Mahanandi

What can one do with cherries, when they are purchased at $1.19 per pound. Of course, bake them with all purpose flour, the only recipe I know using cherries. Giant Eagle, the chain grocery shop, near my home is selling bing cherries for 1.19 a pound this week. No, they are not damaged. They are perfect, plump, sweet and irresistible as always and as good as the cherries I bought at farmers market last week for 3 dollars a pound.

After downing about 3 pounds, we decided to make some sort of dessert with the remaining cherries. So I baked Cherry Clafouti or more like Cherry Custard or two-inch pancake filled with cherries. This is such an easy dessert that is very simple and quick to put together.

Recipe:

Half-pound cherries- cut in half and pits removed
Half-cup pancake mix (or all purpose flour)
One-cup whole milk and one egg
2-4 tablespoons of sugar
For flavoring I added dried and powdered ginger (sonti)

Preparation:

I’ve added the pancake mix, milk, egg, sugar andsonti in a mixing bowl and whisked them by hand until all the ingredients are well combined and the batter was smooth.

This was only for us two so I used a small 6-inch oven proof-serving dish for baking. After greasing the dish, I filled it with batter and arranged the cherries, more like jam-packed. Baked this in the preheated oven at 350° F for about 40 minutes, until risen and golden. The top will be browned like a pancake and the insides will be gooey with cherry sweetness.

I didn’t add lot of sugar. The sweetness is all from cherries (I did the quality control by tasting half of each cherry:)). With mild sweetness and a texture falling between a custard and a pancake, cherry clafouti was such a delight. We loved this simple dessert.

Cherry Clafouti

Few beetroots peeled and sliced into bite sized pieces, tossed and cooked in one teaspoon of peanut oil, then seasoned with salt and red pepper flakes. Served with chapatis, our meal is a simple fare today.

For this month’s EoMEoTE, I got this idea of combining paratha + frittata from the charming couple Mrs. D and Chopper Dave’s post Quittata. I mostly followed their recipe, but instead of puff pastry, I used homemade Paratha and also added the ingredients I liked (eggs of course and vegetables)- that’s how I came up with “Paratta“.

I wanted to make this with 6 eggs, as I felt very guilty to use one dozen eggs just for the two of us. My frugal mentality won’t allow me to even think about such excesses. But 6 were not enough, so finally I brought the number up to 8.

The ingredients I’ve added:

One paratha made to skillet size. (How to make Paratha? Follow the Gif)
8 eggs
One small onion, 2 green chillies- finely chopped
Half cup chickpeas, soaked in water beforehand for about one hour
Sun dried tomatoes, sliced – quarter cup
Few sprigs of cilantro, finely chopped – quarter cup or to taste
One medium sized tomato, sliced in thin round pieces for decoration
Salt to taste or ½ teaspoon

I’ve also added some leftover spinach curry to this mix. I did remove egg yolks because we both can’t stand the smell of yolks. I wanted to add eggplant too, I’ve even cut and prepared but unsure how they’d taste with eggs, at the last minute I’ve dropped adding eggplant slices to the egg mixture. Instead grilled the eggplant slices for a separate meal later in the day.

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 350* F

In a big bowl, break only 6 eggs. To these eggs add onions, green chillies, chickpeas, cilantro, spinach and salt. Whisk them together to blend well.

Heat an iron skillet on medium flame and fry the paratha lightly on both sides.

Now, pour the egg mixture on to the paratha and arrange the round tomato slices on top.

Break the remaining two eggs in the same bowl, whisk them well and pour this mixture on top of tomato slices.

Place the iron skillet in oven and bake at 350*F for about 20 to 30 minutes or until the center is set and sides are puffy golden.

When you are sure that paratta is well cooked, remove the skillet from oven. Let it cool for about 5 minutes then loosen the edges with a spatula or knife and slide it onto a serving plate. Cut Paratta into wedges and serve them warm or at room temperature.

This is one new dish that I am going to make frequently as we both were really satisfied with the final result.

My regular readers, you may be curious about my delayed posting today – your guess is right, I wanted to escape the primetime ratings drama by King George the Second. Really, who believes him anymore? (except of course the madcow infected ones.)

