler Florence in Stirring the pot calls for a triangle arrangement of working station,stove and cabinets. My work area is a L shape, with cutting space next to the stove. This book has a very magazine feel with its colour and varying font. Roll popovers in caramel. An enthusiast has tried many or may be all recipes from this book. I will stick to caramelized onion and roasted rosemary focaccia.

As early as two generations ago, cooking in rural India was done in earthern ware, so Clay pot cooking is not unheard of. But I have never heard of cooking in an Amphora . Last reference with such shaped vessel is a stork serving dinner in it as a retaliation for being served food in a plate. I have made Eastern Mediterranean flatbread from this book.

I made popovers with the previous recipe in muffin pan. I had distributed the batter into 12 pockets. The batter must have been at a border amount, where the steam was enclosed within the popover on the sides but naked at the bottom. When I removed them, I stuffed them with grilled vegetables for lunch. No complaint of not being done. I much like this idea. Bakign for 35 minutes was enough insted of the 50 min for custard cups. While washing the pan, I was reminded of a game we used to play as kids.

I just read of Strozzapreti(strangled priest) in Urban Italian and now I hear of it on npr . Urban Italian book has an interesting story for amaretti, introduces us to ramps

Michal Haines book The Spice Kitchen has recipes that include spice mixes like Rempah from Indonesia, Mussaman from Thailand, Hawayji from Yemen, Chermoula from North Africa. That is some globe trotting for food. Nigella is a spice too. Olive oil wafers. What is a Madras Feijoa used to make chutney?

It is possible with rachel Allen's Favorite food at home . I like her Muffleta recipe too.

Emeril has a recipe for 'Cilantro Pesto' in Farm to fork . I have made cilantro with yogurt and I liked it. I buy this idea. Shirred eggs. Now I used to think that all my math teachers had good English. I have to form a new myth about chefs vocabulary. Opal Basil. Cheese salt. With so many salts, 'namak haraam' has to get more specific. Escarole salad. Gremolata. Pickled water melon. So with green beans. onions. okra. If you know tres leche- three kinds of milk, getr eady for the triple chocolate - unsweetened, semi sweet, bitter sweet. Arugula flan. I didnt know that flan could be savory. When I look at stuffed figs and stuffed artichokes, I wonder if the way to eat them is easy?

Meat seems to be present in many Iraqi dishes. I have not heard of cooking wheat with meat(Ash or Bormat Mosul, Hasreesah). (11.4.2011 - Hyderabadi haleem  is one such preparation. I have never had it. I hear that there are vegeterian versions of it too) Samoon, Iraqi Cookbook says is 'boat-shaped bread with two crispy button-shaped ends'. It reminded me of Georgian Khachapuri . Boiled sweetened turnip takes me to yesterday's conversation with a colleague about purple yam dessert. Baidh mashwee or baked eggs in tomatoes is like one of the dishes on npr . Eggs can be baked in mashed potato too. I saw a dish with bright red tomatoes and yellow of the eggs in a book on Istanbul. I do not like that combination in a curry. It might be agreeable in other preparations. Analysing egg combinations, how would Tamriyya haneeney (eggs with dates) be? Kubba, a shell made from rice flour, boiled rice, mashed potato or cracked wheat seems an interesting thing to stuff things with. P...

I tried Fudgy Souffle cake with warm turtle sauce from 'Cooking Light Annual Recipes 2001'. I made them in custard cups, so decided to bake for 25 instead of 35 min. It was not enough time and we would missed the amazing puff that the cakes got with the next 10min baking. After we admired a little the show was off and they went back in. My home attempt of caramel was a flop. My roomate saved me in time with smuckers. And when I didnt like the raw pecans and then tasted the toasted pecans. There is no reason to have raw nuts. The inside was very soft. Great joy all in all.

I made this for my friends bday. The recipe was from womans day .

