While at a store, have you ever seen a wee babe let out a piercing scream?
You know, the kind that makes you fear for the expensive wines?
Worse, have you been at a store and had your own wee babe let out a piercing scream?
You know, the kind that makes you want to pretend this is someone's child.
Someone other than you, that is.

Well, I've been in the former situation many times before I was a parent and a few times after.

The times before I had a wee babe of my own, I thought to myself... perhaps the child is hungry... maybe she's tired... Oh, that poor mother, I wish there was something I could do to help. I'm a kindhearted soul that way. I never got annoyed at the screaming irrespective of how loud, how close, or how persistent. I smiled my kindest smile to the parents and was certain that it would never be like that for me.

When I took Tej to stores (we mostly just went to grocery stores) he was an angel. He slept, or sat strapped to my chest in his baby wrap and gurgled at me, occasionally sucking on my chin. If other, mostly older babies had their screaming episodes, Tej looked at them with interest. He never joined in. The two of us went about our business, paid for our goods and walked back home.
If you had to pick a sound track for us, you would be spot on choosing Louis Armstrong singing What a wonderful world.

For over a month now, Tej is happy and alert when we go to grocery stores. The main attraction of this joyous jaunt being - sitting in the shopping cart and being pushed around. Now children learn remarkably quickly and while my son was perfectly content with just being pushed around a few weeks ago, he soon demanded to hold the shopping list (which he invariably ate and then I couldn't remember what we needed), then he insisted on holding cans (so I had to rush to the first aisle that had cans and give him one to hold), then came the 'I want to touch Everything' stage, which also fortunately I could entertain as long as we were in the produce aisle. All I had to do was make a circuitous way to the coconuts, Ooh-ing and Aah-ing along the way. The moment he touched (and now sees) a coconut, he clambers back into the shopping cart. Yes, yes, I'm also very devious despite being a kindhearted soul.

Now of course he grabs things on his own, especially in stores where the aisles are narrow and holds on to grabbed object with pride till Mama's done shopping. When we get to the cash registers, I simply make a switch. I pick up one of our items that has already been billed out and again, Ooh-ing and Aah-ing I hand it to my son, replacing it with whatever it was he had acquired as we bustled through the aisles. Hey, you call it devious, I call it ingenious.

Moving on.

On our most recent trip to the store, my son, through quite a remarkable amount of arm-stretching and some brute strength pulling, acquired a foil baggie of something. I absentmindedly tried taking it from him in order to replace it on the clip it hung from and was instead confronted by a shrieking noise. I kept pulling and I kept hearing shrieks. Which is when my (still) sleep deprived brain made the connection that the shrieks were coming from my son. I looked at him. Clearly, that was HIS red foil baggie. I apologized, kissed him on the forehead and giving him my grocery list as a peace offering, we went on.

You know what I was thinking right? That I would do my devious 'switch' at the cash register.
It didn't happen. When we got there, Tej's hands clenched the bag so tight his nail beds looked white. I offered him apples, bananas, a can of tomato paste... no deal. I said, "Fine, at least let me pay for it."

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!!!!!

I looked around me. There was an older couple behind me, looking annoyed and impatient. There was a young man with a skull cap and headphones on, who looked my way - so clearly Tej had drowned his music out. There was another mother a couple of registers down whose eyes darted from Tej to her own child, probably worried if he'd set her baby off as well. And in the midst of all this, the lady at the register said, "Don't worry about it, I can still ring it out." She stretched that handheld bar-code reader towards Tej's hand and 'beeped' the bag. At which point, of course, my son let go of his precious acquisition in a quest to obtain that fascinating, red light bearing, beeping, coiled wire adorned object.

Tej: "Mmm... Mmmm... Mmmm...."
Lady: Oh honey, I'm sorry! I cannot give this to you.
Tej: *wide eyes
Me: I'm so sorry
Lady: Oh don't worry about it. He's probably hungry or tired.
Me: Umm...
Lady: Is there anything else I can do to help?
Me: No, thank you.

And as she waved goodbye to Tej I could almost hear her think, "It will never be like that for me" 

Well, you know, I did have nine solid months with my baby being perfectly well behaved in grocery stores with absolutely no effort on my part. I suppose what we need now is new tricks to keep him entertained. After all, I think what he really wants, is to be involved.
So sing on, sweet Satchmo, I can still hear you over the shrieks and I'm loving every bit of it.

Oh! That was quite a tangent wasn't it. The reason I told you all that was because I wanted you to know that I recently bought a bag of freeze dried raspberries (which I really didn't want) thanks to my son. When we got home and tried them, they were so tart my face was puckered for five minutes.

I didn't know what to do with them. I couldn't just throw them away. So I thought to myself:
What goes well with raspberries?
Dark chocolate.
Do we have dark chocolate at home?
Yes. Chips.
Shall we make raspberry- chocolate chip cookies?
Yes. We should. Clearly, the universe has willed it.