Plain eggs halves look beautiful and tasty in this colorful curry – mainly prepared with tomatoes… lot of tomatoes.

Recipe:

6 Eggs, boiled, peeled and each cut into two halves
6 to 8 big ripe juicy tomatoes, cut into small pieces
One small piece of coconut, powdered
1 tablespoon of fresh dhania-jeera(coriander-cumin) powder
4 cloves of garlic – finely minced
Salt and red chilli powder to taste or 1 tsp each

Preparation:

First do the popu (frying few mustard seeds, cumin seeds and curry leaves in 1 tsp of oil) in a pan. To it, add all the above ingredients except eggs. Cook it covered on high heat until the tomatoes are softened. Then reduce the heat and let it simmer for about 5 to 10 minutes to thicken the gravy. Don’t add water. The gravy must be all tomatoes and coconut. Just before you turn off the heat, add the boiled eggs and mix it once.

When prepared with fresh ripe tomatoes, with or without the eggs, this will turn into one rich and satisfying curry. The taste of cooked and thickened tomato juice with lightly added Indian masala just explodes in your mouth when eaten with plain rice or with rotis.

Nicky and Oliver of Delicous days not only started this meme, they are also tracking the progress of their meme in the food blogging world and thanking and leaving comments in the responding blogs. What a couple! They have set high standards for future meme starters.

Lovely Nupur of One Hot Stove wants to know more about me. So here I go, my first me…me, and more me.

1. What is your first memory of baking/cooking on your own?
I was my mother’s little helper from a very early age, always doing something in the kitchen. And because of big family, my mother needed all the help she could get. I learned to cook a proper meal by 15, and my family survived the cooking.

2. Who had the most influence on your cooking?

That would be my in-laws. Even though I learned all the basics at home from my mother, I learned the healthy way to cook from my in-laws. My mother and father-in-law, both are wonderful chefs and nutritionists (without the degrees, of course). I think of my one-year stay at my in-laws place as a period of refining my culinary techniques. Sort of like a assistant chef learning from the master chefs.

3. What are your most valued or used kitchen gadgets and/or what was the biggest letdown?

That would be the mandoline. It really makes easy to cut vegetables like cabbage, karela etc.
The biggest let down would be the non-stick set I bought after coming here. When I came to know about the adverse health effects that a non-stick coating could cause, I got rid of them all.

4. Do you have an old photo as “evidence” of an early exposure to the culinary world?
Only in my memories.

5. Mageiricophobia – do you suffer from any cooking phobia, a dish that makes your palms sweat?
To cook anything with blood makes me queasy inside.

6. Name some funny or weird food combinations/dishes you really like – and probably no one else!
I do mix and eat payasam or kheer with dal and rice. You have to see my sisters reaction to this eating habit of mine.

7. What are the three eatables or dishes you simply don’t want to live without?
What I always have in stock is Mango and lemon pickles. My recently acquired craving is for Pizzas. I have to eat one, at least once a week. I admit it – I am a pizza addict.

Three quickies:

Your favorite ice-cream:
Butter Pecan

You will probably never eat:
Anything with brain and heart

Your own signature dish
Cashew Brittle made with cashews and jaggery.

Thanks Nupur. I’d like to pass this meme to:

Deccanheffalump of The Cooks Cottage – The best food blog from India.
Vittorio of Tirebouchon
And finally to Jarrett of Food Porn Watch fame –

I hope, they enjoy responding to this meme as much as I did.

Kittaya just learned he has a voice and he is in love with it. Like an Opera singer in training, he is testing and showing us his vocal range from a sharp “meow” to prolonged high pitch “mmmmeeeoooww” and we love them all.

Check out cute Kiri at Eat Stuff blog and hungry J2 at Farm Girl’s blog.

The Egg Board should offer us, the food bloggers, at least some free eggs. With this month’s IBBM and EoMEoTE themes happening one after another, the publicity, the recipes- this is going to be one incredible edible egg kind of week.

