Ladled

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.

While driving by a ranch today I wondered why ranch dressing was called so. Wiki says it was first made at a ranch. While travel writer Jennifer wilson goes to her Croatian ancestral village in Running away to home , Susan Conley goes to Beijing in  The foremost good fortune Jiaozi  and biaozi qipao Hami melon

With a friend for breakfast, I wanted to make rava pongal. I had the split moong dal with husk. The rava pongal turned out tasty none the less. Dessert was double ka meeta, recipe from Sanjay Thumma. Instead of rabri, I used condensed milk. Evening snack, Bhel puri. A thing about recipes is that some ingredients decide if you are going for it or not. One recipe I saw called for aloo and chole. Boiling chole would need some soaking and so planning ahead. I was glad to find another without these. There is something fun about pepping up something as plain as puffed rice into a snack with all the crunchy sev and papdi(I used chekkalu instead).

Today at the oriental store, I saw a naked black bird and wondered what it was. Silkie chicken. Few minutes ago, I knew I had to look up something related to food but couldnt call it up. TV news showed a lady chased by a wild turkey. Bingo. Tomorrow surprise breakfast. Rawa pongal from show me the curry. Me : Can you show me how much is a pound? Butcher: one leg Me: No, how much meat in a pound? B: one leg Have to try Naan. Why eat with one hand? Today while having a chicken pita for lunch, I felt like dunking pieces of chicken into the tzaziki sauce, which way I got my fingers greased. With those very fingers, I grabbed a big coke glass of water and lo behold, a wet-floor-caution scene appeared in no time. pretzel bun

Having made aloo cutlets - shallow frying, I wanted a baking way for drumsticks. I was looking for a recipe, with chicken drumsticks in Indian spices. I needed something without bread crumbs. I marinated the chicken in yogurt and spices and then baked it. It worked well for me. I had put in some potato wedges. I am half way done with 10 pounds of them. Next time I should remember to add other veggies.

Last night we had Kathi rolls for dinner. The first time I enjoyed them was at a street side, Zaika rolls in Noida. The vendor had a stove at his standing level, he would first put the roti on the tawa and then pour a beaten egg onto the top and then flip. Once cooked, he would stuff the egged side with a spicy chicken curry that was generously mixed with onions cut lengthwise. At the office cafeteria, they served Kathi rolls served with cabbage but no layer of egg inside. When you have street food, you can learn how to make the food too. I have my eyes set on bhelpuri.

My neighbor once offered me a sweet dish. She had boiled diamond shape cut rolled out dough in water, sugar and elaichi.She introduced me to Knol-knol/Kohlrabi. Know your ingredients I made upma after learning how to from my mom. As I came to the end of the process, I realised the upma wasnt soft to the touch and was uncooked to the palate. Later I had to throw it all away, as I had made it with Idli rava  instead of Upma rava . When I met my husband first at his apartment, he recalled how by mistake he had once given someone salt instead of sugar. As a symbol of a sweet life ahead he wanted me to start with sugar in my mouth but ended up putting salt. Potluck For an SUPW  class, each of the students had to bring something they cooked. I hadnt learned cooking by then. one year my mom made vegetable biryani. Many of us did that, passing off food cooked by our moms as our accomplishment. another year we dunked chunks of whole bread in bengal gram batter and fried them. I ...

Recently I had potato fry at my friends BBQ and next visit at Costco made me an owner of 10lb of potatoes. My first trial was aloo fry and then aloo parathas. With some stuff still remaining, I wanted to make puff pastry. To inform myself on making puff pastry at home, I watched some videos. I was convinced to make cutlets by resorting to shallow fry than to hide a slab of butter in rolled out dough. When I put forward this step above from non-frying me, my husband was flying on the magic carpet of curry puffs. I couldnt become the perp so I made Pepperidge farms puff pastry, the silent accomplice. It was a hunt finding it. Knowing that the sheets are thawed, I knew where to find it. the frozen section. At my eye level, there were boxes of pumpkin pie. Last week we recieved  a 12" pp instead of a $75 rebate. I think it was worth it, all that lardering up the body. When I tracked down the pastry sheets with a representatives help, I thought I might have never found it, given th...

bak-zhang A tiger in the kitchen While reading this book, if this isnt How to cook a dragon  which it isnt. My foray into Singapore food is limited to chicken satay, mee goreng and curry puffs. The most mentioned Singaporean food in travel articles and shows is Lasi Nemak. Autthor Chery Lu-Lien Tan steers clear of the popular and introduces the readers to many dishes like otak, bak kut teh, tau yew bak and so on. She learns the recipes of these food from her relatives back in singapore and chefs in the united states as well. Her food relates to the occasions, when they are prepared. With this connection, she introduces us to the wedding culture, belief in ghosts and the celebration of ghost month in Singapore. The author with her love for the oven and the confidence for baking from making pineapple tarts with her aunt, takes on a Bread Baker's Apprentice challenge. She has the moments familiar to novice bakers where you are not sure that your final product is po...