Ladled

I made doodh peda ,  coconut laddu ,  mysore pak  and  sunnundalu  yesterday. It was quite an experience. I usually dont make sweets. All these sweets need ghee, but I used butter. I started with doodh peda. Recently I learnt of my sister's affinity for peda. Peda is a sweet we enjoyed a lot as kids. My parents got her a big box full of peda. I didnt think I would get a chance to use this recipe. I had to make 4 kinds of sweets. Another restriction was that they had to be solid with no syrup or run. What a convenience it is that safeway's dry milk has 3 packets in it, each of 1.5 cups, just the size the recipe asks for. While making it I realised that the mixture was leaving the sides of the pan. Why is this important? The next coconut laddoo was a breeze. Mixing condensed milk with cocnut. I used the shredded flakes for its shape even though the recipe called for dessicated coconut. If you ask me for the definition of perfect - 2 words - condensed mi...

It being Christmas, my husband thought it cannot go without a cake. I liked this  chocolate fruit  cake but I didnt like the so many vaious gm measurements. This Mazurkas  cookie recipe is so inviting to make. But what we want is a cake right now.  Christmas fruitcake  recipe is it. I saw another fruitcake recipe that started with 5 cups of water. i am going to stay away from recipes that call for water in a cake.

Four kitchens cha ca Tel Aviv breakfasts - Jachnun , Shakshouka Skhug

southern living 2011  has many sweet tea  recipes. I wonder how sweet tea vinaigrette, sweet tea rice, swee tea brined chicken, sweet tea tiramisu taste. quinoa 365

Today my husband had to take something for a potluck. He boiled kabuli chana. I had channa chaat  in mind yesterday. But today I made chana chaat and coconut chana dal stir fry . I forgot to use the onions I chopped for the stir fry. He came back with Queen Anne's chocolate, pie, candy cane, cake, egg rolls, wheat snacks wirh chile and lemon, a big bottle of picante sauce. Today I had Hazelnut Mazel coffee . It was not very ceamy, rife with hazelnut flavor.

I made bottle gourd kofta  for dinner. I liked it despite the effort it needed.

Chocolate chocolate

Your daughters bedroom

Dolphin diaries article Dolphin project

The cupcake diaries Georgetown cupcake

I made idlis  using rice flour. It didnt work for me. They were too hard. the chutney with peanuts and putnala pappu was good. Mom suggested not using rice flour. Thats the next trial then.

Americas test kitchen 2012 . I liked Lane cake  and Thoroughbred pie  in this book.

We had 'pasta bake' yesterday at a hospital in between classes. We had a chicken bowl but couldnt find anything else interesting. threr were many menus hanging but those stations were not open. The instructor pointed us to the pasta bake idea. After eating the bowl of salsa over beans over rice over chicken over lettuce, I recalled the bowl my friends used to rave about the bowl. I am at a stage where I feel hungry and when I have had half of the food, my stomach feels like its full but I know I am still hungry. I thought hospital food might be tastless and expensive. It was neither. But somehow looking at people in scrubs with fried chicken and fries on a plate, burger and fries on another plate, it seemed like they were sinning.

New latin classics Lorena Garcias book has a recipe for baked arepas. Now I like a recipe that requires deep frying converted to baking. Tiradito  is Latino sushi. Sun dried tomato brulee

biggest loser flavors of the world You never know what you might like in a ccokbook. In this book I found sushi stuffed in th hollow of cucumbers. I like the sound of chicken tinga .

Treats truck baking book cupcake in a ice cream cone.

Good bite weeknight meals  has recipes from food bloggers. They also answer the following questions. I liked the idea of using halibut in making kebabs. What do you always have in your shopping cart? Vegetables. Whats your go-to week night dinner? rotis with any curry. whats your favourite kitchen tool? Blender. It transforms dishes. Is there anything you just cant eat? Cheese White on rice couple Simply recipes Recipe girl Dinner with julie coconut and lime Andreas recipes Matt bites  - one of the pictures of a dish shows empty plates around. The composition of the photo places the dish in a place in time. No recipes Our best bites  - sweet tortilla snowflakes - kid inspirations. Kath eats Picky palate  - Jenny Flake - I like the idea of Inside out chicken pot pies . Southern plate Lauras best recipes Gluten free girl Weelicious  - breakfast on a stick.

Bite by bite Potted shrimp. Just a look at few of the photos in the book will make you wonder if you are 'Alice in the foodland'. Looking at the mini blinis I am reminded that this morning we had mini pancakes with custard and  coconut stuffing. I tried taro bun too expecting the bun to be made of taro flour if such a thing is possible. Everybody that I am intrdoucing to red bean bread seems to like it. I still have to have the custard bread. Now I need to know how to make the custard. Will make this Baked Custard . watermelon lollipops. stuffing in potato cones plantain cones onion rings presented as over tower of Hanoi. Creme brulee oatmeal Pheasants under glass mintini hot mulled cider in an apple lemonade in a lemon. When I called my friend-colleagues home for dinner, they bought me cuties and grapes. The other day when I saw crabapples, I bought  abag home so my parents could try them. They are too many. I have to pitch in too in the name of snack pangs to ...

