Green Peas Curry (Vatana Rassa)

Behind the generic yet convenient word "curry" lurks an almost unimaginable diversity of dishes in the cuisines of India. Take just one region- Maharashtra, on the West coast of India- and just one vegetable- green peas. (I cook with green peas often because they are available to me year-round in their frozen avatar.)

We make many curried dishes with green peas (hirva vatana or mataar in

Pinto Bean Mini Burgers

Another Sunday afternoon, and I found myself wondering what I'm going to post on the blog this week. You know how it goes- when life is busy, you cook familiar things instead of trying anything new. And hundreds of recipes later, all my dinner rotation classics are already here on the blog. 

Well, this month MLLA is being hosted here on One Hot Stove, so in honor of that, I tried to think of

Announcing My Legume Love Affair, the 60th Edition!

I have an ongoing love affair with legumes and I know most of you share this not-so-secret-passion. Well, this month, we're making it official! My Legume Love Affair, known simply as MLLA to its fans, is being hosted here on One Hot Stove this month, June 2013. It is the 60th edition (the diamond anniversary!) of this long-running blog event, started by Susan of The Well-Seasoned Cook and now

Sign Up for Round Two of The Spice and Something Nice Swap

The first round of the Spice and Something Swap was quite successful, and today we're kicking off the second round. The idea is that you will be paired up with another person, and then you send each other two small gifts: a "spice" and "something nice".






The Spice can be homemade or store-bought. It can be a powder or a paste or indeed a bottled sauce. It can come from any cuisine. It

The Week in Books and Food

What I have today is a series of brief blurbs on interesting eats and reads from the past several days.



The success of the quinoa pinto bean salad that I posted last week means that many more hearty salads are going to be put together. I cooked a big batch of short pasta (bows and corkscrews) and had some left over. Somewhere, I had seen an idea for an avocado pasta sauce and that's how this

Quinoa Pinto Bean Salad

Once every three or four months, I launch an eat-down in my kitchen. This is when I stop buying more and more food and instead focus on consuming and enjoying all the wonderful food that is jammed into my fridge, freezer and pantry. Eat-down weeks are my favorite because this is when I'm using my creativity rather than strict recipes to come up with meals. You never know what you will find.

A Rainy Day Luncheon

One of the greatest pleasures of traveling to a new place is the chance to sample the local cuisine. This past month was my parents' first visit to the Southern US. They have explored both coasts and the Midwest in past trips but the South is a region that is justifiably proud of its food traditions, which was all new to them. During their visit, my parents enjoyed cuisines that they don't have