Recipe below: This really is quite delicious.
Yields approximately 46 cookies using a cookie measuring scoop to portion out dough balls
(I could tell you exactly what measure mine is, but I would have to get up and trek all the way to the kitchen. I'll tell you soon though, I promise) 

All purpose flour - 2 cups
Eggs - One whole egg + one yolk
Brown sugar - 1 cup
Granular white sugar - 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons
Freeze dried raspberries (powdered) - 5 tablespoons
Butter (room temperature) - 1 and 1/2 sticks
Baking soda - 1/2 teaspoon
Salt - 1/2 teaspoon
Vanilla extract - 2 teaspoons

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F

Sift the flour, baking soda, salt, and powdered raspberries.
Cream the butter and sugars together until well combined. Add the egg, egg yolk, vanilla extract and whisk again. I use a hand-held electric mixer to get this done.

Add the sifted flour-raspberry mixture to the butter-sugar-egg mixture and mix it till just combined.
You might see a few threads of dry flour in this mixture but be careful not to over mix. I stopped using my electric mixer at this point and switched to just using my hands.

Portion the dough into little balls and flatten them on to a parchment lined cookie sheet.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes. It takes 17 minutes in my oven.

Lavender Shortbread Rounds

This recipe made approximately 32 shortbread rounds, I think... I'm not sure how many I ate before I counted them.

This recipe has been modified from the family baking book, however, the tips are entirely of my own devising.
There were some tears and some despair followed by joyous epiphanies. I don't usually break down and cry over a recipe gone awry, but this was for Tej's birthday party and I so wanted to do everything right.

I share with you all my wisdom and then some. Have fun!

Ingredients:

All Purpose Flour (white flour/maida) - 2 1/4 cups
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Unsalted butter, softened - 2 sticks or 16 tbsp
Confectioners' sugar - 1/2 cup
Granulated sugar - 1 tablespoon + more for sprinkling
Dried lavender flowers - 1 tsp (for a stronger lavender flavor, use 2 tsp)

Preheat your over to 300 degrees F.

Process the lavender flowers along with a tablespoon of sugar in a clean coffee grinder or food processor until you get a 'mostly fine powder blend'. This lavender-sugar will look a little blue-grey in color (picture on top) compared to the confectioners sugar (below).

Sift the lavender-sugar, salt and flour together and set it aside.

Cream the butter and confectioners' sugar together until light and fluffy. This took 6 minutes in my kitchen with a handheld electric mixer. 

Add the flour mixture to the butter-sugar mix until combined. Turn the mixture out on to a lightly floured surface and mix till it comes together in a ball.

Portion into little balls and flatten to make small discs about an inch or inch and a half in diameter and just about, less than half an inch in thickness. Lay them out on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and poke holes using the tines of a fork.

Sprinkle the cookies with granulated sugar.

Space the shortbread rounds leaving at least an inch of space all around.
Bake for around 40 minutes. When ready, the biscuits will still be white.
Cool on a wire rack.

Troubleshooting:

Dough too dry - add cold water one tablespoon at a time into the flour mixture until it comes together.

Dough too sticky - Wait a few minutes, leaving the dough uncovered and try again. Check the dough every 2-3 minutes.

Dough too wet - allow it to stand at room temperature for a few minutes, it usually becomes more dry as time passes. If not, add flour one teaspoon or even lesser at a time and try kneading it again.

You absolutely need to:

- Use confectioners' sugar, do not substitute with granular sugar. If you don't have any confectioners' sugar, grind granulated sugar and corn starch together in a food processor/ grinder till you get a fine powder blend of the two. The ratio I have had success with is 1 cup of granular sugar and 1 1/4 tablespoons of corn starch or arrowroot powder.

- Set your oven at low temperature

Storage:

Shortbread keeps for a long time, we've had a batch of cookies that kept for a week in an airtight container with no changed in flavor. They might have kept for longer without going bad, but we finished them in a week.

Bread Pudding, the way it's Meant to Be

When I was a little girl, my mother's Parsee friends used to make me bread pudding. Their recipe was simple and the end result, delicious.

Back then, white bread wasn't evil, eggs weren't akin cigarettes (bs, imo), sugar was sweet and people would eat, all of the above, albeit in moderation.

I must admit I tried, many a time to make recipes healthier. Swapping butter for yogurt, applesauce, good will, and so forth... and I've actually succeeded many times. So I do have a perfectly nice recipe for bread pudding which uses whole grain bread and natural sweeteners, but you know what, it just doesn't satisfy.

Truth be told, I love white bread. I love eggs. I love sugar. In moderation, I believe they can do no harm. Besides, our diet is otherwise rich in whole grains, vegetables, and legumes for me to not feel guilty about this indulgence.
Most importantly though, this bread pudding, like other favourites from my childhood, shall not be messed with.

You will need:
Sliced white bread (or Indian Pav Bread) sliced into small pieces - 5 cups  
Large Eggs - 6
Milk (whole or 2%) - 2 cups
Condensed milk - 1 can (14 oz, or approx 400ml)
Sultanas/ Golden Raisins - 1/2 cup
Vanilla extract - 2 teaspoons
Green Cardamom, shelled and powdered - 6 pods
Nutmeg, freshly grated - a pinch

Just be sure to:
1. Use unsweetened white bread like the kind they use to make sandwiches. Do not use sweet bread, this recipe is sweet enough as it is.
2. If you aren't familiar with or fond of the flavor cardamom imparts, then I would strongly suggest using fewer pods. As for me, I grew up in a house that on Thursdays and weekends was a cardamom scented haven, so I love the stuff.
3. You have to grate the nutmeg fresh. Pre-powdered nutmeg is just wrong. Just as wrong as pre-powdered cardamom.