I found  lavender tea cake  from Cooking Light recipe interesting and made the tea cake without lavender. This cake has a distinct flavour of yogurt in it. Sundae pudding cake  from Cooking Light is for those times when you dont have eggs in your fridge or the time to do the electric mixer routine. While putting the water on the batter, I wondered if I should use my sense and just reduce the amount of water. I didnt heed to it. Now I have an oven which needs cleaning. Let me taste it when its done and decide if its worth the effort. It isnt. Theres a mocha mousse recipe. I was surprised to find white chocolate cocoa at Safeway. Fig clafouti recipe reminded me of he cherry clafoutis I made once.

Kosher chinese Author's blog Author interview Da pan ji

Bi-rite eat good food

Simple food big flavour cilantro cotija pesto. duck breasts with ancho chile dulce de leche  - using milk like miaiale al latte

Italian cooking Sauteed risotto, black risotto - colour from cuttlefish, mushroom sauce maiale el latte  - When reading about brined meats, I had read about cooking meat in ,ilk. chine - backbone/spine of an animal.

I saw Bostock at Essence bakery.  We had French crepes, Croque madame, Mediterranean roasted veg sandwich. I liked the cold sandwich for its stuffed greens and a wedge of sweet potato. Parisian hot chocolate Their restroom keychain has a cookie cutter in it. We like Aioli at Oreganos.  Last time I had it with sweet potato fries. Cant have too many of them. But this time with Veggie Weggie. We had Lemon meringue pie  at Saguaro lake.

On a flight I had Paneer lababdar . Looking for more recipes I found another Paneer Khurchan  recipe. There are other lababdar recipes but I chose this one as it uses whole spices like you would for a biryani. Curious how that will turn out. Molten chocolate cake

I made Overnight Bread Pudding . Now I am trying to figure why the milk didnt soak into the bread. For one, the eggs got set so quick that they couldnt run into the bread. And two in my impatience, I forgot/didnt see the reason for waiting overnight.

I had apprehensions about reading love god and the art of french cooking , wondering if it would get preachy. So far, the author is organizing his messy past relationships. Vegetables speak to his mentor-chef Roger. Roger feels apssionat about all giving food. He uses food processes as metaphors to explain thins in life. He explains that garlic heals by trapping tis juices in itself when cut. He believes that the way to get essence out of it is to smash it. When I chose to read this book, I was apprehensive about the love, god part of it but couldnt let go of the French cooking part. I didnt get much of that too. The two chefs Roger and Alain from whom the author learns about food make us see things like how food cooked with love elevates it from being nourishment to just the body. Roger has many metaphors in cooking processes - cut garlic healing itself, eggs binding rosti potatoes - that he uses to clarify life. The master chef lets the produce talk to him and believes in the l...

Having added a new scar from recent cooking - a tip to cooks old and new - when you close the lid on a cooking hot pan, do it away from you, so your hands are not exposed to the unbenign steam. Today my husband came up with an idea of making a curry with ridge gourd and spinach. Not sure how the combo would turn out, i was willing to make them seperate. After he was done with chopping, he had very few ridge gourd pieces microwaved. Until then, I was reminded of a spinach curry I once made which was not palatable. But today's turned out good with urad dal added.

I made the paneer today. With that I made pudina paneer . I needed the peanuts for morning's poha, so used putnala pappu. Finally the curry turned out more like a chutney. Not very happy. Dinner was at Oregano's.  Cuban Sandwich. Waffle potato fries and sweet potato fries with aioli. 

The sorcerers apprentices Ferran Adria  makes yabu by collecting the skin on boiled milk and then rolls parmesan in it. In preparing Basundi, this recipe asks us to collect cream layers . Doing that, I find it not easy to take it out as a perfect layer. For a grainier texture, this recipe of basundi  uses lemon juice. While having Basundi, i was reminded of Kulfi  and realise that by freezing Basundi, you have Kulfi. Its turning out to be 'Indian sweets 101' today. The procedure for making Basundi and sweet Rabri  are same. Rabri is also the liquid poured on Ras malai . The solid is the same as in Rasgulla . Its a tight knit owrld of sweets out there. I can pass Rasgulla and I like Rasmalai only for the rabri in it. At our college, there was a sweet called 'Kela rabri', thats when I first heard of it. el bulli Another diner's experience

There's an apple-pomegranate sparkling wine lying dormant in the kitchen for a long time. Today it made its way into pancakes  replacing 1/2cup  of 3/4 cup of milk in this recipe. I have to find many more recipes to us e it all up. I saw  mimosa brownie recipe but that uses only a tbsp of it. sparkling wine cupcakes sparkling wine cake Today also is the time for using up ragi flour which was bought for the express purpose of ragi sankati .