These were made from Betty Crockers Mix. I was very taken with the canned blueberries that came with the mix. The following picture reminds me of the Metal wire monkey mother of Harlow's experiment. 12.3.2009

So you should already know the sweet and breadrolls book if you have already read of the popovers. I have planned on making bread for a long time. A detour of popovers and finally I'm aqui. From the same book, I tried this Cuban bread and enjoyed making the slits in the bread. Like a surgeon. I still have to get the proofing right. The actual recipe reading takes place in real time. I was reading about the bread on the web and when I came across the lines about how it is different from a French bread in that it is left to rise after shaping the loaf, I was worried that my Cuban bread would lose its nationality. Turns out that I hadnt progressed that far into the recipe. The Best American travel writing 2008 Khubz al arabi

dough. I was showing my friend this picture of how a tartlet crust is made. Last night I dreamt of a tartlet crust with intricate design.

Macaroon. Macaron. Not the same thing. The first time I heard of macaroons was at a get together. Food talk seems bland and incomplete without a picture, hence the effort.

Tired from the day, I wanted to make a bread quickly. I picked Breads and Sweetrolls cookbook for this purpose. Its a thin book but it is all business. This is the firstbook where I saw a simplified sketch of a picture of different kind of breads, with only outline and numbers within, followed by a legend. I didnt believe the popover recipe that it requires only eggs, flour, milk and salt. I heard of them from a lady who works at the apartment office. Few minutes into the oven, they rose. The recipe called for 400F for 50 min. I was skeptical about it. The inside seems not so well done. since this is a harmless set of things to work with, I can experiment with muffin pans and starting with a higher temperature and reducing it over the next half to see if the inside cooks well. Fun experiment with no guilt involved.

I am planning a Mega Meal on saturday for my friends. I chose the following recipes. Beerakaya pesarapappu kootu Dondakaya Kobbari Vepudu Tomato Nuvvula Pachadi Beerakaya Kothimira Pachadi Kothimira Perugu Pachadi Tomato Perugu Pachadi Moong dal payasam Gaajar ka doodh Vankaya Pachi pulusu This is the wish list. Lets see how it goes. PS: 9/19 A visit to the grocery store, changed the course. I could not find Dondakaya. I should have looked for it in frozen, but that wouldnt do it for me. The night before some more recipes seem interesting. Given so many choices, it is quite an accomplishment to choose. You are hearing from a person who buys a like dress in all the colors available. that should be apparent from the above list of two pachadis, two perugu pachadis. Sense prevails. In the end I made Egg biryani and chose to make the remaining stuff on another day. I have liked the softness of moong dal as a child. It feels good to reproduce that taste. Its the melting golden dal. I have b...

Its German chocolate cake time here. I was going to use Original german sweet chocolate recipe . I couldnt find non-non-fat plain buttermilk in safeway. I had to go with a recipe that would allow yogurt. This recipe after the good experience with chocolate cake from it, had me at my tails end. I was overwhelmed with the proportions. Mixing it was more than a handful. I made a sheet cake instead of a round cake. I have heard of it but didnt believe it that it is made in cookie sheets. I enjoyed reading baking book which had loads of pictures of creative baking techniques.

I havent heard of sour cream as garnish for soups until this The Russian Heritage Cookbook Kovrizhka sand cake mazurek kulich bulochki lepeshka khvorost prianiki ponchiki aratun trubochki paskha kissel zapekanka gurevskaia kasha zapekanka charlotka kutia

From yesterday's cookbook, I had selected Orange Chiffon cake, Applesauce cake, applesauce and others to be made. A friend's visit is a perfect time for an Orange chiffon cake, given its ' first new cake in 100 years' status. And even better to bake with a friend. This recipe needed more than two hands what with the seperating egg whites and yolks of more than half a dozen. First struggling and then enjoying this task my friend told me of a gadget that does it. When I told her I enjoyed peeling boiled eggs. She tells me of a gadget for that too. Its easier to peel boiled eggs than potatoes and its less messy. At the end of mixing the ingredients, the dough looked runny. For that the final cake was good. I dont know how fluffy it should be although I did see pockets of air. The best part I liked was squeeaing fresh orange juice. thanks to my roomate's tip for picking fresh oranges. My friend gave me 'the Best of Bon Appetit' book from which I learn of other w...