A Note on the Sweetness:
This dessert is sweet. Quelle surprise!!
Well, what I mean is, if you've tried other recipes on this blog you will have realized that they are sweet enough to be called sweet, but not cloying sweet. Not sickeningly sweet. Not Italian sweet.
It is sweet though, so if you hold me in high regard and cherish me for my ability to make desserts sweet, but not too sweet, be warned that this is one of the sweeter ones. It's delicious though, so I would urge you not to make any subtractions or worse, substitutions.

If you absolutely, have to tone down the sweetness because a Tufted Capuchun is holding your favorite sweater hostage or something like that, you can do one of the following:
1. Use 1/4 cup of sultanas or (I can't believe I'm saying this) leave them out altogether.  This is what I would consider a great tragedy, but you must do what you must do for your favorite sweater.
2.  Use half a can of condensed milk and replace it with plain milk.


The How:
Begin by boiling the milk and condensed milk in a sauce pan. I usually bring this to a boil and then let it cool, but you can get by with just bring it to a point where the two are well combined and steaming. Let it sit around till it is barely warm to touch.

Grease your baking dish. Slice the bread. Toss together with sultanas and add them to the baking dish. Cover the lot with some aluminum foil (you will need this while baking and also to keep the bread from drying out in the interim).

Get your blender and add the six eggs, vanilla essence, shelled and powdered cardamom, and grate nutmeg right into the jar. Blend till well combined.

Add as much of the cooled milk as the blender jar permits. Most blender jars don't have the capacity for all the milk + eggs, so be sure to add the blended mix back into the rest of the milk and give it all a good stir.

Pour the milk/egg mixture over the bread and let it sit for about half an hour.



Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
Set a pan (larger than your baking dish) in the oven, place the pudding dish in it and add water to the pan.
Cook for 50 minutes.


Remove the aluminum foil and cook for an additional 30 minutes. Oven temperatures vary, so it might take 10 minutes more or less.
Look for a firm pudding that doesn't jiggle on the pan being shaken slightly. Be careful not to spill any of the hot water on yourself.

By the way, if any of you did find your way to that article in Time, chances are what caused those people to contract heart disease might be that sliver of bacon coupled alongside them harmless, healthy, balls of sunshine.

Cranberry-Almond Oat Cookies

A variation on the more traditional Oatmeal-Raisin Cookie.
Just as delicious, if not more, owing to the toasted almonds and all.

A sweet and nutty cookie, pairs very well with both coffee and tea.

Old Fashioned Oats (lightly toasted) - 3 cups
All purpose flour - 1 1/2 cup
Brown sugar - 1 cup
Granulated white sugar - 1/2 cup
Baking powder - 1/2 tsp
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Cinnamon (ground) - 1/2 tsp
Dried Cranberries - 1 1/2 cup
Toasted Almonds (chopped) - 1 1/2 cup
Eggs (large) - 2
Unsalted butter (softened) - 2 sticks or 16 tablespoons + 1 tablespoon for the raisins
Vanilla Extract - 1 tsp

Optional Spice: I personally like the taste of cranberries and almonds coupled with oats very much and so I choose not to add any additional spice. However, if you feel you want a fuller flavour, I would suggest adding either grated orange peel/ orange zest, or a quarter teaspoon of orange extract/essence (very potent stuff, so go easy).

A Note on Toasting Almonds:
Chop almonds into small bits until you have one and a half cups full. Lay the nuts out on a cookie sheet and toast them in your oven, preheated to 350 degrees F. It takes ten minutes in my oven and I rotate the pan at five minutes tossing the nuts slightly while doing so.

Alternatively, you can toast almonds in a skillet or frying pan on the stove. Just be sure to stand by and stir constantly, regulating the heat if you see them starting to burn.

Personally, I prefer toasting nuts in the oven. I find they toast more evenly and it involves less busy work.

To make cookie dough:

- Mix flour, baking soda, salt

- Cream the butter, white sugar and brown sugar. 

I know I said I don't ever use white sugar in Oatmeal Cookies, but the tartness of the cranberries are best balanced with some good old fashioned, full-strength WHITE sugar. :) 

- Add the eggs one at a time, cream after each addition. 

- Add vanilla.  

- Mix the flour into the butter-sugar-egg mixture in a few installments. (It usually takes me three)

- Stir in the cranberries and toasted almonds.

- Chill the mixture for around half hour. 

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. 

Portion out the cookie dough and place on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet. 

Depending on your individual oven it usually takes around 30 minutes to bake. 

Rotate the pan halfway through baking. 

Look for brown edges with slightly soft centers. Soft to being pushed gently with your finger that is.

 

 

 

 

In case you're wondering about the shape of these cookies, they were frozen solid when I baked them, which causes them to spread less. If you would like your frozen cookies to spread more, halfway through your baking time (when you are rotating the cookie sheet) flatten the cookie out with a flat ladle. If you aren't a stickler for flatter cookies, I wouldn't trouble myself with this too much. The difference in baking time I find is about 5 minutes less if you do flatten it. But again, this depends a lot on your individual oven. 