When I look at so many chicken variations, I feel like making them all. Today there was enough chicken to try 2 kinds. I made methi murgh  and murgh musallam . There was a point while making them, where I wondered if they would taste any different. One version was marinated and the other not. There would be that difference. that kind of helped the cooking process, giving me time to cook one while the other was marinating. Both called for tomato puree and onion paste. I used dried methi, so it did make a difference in the curries. I like the taste of both at the end. They can use more spices but that must be the insatiable me. I wanted to make a dessert in no time. I didnt want the recipe to have 3 cups of flour. This chocolate fire cake  recipe with its 1-1/4 cup flour wooed me. It was easy to mix and quick to pop it in the oven. Instead of chocolate chips, I used butterscotch chips. I used pasilla chile powder instead of red pepper. I am now making peas pulav  minus the...

Bottle gourd. There is a plain jane way I cook it. I wanted to cook it differently. Especially after having a taste of what my colleague did using chunky peanut powder. His was a dry version. We are having the curry with roti. Some people prefer dry curries with roti. I like curries with gravy. In no mood to grind, I resorted to whole peanuts. As soon as the gravy idea came to mind, the replication of what my colleague made veered off the track. The idea was to see how it would taste with yogurt. I have always addd yogurt in curries only when I am inviting friends over. The reason being the recipes I follow then, ask me to. I have never felt an intuitive urge to shake up things with adding yogurt. The end result was tangy and went well with me. The curry had a red oil look to it. this week for dinner

500 cupcakes

Over the weekend, as we drove in to Sedona, I saw the 3D emergence of Sedona from the I17 and was amazed that I hadnt seen it all the time sthat I have been there. A seesaw of cloudy and sunny day. I guessed that there is a rainbow in the offing. We did catch a rainbow at half the height of bell rock. We saw bands of trees in fall colours. And lunch was at Tara Thai cuisine. In the parking lot were white booths selling art & crafts. There always seems to be a fair going on like that, only the location varies. Last time after hiking Mt Wilson, visit to the Chapel, and a sighting of Nicolas Cage's house with 4 garages, a visitor to the town was taken to the then running fair to picks trinkets for his wife. This time we found a man packing a wig with long hair. My friend asked him abou it only to find that it was horse's hair and not donated by a native person from her flwoing sheet of straight hair. Once in the restaurant, we all ordered the soup instead of the salad. The ...

I came across Spherification earlier in the article Incredible Edibles . And now in The sorcerer's apprentices - A season in the kitchen at Ferran Adria's ElBulli.

Yesterday we had a friend over. He brought us amazing looking and tasting sweets made of kaju katli. Once we had them we started working out how the sweet was accomplished.Its from Rangoli sweets in Santa Clara. We were running out of time in menu planning and execution. So we dropped the dessert idea. What an excellent replacement! For the occasion my other friend made chicken biryani. We used drum sticks, so she cooked the chicken before layering it with rice. A little more spice would have been wonderful. Each time I came across an onion strand, I felt the tang of the lemon juice in it.

Kitchen simple - also author of 'baking'. authors blog a review

Maine classics That picture on the coverbook right there is a shortcake with seafood. One thing I am amazed at in this book is the different treatments that can be given to oyster.

the apple lover's cookbook While looking at the different kinds of apples in the book, two that caught my attention becasue of their colour - Hidden Rose Apples  and Pink Pearl  apples. Some recipes that appealed to me - pumpkin and apple custard, sweet potato and apple latkes. The book had the recipe for morning glory muffins too. authors blog On a tangent, Amazing edible art

Rotisserie  chicken. Last night we bought it. I have passed through it a million times but since two are not enough to finish it, friday night with friends was the opportune moment for it. I have always seen the meaty part of a turkey sliced. So when my friend was about to cut the chicken, I expeted her to meet it horizontally, but she did so vertically. First big lesson, it has big bones in it. Must have been all those honey glazed ham pictures which numbed me to bones. We were hungry so my husband and I each ate a leg. I told my friend that she could  have the other two legs. The correction is they are wings.

I am a shoddy cook. I like to put things ont he stove and gallivant.On the contrary, my husband likes to oversee that everything is going fine on the stove. When I had a pan full and some cabbage to cook, I decided to leave the remaining to go into another dish, another day. When I asked my husband to give the cooked cabbage a stir so it would get the colour from the turmeric and the onion base all mixed well, he stayed by it and added the remaining cabbage. In some long time, we had a well cooked cabbage curry. I have seen people do magic with cabbage curry. When cutting the cabbage, we could smell it. It doesnt happen to be his favourite smell. One of my exroomate could slice the cabbage really thin. My friend's sister fried lot of urad dal for this curry. The smell of fried urad dal stays with you. This evening I could smell a dosa imagining the smell of fried urad dal. I am finally putting my olfactory senses to work. I was in a odorless world for a long time now. A littl...

