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Showing posts from 2020

Crepini Egg Wraps with Cauliflower

  Image: Instacart Have you tried these crepini egg wraps with cauliflower? If you are into cauliflower pizza crust or keto, you might have or want to. We tried it more for novelty sake from Costco. Kids loved it ofcourse they had to get their carbs in too. It is fun seeing crepes made with that tiny roller.

The Secret Ingredient Cookbook: 125 Family-Friendly Recipes with Surprisingly Tasty Twists by Kelly Sensei

  The Secret Ingredient Cookbook: 125 Family-Friendly Recipes with Surprisingly Tasty Twists by Kelly Sensei of  Just a taste Do you like regaling your friends with wonderful food? Do they ask you for the recipes often? Once a friend made an eggplant curry and asked me to guess the secret ingredient. it was creamy. I thought it might be some nut paste. It was coconut milk. This is a neat thing. The secret ingredient. Sometimes the secret ingredient changes the taste profile for example it adds the sweet into the 'sweet and savory', sometimes it makes it fluffy, Yogurt seems to be a favorite secret ingredient. By learnign what the secret ingredient does to the dish, you also learn new cooking principles that you can customise into your next dish. The core of it is that you can always take a dish further with the addition of another one, well chosen ingredient. It pushes the creativity of the chef. If its something not easy to place, then it makes for a fun game of asking thos

Shrimp Dynamite

 Have you heard of  Coubiliac ? The trick about it is that it needs to show the 6 distinct layers of the filing. And no air pockets allowed. We saw that enroute to  Dynamite Shrimp  recipe. I liked this  Air fryer  recipe. From this for small shrimp, the time chosen on one side was 6 min and 3 or 4 on the otherside in the Shaq air fryer.  I used the frozen shrimp from Costco which happens to be from Thailand. Although in  frozen shrimp  recipe, the chef put it in the airfyer directly after marination, when I put the shrimp from the bed f ice into water, I realise dthat the shell was easy to remove.  Last time I cooked shrimp, it was in the curry style, so I knew it could take a boil. This time making a faux fried apetizer with airfryer, I had to be careful about it. For the larger ones, a 10 min time with 400F fries setting with a turn over at the half mark is good. My friends who know if shrimp is cooked or not were happy with the juicy tenderness of the inside and the crispiness on t

The Meat-Free Kitchen: Super Delicious Plant-Based Meals and Snacks for Every Meal, All Day

Image: amazon.com The Meat-Free Kitchen: Super Delicious Plant-Based Meals and Snacks for Every Meal, All Day The breakfast bowls look yummy. You could have them for any meal. TVP  substitution Tabbouleh burger sounds interesting. Sun dried tomato and pesto burger with brown rice and brown flour is appetising. The colorful bowls look so vibrant. Avocado sauce. Why not?

Healthy Keto Air Fryer Cookbook: 100 Delicious Low-Carb and Fat-Burning Recipes

  Image: amazon.com Healthy Keto Air Fryer Cookbook: 100 Delicious Low-Carb and Fat-Burning Recipes by Aaron Day I didnt know that you could make hard boiled eggs in airfryer. In this diet conscious world, after having seen a couple of cookbooks with calorie and nutrition information on the side, a non-diet book pales. I see it as a big trend - diet cookbooks and nutrition info specified books. Earlier dietbooks would have meant restricted, bland food but with new technology, the food can now meet the gastronomic flair and sense and make it easy to stick to your chosen diet with ease and variety. Chicken Nuggets with coconut flour. Now you dont need to frequent fast food for kids favorites and control the amount of salt in it. Some of the recipes use unflavored whey protein powder. Cauliflower Mac & Cheese sounds yummy. Creme Brulee, if you didnt get a chance to buy the torch. Get friendly with almond flour and coconut flour and have a wonderful healthy cooking advenure. Another th

Epic Air Fryer Plant-Powered Cookbook: 100 Incredibly Good Vegetarian Recipes That Take Plant-Based Air Frying in Amazing New Directions

  Image: amazon.com Epic Air Fryer Plant-Powered Cookbook: 100 Incredibly Good Vegetarian Recipes That Take Plant-Based Air Frying in Amazing New Directions by Michelle Anderson The pciture is of Avoado fries. That is something I wont eb doign as Avocado can be had very well without modifying it. The rest of the recipes are very interesting. You forget that the book is plant-powered. Lots of adventure with exotic dishes from different countries. Turkish baked potatoes. If your cookbook author is a traveler thats a bonus due to the fusion food that comes from it. French toast, Latkes, Bulgur Egg Muffins, Barbeque Tofu and Mango Sandwich, Tofu Huevos. Breaded cheese in the melon salad is a good texture variation. Carrot bhajis. Dutch cheese souffle. Tofu Fries. Roasted vegetable Hummus. I never thought about how baklavas are made. Having seen the layered stuffed circles, this presentation with lattice cuts of the whole pie like makes sense and is a different look.