A Note on Freezing Cookie Dough: 

It's a great idea! Saves you the temptation of buying crappy, additive ridden cookies in the grocery store. All you need to do is:

1. Portion out the cookie dough into little balls. I use a soup ladle or an ice cream scoop. 

2. Roll them into balls and arrange them on a platter small enough to fit in your freezer. 

3. Ensure the cookies aren't touching one another. Freeze for 15 minutes. 

4. When you take them out of the freezer, the individual dough balls are frozen on the outside but probably not frozen through. Working quickly, transfer them to a plastic zip top bag and put them back in the freezer. 

5. Experience has taught me to freeze only as many cookies as would fit on my cookie sheet in one bag. No more. They don't refreeze very well. So if you've made 24 dough balls and your cookie sheet can only accommodate 6 at a time, freeze them in 4 zip top bags of 6 each. Not one big bag of 24. 

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

In a moment of what we now consider a poorly executed, not-thought-through act of budgeting, my husband and I got ourselves membership at a popular chain warehouse store.
"It's sooo much cheaper if we buy in bulk," we had said. It's true too. It is cheaper and hence logical to buy in bulk. Our logic however fell apart when we realized that it was just the two of us... and we didn't really need all that much.

Now the husband and I are generally healthy eaters. We're good eaters too. However, the reason I call our warehouse store shopping expedition poorly executed, is because we bought good, healthy food in portions larger than we could possibly consume; and the reason I call it not-thought-through is because we live in a fairly small apartment.

We had no place to store our thrifty haul.
This led to situations where we often went to bed with a few Bounty rolls for pillows.

I kid of course. Ha Ha.

But seriously, if you ever feel the need, try sliding a roll under each knee whilst lying on your back. Really helps with that lumbar curve. And you can even use their shampoo/ conditioner bottles for a few sets of bicep curls during a shower.

To elaborate on the too-much-of-a-good-thing grocery shopping, what I mean is we often came home with too much fruit, too many fresh vegetables and enough oatmeal to bring our cholesterol levels down to nada.

I once ate so many kiwi fruit I could swear my skin took on a greenish hue. Also, I haven't eaten kiwi fruit since.
And spinach! Gosh, one time we couldn't open the refrigerator without being mauled by a super sized spinach clamshell.

This led to the otherwise healthy food taking on less healthy forms.
Perfectly good peaches got made into perfectly decadent cobbler (Susheel reassured me that they were much better that way).
Strawberries were dipped in chocolate, or served alongside some clotted cream, or better still served up with some pound cake, drizzled with chocolate and served up with fresh homemade whipped cream.
We were suffering, you see!

This recipe too came into being at that point of time, when I couldn't open the kitchen cupboards without boxes of Old-Fashioned Oatmeal leaping out into my arms screaming - 'Cook Me! Cook Me!'
I heard 'Cookie' (what with being up to my ears in oatmeal), so I obliged.

Old Fashioned Oats (lightly toasted) - 3 cups
All purpose flour - 1 1/2 cup
Brown sugar - 1 1/2 cup
Baking powder - 1/2 tsp
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Cinnamon (ground) - 1/2 tsp
Raisins (lightly warmed in a tablespoon of cinnamon butter) - 2 cups
Eggs (large) - 2
Unsalted butter (softened) - 2 sticks or 16 tablespoons + 1 tablespoon for the raisins
Vanilla Extract - 1 tsp

Makes approximately 24 cookies delicious cookies, 2-inches in diameter.
Also makes you consider renewing your warehouse store membership.

Two steps that you might not find in standard recipes that make a subtle, yet significant change in the flavor.

1. Lightly toast the oatmeal. I like to do this in a dry pan on low heat. Stand by and stir. You don't want the oatmeal to burn.
2. In the same pan, add a tablespoon of butter, ground cinnamon, and once the butter is melted and you can smell the cinnamon, add the raisins. Again, stir. Make sure all the raisins are evenly coated with butter and cinnamon. Make sure you do this on a very low flame.

If you have sautéed raisins before you are familiar with how they swell up. This time though, we don't need them to swell up. We just want the cinnamon flavor to infuse into the raisins and begin caramelizing the sugars even before we pop them into the oven. 

- Mix flour, baking soda, salt (and any additional cinnamon you may want to add)

- Cream the butter and brown sugar. I don't use any white sugar in my Oatmeal Cookies ever.

- Add the eggs one at a time, cream after each addition. 

- Add vanilla.  

- Mix the flour into the butter-sugar-egg mixture in a few installments. (It usually takes me three)

- Stir in the raisins and any residual cinnamon butter (there is hardly any if you use just 1 tbsp) and the toasted oats. 

- Chill the mixture for around half hour. 

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. 

Portion out the cookie dough and place on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet. 

There is enough to fill out two cookie sheets, possibly more. I own only one cookie sheet so I put the dough back in the fridge while the first set is baking. 

Depending on your individual oven it usually takes around 30 minutes to bake. 

Look for brown edges with slightly soft centers. Soft to being pushed gently with your finger that is.

Apple Cake

Ingredients:

Firm Apples, Golden Delicious/ Granny Smith/ Fuji - 3 large or 4 medium 

Walnuts, chopped - 1 cup 

Raisins -  1 cup 

Flour - 3 cups

Sugar - 1 1/2 cups 

Baking Powder - 1 tsp

Baking Soda - 1 tsp 

Vanilla Extract  - 1 tsp

Eggs, large - 3 

Salt - 1 tsp 

Cinnamon, ground - 1 tsp 

Oil, neutral tasting - 1 1/4 cup

Directions: 

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F

2. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt, mix well and set aside. 3. In a large bowl combing the eggs, oil, sugar, and vanilla essence. Using a handheld mixer, blend till the mixture is glossy. 

