Here it is!!!!

Shashi is surpassing my enthu for blogs by ordering me to take this picture last night and blog on it. Love you, Shashi

I just noticed that the middle item was not labeled, it was the crowning jewel of the evening - Moghalai Chicken Briyani.

What Do I blog on this?

- People who think I don’t know anything other than Work and workout, please look at the picture, it speaks far more than a 1000 words. (except I never published my blog site to many who think so)

- I can’t take credit for all the stuff on this plate. 2 more friends did bring food too. Shashi’s Kofta is the best I have had so far. Muni’s Chicken items got great reviews too.

- Eating like this will cause us to walk more in the park, not to mention all the soda and strawberry mousse cake. Same friends who gave me company yesterday will accompany me in the walking too, right

LONG LIVE OCCASIONS THAT MAKE US MEET AND EAT!!!!

I LOVE TO COOK.

I don’t cook often or even daily when I am busy with other passions in life such as work & family. I do put up healthy stuff together to feed the stomach and it is mostly for survival rather than awakening the taste buds. My husband and child have gotten used to it since they also seem to have greater interests elsewhere than the kitchen/dining table on an everyday basis. But when I do cook, I do it very passionately.

Also, I cook when I get stressed. I remember cooking the whole night before my Investments exam during MBA days. I still cook late at nights when my brain gets congested with trying to solve an issue.

I am used to cooking for a lot of people in big vessels but can’t cook for 3 of us. Even all the pots, pans, and serving dishes in my possession are meant for 15-30 people. Can I use that as an excuse for not cooking for my family unless we have friends visiting us? As a matter of fact I remember during our early years of marriage my husband begging people to come to our place for lunch/dinner telling that is the only way he gets me to cook well

I brought all of these last Sunday night, but still missed spinach, cilantro, green chillies, garlic which I bought later. All of these are completely finished off. It is as though we returned from a famine

This is my entry to the event:

http://simpleindianfood.blogspot.com/2008/05/think-spice-think-cardamom-event.html 

Ingredients:

1 cup Rava

1.5 cups sugar

1.5 cups water

1 cup milk

1 tsp Cardamom powder

A pinch of food color

1 spoon of rose water.

2 tbsp of ghee

Method:

Fry Rava in 1 Tbsp Ghee and keep it aside.

Fry sugar slightly and add water to form a light sugar syrup.

Add Rava, Cardamom, food color, and rosewater.

Keep stirring.

Add milk and keep stirring.

As the mixture turns into the consistency of egg ehite (that is what I can think of ) add remaining ghee and turn off the stove.

Then, enjoy Rava kesari.

Variations: You can add raisins, cashews, pinapple chunks etc.

Around V Day I went to La Madeleine’s Bakery and Cafe for a work meeting with a really nice person. He was kind enough to order a capuccino and a Raspberry Cheesecake, huge as it was in the shape of a heart [since my right brain is disabled, I will use the same shape too], just for me. When people order stuff for me to eat, I feel cared for. I have to mention that at this point I had completely given up on caffeine related products and I have never liked Raspberry or Cheesecake. But I finished both of it, because what was supposed to be a 30 minute conversation turned out to be a 2 + hour discussion. I never felt time pass, clearly I was having fun

That has been the only time I had eaten raspberry so far….

And here comes the event http://ammaluskitchen.info/2008/05/01/announcing-afam-raspberry/

Ingredients: 1 Litre of Milk

2 Tbsp Sugar

1 spoon of Rosewater

1 pinch of Saffron

1 Tbsp of Ghee

Raspberries

Directions:

Boil the milk with Saffron

Add sugar, rosewater, and ghee.

Once it becomes semi-solid, lower the flame.

This, by itself is very tasty. I moved it to a seperate dish, forgetting all about raspberries.

Now, I remembered the event and wanted to go and buy organic raspberries and a heart-shaoed cookie cutter. But my husband was trying to "SAMPLE" this for quite sometime. I literally had to push him away and hide this in the freezer before I left to buy the fruit.

Then this happened:

When I wake up in weekends and come down the stairs to the kitchen, I don’t think of a healthy breakfast, just some garbage out of my refrigerator. This time, a really unusual thing happened. I saw ripe mangoes and an almost life expired bell pepper that I had bought at a premium price for its freshness and organic nature were staring at me and making me feel really guilty.

