Ladled

Olympic sandwiches and Pascualina

Goodcheapeats Pumpkin biscuits, Cornbread Waffles, portobello Mushroom in place of bun, Cobb salad (at home, ooh..), pesto Bread sticks, Spiced pita chips, last-minute pizza sauce, Pita Bread pizza, French Bread pizza, red pepper hummus, cranberry- carrot salad, Herbed Polenta are all recipes with a spin that can be made quickly and still feel special because they are different from what you would cook normally.

How about lemon curd or custard in these  Baked pastry squares stuffed with jam recipe  ?

Barley Soup When the Costco ran out of the trifecta of frozen mixed vegetables - green bean, carrots and peas, I had to buy the Normandy version of it. They are huge chunks, so there is never a weekend I think when I put the vegetables to fry a bit while making sooji upma or semiya upma, I will wait till these big pieces cook a bit. Few days ago when I got tired of waiting for the bananas to ripen, I boiled the diced banana and made a curry of it. I stored the boiled water for soup. This quick Barley  was a snap to put together. I let the barley and vegetables to boil for upwards of 40 min and then they turned to pearls. Makes me think that Barley Bellam payasam will be great. While adding pepper to the soup, I found a pop tab can of tomato sauce. how convenient. Since I had way too much polenta in the morning and didnt feel hungry, so I could wait all the time the vegetables and barley needed.

This Damak chocolate with green pistachios on the white wrapper just called to me. The chocolate has a puffy look  and is filled with plenty of pistachios. Only problem is that its too sweet for me. next time I will go for a bittersweet or dark chocolate version if there is one.

berry pulav Vegetarian India: A Journey Through the Best of Indian Home Cooking by Madhur Jaffrey has lots of recipes. But with the pictures and variety of locations, Ms Jaffrey has done something wonderful. She's cracked the code of how to turn a cookbook into a travelogue. Taking the readers into kitchens grand like Falaknuma (when there's a spin like asking for a pomegranate Margarita to be made non-alcoholic. These kind of incidents paint a little picture about the author, bartender and the place) but also going to places where the good food flows like the Bombay dubba walla. The book focuses on different parts of India, so even if you are a vegetarian cook from India, you will still appreciate the ingredients and special mixes in the other parts of the country - eg Kasthundi. The berry pulav with its pink astonishing colours, looks so great that I want to try a variant of it with pomegranate.  I am going to try naan khatai too. It is more involved than a simple reci...

Delallo Instant Polenta cooks very quickly. It needs to be cooked just like the sooji upma. "Polenta is family food. Mama feeds it to her baby when his teeth are coming in. Papa feeds it to his mama when her teeth have fallen out". - Teresa Lust in  Pass the Polenta :  And Other Writings from the Kitchen

The picture doesnt do justice but in reality the Annie Chun's Seaweed Crisps are a novelty. They have a seaweed layer onto the brown rice crisps. The crisps are great but I couldnt get myself to like the seaweed itself. I have made sushi with sea weed sheets and had instant noodle snacks that have specks of seaweed in it. So I am not totally new to it but this intense seaweed reminded me of dried fish, a smell that I dont like. But I appreciate the idea and the rice crisps themselves are a star.

While reading more about Just Panela Artisanal Cane Sugar 100% Unprocessed, I looked up non-centrifugal sugar and found a familiar term - jaggery there. We use jaggery on and off in making some sweets - Polelu. Since the jaggery we buy is in a solid form, we have to grate it before we can use it. Even a sweet rice is made with rice cooked with jaggery. I saw recipes for jaggery tea that include boiling the jaggery in water. With Just Panela, you can skip all those boiling, grating and make it a quick affair to have tea or desserts with natural sugar. First day I thought the sugar had aftertaste but day two onwards, I didnt feel so. You can also get by with lesser sugar than the white one.

I first tried the Spicy Chili Lime of ProTings protein Chips. The flavor is so intense. You get the spice and then there's the crunch. Just what Indian palate craves for. They reminded me of chekkalu/appalu made with rice flour. It was a pinch myself and do they really taste like spicy snacks moment. Lime taste comes in like a refreshing breeze. The chekkalu made with rice flour are deep fried. So getting the same taste in a baked snack is a win win.

Cilantro Lime Hummus   - spicy and tasty, Margherita Pizza - the crust melded with the cheese, Chicken Fingers. Fries - wide and thin tasted good.

Chocolate Addiction  from French Bull. Tastes like adults chocolate. Not too sweet.