With very little time in the morning, I had to prepare lunch. I boiled some penne. I added olive oil, dried parsley and ground black pepper. I then added some chopped boiled eggs. This was the planned lunch. An email declared that the cafeteria was doing an early Thanksgiving Lunch. My first thanksgiving lunch was at a host parents house. The rolls coming fresh out of the oven. the first time I met them at an Indian restaurant they overwhelmed me by ordering five dishes for us three.I thought the turkey would be bland but the sage crust done turkey was juicy and flavorful. Mashed potatoes are my husbands favorite. Looking at the assortment of gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce, reen beans, grilled acorn squash, sweet potato wedges, he couldnt decide what to eat when he had to have seconds. Pumpkin pie cooling in the fridge was only going to add to the traffic jam of choices. Now I have to learn how to make those green beans. And all the recipes of celery for its negative calorie adv...

Today Guy Fieri was talking about crab dishes and surprised that one of them didnt use Old Bay. I hant heard of it and thought it was obay.

Beaten seared and sauced . Looking at the cover book picture I am reminded of the egg seperators that we saw at the Fountain Hills art and craft fair. small cups that look like an owl with a slit for a mouth that will stop the yellow from leaving the cup. You have seen many optical illusions where same sized white and dark squares appear different size.  Try mit checker shadow illusion . But how about palate manipulation with light and dark chocolate assortments. Magus CIA professor had vegetables cuts cast in plastic  so that the aspiring chefs had something to compare against while sharpening their cutting skills. Chasseur Fricassee Gribiche . Lebovitz's take Arepa Gastrique Moo goo gai pan The truth of tea leaves picked by trained monkeys . seasoning the pan When the author talks about identifying everything on the table by taste, I was reminded of the scene in Hereafter  where the culinary class has to recognise the igredients when blindfolded, by taste. ...

100 recipes every woman should know Engagement Chicken devilandegg simplysifted  - her banana bread with apple sauce in it. marry me lasagna Make it in the car artichoke dip. The recipe suggests microwaving at the party. Today Rachel Ray offered a make ahead recipe for a pasta which needs a final baking in the oven that can be done at the host's house too. Michelada Sarah jio milk in cupcake? Bridging - a term used by chefs when an ingredient makes different appearances in a dish.

I first came across Marcela Valladolid  in Food network's the best thing I ever ate. That same night I saw her on Nate Berkus show. I then picked up her book. The introduction with her background of going to a San Diego school from Tijuana made for quite an imaginary ride between two nations. Shrimp stuffed in chiles, shrimp served in scooped half avocado make for great edible-carrier foods. I had shrimp on Friday at the office, when my friend shared his flatbread lunch with me. With shrimp, scallops I find myself thinking that they are fine but not as tender as chicken. That day the chef, put some hummus he made on a piece of flatbread and called it a Taquito . I liked the hummus but the Pesto , not being a cheese lover, I made a bitter face. Green Pipian Avocado cilantro dip for cauliflower sounds good. This is what I used for making the avocado rice using Robinson's 'Green Goddess recipe'. Chayote with yogurt dip The author provides the history of recipes very ...

On the way back from Payson, we were up for viewing Fountain hills. It happened to be the first 15 min of an hour at that time, so the fountain was visible even from the highway. We turned into Shea Blvd. There were signs about an art & Crafts fair. When we were close to he location, a detour took us around a lake. In the center of the lake, I spooted a lotus looking concrete thing. It occured to me that this is the fountain we were looking for. I have been there more than 5 years ago. We walked around the endless booths. I saw the Funnel cakes , but when I saw he guy cooking behind pull out brown looking oil, all my appetite for it melted. There was a hanging - twirler with a ball in it. It seemed like the ball was going down, quite an optical illusion. Our hunger led us to Chen garden. The egg flower soup was good. I will never order hot and sour soup after the Yosemite experience. We had Yu shan spicy chicken  and dun dun noodles . Both seemed to have the same sa...

Chips and salsa. They are always different. Here the salsa was served in a jar. The chips were toasted hard. I couldnt pay attention to the menu to order, as I was busy downing the chips and salsa. At some point, which we arrived at after a refill of our chips boat, I felt that my mouth had its fill of chips taste and stopped the consumption. We had Chicken la Sierra at La Sierra Mexican restaurant in Payson. It had tomatillo sauce in it. spicy. It almost tasted like chicken curry. The menu said that the traditional dishes would have both rice and beans. We found neither on the plate. when we asked the waiter he said, "Not with this one". later on billing we did see that the price went dow by a dollar for speaking out. As we went along with the dish, we did find some rice buried under the sauce. Which Mexican restaurant does that? I have always seen the rice and beans on the side. My husband had to ahve Tamales as he has never had it before. He wasnt very impressed. we had b...

Yesterday, my husband picked up avocados while we were on a quick trip to grocery. It wasnt on the list. But he had liked the guac last time. When I had made guac for the first time, I told my friend about it. she shared this green goddess rice recipe with me. She thought that the dish was better if cilantro replaces basil. With an extra avocado, apart from the two meant for guac, I made this rice. It is a mild flavor but definitely present. I wondered while tasting it, how Robinson came up with this idea. I like this better than spinach rice that I have made before.