I had to do something to use both of these. Here goes:

Ingredients: [please note: I decided to ditch the green capsicums to avoid the strong raw taste, plus they did have a shine that told me I could have one more week of less guilt because of the green ones ]

Place a pan on stove in low heat and toast the onions without oil:

Add red bell pepper sliced like in below:

After frying for while, add cubed ripe magoes:

Cover with a lid and kind of let it cook on low heat for 5 minutes or till your 5 year old daughter comes down hungry

Then, just serve it like in a 5 star hotel like this:

If you are lucky you get a re-do for next day’s lunch like this:

If you are really lucky to get a husband like mine, then you get to eat fancy gourmet lunch like this on a MONDAY with him in your house like this:

But can any "one" be as lucky as sending the post to 3 online events like this?

This is what they say in tamil as "Orey kallula moonu maangaai," which translates to Befalling 3 mangoes with a single stone throw at the mango tree, to illustrate the point you get 3 times the expected result for a single effort = Meaning I am blessed.

http://arundati.wordpress.com/2008/05/03/wbb22-announcement-may-mango-madness/

http://creativepooja.blogspot.com/2008/05/lets-celebrate-completion-of-2.html

http://chefatwork.blogspot.com/2008/05/macaroni-salad-and-anouncing-mbp-may.html

Last Friday I had gone to Sowmya / Vidya’s [ http://blogwithadifference.blogspot.com/ ]  place for a swim and dinner with my daughter [I thought it was a girls only swim until I spotted dear Swami and his wife, then missed hubby]. Technically, it was just for a swim, but since I was there, they decided to feed me, nothing unusual for us.

Vidya had made this AWESOME pineapple rasam I tasted for the first time in my life, and I was immediately a die-hard fan of her cooking. I took the recipe from her. Also found one from Singing Chef [ http://chefatwork.blogspot.com/2008/01/pineapple-rasam.html ] and another from Jugalbandi [http://jugalbandi.info/2007/03/pineapple-rasam/].

I liked Vidya’s the best since it was easier with fewer ingredients, obviously I am the lazy kind.

Here is the picture of the Ingredients:

1 Pineapple

2 tbsp Masoor dal boiled with 5 cups of water and trumeric (any lentils will do)

1 Tomato

1 sprig of curry leaves

2 tsp of Rasam powder

2 Green chillies

1 tsp Pepper powder

oil, mustard, and urad dal to tamper.

Salt too.

Cut 1/3 rd of the fruit into slices, V and Singing Chef used chunks, since I am pretty jobless, slices will do.

Puree the 2/3rd. (Couldn’t take more pictures step-by-step, was on phone with another bud).

In a pot, tamper urad dal, mustard, curry leaves, chillies, and tomato in oil, in that order.

Add rasam powder, pepper, and salt.

Add boiled lentils with water.

Add Pineapple puree.

Allow to boil.

Add slices of Pineapple.

Add Ghee. [Optional]

Serve hot.

My entry to my muse’s event http://chefatwork.blogspot.com/2008/05/macaroni-salad-and-anouncing-mbp-may.html

Ingredients:

 - 1 cup full of red pearl onions

 - 1 slice of ginger

 - 2 pods of garlic

 - mustard, oil, and urad dal, curry leaves

 - 2 tsp of sambar powder

 - 2 tsp of tamarind paste

 - a pinch of asafoetida powder

 - salt

 - 200ml of toor dal boiled in pressure cooker and mashed.

Procedure:

Tamper with mustard, urad dal, curry leaves, ginger slice, and garlic.

Add onion and saute for 5 minutes in low heat.

Add 2 tsp of sambar powder and water.

Fry for 30 seconds in mdeium heat.

Add 2 cups of water.

Add boiled dal.

Let it simmer for 10 minute in Med-lo heat.

Add tamarind and asafoetida powder.

Add water to bring to desired consistence. Once it simmers, turn it off.

Onion Sambar is ready.

My entry to JFI : Onion     http://radhiskitchen-radhi.blogspot.com/2008/01/jfi-february.html

LESSON LEARNT:

Do not take final picture in Kadai, present it artfully on a nice single-serving dish

Cilantro is a good garnish and helps with aroma too.