4. Incorporate the flour mixture to the wet mix in 3-4 installments. The cake batter will be very thick and sticky. 

5. Add chopped apples, walnuts, and raisins to the cake batter and mix to combine. 

6. Empty the mixture into a greased, fluted cake pan and bake for 50 minutes. 

Additional baking may be required. The cake is ready when it turns golden brown and a wooden skewer dipped in it comes out clean.

Methi Aloo

Ingredients

Methi/ Fenugreek Leaves, cleaned and chopped - 4 cups
Potatoes - 2 medium
Lime juice - 1/2 a lime or approximately 2 tablespoons
Green chillies - 1 or 2
Cumin - 2 teaspoons
Red chilli powder - 1 teaspoon
Turmeric - 1/2 teaspoon
Asafoetida - a pinch
Salt
Oil

How to make Methi Aloo:

1. In a wok, heat about one tablespoon of oil and add the cumin seeds to it. Follow this up with the asafoetida and green chillies. 
2. Ten seconds later, add the potatoes and stir fry till the edges of the potatoes have browned slightly. 
3. Salt the potatoes and add the turmeric - cook covered for about one minute. *Alternatively, you can parboil the potatoes in salted water with turmeric added to it and then sauté it.
4. Add the Methi leaves, lime juice, stir and let the mixture cook uncovered till the leaves start to wilt and release their moisture. 
5. With the heat turned low, cover the wok and cook till the potatoes are cooked. 

Serve with rotis, parathas or rice and dal.

Thalipeeth

I have always felt a little Maharashtrian.
For that matter, I've even felt a little Manglorian, Gujrati, Punjabi, and Goan. In fact, I can work my way from one tip of the country to the other and honestly say that I have felt a little like every kind of people India is home to.

Perhaps it was growing up in Bombay (and then in Mumbai) that makes one feel this way. You grow up in the midst of such diversity. Your friends hail from different parts of the country and you spend your childhood sharing rituals and religions, festivals and food.

Of course, food was most important - the one thing that bound us all.
Truly. It did.

Whats more it wasn't even the fancy delicacies we craved, it was the every day stuff. Simple delicious dishes which your friend brought to school for "tiffin" and traded with you for your own lunch (that is provided your own Mum had packed you something of value).

My Mother worked full time and then some, so my lunch box often featured Bread, Butter, and Jam.
I probably don't need to tell you this, but BBJ has very low trade value. So when the recess bell rang and the floor was open for business, my lunch was passed over like bad stock no one wanted to touch with a ten foot pole.

Then there were those kids whose lunches seemed packed by airline caterers. Their food came packed in insulated, compartmentalized boxes. I swear, sometimes there was more than one course - for a 20 minute recess! I was moderately jealous of these kids, but the ones that almost done me in were the hot homemade deliveries. Not only were these lunches piping hot, they were hand delivered by mothers in crisp cotton sarees, smelling of food and talcum powder. I was always so jealous. And let me tell you, jealously makes a BBJ sandwich even harder to swallow.

At this point, I want to tell my mother (if she ever reads this) that I appreciate everything she did and does for me, that I love her, and that I know whatever I might have felt it was infinitely harder on her to leave me and go to work everyday, but she needed to because we needed the money. And that if we were rich, she would have never left my side. I know Amma, and I love you.

Anyway, back to my story, which eventually leads to the recipe and my initial ponderings on my multicultural-ness.

I had a friend back in school Kanchan Phadke. Kanchu was the sweetest thing. She came to school in pigtails and a neatly ironed dress, she wore glasses and was prone to colds. Kanchu also had one of those crisp cotton saree, talcum powder mothers who brought piping hot lunch to school on occasion. And on one such occasion, Kanchu and her mother shared a certain crisp pancake like thing with me which had me drooling for more in every class after recess. I went home and tried to explain it to my mother...

... It is like a chapati, but its a lot harder and thicker
... you can't tear it like a chapati, it breaks
... it has onions and green chillies in it
... I ate it with curd...
... please make it for me amma!!

My dear mother tried in vain but couldn't decipher the dish and over time, I forgot about it completely.
Until I was 21 years old and doing research at the National Institute for Research in Reproductive Health, Mumbai when I sat down to lunch during a PCR run and was handed the same - like chapati but harder and thicker with onions and green chillies by Shilpa Pathak.

"What is this??? What is this called??" I pounced on her.
"Thalipeeth" Shilpa said, taken aback.
"I love this stuff"
She laughed and sat back, letting me devour it, "Eat, I'm not that hungry... besides, I had the same thing for breakfast."

I returned home and told my mother - "Thalipeeth!! Amma, it's called Thalipeeth!!"
She looked perplexed.
I explained, and since then she must have made it for me dozens of times.

I can now honestly say that I really do know lots about The Peeth (as my husband and I call it) so I can tell you about it. 

Thalipeeth when literally translated means plate (thali) and dough (peeth). It is quite possibly one of the simplest Maharashtrian preparations and one of their most nutritious staples at that.
In many ways Thalipeeth is nothing more than a multi-flour pancake with onions, green chillies and some spice, but goodness is it delicious or what! The only challenging thing as far as I can see about making it is patting down the dough on a hot skillet... I suppose it takes some amount of being tolerant to heat to do that.