After chopping carrots, green thumb looked at the ends with yellow sprouts and decided to hide them in soil. In some days, we now have some leaves there.

Few days ago, I froze water in a small cup with a spoon in to make chocolate cups later. Today happened to be the right time for it. I melted butterscotch chips and dipped the frozen cup filler in the chocolate. I left it in the bowl to attend to other things. When I tried to wiggle the ice lose, it came out easily but the bottom of the cup stuck to the bowl. Then it was also a good time to try this recipe for cup of coffee cake in under five  forwarded by my friend. I used 1 whole egg and replaced sourcream with yogurt. I chose not to use the crumble. Instead I put chunks of just solidified butterscotch into the mixture before putting it into the microwave. It is a cool idea. Especially if you want to try out how some flavours work in cake and not have to do with a large cake and that too without having to spend too much time on it. And not much stuff to beat or clean.

Off the eaten path Nana Dean's coconut pecan pie  recipe is so different from Coconut cream pie at Cattleman's steakhouse. fried pickles panna cotta  uses 4 cups heavy cream and 1 cup water while pecan panna cotta of the crazy baker uses 3 cups milk and  cup whipping cream. The book managed to have a wide variety of recipes

With urad flour in pantry, I soaked the flours for no grind dosa . It was almost good, the dosas browned well, but I missed the fermented flavor. Lets hope that it gets so by tomorrow morning. Referred to chiroti rava and paanipuri rava in the recipe, I found the method of chiroti rava fascinating. And assuming that its the 'cream of rice' that makes pani puri , I mixed the ingredients. Now I am left with an unyielding mass. The best flour for pizza .

Lidias italy in america Lidia's Arancini - Rice Balls has mozarella inside while Mary ann Esposito has them stuffed with ragu in her book 'Ciao Italia'. basil pistachio pesto spinach walnut pesto Mafalda sauce Artichoke  is in the thistle family Its stalks dont seem to belong but the purple flower does.

Italians have many  sayings involving food and atleast two of them start with .'dont let the armer know...'.  Francine Segan's dolci book has a saying accompanied with each recipe. Ciao italia chickpea fritters using flour. Pastelle, Onion fritters are made by the author by boiling the onions and then mashing them into the batter. Indian pakoras are made using raw onions. Butcher's pepper Using fresh and dried cheese in a recipe. In 'Holiday dinners with Bradley Ogden', Ogden used  Fuyu persimmons for garnish and hachiya persimmons  for base dessert. Paccheri pasta Italian Wedding soup ziti groom strawberry risotto rice omelet Involtini  - fish are rolled around a stuffing.

Holiday dinners with bradley ogden persimmon bread corn stock Even the Thanksgiving book by Peppas has a recipe for fennel salad. coffee spiced prime rib roast.

peasandthankyou Many recipes - falafel with tempeh.

In Thanksgiving , Pappas suggests cutting a X in the pearl onion to prevent telescoping which I cant seem to find much about. using ginger snap crumb as base for pumpkin pie adds spice to it. Another thing that I havent before is brining the turkey.

One good thing about monsoons: They sure keep the dust down. - Pamela Michael This essay catches the bewilderment of seeing something majestic for the first time from an unexpected viewpoint. Recently I saw a photo of Greere after it was burnt. I saw the path between the trees above and beneath was laid with a carpet made from hay. On questioning the photographer about it, he said that the carpet was in preparation for the rains so the soil wouldnt be eroded. A prompt to find a good thing about everything, to improve our pespective.

For lunch, I had Baghali Polo at zaytoon. The rice was very dry. There was butter wrapped in foil on the side, but I didnt use it. I know that could have made the rice palatable. The chicken was fine. Very yellow. To eat the pita, the grease transferred from the kabab which lied on the pita for a while was enough to smooth it down. There was a grilled tomato, but didnt give it much shot. I liked the sound of zoolbia bamieh. I am familiar with zoolbia- jalebi. There was tiger shrimp  too on the menu. Before lunch, we were wondering how different is Persian food from Mediterranean and loaded up on some wiki knowledge.

A funny article Prep school that begins with a puff of cloud scene. It is true that at home we dont get to cutting the vegetables until the pan hows at us hungrily with the onions browned. How to become an intuitive cook Saints,cakes and redemption is an excellent article, a 'sweet tooth fairy' tale. Nathan's cooking science Recipe from a non-chef Breadwinners by Indrani Sen I looked at these articles from the Table of ceontents from Best Food Writing 2011.

lucky peach . Double Dhamaka. Like the double soup. Ramen noodles are presented in all of their history and the latest developments in the way they are made and served now in Tokyo. alkaline noodles Thumbelina carrots After reading so much about Ramen, dinner today is Maggi noodles.  All that noodles suffused with soup make me fantasize a liquidy version of Maggi. I put the water for boil after adding the spice powder from the silver pouches. While reading some food articles, maggi smell wafted to the living room and I knew that the water has come to a boil. We had maggi as night snack in undergrad whenever we had to put an all nighter preparing for tests. In the college canteen, it was a plain version with only onions in it. Fried maggi available at restaurants close by was Maggi gone soigne. The first time I made it at home, it didnt go well with my culinarily non-experimental folks. Now I hear, my dad adds peanuts to his maggi. 11.2.11 Today the hunter without the clu...