I created this Liquid Comfort

for this

But, unfortunately, I could not post it in time. However, my masterpiece is going for this event

Fry sugar with cinnamon powder. Add water to simmer making a cinnamon syrup. Refrigerate. Soak cinnamon barks in Vodka fro 2-3 days.

Serve: Shaken not stirred

I have missed previous 2 spices: Ginger and Cinnamon. My determination to not miss Garlic and my love for poondu kulambu made me cook this yummy tonight.

Since I was a kid, I have always loved Garlic, I can eat it raw, yes, I can.

My mom is an awesome cook. She is one of those few people with who diet plans never will work. All our friends and relatives will fondly complain of how my mom will serve 2 more times after the guest strongly insists on getting up to wash hands. My mom is the perfect hostess and cook. It is her love for people that makes her cooking special. I am 200% sure of it since she never had access to elaborate ingredients or even modest gadgets.

My cooking is not even close to hers for more than 1 reason. I never learned cooking from my mom. In fact, I never cooked in India. There are a lot of differences in cooking in East from West, leave alone cooking eastern dishes for the first time by myself here.

Nevertheless, I savour my food too, partially because my taste buds are dead.

Anyways, below is my entry for

2 handfuls of peeled garlic

1 large onion finely chopped

1 can tomato

4 tablespoon oil

tamarind, salt to taste

2 tsp  sambar powder

mustard, urad dal, curry leaves.

Pour oil in a vessel and tamper with mustard, urad dal and add curry leaves.

Add finely chopped onion and fry till the raw smell goes.

Add garlic and stir till raw smell goes.

Add Sambar powder and then add tomatoes. Stir well. Close with a lid for 5 minutes.

Add tamarind 1.5 - 2 cups of water and salt. Cover with a lid and let it boil for 20 minutes.

Open and pick a garlic and insert a fork. Garlic should be pierced smoothly.

I wish I could share the taste and smell of this delight, but I am able to only share it visually. Here goes:

I had invited a close friend’s family over for dinner on friday evening and we both were also invited for a Golu [more on this later] that same day. I came back from work at 4.00 and had to go to an optometrist at 4.30. I gave this list to better half to get by 5.30pm.

Bay leaves, Saffron, onion, corriander. I knew I wanted to cook Saffron rice since it is very good for pregnant women and also I could participate in

Ingredients:

1 tsp Saffron

cloves 8

cinnamon sticks 2

Bay leaves 4

Raisins 15

Whole Almonds 10

Peas - 1.5 cup

Rice - 2.5 cups

Ghee 1 to 1.5 tbsp

As soon as I came back knowing I had a 20/20 vision , I took out my rice cooker and put 1 tbsp ghee. Meanwhile, I halved the almonds and rinsed rice in a basin. As soon as ghee warmed, put in all the ingredients excluding peas and rice. I microwaved the green peas for a minute. Once the spices and nuts were fried, I added peas. In a minute, added the rice as well and fried for 2 whole minutes. Added 6 cups of water and covered the cooker with lid. Let it be to get this yummy

Also, I wanted to cook something in Paneer since some of us are vegetarians and the "Singing chef’s" earlier neighbor had said if not meat atleast Paneer(cheese) should be served to guests to honor them

I had these ingredients:

1 big onion chopped, 1 half yellow bell pepper diced, 1 half red bell pepper diced, paneer, 2 tomatoes finely chopped, ghee, 1 pack of masala from long ago and cilantro

Add Ghee and paneer to wok. Then add diced bell peppers.

I had forgotten to add onions till then, so I added it now like this:

Then I realized I needed spice and hunted this out from refrigerator’s long-forgotten shelf:

Then, the dish was way too dry, so thought of adding this:

Add a half cup of water. Let it be on simmer. Add salt and more ghee .

Then as the gravy thickens, garnish with cilantro to get this:

ALL THIS TIME MUNI WAS DOING THIS

We were all done by 6.30 pm. Oh, I forgot to mention we also had white rice in cooker on the stove. Seasoned it after we came from golu. Vanilla pecan ice-cream was in fridge, all in all we were done.