Here is how you make it...

Blend together the following flours:
1/2 cup of Garbanzo bean/ Chick-pea flour (besan)
1/4 cup of Black Gram/ Urad Dal flour
1/4 cup of Moong Bean flour
1/2 cup of Whole Wheat flour
1/4 cup of Millet flour
1/4 cup of Rice flour
2 tbsp Cream of Wheat/ Rava
1 tbsp Cumin Powder
2 tsps Coriander Powder
1/2 heaped cup full of very finely chopped onions
Chopped green chillies - you decide how hot you want it
1/4 cup chopped Cilantro/ Coriander
A few mint leaves chopped
Salt

1. Mix all the different kinds of flour in a bowl and add the chopped onions, green chillies, cilantro, mint, salt and spices in.
2. Add water and knead with your hands till you get a very stiff dough.
3. Heat a pan/ skillet and grease it slightly with oil, ghee or butter.
4. Take a small handful of the dough and pat it on the skillet. Spread it around.
5. Drizzle some more oil/ghee/butter on top of the pancake and flip it over.
6. Press down on the cooked side so the side you patted down gets evenly cooked, this side is bound to have some indentations from your fingers.

Eat it hot... with chutney and yogurt.
As for me, I think of Kanchan and Shilpa every time I make this. And of course, I celebrate the little Maharashtrian in me.

Banana-Nut Oatmeal

Serves two.

1 and 1/2 cup milk

2 ripe (or overripe) bananas

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 cup quick cooking oatmeal 

1/2 cup of chopped walnuts

Approximately 1/2 a cup of water

Sweetner: Sugar, raw sugar, agave

Sliced bananas as garnish... if you so desire. 

Pour the milk into a saucepan and start it out on low heat. Mash the bananas (I usually do this in a cereal bowl with a fork) and add to the saucepan along with the vanilla and cinnamon. Let this come to a slow simmer. 

Once the smell of cinnamon subsides a little (takes about a minute from when it starts to simmer) add the oatmeal and about half a cup of water and cook till ready. 

Dish the oatmeal out into two bowls, sprinkle 1/4 cup of nuts in each and a drizzle of honey, not too much because overripe bananas are sweet to begin with. 

You can even add an extra sprinkle of cinnamon and some sliced bananas on top.

Chèvre-Honey-Walnut Sandwiches

This is a recipe in which I take great pride. I didn't read about it, I didn't see it be done, I just came up with it. Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean it hasn't been done... it probably has. Like most other things I believe I created only to be told by some insufferable know-it-all that it has been done before.
Nevertheless, whether it was I or anybody else who made them, these sandwiches are delicious. 

Ingredients to make six half sandwiches:

Cinnamon Raisin Bread, sliced (toasted, if you prefer) - 6 slices
(If you don't have Cinnamon Raisin, any other bread will do. Just not sourdough!)
Goat Cheese, crumbled - 3 tablespoons or soft goat cheese - 1/4 cup
Honey - 2 tablespoons
Walnuts, chopped, 2 tablespoons.

Making the spread: Mix the goat cheese, honey, and walnuts together in a small bowl. The honey will hold the nuts and cheese together. It also does a fantastic job of complementing the saltiness of Goat cheese with its deep sweetness. Do not use goat cheese packed in brine for this recipe.
The walnuts add a new texture and flavor dimension to the spread.

Spread this between slices of Cinnamon Raisin Bread and cut diagonally.
If you used soft goat cheese, you could even cut it in strips.

Goes very very well with black coffee or tea.

Makkai ki Roti & Sarason ka Saag

I did not grow up eating much corn. In fact, our only corn consumption at home was limited to bhutta, which is what we call roasted ears of corn we buy from street vendors who roast them over red hot charcoal. That, and pop corn. 

No... Makkai ki Roti, which are essentially roti's made from makkai (corn/maize) is something I began eating only once I moved to the United States. What with the US being the largest producer of corn in the world and all that, I suppose it was inevitable. But the truth is, I wouldn't really have tried making Makkai ki Roti, if I hadn't first fallen in love with Sarason ka saag! 

So really, thats the recipe I really do want to share with you. 

Sarason ka Saag: 

Ingredients: 

Mustard Greens - 1 bunch

Spinach - 1 comparably sized bunch 

3 cloves of garlic 

A small onion copped fine

A one inch piece of ginger - shredded 

3 green chillies (or more) I've actually used 6 :) 

Lime juice - approx. 3 tbsps 

Cumin - 1 tsp (because I add cumin in almost everything)

How I went about it... 

1. I cleaned the mustard greens and spinach and set them aside. 

2. In a large pot, I added about a tablespoon of oil and added the cumin, ginger, garlic, green chillies, and chopped onion and sauteed them till the onion was translucent. 