Today I found a horde of things at the grocery store I didnt know what to do with. val dal.  A khichdi with it. May be replace beerakaya for tindora to make val dal with tindora . New things to try. What does one do with soy flour? Many things it seems. It can replace 25% flour in all of the pancakes, muffins,cookies. I saw wine biscuits at Whole foods. Now thats someway to use up sparkling wine. Singoda flour - water chestnut flour.

When I saw avocados at the store, I found that they were soft. My friend had told me told me that she had kept avocados to soften outside. So I picked them knowing that they were right for Guacamole . I used Alton brown's recipe. And I had Hass avocados like the recipe calls for. When the cut the avocado into two halves, I was surprised to find a seed as big as tiny seedling coconuts that fall off the tree. We are having it with French bread. For lunch, I could stuff it inside a roti with some cabbage. Other than this, today my husband got introduced to Pirouette.

diy delicious  has a recipe for mascarpone cheese with heavy cream, half and half and cream of tartar. I havent heard of sourdough pancakes and pizza. "When you alarm cock goes off and you're not excuted to get out of bed, your breakfast isnt delicious enough." - Rachel Cole. Curtido , S American sauerkraut/kimchi. Horchata, almond milk for kids instead of sugar high drinks. 10.31.2011 I see that Horchata mix is available in stores. The mix uses morro seeds. You can find these seeds in black or white.

I want to compare American flavor  with Jamies America . Jamie starts off with a slider. The first time I heard of  sliders was at a grill. This book is not about classic American food. In recipes he replaces mayo with yogurt in waldorf salad. You can see this inclination towards reduced fat in his NYC Cheesecake with reduced-fat cream cheese. He compares the sources of ribs in England Vs America. Supper clubs sher ping pancake Arrabbiata Clamping seven seas soup A while ago when I went visiting relatives, I saw that my relative cut a  log into small pieces into puri. I have never seen that done before. I have always seen people approximately pull out some dough and shape into a ball between the palms and press it. American flavor In watermelon salad, there's Sriracha sauce. And so is it in a snapper with spicy peanut sauce and lime which shows the intermingling of Vietnamese in Southern food. Mussels take a spicy color. Grapefruit butter. pe...

piece of cake Wacky cake article From the list of cakes , I find Hazelnut Mascarpone Pound Cake, Rose Water Pistachio Pound Cake interesting.

dolci honey cookies (Mustazzoli) recipe with only honey and flour reminds of chinese honey shortbread. Italian flour grade After lemon cornmeal cookies, Venice's cornmeal cookies recipe is an overkil. I understand that the author is trying to provide recipes based on the favorites from different regions. Same is the case with honey bars, honey biscotti. aesthetic chocolate salami rounds served on tiny same size and shape bread. back of the book shows peach looking filled cookies put sideays,, topped with mint leaves. Persimmon blondies . I had blondie for the first time at Google's lunch. pomegranate poached pears . Can sweet wine replace sugar? 7 cups cake  similar to  5 cup barfi . My sister in law too sent me the burfi when I told her that I liked the sweet when she made it last time. Author's lectures dolce italia Sicilian pasta crisps pasta cake pasta pie pandoro christmas tree cake sweet macaroni carnival crisps  are like sampenga puvvulu...

Healthy cooking I egg whites in carrot consomme  soup.I didnt know you could do that. chocolate crepes Chocolate polenta pudding cake recipe is less richer than the one on cnn

Paula deens southern cooking bible Tennessee mountain stack cake Chow chow hot slaw 7 layer molded salad Double potato salad - ingredients in a dish two ways. I should try something like this. creamcheese in lasagna. I wonder why she didnt use buttermilk in cornmeal pancakes. baked red velvet cake doughnuts Oh I see, apple fritters have sour cream in them which gives them that taste.

Today with semiya upma, I made Putnala chutney . I should check with my mom if she uses tamarind in this one.

Lucky peach Onigiri Pachinko Yakitori egg white in White lady  drink vending machine ordering system undressed tsukemen, abura

Today when I was getting ready to make sorrel chutney, I wondered how sorrel pasta would be. I like it fine but my husband likes it better. I had only salt and sauted -pureed sorrel with pasta. More condiments should make it different. I will improvise on it. PS: black garlic  and uni  on chopped.

Head cheese in bird by bird I would finish my lunch in the recess time before 11.00pm. During the lunch time, I would go for a walk around the school. Sometimes my friends shared their lunches with me. Tamarind pulihora, chapatis with jam, tiny idlis.