Egg pakoras are one of my favorite street side food during my college years. After coming here I totally forgot about it. I was thinking about what I could make with eggs that was not already included in the EoMEoTE and I could submit for this months IBBM hosted by lovely Seattle Bon Vivant. Then I remembered the egg pakoras.

Say what you will about Indian street fare, but for my money, you can’t get food tastier than samosas or egg pakoras fresh from a street side vendor’s stall. But I am far from India now and I wanted to get a taste of egg pakoras here, so here I go into the kitchen to refresh those student days’ experiences.

Ingredients to prepare egg pakoras

Recipe:
(Serves two)

6 boiled eggs
1 cup gram flour (Besan Flour)
1/2 tsp each of salt, red chilli powder,
1/4 tsp each of cumin & ajwain/vaamu
A pinch of baking soda
Quarter cup of water
Peanut Oil for deep-frying

Preparation:

1. Cut each egg into 3 circular pieces. I removed yellow from some pieces, but you can keep it if you like to.

2. Gram flour is a fine yellow flour made from garbanzo beans or chanadal. Put the gram flour into a bowl; add salt, red chilli powder, cumin and baking soda. If you want, you can also add ginger-garlic paste to get the extra kick. Stir in these ingredients well. Add quarter cup of water to them and mix thoroughly. Add water if needed, the prepared batter must be tight (tighter than pancake batter and regular bhaji batter). It should form thick coating around the eggs when they are dipped in the batter.

3. Fill one-third of a large deep skillet with oil and heat the oil until it is very hot.

4. Dip the egg pieces one by one into batter, taking caution to coat the egg all around with the batter. This is important because there will be a mini explosion if raw egg touches the hot oil, as you may already know, and that is why the need for a thick batter. Now take the dipped egg pieces and drop them gently into the hot oil, few at a time.

5. Fry the egg pakoras until they are golden brown, turning frequently. Remove them with a slotted spoon and drain well on absorbent paper towels.

Arrange the pakoras on a platter and serve them hot or warm with ketchup or cilantro chutney.

These small egg pakoras are quick and easy to prepare and irresistible as snack.

I make yogurt at home regularly. I am not sure if I will be saving any money by making yogurt at home instead of buying in stores. But I like the taste of the homemade better than the store bought.

Perugu (Telugu), Dahi (Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Nepali, Punjabi, and Urdu), Doi (Bengali), Dohi (Oriya), Mosaru (Kannada), or Thayir (Tamil) is the yogurt of the India, known for its characteristic sweet-tart taste and semi solid consistency. It’s also commonly called as “Curd”. Perugu or Dahi is part of the everyday meal for us, and also I prepare raita with it.

Perugu is really quite easy to make at home. First, bring the milk to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer it for few minutes till a layer of cream forms on top of the milk. Turn off the heat and let the milk cool down to lukewarm level. Now add one tablespoon of live active culture of yogurt to this milk. Stir it once and cover the vessel with a lid. Keep the container in an oven or in a microwave (they act like incubators) undisturbed for about 8 to 12 hours. After this period, milk in liquid state will become semisolid – like yogurt. This is how you will know that the process of making yogurt is complete.

How much milk you need depends on how much yogurt you want to make. Small or large quantity, all it takes is adding one tablespoon of live active culture of yogurt. It’s that simple.

I read somewhere a list of 100 food related things one must do before they die, I don’t know about skinning and preparing the chicken but how about a taste of real yogurt.

Adding a tablespoon of live active yogurt culture to lukewarm milk,
Homemade yogurt (Dahi, Perugu)

Where can one get active live culture of yogurt in US? This is the question I often get asked. Here is the list of sources that I can think of. Hope this helps.

• Try your Indian neighbors and colleagues. A lot of Indians prepare yogurt at home even in this day and age, particularly first generation Indians like us. But there are always exceptions to the rules so do not assume anything and be polite when you are inquiring.

• Try asking waiters at Indian restaurants. Yogurt is used to prepare raita, chutneys etc. Many Indian restaurants prepare yogurt freshly in their kitchen everyday.

• Try kitchens at Indian temples: Indian temples in US serve prasadam or food daily to the visitors. Yogurt rice is often part of the prasadam.