Keto Diet Hacks

  Keto Diet Hacks: 200 Shortcuts to Make the Keto Diet Fit Your Lifestyle by Lindsay Boyers. Week by week Keto . It is normal to experience weight stall in second week of Keto. It aint plateau till its a month or 3 months. Freezing avocados is a great idea. Learn some grabbling perishable food from the fridge behaviors from the grocery store stocker. Keep your soon to be used items upfront, so you get to them before they wilt. Making mayonnaise in a mason jar sounds like a fun activity for kids. Funny that 1oz of cheese is related to the size of a 9v battery and 1 serving of nuts should be the size of a golfball. Keto-friendly protein powder is a smart idea. Fathead Dough. A good collection of tips for any diet. Especially the mindufl eating, intermittent fasting, hydration, mindset change.

Air Fryer Instant Pot Cookbook: 100 Recipes to Cook with Your Air Fryer & Instant Pot Pressure Cooker (Everyday Wellbeing)

  Image: amazon.com Air Fryer Instant Pot Cookbook: 100 Recipes to Cook with Your Air Fryer & Instant Pot Pressure Cooker (Everyday Wellbeing) by Sarah Quessenberry If you read this book before buying the airfryer you can prevent yourself from making the rookie mistake of going with bigger is better. Reminded me of a long time ago that I used to know Chicken Marbella. This book has a sign on the left top of each page which shows a picture of an instant pot or air fryer depending on the equipment to be used for the recipe.  Chicken Kiev, Farrotto sounds fun. Falafel in airfryer is a good idea. Have not heard of Dulce de Leche Shortbread Cookies. Creme Brulee in an instant pot. Lots of variety of recipes. More pictures would have made it even more relatable.

1000 Mediterranean Meals: Every Recipe You Need for the Healthiest Way to Eat (1000 Meals)

                                                              Image: amazon.com 1000 Mediterranean Meals: Every Recipe You Need for the Healthiest Way to Eat (1000 Meals)  by Valentina Harris Each recipe shows how you could add a twist to the basic recipe, with different ingredients. Marinated Manchego. Vibrant colors almost like art work. You can get some ideas on elevating the food by curating the plates. For example silvery boquerones on a matching plate. White cheese adds as a foil or a good backdrop for other colors to shine. I dont think I have ever considered soup at a Greek restaurant. Lebanese Fatoush salad looks very interesting with cubed pita bread. I might try this with roti. Its softer counterpart is Panzanella with soaked stale bread. Tempted to make the pita bread. If you love the Lebanese Pizza with zaatar at Costco, you might lean towards making this pizza recipe. Pizzettes are so cool. While you might equate Marinara with tomato sauce, this book lets you in on the h

The Mediterranean Diet Cookbook for Beginners: Meal Plans, Expert Guidance, and 100 Recipes to Get You Started

  Image: amazon.com The Mediterranean Diet Cookbook for Beginners: Meal Plans, Expert Guidance, and 100 Recipes to Get You Started by Elena Paravantes There is a good plan to make your Weekly Mediterranean Diet plan . After all the allowances of fish, pasta, meat days, you see how it is rich with vegetables. There's a handy minimum number of servings of vegetables and greens per day among other things like fruits,beans. If you have decided to go Greek, then this initial planning step is helpful.  Shrimp and Feta Saganaki. I should suggest walnuts to the beetroot lover for the salad. Rice and lentils together makes for one-stop food. I love Mediterranean food but my interest in it as a diet peaked for two reasons. One olive oil of Keto points to Mediterranean. While Mediterranean is in the top three diets, keto is around last but one in 40. Mediterranean Keto seems to be the way to go. And then there is the transitioning from keto part. the off ramp which should be taken care with 

Pita Pakori

  How do you pick a recipe?  Sometimes, whats around you decides what you make. This morning while making bread pakori, not the full deal of stuffed and deep fried. Its a cutdown version with dip into gram flour batter and saute. Towars the end, with extra batter left, my eyes fixated on the broken, dried naan/pita pieces which I couldnt get myself to throw and didnt fit right into my current diet. They got a good dunk into the batter and are now pita pakori in a  chila , because of the extra batter that they couldnt absorb. Wondering how bhindi will take to swimming in the besan batter.

How do you pick a recipe?

For a potluck, I was going to make a vegetarian curry. You already know a way to make the normal curry but you want it to be somehting special especially for Thanksgiving. I searched for  Aloo Korma  and found this recipe interesting because of the presence of fried onions. Earlier I have used fried onions in green bean casserole or biryani but nothing else. I was excited about the recipe because of the twist in the ingredients. As befits our modern life, recipe viewership, I saw the recipe here and there, I was happily swimming along with the bits and pieces I gathered from the recipe, and then suddenly I wondered how do we use the fried onions? May be garnishing? I went back to the recipe with the investigative streak, ofcourse not as thoroughly and maybe sort of udnerstood that the onion paste was from the fried onions. I went back to the video today and did see that the onions were fried as part of the process. If the initial picture showed raw onions, I wouldnt even have probably