I dont know how this happened but we just had crepes for dinner with broccoli curry. When it became time to make rotis, I got lazy and somehow crepes were running in the background. Sometimes the only way to make dinner seems to be to find something new to make. I am not patient with making dosas, pancakes.Not only its multiplicity but also the unwieldiness of the batter adds to it. The recipe needed the batter to be chilled for an hour. Usually I cannot wait that long when I am hungry. For emergency coverage, we had leftover roti. And its better than 2 hours that another recipe called for. See how ingredients and procedure of a recipe can decide if you are going with it or not. Some recipes come with a convergence that they ride you to make it. Then there are some with so many scattered ingredients and many more optional that you will never resort to it. I used the measuring cup  itself to pour the crepes. It is a nice tip to use it even while filling muffins. No wonder my frien...

Recently we got pomegranates from an oriental store. One fruit turned out to have tangy grains. It was impossible to eat them just by themselves. Thats when I thought about making dal with these seeds. Despite not believing in it, my husband made the dal. He didnt like the taste but I enjoyed the tanginess just like it had been made from tamarind.

Today I was ordered to get a non chocolate cake from Recharge Wednesday. I saw a cake I didnt recognise. A Cannoli cake.   I had a taste of Cannoli before. Its a cool idea to have a cake that reflects the flavors of the dessert.

Burns. I have some scars from years of cooking. Well, one would think that years are enough to master cooking without burns. Sometimes when I try to open a hot lid, my klutzity finds the optimal way to absord all the vapor into my body. Like snakes if we could sense the heat of things, kitchen would be a safer place. Scars of a chef .

Newmans Ginger snaps  are very crunchy. The first bite was woody but within a few seconds, the ginger taste kicked in. One tiny cookie was enough to wean me off. its almost like having a strong 1/2 cup of ginger tea. Well, then we can use these cookies for relief during a cold. My husband's reaching for a 5th cookie. I dont think it will be a hit with kids. I wonder if light or dark molasses were used.

of vegetables is emphasised in both Chinese cooking  and Ken hom's quick and easy chinese cooking  as a distinct way of cooking unique to Chinese. Chinese cooking has a recipe for Baked chinese cabbage, where cabbage and cheese are layered upon each other and baked. What a healthy way of replacing the flour sheets in lasagna, once in a while. The recipe for Chinese honey shortbread  needs fewer ingredients that I am already sold on making it. Even Mandarin pancakes  requires only 3 ingredients. I will try it while making rotis next time to see how they differ with oil in between the layers. Egg foo yong . In Ken;s book, I saw a picture of yin yang bowl. I have referred to the Soy sauce  before, but I didnt realise that there are light and dark versions of it. In A tiger in the kitchen , the author introduces us to the concept of yin yang in food .

should a Biscotti  cost? Today we went to a downtown in the evening. There was a banner with 'art walk' on it. We saw only one white tent. Looks like everyone packed up. I dont know if you have ever seen coffee shops when there's art walks or parades going on outside. But today I saw the scene a'after'. All the baked goods were gone and there was just a plate of biscotti for 2.25 each. I figured that it must be the hungry visitors from the art walk. We were lured in with the mentions of a Pumpkin spice latte and had to go for gingerbread latte, thanks to the friendly visitors. One thing he did have was a cool thing called Square , a credit card reader. It had the looks of a thing which could do more than that.

tasted good with rice. The salad with its sauce was enough to accompany rice. I have a knack of choosing dry dishes when i eat Chinese or Vietnamese. While reading Chinese cooking , I went duh! if you have to eat with chopsticks then you will not want to pick up sauce with it. At the Middle eastern store. I found green beans. There was Turkish delight  there, with citric acid in ingredients. I was wondering until then, what  might those piles of citric acid be used for? There were bags of dry lemons for which I knew no use of until this article . moghrabieh , a Lebanese product caught my attention too. they reminded me of hand made pearls of dough made in our homes during Vinayaka Chathurthi. When I saw a Lebanese cooking book, I wanted an image. My finger was on Laban immo . Meat looked white washed in yogurt. We bought bulgur,couscous, vernicelli thin long semiyan as a bad substitute for pheni. 10.29.11 Fregula  looks like Lebanese couscous, Moghrabi...

Yesterday we made okra curry from out own little vegetable patch. New entry is a green bulky chilli. As the curry shrunk to little, I added microwaved potatoes to give it body. While serving, my husband said that the curry smells of potatoes. Thats when I agreed with him and made a note to pay attention to the smell of vegetables.

When I used garlic sauce from Pizza Hut in making pasta, it made it to the 100 most awesome feelings. I like salad pastas better than the saucy ones. One afternoon I had bow tie pasta with olive oil and hints of cheese at college and that stuck with me.

After the wheat-jowar, I started wondering if we can make  ragi roti .Turns out that we can. I will also try adding ragi to wheat and see if they are rollable by the pin.

