Cooking like my mother

A scoop of coconut ice cream is just what doctor ordered for me to relax! Equal amount of condensed milk, evaporated milk and coconut milk with a pinch of ground nutmeg is mixed together to make this delectable coconut ice cream. This is an old reliable recipe which needs 5 minutes to make + time to freeze.

Quick recipe to turn paneer into something 'kid-delicious' (this is when my kids find something delicious) using ingredients usually available in my pantry. Paneer Makhani (पनीर मखानी) literal translation means paneer with butter. There is no real butter in this recipe but i am still going with the name. The recipe is inspired by paneer makhani recipe here in the winning collection of Reader's potluck recipes published here .  Usually I make modifications based on what is available in my kitchen. Here I have added fresh parsley to the onion, garlic mixture and add spices per our taste. I am also using half and half instead of heavy cream. Paneer Pantry wala with dal-onion paratha To further read about dal paratha, please read  here .

It is spring break for the kids and by the end of each day, we were running out of ideas on how to keep kids fed. After a long day of feeding and cleaning, i decided to try an old trick known to all experienced mothers in India of making chapati dough with leftover dal, whole wheat flour and onions and then making parathas (griddle Indian bread). Kids eat it with plain yogurt or ketchup and us with leftover curry. The process was so quick that I forgot to take any pictures. Here I manage to get a shot of one of the parathas being cooked.

My pantry is usually very well stocked with different types of grains, flours, beans, legumes, nuts, spices, noodles, pastas, sauces, oils etc. I keep a running shopping list on my phone for items that run out or running low as a reminder to buy it when I am at the store next time. I don't like to waste food so I am on the lookout for things that might go stale or bad. But periodically or sometimes a month or two before a long vacation, I go through a more formal cleaning approach where I stop buying ingredients for stocking and start planning meals with the intention of clearing out ingredients in my pantry and freezer. Since ingredients that linger longer in the pantry are typically the ones I don't use a lot of to start with, it takes some effort to plan meals around it. For this spring cleaning, I have moved all items that need to be consumed completely to an eye level shelf in the pantry. Having these items in front of me will serve as a reminder and my goal i

Kati rolls (look here  for an explanation) using achari paneer (Indian cheese cooked with spices used for pickling) has become a staple in our house. What is there not to like?  These rolls filled with paneer cooked in flavorful pickle spices and vegetables are easy to make and one of the favorite foods for my kids. Sometimes when I am puttering around in the kitchen (like today), I will make a big batch of paneer achari masala and keep it. Once you have the masala already made, making paneer achari kati roll takes only 10-15 minutes. I feel like a mom with super powers on a weekday dinner with this masala in my pantry! Recipe I have been following achari paneer recipe at  Manjula's Kitchen . For making a bg batch of masala, I usually multiply the dry masala measurements by 4 or 8 except for red chilies (which i keep on the lighter side). After roasting and grinding the masala, store in a glass bottle with tight lid.

Comfort food at its best - arhar dal, rice and karela! All leftovers enjoyed for a quick lunch. I was talking to my sister in India and she mentioned she had prepared Karela (करेला ) that day. Karela is a summer season vegetable and since this is the beginning of the summer in India, my sister told me that fresh karela was available in the market. I could picture tender green karela piled up in the vegetable markets in India. As I talked to her more, I started to crave karela and wanted to make it. Lucky for me, I had bought karela just few days ago at the Indian store. I could hardly wait to make it. I would not have had this reaction 20 years ago. As a kid, I thought of karela as a bitter vegetable grownups ate just because of its health benefits (and it is an impressive list, read here to get a sense). As I got interested in cooking, I was definitely fascinated by the elaborate steps, time and care my mother and others took to prepare and I wanted to learn to make it but I

Its no secret that i love to cook. But I like planning and cooking for something occasions. Over last 10 years or so, I have been donating a home cooked Indian Vegetarian meal for fund raisers for my kids schools and other organizations. The idea is simple - The person who buys the meal gets to host the party for their friends and family at their house while I cook and provide food. It is great way for me to connect and offer my cooking to somebody who may not have had chance to taste home style Indian cooking. Last year, I offered a home cooked Indian vegetarian meal for an auction fundraiser for our neighborhood school. The item was bought by a lovely couple in the neighborhood who gathered with their friends this January over the meal I provided. Most of the guests had traveled to India and tasted Indian cuisine in India. It was a wonderful way to connect with such wonderful group of neighbors and share stories of their travel and experiences in India. Here I share the menu

I have had the recipe for a long time but for some reason, it just sat there in my recipe drawer. Every now and then, i will draw it out as the "next" thing to try but never ended up trying it. The recipe calls for a large oven safe pot for cooking, preferably a cast iron dutch oven. Last week I decided to sneak in an order of a 5 quart cast iron dutch oven while I was ordering other things from Amazon. It came earlier this week and I got baking. Recipe A web search of no knead bread turns up lot of different food blogs with videos, images etc.  All those were very helpful to understand the instructions in details and gain confidence. For the proportions and recipe. I decided to follow the paper recipe (also available at New York times here).  Only problem I ran into is that recipe calls for 1 and 5/8th cups of water. I figured 5/8th of a cup is same as the 1/2 + 1/8th of a cup (I was feeling very proud to have used my math skills for these calculations!). I eye ba