Having just had some much needed food, I was full of energy to make some donner. I know I have to use up green bell pepper and then I found some green onions. I could saute the bell pepper and add it to Paccheri and then thought how about blending it. And then thought why not have it two ways, blending half of them and keeping the rest as small pieces. I am happy to have tried it.

I added 3 sachets of the chili flakes from pizza places and some salt. And thats it. they are too salty like olives brined (at Costco, oveheard someone calling them the best they ever had. sp I tried. Please keep a glass of water next to you.). Congealed. tasted like starch. Diluting makes it better.

 I have never heard of  Pesto Sacchettini  , so I was very interested in trying it. I had it with the bread. At once you cant have more than 3 purses. But you will enjoy them as rare bites. In the background is  Frontega chicken panini Buttered ribbon noodles for kids.

Biscuits from  Cafe Tazza Its a given that Indian sweets from California not only taste good but are lookers too.

 I heard about Donut Bread Parking during  Guy Fieri's thanksgiving  special as Chef Gavin's dish. It turned out to be a handy idea for a quick dessert. This doughnut bread pudding recipe  made it even more simpler. reminded me of the times I made crazy  Date Croissant Pudding , Orange Croissant pudding, Carrot Croissant Pudding.

A Ladle is irreplacable A small spoon will take lot of time and effort to pour all that sambhar, soup into your bowl plate An artist saw the long neck as the handle of a ladle The artist saw a  bowl in the diagonal body of a swan

When Giada cuts an apple for the turkey stuffing, she gives a flat cut on four sides and outs away the rest somewhere. Trash may be. An apple ages like us, but quicker. With it, the apple brings the eternity and the perishability. Its eternity through the nourishment. Processed food and all the snacks, with no beginning or end of their life, hide you from the cycle of life. Dried apples are for a time of harsh winter.

Pumpkin sheet cake during the 'stick a knife and call me done' test, I could tell that the cake was like a spongy mattress, which the way, the tooth pick recoiled. Cake eaters liked it too.

The broccoli roast

Moving boiled pasta from one dish to another of sauteed vegetables I find streaks of rainbow at the bottom of the pot from the oil drops added to pasta while boiling so the pasta wont stick Like most things in Costco that come in bulk and languish in pantry,  Annies Homegrown totally natural shells  was the latest candidate given the 'must go' card. They were all emptied into a ziploc bag so they could be bulk cooked. I sauteed a bag of stir fry frozen vegetables and boiled shell pasta on the side. After mixing the pasta I felt that the pepper didnt do its magic and that the pasta could use a can of tomato sauce. While eating the pasta, I admired how the tiny shells had the tomato sauce filled in them. And then there were some shells that closed exactly like hemispheres in a globe. There were some that looked liked vanes of a turbine. How to remove a rainbow stain

In  Harrys Sweet Potato Casserole , the spices and the sweetness of the crumble will leave you helpless and entranced like La belle Dame Sans Merci Its gooey and still chunks of Sweet Potato have you tethered to the ground while the brown sugar and cinnamon want to uproot you.

At a Potluck while eating the chicken pasta, I looked at the cream clinging to the penne and wondered what kind of cheese is it or how was it done so that the cheese/sauce stuck to it so well. After few bites, hmm which deli did they get the chicken from in these strip forms that matched the long shape of the pasta. here's the hollow penne paired with chicken strips. I praised the chicken and asked the lady who brought it about it. she said she didnt make it and said its from  Costco . Whats going on in the minds of people when they eat what you make. They are wondering about the journey of the ingredients and how it was made. They are making it perfect in their mind like you did in your mind and kitchen like a time fractal.

Kakor ChokladFlarn  has chocolate in a sandwich cookie which has lots of texture. 

Have you ever felt guilty yourself of calling something? Like say a baker. I did and it was after eating this Black Forest Cake made by a German returning to Germany, from a recipe in German language. When I ate it in the dark, I mistook the cherry filling for chocolate. But with all the perfect cream on top and the chocolate shavings and the night, made it the Blackest Forest Cake I ever had. The foreshadowing of it was when I met the baker in the morning with a stiff neck and that he had to bake a cake. I didnt realise that the cake was going to make me run up the wall and hide, even if with a little piece of it in my hand and mouth. The recipe for this is from  Marions Kochbuch .