• Health food stores, Natural health stores etc.

Our lunch today is big on taste, small on size, a quick and comforting sort of meal:

Tomato Rasam,
Sandwich with lettuce, tomato, cucumber, spinach, walnuts and red chilli garlic powder.
Yogurt with shredded carrot

Tomato Rasam Recipe:

Take few very ripe tomatoes, few leaves of cilantro and small piece of tamarind in a vessel.

Add one cup of water to them and hand squeeze the tomatoes along with other ingredients until nothing hard left to squeeze (work those hand muscles). Add water if needed. Leave the contents undisturbed for few minutes to get the pulp settled at the bottom. Separate or strain the juice from the sediment below. How tasty the rasam depends on how juicy and fresh the tomatoes are. So attempt this rasam only with decent quality ripe or cherry tomatoes.

In a mortar take half teaspoon each of black peppercorns, cumin seeds and coriander seeds and make a fine powder of them with a pestle.

Do the popu (frying mustards seeds, cumin and curry leaves in oil), use just a drop of oil for popu. Even 1 tsp of oil is too much for the rasam, it spoils the rasam taste with oiliness. To the popu, add the tomato-tamarind juice and half to one glass of water. Don’t dilute it too much with water. Add half teaspoon of salt, dhania-jeera-pepper powder and one teaspoon of sugar or powdered jaggery. Mix it once, have a taste and adjust the seasonings. And bring it to a boil. Let it simmer for about 10 to 15 minutes, then turn off the heat.

You can have it as soup or with rice. Tomatoes’ sweet tartness, tamarind’s sourness and jaggery’s sweetness combine and make this into one tasty rasam.

With the start of long and plenty of sunshine days, the mint in my container garden is growing like crazy. Just like the hair on my husband’s head:), except of course the hair knows no season. It needs once in a two week trimming and pruning session, otherwise it can branch off into one irritating but pretty in a wild way, kind of growth.

Not only I had trimmed branches of mint, I also bought a bunch for a quarter (25 cents) at farmers market. Together that’s lots of mint for two people, and the best way to use all of it in one setting is of course the good, old pudina pulao. Natural fragrance of Basmati rice, cloves and other spices we use in making the pulao mask the overpowering mint aroma. So, don’t be afraid to try this dish, if this is your first time or if you are on the fence about mint recipes.

Recipe:

1 bunch of mint- Rinsed and leaves and tender stems plucked
2 cups of Basmati rice, washed and soaked in 4 cups of water
3 green chillies and one onion – sliced thinly, lengthwise
¼ cup of fresh coconut – chopped
1 inch piece ginger and 3 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
4 each – cloves, cardamom, small cinnamon pieces, bay leaves & 1 star anise
¼ cup – roasted cashews
1 tablespoon – ghee
1 teaspoon – salt, or to taste

Preparation:

Take mint leaves, coconut, green chillies, ginger and garlic in a mixer. Add a pinch of salt and blend to fine consistency without adding any water.

Put the Rice cooker pot on stovetop on medium flame. (To make it a one-pot meal, usually what I do is – I would saute the masala for pulao in rice cooker pot first, then I would add the soaked basmati rice along with water to the same pot and cook.)

Heat ghee on medium heat in rice cooker pot. When it is hot, add the spices (cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, bay leaves and star anise), saute them first. Then the onions, saute until onions start to brown. Now, add the pureed mint-green chilli-coconut paste. Fry until the mint paste changes color from bright green to light-green color. Take care not to burn/brown the masala paste.

Into this sauteed masala, empty the Basmati rice and the water it soaked in. Add salt; stir the whole thing, so that all the ingredients would mix together. Now remove the pot from stovetop, put it back in rice cooker and switch on the plug to cook. Once the rice cooks to tender, remove the lid and add cashews. Mix it once. Put the lid back and let it stand for another five minutes. Then turn off the plug.

We had pudina pulao with potato kurma , raita and lime wedge on the side – one good meal.

We had a perfect, mild, early spring like weather this weekend. A trip to the flea/farmers market, a bag full of baby red potatoes and lazy afternoon spending at home called for this mouth watering evening snack.