I think of samosa as the king of all snacks ( described here ). In India, good samosas are available everywhere and trying to make it at home is not worth the effort. There are halwai shops (read here for a definition) everywhere that make good samosas and sell at a reasonable price. Usually each shops has a set time in the afternoon to make fresh samosas. Since most of the neighborhood knows this time, you can see people queuing up around that time to get the fetch freshest samosas while friends and family waits at home with chai on the stove. On a recent visit to my hometown Agra, I was pleasantly surprised to see that this tradition continues. I have been trying to learn how to make really great samosas at home since the time we moved out of India.  Over time, I have tried several recipes and learned to make them from scratch but making the dough, rolling and stuffing each one is a time consuming process. Here I am  making Samosas using a shortcut by stuffing the potato masala

Roasted eggplants & preparation Baigun bharta is my 'go to' vegetable dish for all sorts of occasions. It is a great accompaniment in any Indian meal and can also be served as a dip/topping with crackers, bread. I prepare it for parties, picnics, potlucks and camping trips. Here I am preparing it as part of a vegetarian dinner meal I offered as an auction item to support my neighborhood school.  Eggplant is first roasted, usually directly on top of the gas flame, and then cooked with garlic, onion, ginger, tomatoes and spices. Since I don't have gas stove at home, i end up roasting the eggplant in the oven. Overall flavors are not as smoky but still very good. Eggplant pulp and juices after removing the skin Final dish prepared and ready to go in a takeout container Recipe Heat the oven in broil position. Cut couple of 1 to 2 inch slits in the eggplants and broil till skin burns on all sides. This usually takes

It goes without saying that fresh ground spices will make your food more aromatic and flavorful. Grinding your own spices is easy and require hardly any time or technique as long as you know how to measure and have some machine to grind small batch of spices. I use a small coffee grinder. I do buy already ground spice powders but there are some that I always make my own. Making bhuna jeera (roasted cumin seeds) powder or dhaniya (coriander) powder is totally worth the effort and these are used in Indian cooking all the time. Recipes Dhaniya powder - I make a small batch of dhaniya powder whenever i run out and need some more. I keep it coarse. Bhuna jeera powder - Heat a heavy bottom skillet/pan on low to medium heat. Put cumin seeds turning them every few minutes till a shade darker. You will be able to smell as the aroma is released. Let it cool and grind. Again, I like it slightly coarse.

Fried roti chips with home made salsa My mother had lots of easy, creative ways to use leftovers and convert otherwise stale, tasteless food into something delicious. So when I have stale roti/parathas (Indian griddle bread), I fry them to make delicious roti chips.

Bhindi, also referred to as Ladies finger in India, is the Hindi name for okra. It is one of the beloved vegetables in India. I remember liking it from a very young age. Not that I ask everybody I meet, but  I am yet to meet an Indian who did not like bhindi growing up. In my house, my mother prepared it dry (no gravy) style. The technique for making this type of bhindi is similar to cooking other dry vegetable sides. For chaunk (a technique of tempering spices in oil used in Indian cooking and described here ), my mother used fenugreek seeds and then added onion and other spices, Bhindi in the wok, right after it is done Recipe Heat oil in a heavy bottom (2 tbsp) wok or skillet. When hot sizzle 1 tsp of fenugreek seeds. Add chopped onions and fry till slightly brown. Add coriander powder (1tbsp), garam masala (1tsp), red or chopped green chilli, salt, turmeric and chopped okra. Mix and cover and let it cook on medium to high heat. Stir every 5 minutes till done and not loo

Prep One of the weeknights this week, i returned from work craving something steaming hot and flavorful. Coconut milk based curries have become a recent favorite for me because it can be prepared rather quickly with produce and ingredients usually available in the house. Richness and creaminess provided by the coconut milk makes the coconut milk vegetable curry extremely satisfying. This makes it almost perfect weeknight food on a cold night except my son is not so fond of anything coconut. It was only fair I made something he likes as much and most logical answer was to make Mapo Tofu. Mapo tofu did not need any extra effort than what I was already going to put in for my veg curry and this way I was going end up with two dishes for the effort of one and enough leftovers for next day's lunch.  Leftovers being putaway. Coconut curry simmering on the stove. Recipes There are more elaborate recipes for Mapo Tofu and Thai coconut curry in my repertoire b

I bought Ragi (finger millet) flour over 6 months ago in hope of making ragi roti. But the idea of spreading roti with my hands kept me from trying to make it. Finally watching couple of you tube videos made me feel comfortable enough to give it a try this Sunday. Chopped shallots, green onion, cilantro ready to be added to ragi flour.  Cilantro, hot green chillies, yogurt, grated coconut ready to be blended into coconut cilantro chutney. C  I used lightly oil parchment paper to spread ragi roti. Enjoyed ragi roti with chutney and some leftover sambhar (from previous day). It turned out to be a 4 star recipe getting good reviews from everybody in the family. Recipe The two videos that I really found useful were this video that  shows how to roll out roti on a plastic sheet  and  this video which shows multiple ways of rolling out the roti .

Today I was going to make Sambhar. That would mean I need to soak some tamarind first. I have decided to soak extra so I can make sweet tamarind chutney (called 'Sonth') at the same time. Growing up this chutney was pretty much like ketchup is now for my kids. My mother would make a big batch so we always had it on hand. We enjoyed Sonth with all sorts of snacks ..chat, chola, samosas. I try to make this chutney whenever i am dealing with tamarind (and by dealing I mean process of taking out tamarind pulp - soaking, rubbing between my hands to separate pulp and straining) for another purpose. After you have got tamarind pulp, making chutney is really easy.  You add jaggery (or brown sugar) and few spices and let the  liquid simmer down. I am also looking to finish produce from last week in my refrigerator so I have decided to use part of Lauki (bottle gourd) for Sambhar but I will use other half for making a vegetable side with garlic, tamarind seeds and red pepper. I bought s