3. I then lowered the heat and squeezed some lime juice into the pot before adding the clean leaves in. 

4. I covered and cooked the leaves until they were limp, the lime juice keeps them green. 

5. I blended the whole mixture until it looks the way it does in the picture and added some salt. 

6. I personally love serving it up with slivers of fresh ginger... mmmmm... it really is delicious...! 

 

The nuances of Sarason ka Saag in my opinion come from the texture and the complexity of flavor despite the simplicity of the ingredients that go into it. Unlike spinach puree... the mustard greens add a slightly more fibrous texture to this dish making it a perfect balance between the silky smoothness of blended spinach and the coarseness of mustard greens when eaten alone. Besides, the spinach goes a long way in dulling the bitterness of the mustard! The onion adds some piquancy, the green chillies pack some heat and the lime juice brings them all together... oh so well...! 

Makkai ki Roti: 

1/2 cup of coarse corn mean (the kind we use for polenta)

1 cup of fine corn meal

2 green chillies chopped very fine 

1 tsp of cumin (lightly crushed) 

1 tsp salt 

Mix these ingredients adding only enough water to make a stiff dough. 

These taste best when consumed minutes after they're made. 

Dum ki Lauki

The bottle gourd is high on my list of favorite vegetables.
However, when I tell people how I like to eat it, they usually look at me like I'm a total nutcase.
I like my bottle gourd boiled. No salt. Nothing. Just boil it and give it to me and I will eat it. Whats more I will be grateful and happy.

Now try that with my husband. I guarantee he will have ordered a pizza so fast your head will swim.

And so I conjure up ways to introduce this harmless, almost tasteless gourd into his diet. For you see, the health benefits of it are many.

According to Ayurveda this particular gourd (aka opo squash or calabash) helps to:
1. Alkalize the body
2. Cool our bodies in the summer months
3. Detoxify (high fibre and liver cleanser)
4. Acts as a diuretic

And while I do suppose the best way to get these benefits out of it would be to eat it the way I do, or possibly make juice out of it ... let us for now focus on getting the good stuff into the picky eater.

Dum ki Lauki 

I discovered this recipe in India Cookbook by Pushpesh Pant and modified it to a point where it might seem more appropriate to call it "inspired by" as opposed to "adapted from". The original recipe calls for Garam masala and dry ginger powder (soonth). It also does not include the dry mango powder (amchoor). The proportions of the spices added are different too.

I have used:
1. A 10 inch long bottle gourd cut into bite sized pieces
2. Coriander leaves (Cilantro) - Chopped fine
3. Green Chillies - 2

Spices:
1. Cumin - 1 tbsp
2. Fenugreek Seeds - 6 little grains
3. Coriander powder - 1 tbsp
4. Grated Ginger - 1 tsp
5. Asafoetida - 1/2 tsp 
6. Turmeric - 1 tsp
7. Paprika - 1 tsp
8. Dry mango powder - 1 tsp 

How I went about it:

I took my trusty ol' frying pan (kadai) and added cumin seeds to 1 tbsp of hot oil. Followed this up with the grated ginger and asafoetida.
Fifteen seconds after the ginger and asafoetida, I added the gourd and stirred them around.

Then came the spices.

With everyone in the pot, I covered the whole thing with as tight-fitting a lid I could find and turned the heat on as low as possible. It was ready in about 30 minutes at which point I added the chopped coriander leaves and tossed them around once again. 

Grilled Asparagus with S & P

This is one of the simplest and most delicious things you could do with Asparagus.

The first time I made it was when I was a grad-student doing quick-improv cooking. However, I soon learned that this is in fact one of the most popular ways of serving up asparagus!

All you need is Asparagus, salt, pepper, and oil (Olive oil or Sesame seed oil work best)

How it's done...
1. Adjust your oven rack close to the broiler and turn it on low (LO).
2. Wash and trim the asparagus and arrange them, non-overlapping, on a cookie sheet lined with aluminum foil.
3. Drizzle oil over the asparagus and hand toss if you'd like (just so long as you re-arrange them to not overlap)
4. Broil for approximately five minutes on low, and then crank up the heat to high (HI) and give it a few minutes.
5. Get it out of the oven, and sprinkle salt and pepper. Grated Parmesan cheese would also be fantastic! 

I eat these straight out of the oven... by itself... But on looking over other recipes, I find that these would taste wonderful on a bed of polenta. It also makes an excellent side-dish.

This is what I am nibbling on... Grilled Asparagus topped with coarse grain salt and freshly ground black pepper.

:)

Classic Bundt Cake

Cleaning out the house had me gone completely mental so I was thrilled at the prospect of a night out with the girls... giggling, overeating, talking about things that mattered and other things that really didn't.

In fact, I was so delighted that I decided to bake a cake for us to have for dessert.

We would all go to Big Star and eat, after which I would invite them home for some bundt cake with sliced strawberries and chocolate sauce. I had imagined much gushing and praise. Not over the cake so much, but more over the herculean task of cleaning out six years of ... well... crap.
A woman would get it. A woman would appreciate me and the sheer perseverance it took... over weeks....
Okay, so I really wanted to be appreciated... but I made the cake out of love... and excitement.... and anticipation.


You can see something coming, can't you?
Well, I didn't!

I pull the cake out of the oven at around 2pm and log into my email to announce dessert - when I realize our girl's night out now includes the most undesirable element of all - BOYS! THREE WHOLE BOYS!
So dismayed!

I slice the cake into smaller bits, because now we have more mouths to feed.
That too boy mouths! The hungriest kind.

My woebegoneness aside, this cake really is delicious. It is almost exactly the same as featured in The Family Baking Book, except I've decreased the amount of sugar and butter.