Baby red potatoes are clean and fresh, so after a light dip in the water and a pat on the back with a towel, they are sliced into four and tossed with olive oil, salt and red chilli flakes. And they are ready for the oven.

Now the magic cooking part – Spread them on a baking sheet and first bake them in the oven at 350 F for about ten minutes. Bring out the sheet and turn the potatoes to other side one by one. Change the oven setting to broil and roast the potatoes again in the oven ten more minutes or until gold colored.

Nothing gets the Pavlovian response going like the smell and sight of these crisp on the outside, fluffy on the inside oven-roasted potatoes. Great snack!

Condi Rice on Tsunami – Tsunami is “a wonderful opportunity” that “has paid great dividends for us ” – The rise of disaster capitalism

“My big concern is, the longer you keep them, the angrier they get. Eventually, you are going to send them home. Maybe the smarter thing is to execute everyone down there, because if you‘re going to send them back to the Arab world or the Islamic world angry as hell at us, they‘re going to be doing dirty stuff against us, right?” – Chris Mathews on Hardball.

“I think they would have been very happy to be allowed to defecate on themselves.” – Chris Wallace on Gitmo detainees.

“The Prison at Guantanamo Bay: Good for the Stock Market?” – Mental midgets on Fox Saturday morning show.

Hang them even before they tried in court, what do you call this witchland?
A – of course it’s The Graceland.

Blog Talent:
A quick tale by Ammani.
Laser eyes – Nature’s beauty.

Kittaya enjoying the evening on the deck.

Also see many faces of Kiri– the beautiful burmese cat at Clare’s blog.

Tulips in full bloom at Mill Creek Metro parks.

Stephanie’s beautiful fruit tart inspired me to make one myself. Also I saw this month’s SHF theme was tarts and that gave me the final push I needed.

I used a store bought lard-free pie shell as base for fruits. Did I say that this was my first time making tart, may be next time I might make my own tart shell. For now, this will do. For filling, I went with toasted walnuts and fresh fruits – ripe mango, strawberries, plums, cherries and cantaloupe.

Baked the pie shell in the oven for 15 minutes as per instructions on the cover of the pie shell package. Meanwhile I started to cut the ripe fruits in different shapes needed for my tart. With all the remaining scraps of fruit, I made jam/jelly, just like that. I added 6 tablespoons of brown sugar and watched the fruit bits turn into bright, colorful mush on high heat. I let it cool, stored half of it as jam and to the remaining half, I added half a cup of toasted walnuts and pureed them together to a smooth paste. This was my tart filler.

After filling the tart shell with the fruit-walnut puree, I arranged cut mangos, strawberries, plums, cherries and cantaloupe in order and refrigerated the tart for about one hour. Ta da… check the photo of fruit tart below, isn’t it colorful and pretty?

What a quick and easy recipe, but it gives the impression as if it took hours to prepare. We shared this delicious fruit tart with our next-door neighbor to congratulate on her new job.

My maiden attempt at fruit tart was a delightful success. I will definitely make many more.

First time tagged, that too, by the sorceress who utilizes her powers only for good deeds – the benevolent Stephanie.

1. Total number of cook/food books I’ve owned:

That’s all I have and that’s enough for me, for now.
I rarely buy hobby books nowadays, mainly because it’s becoming a big hassle for us to carry them whenever we move places. We both already have a big collection of books related to our professions. There is always a library nearby and plenty of books to flick through.

2. Last cook/food book(s) I bought:
That would be the Vegetarian and Vegetable Cooking by Christine Ingram.

3. Last cook/food book I read:
That would be The Man Who Ate Everything by Jeffrey L. Steingarten. Just last weekend, finished reading and returned it to the library.

4. Five cook books (or one) that mean a lot to me:
Malathi Chandur’s cookbook in Telugu is the one most valuable to me. Because it was my first buy and the author’s old world charming writing style is so entertaining and her recipes are pure gold.

5. Which five people would you most like to see fill this out in their blog?
(Isn’t this cookbook meme going around for past two months?)
I am going to tag the always and forever a foodie, Shyam (aka Shammy) of Food In The Main.