Tapi made a very scary looking, dark brown maggi today. But, it tasted really good! It's so sad that we had only one packet of maggi at home, so I had to share it with him :)

So in the pan went some oil to fry onions and green chillies, and then the noodles straight from the packet, half a glass of water, loads of soya sauce, ajinomoto, barbeque sauce, salt and red chilli powder.  

Seems to me like a very unhealthy list of ingredients (except for the water, and maybe onions), but I dig! Very "relish"ious! :D

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It's a few weeks since we last made Tapi's maggi. This time, he added some mushrooms, did away with the salt, and used Sriracha Chilli Sauce instead of Barbeque Sauce. It not only looks less scary, it also tastes heavenly! He thinks we should add cabbage and green peppers to it the next time! Yum? :D

By the way, the barbeque sauce we used last time is called Charley Diggs All Naturals Sweet Bourbon Barbeque Grilling and Dipping Sauce. It's the yummiest sauce ever. Not smokey, and slightly sweet :)

Vijh's pulao has WAY TOO MANY INGREDIENTS for my comfort, but was TOO QUICK to make and TOO GOOD to be true!

In went the cinammon sticks, cloves, bay leaves and cumin in some ghee(!),

then the onions,

then the garam masala, chilli powder, turmeric and salt

then the frozen mixed veggies, some cut tomatoes, potatoes, caulis,

rice, salt and water

Voila! Awesome Vijhitable Pulao in 20 minutes!

It's hand's down the best I have eaten!

Next time, we'll try it with Vijh's Coimbatore Pulao Mix, for a more authentic Punjabi pulao. Ok? For now, we added the ghee no?

Note: The bay leaves and potatoes (that Vijh did not mention) were Tapi's idea. But, they were so subtle that they were almost non-existent! (and yummy) :D

Ginger, Red Chilli Flakes, Salt, Dark Brown Sugar - in the processor they went and came out just like the Andhra Allam Pachadi! (ginger pickle). It'll make my family proud!

I added some fried curry leaves in the end, to pretend like I did some "tempering" (we are out of condiments!)

We had half of a cippolini onion, lots of mushrooms and rosemary left over from the bruschettas we made a few days ago,
little bit of chaaru powder left from the Vani's Miriyala Charu last week,
and SO much rice from yesterday.

So we decided to mix em all up and make a meal. So in a pan they all went, the mushrooms and onions first - sauteed in a teeny bit of oil, and seasoned with salt, cayenne pepper, chaaru powder and a teeny tiny bit of rosemary. We dropped the rice in, stirred it till it took in all the flavors, dressed it with cilantro and into our stomachs it went. Yum!

It was really good. We licked the bowl clean. I was a little apprehensive of the charu powder, but it was quite peppery and piquant and refreshingly interesting. I would eat it again and again :-)

I still have tons of rosemary left. I wonder why they can't just sell one twig instead of a whole bunch, given that it is so overpowering.

And I still have some chaaru powder left, which is okay by me. I can easily sneak it into things.

Vani's Miriyala Chaaru (Pepper Rasam)
We finally have a weekend to ourselves and Tapi is down with fever =( It is really distressing seeing him lying on a couch, not being himself. But we watched a lot of TV together and it was fun. We really liked Night Shyamalan's The Village. Not sure why it got dissed by the critics. I thought it was super brilliant. It had a very intriguing storyline, it was suspenseful as hell, and had an unexpected ending. I liked everything about it, the look, the feel, the eeriness.

As we were watching The Village, Tapi suddenly started craving miriyala charu. In the five years that we've lived together, this is the first time I heard him mention it, let alone miss it. I learnt that it is "very peppery" and "quite good". So with these two important clues, I set out to look for an authentic miriyala charu recipe. This one, on Vani's Batasari blog had an interesting bit about how pepper was THE indian spice before the Spanish brought red chillies to the subcontinent. As I read it, I thought Vani either knows her chaarus or must love them to death. So I tried hers and it came out quite well.





I am terrible at following instructions and always end up doing my thing, but I think I followed her "roasted and ground coarse powder" steps to the word. I couldn't bring myself to add garlic to rasam (even if it is called chaaru, such sacrilege as adding garlic, no can do!). I also added a teeny bit of my mother-in-law's chaaru powder because the recipe seemed to lack a certain something that I couldn't quite put my finger on. In the end, it was AWESOME! Thanks Vani, you have earned one more fan to your blog. :)

Tapi's Aloo (Potato) Fry

I also made Tapi's favorite Aloo Fry, which is basically fried potatoes seasoned with salt and cayenne pepper. Good Stuff.
The version I grew up eating also has a teeny pinch of turmeric and asafoetida.

Chai
(i forgot to take a picture :( )

Typically, when either of us are sick we have loads of chai. I think it is a superstitious belief that it relieves sore throat, but I think it only soothes the throat as long as you are drinking it. So here's what it takes to make awesome chai

Loads of ginger
Loads of cardamom
Indian Mamri Tea
Loads of milk
Loads of Sugar
All boiled to perfection and served with Indian biscuits.