This afternoon, I was hungry after lunch time. Instead of lunch proper, I had donuts, oatmeal after breakfast. pomegranate seeds and apple were going to get me through this crazy idea of mine. But pomegranate seeds turned out so tart that I would like to make lentils with it, if only I can convince my husband about it. I started making a quick upma where we dont have to chop anything. so no onions, ginger, green chillies. when the water was set to boil, I started looking for upma and realised that I had very littl left. My eyes lit up when I found another packet but that happens to be 'cream of rice'. I have done this before as a kid. trying to make upma with idli rava. it seems its not that bad an idea if you soak  it before hand. I used the little sooji rava I had and added a little bit of cream of rice. It turned out fine. Now I need to figure what to with this whole packet. well looks like on the next trip I need to get urad flour so I can make uttapam . When I am at a re...

In a couple of days, I will get a bag of chia seeds . I cant wait to try different recipes using these seeds. chia seeds in pregnancy and labor Until few days I hadnt heard of chia seeds and now I see that this product from Aztecs is better than the best like salmon for omega 3 fatty acids. Well its hard to know if al of that is true, we have to take the experts word for it. As a product, I first tried a tbsp of it in a glass of cold water. Let it absorb some water. I gulped some water down and hey they are harmless. If the thought of letting gelly stuff go down your throat sounds difficult, go on take a bite, you will find that it is much like a skinny sesame seed. Even if it acts like a placebo, our body will self induce the goodness we think we are feeding it. I will try to make a chia pet and have it in my oatmeal and report more observations.

Few years ago my friend from Maharashtra introduced me to this thali peeth. I saw her pressing it out in a shallow pan. I saw this jowar pancake video and felt upto the task with a pack of jowar flour lying in my pantry for a long time. My mil suggested making murukulu with this flour when I told her that I have never made jowar roti.  With seeds, if jowar pilaf savory can be made, I am sure it will lend to a sweet dish too. Jowar is a favorite staple of my parents and their parents. When hot, it brings out the flavor of the accompanying curry, with each bite. If they had any leftovers, they would dunk the dried pieces in tea the next day. I should get adventurous and make the roti. I remember my maternal grandmother making the roti on a big flat stone. Within her palms she would take just enough and lay down the little extra onto the side, to include it in the next roti. 10.18.2011 I tried making jowar roti between plastic papers. they turned out thick. That didnt prevent ...

Today we had gyozi/jiaozi  for lunch. From the picture of the chicken dumlings, I expected steamed ones. I was surprised to find the deep fried ones in a small white paper bag. The flour layer being thin we get right to the chase of the minced meat. I felt less guilty than eating a spring roll.

I couldnt get the mound of frozen veggies to weild into maggi. I found soy chunks which seemed like a good idea to replace veggies. It will help to give them an extra boil.

For a halloween potluck, I am leaning towards making something just so that I get to taste the rest of the dishes. So may be this Snakes  recipe then. How might jalebi be if baked?

Today my colleague gave me a very ripe banana. I gladly took it not to eat it as it is but to make banana bread . I am whisking off baked goodies to others, that I am not leaving any home. So special one to be consumed at home. I should make one of those cakes in a coffee mug and see what the whole deal is.

I usually make broccoli with peanuts and frozen mixed veggie - beans,carrot, corn. Today my husband requested for potatoes with broccoli. I put a few purple skin potatoes for a boil in a pressure cooker. After 3 whistles they lost their color. Since I had the potatoes I wanted to make part of the taco that Adam had at Juan in a million . It calls for a boiled potato, pepper, eggs, salt on a griddle. I didnt add enough salt. I had some green chutney in the fridge. Some toasted walnuts  and grated carrots from the morning glory muffins, pomegranate seeds. In they went with the boiled potatoes to make this salad. The time taken to process the tart of the pomegranate seeds, followed by the walnuts crunch, adds spurts of taste leaps in between the mellow potato bites which kind of clears your palate for the next bumpy ride.

Today on Adam's show at Round Rock Donut place in Texas, he used a donut cutter  like the trundle used to exercise by rolling it forward and back

I have a friend coming over for lunch tomorrow. I began to make chicken pulao . After getting an idea of how to proceed, I dropped the recipe half way. We liked the pulao, better than biryani. I didnt use the coconut milk as I have never cooked with it and I was looking at making a spicy dish. When my sis and I were at a hostel in elementary school, our parents visited us on some weekends and brought us chicken rice. At a science fair at high school, my dad brought me a box with chicken and rice in it. That time I made a diorama. This evening, going over the steps done for the dabal ka meeta, I can help thinking how similar it is to Tiramisu. Bread slices instead of lady fingers, soaked in sugar syrup instead of espresso liquid, doused into condensed milk instead of mascarpone.

Recently, a friend forwarded a recipe for morning glory muffins. I was going through Seasonal recipes from the garden  and came across another recipe of the muffins. What I learnt from the recipe comparision is that the person who sent the recipe to my friend does not like nutmeg, likes vanilla flavor, like salt less, oil more and likes sugar in pure form, seperate from shredded coconut. It happened to be a colleague's bday today. I made the morning glory muffins and a cake from the same batter using the revipe in the book with 2/3 cup oil and only 1 cup sugar. One thing I appreciated about the making of this is the little mixing that I had to do. No need of electric blender. My husband appreciated the less sweet. Friends liked the nuts,raisins and apple in it.