 If Chorafali and Mathiya sounds Greek and Latin, then you are not alone. My neighbour had called us over for a breakfast. Wonderful breakfast it was, with us asking her what is that, what is this and how is it made.  Chorafali  requires lot of work in beating up the dough. I am told that sometimes its put in a cover and rolled under the car. When I heard of  Mathiya , I was thinking of my favourite Matri and wondered why they weren't matching up. These papads like the one made with urad dal have a stick to the teeth and tongue feel. Lets talk more papad. Every kid learns of Lijjat Papad with  Lijjat Papad eh heh eh . Even as a kid one thing that I had against the Lijjat Papad over the one other - sticky feeling is its spice from pepper flecks. I love Gujarati food because that is the kind of Indian cuisine that most westerners don’t know about  says Padma Lakshmi of Top Chef. But there are many more Indians too that dont know of it. Gujarati cui...

Aloo tamatar jhol  required blending tomato prior to cooking. I still need to learn making a thicker aloo curry.

Asian chopped salad The crispies, nuts and so on, are all what you keep picking out as crunchy, munchy as if the well chopped salad itself is not crunchy enough.

At Potluck today, Gujarati friends introduced us to  methi na gota . They said its their go to breakfast. Another friend made  China grass pudding . I heard of agar -agar at school in a  science class.  It had a very interesting taste. You would expect the bite of the pudding to be soft, one-tone but it feels like you are about to eat something like the sharp edge of a grass and you dont know when. its like pop candy, unexpected and exciting. There was a roti look alike that turned out to be roasted papad rolled when hot.  Rolling the roasted papad

Julias best banana bread And not just any banana bread recipe but one that can be made without the ingredient of the other recipes, that isnt in the house. for example, today I ran out of butter. So it had to be a recipe with oil. And I want to use the coconut oil lying around. The recipe said 60min for the loaf pan. I used the 9x9x2 so reduced the time to 50min. But even at that I could smell the bread 5 min before the timer would summon me.

Inspired by Water Lilies I want to make a small pond of lilies or any such painting scene a small world Who made us?

Surprise he said. I couldnt tell what made the aloo palak so tasty and tangy. " Tomatoes?" "We dont have tomatoes" Besides we shouldnt cook tomatoes with palak, so thats out. "Aamchur?" "we dont have amchoor". Since I couldnt guess anymore... lemon Sanjay Thumma's trick. The aloos could have used some more cooking and yet the lemon was the selling point.

October butternut cake  tasted a bit - airy like corn bread. Skipped the frosting and used melted chocolate and served it with frozen custard.

When you think of Bread upma, the sweet tase of bread might be offputting. But if its whole wheat bread, then its not all that sweet and hence has a good chance of taking all the spices and getting savoury. Whole Wheat Waffles.

In my cooking repertoire, if there's anything that needs rescue, it is curries with gravy. For a quick vegetarian gravy, I sauteed onion and tomato and added cashew. It turned out to be a tasty gravy. The creamy part didnt go well with my husband. But I quite enjoyed it and could imagine chicken in that. A well made curry brings out the chef's narcissism.

Chocolate on sale is making me quiet the lady who fills up her fridge with chocolate that she wants to share. A week or so ago, it was chocolate covered cranberry and now its the Alohamacs. A site reads that it has 14 pieces in the box, of which I didnt stop at one but two. The dark chocolate delivers on its promise and the nuts are Kona too. 

Its fall and what is around a lot is Pumpkin. I had already baked a bread with some of it. I wanted to try it in a curry. I thought it was closest to the gravy of Egg Pulusu. I added enough water to bring the consistency of gravy to the paste, red chili powder, salt, garam masala, coconut, tamarind water and boiled eggs. Voila! Experiment Success. Pumpkin paste can be used to make any of the curries with a consistent gravy - like paneer , kofta gravy and so on...

I am sure there is a law about hovering over cookie/chocolate bowl at a host's house. (But there are urban legends of that too like the one about establishments having to offer water, if they are asked in AZ.) But the task here is urgent. What is this chocolate with signs of bean (pursed lips actually). Technicalities later. so what is his brownie thing. A 'Caramel Brownie'. Nah. Decelerate. Interest expressed. Ziploc of treats in the month of October, but we are not there yet. yes, the pumpkin has already made into a pumpkin coconut oil bread. But you know about the Thursday being the new Friday. Well back to the chocolate, its a cute little thing. Like with all the other concoctions of chocolate aping desserts (Godiva - Creme Brulee), you have to gear up your imagination for it to be the Caramel Brownie, but its good chocolate, discounting the caramel ofcourse.

usually I dont take up on icecream offers, but I thought a variety flavour might change my mind. Coffee. I said fine, havent tried that in a ages. Talenti coffee chocolate chip gelato Aldens ice cream Tried  new crackers