* I noticed how most people add cinnamon and black pepper to the tea. But I'm not a big fan. I do add honey sometimes, but Tapi doesn't like it.

Of late, when we come from work, we have taken to making bruschettas for dinner. The intention is always to eat them as a quick snack, but after gorging ourselves on four too many ;-) , it is hard to think of dinner again!

Even as a vegetarian, there are so many types of bruschettas you can make, what with so many varieties of breads and gazillion variations of toppings. Sometimes I even throw in leftover pastas and desserts, or indian curries as toppings and they are surprisingly the best bruschettas I have had, the only downside being I can never recreate them again!

The Mushroom Bruschetta and Grilled Eggplant Bruschettas are a big hit with guests usually. So we made them again for Anil and Shivani this time. I think I overdid the cheeses, but too much cheese is never a bad thing? I hope they liked it.

Mushroom Bruschetta

grilled French Baguette
with a layer of sundried tomato tapenade from whole foods
perfectly sauteed baby portobello mushrooms
a hint of rosemary
carmelized cipolini onions
fresh mozzarella cheese
all sauteed to perfection in extra virgin olive oil and seasoned with salt.

Grilled Eggplant Bruschetta

grilled French Baguette
with a layer grilled tomatoes, mashed slightly
grilled thinly-sliced eggplants
carmelized cippolini onions
An awesome semi-soft cow's milk cheese from whole foods, the name of which I forget!
all sauteed to perfection in extra virgin olive oil and seasoned with salt.

Clearly, subtlety seems to elude most of my bruschettas. For one thing, they are cheesy as hell and have at least one or two herbs, theres a pesto or tapenade of some sort, tomatoes in some form - grilled, sun-dried or coal-roasted*, and one or two veggies. (come to think of it, I should try making a bruschetta burger sometime)

*Whole Foods has an awesome coal-roasted tomato bruschetta-spread made with sliced plum tomatoes, garlic, onion, parsley, chopped basil, sea salt, freshly ground pepper, extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar and red wine vinegar: See Recipe

I usually don't care for vinegar in my food. I also don't like raw onions in bruschetta. I prefer the garlic in my bread versus in the topping. But the Whole Foods spread is an exception. I generally use it in place of a pesto or tapenade in my bruschettas every once in a while, but I certainly try to mask the sourness with the other ingredients I add to it - like a mild cheese.

To celebrate my not going to starbucks for over a month, we made white chocolate mocha at home.

That cup of drink on top is pure milk, white chocolate chips, white chocolate mocha powder, instant coffee and whipped cream!

Calories: Gazillion Bazillion.

I am beginning to see the reward in making things at home. If I may say so myself, this was better than starbucks'.

Home alone. I made the best rasam in the whole wide universe. I replaced the tomatoes in the traditional recipe with left over sun dried tomato tapenade and mint coriander chutney. Now I can’t wait for mom and dad to try it when they come home today from Boston. They didn’t sound a wee bit enthusiastic. But hey, who believed Galileo when he said the earth revolves around the sun!

I hope this post doesn’t come off like I am an avid wine consumer. As a matter of fact, I am (not). =) I enjoy my love-hate relationship with it, but all said and done, wine always maketh a good meal. There is nothing in the world like giving your pasta a good swim in heavy cream and sweet marsala. It turns out, I am not the only person who feels this way. A few days ago, we went to Cheesecake Factory where I ordered a veggie version of Pasta Da Vinci. It was the most flavorful and fulfilling meal I’ve had in a long time. I was certain that it had some kind of wine in it and asked the waitress for the ingredients. Sure enough, the pasta was doused in a sweet Madeira wine sauce. Madeira is very hard to find. It’s one of those things you want to horde forever if you are lucky enough to find one in a wine store. Tapi and I looked everywhere for Madeira. The local store owners seemed to know a great deal about it and enthusiastically shared everything they knew. We learnt that it was a Portuguese wine and is used as much to drink as to cook, in just the same way as Marsala, but has a milder and sweeter flavor. After learning everything from the method of vinification and “what goes best with a Madeira”, we walked out of each store with enough knowledge to start our own wiki, but with no bottle in hand. Anyway, yesterday I came home and tried my version of pasta da vinci avec sweet marsala and sans chicken and madeira. (fancy?) What I came up with is a decent version of the cheesecake factory recipe. So here’s what it takes to make it. Cook a box of penne pasta in suitably salted water until al dente. Slow cook one red onion, half a cup of shiitake mushrooms, and two table spoons of garlic in a good extra virgin olive oil. Toss with the pasta. In the same skillet, simmer a cup of sweet marsala (Madeira) wine over medium heat until the liquid is reduced by two-thirds. Let the wine cool a bit and mix in a cup of heavy cream and half a cup of sour cream. Swirl in a tablespoon of butter in the end and mix with the pasta. On par with Cheesecake's? You bet!