Rue Rebecca and Cheddar Rolls

Rebecca is part of maintainence staff in our apartment building (well, at least she is for one more day).
More importantly, Rebecca is a wonderful woman.

In a world of increasingly distant and distracted "hellos" and "good mornings", Rebecca was the one person in my life who said it like she meant it. She looks you straight in the eye, and smiles, and says - "Good morning, how are you?" rolling her R's as she does it.

On mornings when I look particularly disheveled as I trudge down to the lobby to bring up the Times, Rebecca asks, "Whats wrong? Are you okay?" I mumble ... "tired" ... "was writing"..."too cold"... "drank too much coffee yesterday, couldn't sleep"... And yet, strangely enough whatever the cause for my exhaustion, once I had told her I felt better. The fact that she cared enough to asked me, made it all better.

For a year now, Rebecca has meant so much to me, and yet my interaction with her was always limited to warm smiles and three word sentences. That is until last week, when I saw someone else where Rebecca ought to be.
I panicked. "Where is Rebecca?" I asked our door staff. "Rebecca is leaving us. This is G.., she is replacing her."

My heart sank, "Oh."
"Well, is she still here? When is her last day?" I asked.

"Next Wednesday, I think"

To cut a long story short, in the interest of getting to the parts that matter, I found Rebecca and asked her home for a cup of coffee before she left.

Anticipating her visit today, I spent yesterday mulling over recipes to find the perfect cake to bake her. Yet, this morning, although I looked forward to her visit... I couldn't bring myself to bake a cake. It felt too sad for cake.
So when she did get here, all I could offer her was almonds, amaretto cookies, and cream crackers. I did however open up a treasured tin of coffee from Cafe Du Monde. This seemed as good an occasion as any.

And for the first time in a year of knowing her, we talked; and with ease, like we have had a hundred conversations before. We talked about our lives, families, and plans for the future.

Simba took a particular liking to her, and attempted climbing on her shoulders to catch a quick nap.  She told me the most wonderful story about her mother's cat Minino, who has found personal body guards in her mothers dogs! The two dogs apparently adore the little kitty to bits. So much, that they don't allow anyone to pet the cat. They bark and pounce if you so much as advance towards their precious keep.

You can't help but love her stories and especially for the way she tells them. The affection and pain evident in her eyes as she recounts the experiences of her life.

Gosh... I'll miss her so much, and its some respite that I did manage to tell her all that - about how much her smile and greetings meant to me, how much I would miss her, how delighted I was that she now had new opportunities to explore new things.

And happy as I am that she's moving on to what I pray will be nicer places and more fulfilling labors, I cannot help but rue the resignation of Rebecca.

After she left, I sat for a minutes and looked at our empty coffee cups. In a way I do understand that her leaving is what made it possible for me to get to know her. Else, we would have lived our lives, feeling our quiet affection towards each other, but never saying more than hello, and asking each other (albeit with genuine concern) "How are you?"

Later, I felt this unexplainable desire to knead something... so I baked these cheddar rolls. Some sort of self-soothing mechanism for me apparently.

Cheddar Rolls: Makes 8

(This recipe has been adapted from here)

Ingredients:
All purpose flour - 2 cups
Instant yeast - 2 1/2 tsp
Sugar - 2 tbsp
Salt - 1 tsp
Butter (melted) - 2 tbsp
Cheddar cheese(shredded) - 1/2 cup 
Water (warm) - 1 cup

What to do with it: 
1. Combine the flour, yeast, salt, and sugar in a bowl and mix with your hands. 
2. Add cheese and mix again. 
3. Add water and butter and knead till the dough comes together. 
4. Turn the dough onto a cold surface (like a marble slab or the kitchen counter) and knead with your hands for about 5 minutes. 
5. Divide them into eight rolls and set them aside to rise. This might take up to one hour.
6. Bake in an over preheated to 375 degrees F for about 20-25 minutes.

Moru kootan

You will need: 

White pumpkin - sliced, bite sized pieces- approximately 2 cups 

Grated fresh coconut - 1/4 cup  

Curd - 1 cup or Yogurt diluted with water 1:1 

Curry leaves - 1 sprig

Turmeric - 1/2 tsp

Green chillies (Serrano/Thai) - 4 (discard seeds if you don't want it hot) 

Dry Red Chillies - 2 

Black mustard seeds - 1 tsp

Cumin - 1 tsp. 

Fenugreek seeds - 4 (itty bitty sized seeds)

Coconut oil.  

Salt. 

Begin: 

Place the pumpkin in a sauce pan and adding water 

to just about submerge all the pieces. 

Add the turmeric and bring to a boil. 

Continue to cook till the pumpkin is tender. 

Once its cooked, add salt. 

Curry paste: 

Add coconut, cumin, green chillies, and curry leaves 

(after setting aside 3 - 4 leaves for the tadka) 

into your food processor and process till all 

ingredients are well blended. Add a little curd 

or diluted yogurt to the processor to speed 

things up if necessary, especially if the mix is too dry. 

The finale: 

Once the pumpkin is cooked, add the curry paste 

and curd/yogurt to the sauce pan and bring it to a 

boil. Once it does, turn off the heat.  

Add the tadka of mustard, curry leaves, fenugreek 

seeds, and dry red chillies spluttered in coconut oil, 

preferably. 

That's it!