Craving to be met: Chocolate cake Ingredients at home: Flour, butter, eggs, sourcream, yogurt Book handy: 250 Treasured country desserts Recipe Finalists: Devil's food cake, Chocolate Layer cake, German Chocolate cake, Chocolate Marble cake, Chocolate Pudding cake Recipe Chosen: Chocolate Layer cake In few minutes, the recipe was chosen. Last time baking lesson was to pay attention to the temperature at which butter is to be melted. With Phoenix heat, melting butter at room temperature is a snap. After much beating ingredients (by hand - I wasnt sure of the outcome) to a ribbon consistency, the sheet pan was scantily filled. 25 min later, wafts of chocolate hit my nose. I jumped that the cake was done. The timer still had 11 min on it. A look into the oven showed a bloated cake. The pan size being big reduced the time by a lot. I stuck the fork in and it was all done. I have always taken lot of time in picking the recipe, ingredients and finally baking. This was like sleep baking. ...

I liked two recipes from this book of Savory Baking . Lost no time in making them. Pistachio wafers . The other is sour cream fig spirals. While making the spread, the smell of figs boiling in orange juice along with rosemary is therapeutic. The final outcomes - instead of spiral, I have a half spiral. One of the mistakes could be that I didnt soften the butter at room temperature.

I like 3-4 recipes in this book . Oatmeal orange bread, orange walnut muffins Custard filled cornbread for a surprise.

is Apple raisin Kugel , saturday breakfast. 10.7.10 Thr Good Home Cookbook suggests refrigerating overnight before it is baked so that the uncooked noodles can absorb enough moisture to soften before baking.

Now that is not what I made. When I saw custard cups/ ramekins at Walmart, Lemon Sponge pudding recipe came to my mind. While beating just the whites, I didnt quite expect it to froth up like nothing. There was a surprise in breaking an egg to seperate the white and yellow, a small yolk and an alien. I got impatient and baked it it in coarse increments of time, when it was still runny after the recommended baking time. I used 10-oz cups, that would explain it. At Sweet tomatoes, liked the new salads - Lagniappe and Pineapple coconut cole slaw. the chocolate pudding was not worth a mention. Wonder how it would it taste as a sponge pudding.

Menu Del Dia is a spanish cook book with no pictures. But the layout of the book is quite like a story book with creamish pages and titles in color and stylish font. With most cookbooks, I tend to just leaf through them and not try them out. I dont want to have much to do with oil or too many ingredients. this book fit in the bill with not one but three recipes. In the spirit of Pan amb tomaquet , a recipe I knew I had to try as soon as I read of it, some more simple recipes. 1. Ajo blanco I couldnt put as much oil as the recipe called for. I stripped it to minimum quantity, so that I wouldnt have to finish it all by myself. The woes of food that turns out bad. Enoki mushrooms turned out so bad that I even started hating the apricot face wash for a day or two as it reminded me of the E mushrooms. Green papaya strips, first day had to be seen as something tangy and the next day, I had to consider them as bittergourd. After having blended the bread, I marveled that the bread got...

The strawberry idea on the white cake mix wasnt very enticing. With fresh fruits like mango and kiwi on the aisles, winners were already chosen. I was not sure how the cupcakes would turn out, so I put meagre amounts. People had to look for them and still didnt find the fruit. The mango was so soft after baked that now I think, I should have added loads of it. I liked the idea of this mango cupcake recipe

A Good recipe has a surprise lurking in it. A friend sent me this recipe of Icecream cookie cups . It won the Pillsbury contest. I came to know of it from the book Ungarnished Truth by a contestant winner. This was the book that got me into baking with its Spicy Dinner rolls with a stuffing of yogurt, peanuts, spices and green onions. She needed a clarification on the recipe. I could have faked understanding, not knowing what I didnt know. There was cookie dough in the fridge. All I had to do was line the dough along the cupcake liner. Bake it for a while or so I thought. When I saw the future mould melt into one mass, I could have been making half muffins. I went back to the recipe, only then did I see the gimmick it involved of using a wooden spoon to make an indentation. I did that blindly, not half trusting what it would turn out into. Given the cooling time, they sure did become what they were meant to be. I was ready for the quiz. Still better, my friend had the first step towar...