Ladled

Bhindi and Karela from our garden.                       Have you ever been in a cooking situation, where you know its not your first, but you dont know the trick employed last time to say avert the stickiness of okra. I dont remember doing anything different than cooking it longer, but this time, I read a tip - Add yogurt to prevent the stickiness. I havent cooked bitter gourd much. Fennel in   Kakarakaya vepudu  sounded promising. While pounding the fennel seeds, the smell took me to my childhood. during holidays, we would spend time in he fields. Fennel happened to be a stray, here and there. we plucked the tender fennel stems. In the curry, I had to add jaggery. I had some  tilkut . Since is essential jaggery and sesame seeds, I added it to the curry. When it was finally done, I saw no lumps.

Indian salmon curry Salmon fry

This Diwali, we had Pheni.

Today I learnt of Mohanthal from a neighbor at community potluck. One of the dishes was a malai kofta made from mexican squash. Another neighbor spoke about how hard she found to make batura. She said that as she would shape the dough, it would spring back to its original shape. That makes me appreciate the complexity of dishes and the act of cooking. My neighbor impressed with my interest in he sweet, shared some Mohanthal with us. It is truly a sweet from heaven. I was reminded of a sweet from my marriage. Another neighbor quipped about the satisfactoin of eating when very hungry and not as much when you eat on time everyday, which resonated in the following lines of Charles Bukowski in  Wandering in the cage. "the best thing about near-starvation and hunger is that when you finally eat it is such a beautiful and delicious and magical thing. people who eat 3 meals a day throughout life have never really tasted food… "

A friend said that we cannot eat/prepare food during eclipse, and if you made something before, if you add darbalu to it, then its fit for consumption.

I was thinking about  how water drops evaporate  and came across  Leidenfrost effect . A line in that article about dipping wet hands into molten lead made me ask if this is the effect that lets some people dip into boiling vat of oil for picking out pakoras with bare hands  .  Sure enough

Today a friend shared a Rosehip & Hibiscus Tea from Teekanne. He suggested that it tastes great with honey and hsowed me a jar of honey with the comb in it. I have never seen it before.

Yesterday, I got two samples of these round Tetley British Blend tea bags. I put some milk and water upto half a cup, with two bags in it and microwaved it for about 1 and a half minute. I was very surprised with both taste and colour of the tea. 

49% Americans eating Sandwich on any given day. Food for thought.  The sliced Cucumber Conundrum Folks at the Chew solved this sliced cucumber problem with Baby cucumber sandwiches , pat in place with creamcheese, top and bottom. Its a very refreshing sandwich. Another of my concoction, a Sweetpotato Sandwich with Balsamic Mayo. Balsamic Mayo reminded me so much of chipotle Mayo that Food city used to carry. I stuffed a boiled half sweet potato. Makes for a filling sandwich.

My friend and her team made Onion Kulcha , after finding it in their youtube recommended list.Their reason for making it - found it doable and fun I like the subtle reference to onion in the kulcha with some of it as garnish.

Currants roll Cassava Pone

After getting Aloo Puri from local Woodlands, I am after making that taste in my kitchen. I liked the concept of boiling the cubed potatoes in  Potato kurma . I should have put more onion to thicken the gravy. For its convenience, I am going to try this again till I get it right, which is not my usual way, if you ask my husband.

I got some Persimmons last week from a friend in CA. I patiently waited for them to ripe to bring to their manifest destiny of  Persimmon cake . I still havent replaced the white box with all-purpose flour. There I was left with the option of using whole wheat flour which didnt end too well. I should have looked for the recipe like  Persimmon breakfast cake , which actually calls for whole wheat flour. The only difference seems to be that the latter uses 3/4 cup butter while the former uses 1/2 cup oil. What a difference that 1/4 cup of fat could have made to the cake. I used Frooti juice instead of Apple juice. But didnt get any flavor of it.

A Friend suggested  Biryani pot . as the place for Indian food. Chicken mandakini with Kolhapuri spices Bezawada biryani

I thought I have had onion samosa before. May be May be not. But I have had tiny samosas and they had carrot in them. If somebody asked me to prepare onion samosas, I would have never guessed that they have poha in them. Thats what make cooking fun. What you get is not what you see. I got one step closer to making these, with the help of Spring Home Samosa pastry sheets which my husband found at a local Oriental market. I have some more pastry sheets, I will add some cabbage to the next filling. Tee Yih Jia   is the maker of the pastry sheets. The sheets looked like a very fine version of fortune cookies. I remember the crunch of the onions in the samosa, but then I didnt know then that they have poha in it.

Chocolate lava cakes Its amazing how fresh grocery list comes up, while you are an hour away from finalising the meal for the guests. 1 tbsp less of butter when you need a whole stick. Regular sugar has to do in place of powdered sugar. Hey, the fridge has both kinds of chocolate. Thats enough of a win. The cakes didnt set even after extra 5 min in the oven. But the guests recognised the as lava cakes and the gooey chocolate on the crumbled cakes didnt lose their taste one bit. When you dont want to go wrong with dessert, say "Chocolate".

Eggless Caramel Custard

Pomegranate Cafe I had the " Sunizona B.L.T ancient grain bread sandwich with chipotle aioli, sunflower ranch dressing, tempeh bacun, power greens, sunflower sprouts, avocado, red onion, Sunizona tomatoes" Sunizona Family Farms   is in Wilcox.

My husband suggested spinach and egg curry combination. I thought about breaking eggs into the cooked spinach but not the palak paneer style anda palak .

Wow, I just didnt realise that even in toy kitchens there are gourmet kitchens with stainless steel look and all. Having seen that, this is a very basic kitchen. I got luckier than the other reviewers in terms of getting sounds out of the kitchen. Placing pots and pans on the stove is supposed to start some magical sounds. On a closer look I found two tiny yellow raised dots that do the Dora speaking of making eggs. I still havent heard the faucet sound. Otherwise the installation was easy once I got the up and down parts right of the main body. The picture cutouts are too flimsy and wont last long. Cardboard cutouts not a great idea. I wont use them until I find a need for them. I will track this page until I can get all the 50 sounds/phrases that Dora and the kitchen can make. I cant wait for my daughter to have tea time with her friend over the weekend.

With friends over, started planning a visit to the grocery store. But when you are home, you try to make do with whats available. Egg biryani. It seemed like I never made egg biryani. we mostly have egg biryani, when we have vegetarian friends over. And more often, its he friends who take over the kitchen, so I remember more cases of having egg biryani made by friends. But I have made egg biryani from the recipe that I used  a part of. The recipe calls for the cooking rice parboiled and then the spice onion mixture. We were in laze mode, so it had to be as easy as possible. We made the spice onion mixure and cooked the rice with it in the steam cooker. For a picnic, I am planning to make  Capsicum rice which is just as we made Egg Biryani last night.

Couple of years ago, I had a roti party where we made different kinds of roti. Recently we went over to a friends house and we made some aloo paratha with two smaller rotis. For a long time I have been thinking of making the triangle paratha.

Our neighbours love  Aussie bites  from Costco. I thought it will be fun to make some at home and share it with them.

The chopped cookbook