Recipes in a story

While reading  Insignificant events in the life of a cactus , I came across these - Buttered Noodles. It will remain as the first dish we ordered for our daughter at  Panera Bakery. "Tarantula have no teeth, so they use their venom.." New at a school experience - " a thousand kids who had never seen me before" cowboy beans, cornbread and coleslaw lollipops with scorpion "this is still a library"

Thai curry

 A Journey of Thousand steps begins with a small step - Lao Tzu Paraphrased into cooking Every recipe starts with a single ingredient. Today all I knew, when I started making the curry was that it was going to be Tofu curry. I also knew that I would be using up the ground groundnut/peanut powder in it. In the first place, the peanut powder came to be, because I added it late in the  sabudana vada  game. There was some left over.  At this point, it was only going to be Tofu curry with peanut powder. while the onions were sweating it out with the crushed peanuts, I realised a gravy was stirring up. I gave my little one a chance to cut up the tofu - the only vegetable that she can cut because it is soft. In a karate chop, she wielded some gross cuts to the Tofu which ended up as good chunks.  When the Tofu chunks joined the party, it looked done. This is where I would call it a day. Infact, Tofu was the chosen candidate for a day like this. With 3 more such Tofu boxes left from the Costco

Weird Musings on food

 I thought that brown rice was best of the lot but if you compare it with lentils then they pack the power with proteins and similar carbs. But brown rice has a full feeling that lentils might not give you, if you are used to rice. White beans are like brown rice carbs.

Thawing Mushrooms

 Have you ever thawed  mushrooms overnight? I was shocked to see the overfilled mushroom box go limp and in a puddle. Then I realized that the water has been squeezed out by temperature and probably the water-soluble vitamins along with it.

WK 3 Day 2

This morning when I woke up, I could feel the glow in my face from all the extra water. It is true  that drinking water transpors fluids and minerals  throughtout the body. Its  jump rope day with jump rope dudes . Yesterday I was reminded of  Love Sweat's  journey that the weight loss or getting fit journey is not linear. Last week I also heeded to  Autumn Calabrese on shifting your mindset away from scale  and took some measurements. lets see how that goes.  I read that you should get your protein first, just like getting exercise done right in the morning or do the most important things first to  win fast .

Healthy Eating

We recently had to shift to making rotis at home. We are enjoying it so far. Some hacks. We store some of the mixed dough in the fridge so that it is ready to roll out the next day for dinner. Kids learned how to do it. With the whole family involved it is bonding time as well as some learning in manufacturing for eg things like assembly. This week I was intent on making this  thai tofu with broccoli.  I even took out the frozen lemon grass which a neighor gave us. They had made tea with lemongrass. Due to timing, kids made zucchini, frying it enough still retaining the crunch. I had marinated the tofu in the morning. Gave them a quick saute in the afternoon. The soaked garbanzos over the weekend are having makeovers. Curry, Hummus, mixed along with aloo into the pani puri and some of that remaining mixtur will be come kebab and imagine that with hummus. Two way Garbanzos. Like not deep fried falafel with hummus. Some boiled black beans have been retained for a quick evening snack.  Me

A sweet with Marangoni effect

The Marangoni effect is the mass transfer along an interface between two fluids due to a gradient of the surface tension. This is an experimental demonstration of the effect https://t.co/1aBwvSk2Fx pic.twitter.com/wc2uzAaFSi — Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) July 6, 2020 Yesterday I saw the making of a sweet  Ghevar Malai , which shows similar effect of the surface tension difference between oil and the new drop of the sweet.

More experiments

Egg Volcano Stuffed Mushrooms . Had this at a party but never thought about making it before. If quarantine 5,10, 15 is bothering you-  Make every meal as satisfying as possible . One way is to cook more satisying dishes and novelty. Another is to have good detours. I have found anew addition to my staples, an overripe banana with a sprinkle of mango pulp to counter the over ripe taste of banana.

Jotting down ideas

In writing, I know that to be ready for the next idea, I should write down existing thoughts and ideas. Something similar must happen in the cooking world too. Not necessarily coming up with your own creative cooking idea, but making the dishes with new ideas you come across or new skills/ways of cooking. Recent fun cooking Today while dondakaya was beign cooked, I suggested adding coconut to it, which made for a delectable dinner. 'Dondakaya is the new bendakaya'. Usually  bhendi fry  is served at the parties. No reason why  dondakaya fry  shouldnt be a party material. This  white sauce pasta  was fun to make. Its fairly quick too. This  mushroom tikka masala  will show you how to make each mushroom count like a jewel. Here I learned how to make nawabi gravy. While it is hard to get the spcie right with creamy gravies, I realised that it takes the ginger-garlic taste very well, when I made a paneer curry with the same base. Got to have only a bite of it, as it was intended for

Exit Bread. Enter ...

Prices on the bread aisle plunge the most in 80 years We have stopped buying bread. Making our rotis by ourself. Bread one of the modern conveniences. If you have to say bye to it... While some staples exit, new ones join the fray. Its Oats Inc now. Who has tried  Pumfu , tofu made from pumpkin seeds.