Cashews Are the New Cream

Out grocery shopping this weekend, we spotted a mesh bag of the teeniest tiniest potatoes I have ever seen in my life. Some of them were only a little bigger than chickpeas! V's eyes lit up as he mouthed the words, "dum aloo".

So that is how recipe #32 is Vegan Dum Aloo. The inspiring recipe was this Alu Dum recipe from The Spice Who Loved Me.

There's quite a bit of butter and cream involved

Back to Basics

After a few days of indulging in heavy holiday fare, our bodies were crying out for a simple meal of dal and rice.

Most Indian cooks have their go-to dal, a dish of everyday lentils that they don't need a recipe for, something they have probably made enough times that they can cook it blindfolded with one hand tied behind their backs.

The great thing about food blogging is that we now have

Savory Bread Pudding

How can soggy bread taste so irresistible??

I used the leftover broccoli rabe from here and leftover butternut squash from this recipe to make Recipe #34: a savory bread pudding last night.

The original recipe again came from Alanna; I halved it and tweaked it slightly. Here is my adaptation in short:

1. Saute 1 onion and ½ bunch broccoli rabe in olive oil and butter. Season with salt

Pumpkin Flan

This is what I made for Thanksgiving dessert- Pumpkin Nutmeg Flan, another long-bookmarked recipe that I finally found a muhurat to make. V is an ardent fan of flans and caramel custards of all types, so I knew he would love this dessert.

To keep it simple, I skipped the cookie topping in the original recipe.

The one technique that is used here is baking in a hot water bath or a bain marie.

Green Bean Casserole

After years of hoarding this recipe in my bookmarks folder, I finally made it on the eve of Thanksgiving.

Recipe #36 is a Thanksgiving staple, green bean casserole. Alanna promised that this is the "world's best" and the recipe delivered! For one thing, only one can was harmed in the making of this dish (only fried onions, instead of fried onions AND canned green beans AND canned mushroom soup)

Simplicity Itself

In a comment on my last post, Rujuta suggested that I cook an authentic Maharashtrian recipe today. I had the perfect recipe in my bookmarks folder and the matching vegetable in the fridge so it all came together beautifully.

And in record time; hand-on cooking for this dish is about 4 minutes, and then you can let it cook unattended. Harried cooks, read on!

Recipe #37 is for glazed butternut

The Daily Grind

One day I learned a simple cooking technique that turned out to be one small step for me, one giant leap for my culinary skills. This is it:


Grinding fresh spice pastes- in so many recipes, this is a step that takes the dish to a whole new level. In India, many kitchens are equipped with "mixies", compact grinders that can reduce tough whole spices to dust and churn fried onions to a silky

Ful Medames: An Attempt

We love eating at restaurants that serve Middle Eastern cuisine; the menus are usually predictable but we love the line-up of creamy hummus, luscious baba ghanouj, crispy falafel and the rest of the mezze. A few weeks ago, I was happy to taste something new at a local restaurant (reviewed here) - ful medames, curried fava beans; excellent for sopping up with warm pitas.

On my last trip to the

Going green

This morning, I realized that it is exactly 40 days until the dawn of 2010. Doesn't the year 2010 sound so futuristic somehow? All gleaming spaceships instead of this dusty old planet? To conjure up some excitement for myself, I'm getting started on a mini challenge: I hope to try 40 new recipes by the time the shiny happy new year rolls around. Am I crazy? Can I do it? Watch this space and we'll

Cheater's Rasmalai

Our friend Brad earned his doctorate last week and we hosted a dinner to celebrate this milestone. As the guest of honor, he got to choose the menu and (surprise, surprise) chose Indian food. I put together a North Indian-ish menu with tandoori tofu and tandoori gobi (cauliflower) as appetizers, dal makhni, fragrant jeera (cumin) rice, achari baingan and a crunchy salad for the main course, and

A Sweet Idea & A Sweet Snack

It is early November and already in North America one can sense the rising excitement of the annual holiday season. For anyone looking for something meaningful and creative to do, I want to share some information about a tax-exempt nonprofit organization project called Drop In & Decorate founded by food writer Lydia Walshin; I am an ardent fan of her informative and excellent blog, The Perfect

Onion Mushroom Tart

Every few weekends, we skip the usual grocery run. It is one of those small things that significantly reduces food waste by giving us opportunity to "eat down" the food stash and forces us to use up every last bit of produce. The bonus is that we have one less errand to do and a couple more hours to laze about, always a good thing.

It is a bit of a game for me to look around the kitchen and say