NYE and thereafter....

I hope you enjoyed your New Year’s Eve festivities, whether it was at a bar, with friends or in front of the tele. We spent ours with friends and homemade food. The theme for this year was street food; we had Samosas, Falafels, and a pot of Paav bhaaji. Paav bhaji is a common street food in many Indian cities, especially Mumbai. The bread, Paav, is served alongside bhaji, a potato based curry that has a variety of ingredients including cauliflower, peas, carrots, onions, garlic, ginger, peppers and spices. This is truly a one pot wonder. Onions, garlic, and ginger are first sautéed in ghee or vegetable oil in a large flat pan, then potatoes are added with water, cauliflower is next, then carrots and peppers are stirred in with the spices. Everything simmers on medium-low for 45 minutes. The peas are added in the last 10 minutes of the cooking so they don’t become mushy. On the streets the bhaji is simmered all day and served with a pinch of chopped cilantro. Paav is a hot dog bun that’s buttered and roasted on the edges of the large pan with bhaji. This is a hot (temperature and sometimes spicy) dish, great for a cold day.

At our house the husband is a better cook for Indian food; Paav bhaji is definitely one of his specialties, so is chicken curry, goat curry, egg fry (another highly-favored street food) and dhan shaak (goat curry with yellow split chickpea lentils).

After Thanksgiving, Mom sent us away with two kinds of homemade Samosas, one filled with meat and the other with split chickpea lentils (traditional Gujarati kind), thank you! The Samosas and the husband’s Paav bhaji were highly rated; the Falafels, on the other hand, were not. The batter was well seasoned but they were under fried resulting in a semi-done inside. (For those questioning- I soaked and cooked the dried chickpeas in the slow cooker before making the batter- I try not to feed guests raw beans.)

Onto those New Year’s resolutions, I’ve got a few of my own. I admit I don’t take them seriously because I break mine in the first month. In fact, I’ve already broken one. I want to dress femininely, more often; more skirts, blouses, dresses and fewer shirts and slacks. Wrapping up the first week of 2009, I have yet to wear a skirt or a dress. See what I mean?

Another one is for writing. In conversations with friends, I realized I genuinely enjoy snail mail. I fancy the inspiration that goes behind picking cards or letters, sender's handwriting, the pen and stamps that are used for the receiver. This connects the sender and the receiver on a personal level, something emails can’t do. (I appreciate email and Internet as much as the next person so this is not a rejection to technology just an expression of my fondness for snail mail.) Someone pointed out, in this day and age of junk mail, catalogs and bill collections, who doesn’t like to receive a nice card from friends? For those of you that like sending snail mail, email (ha!) me, I like getting cards just as much. Some of you will see these in your mailboxes in 2009!

The writing resolution also includes blogging regularly and putting my thoughts down on paper or on in a document often. So far I am on track, wouldn’t you say?

And finally for 2009 I want to cook food simply. I want to create unpretentious dishes, using locally produced ingredients (when possible), that taste gratifying. In the few days I’ve cooked since we rang in 2009, I’ve made biscuits and gravy, creamy cauliflower soup and pork chops. Hopefully if I stick to my writing resolution, the recipes will be up soon.

bring your holiday cheer along with a pot of Puttanesca

Lately, I haven't been inspired to write. But I can assure you I have been cooking and eating. I couldn't imagine my world without food, especially homemade food. Actually, in private conversations with other bloggers it's apparent that I am here, behind the screen- reading wonderful posts about food and restaurant reviews, I am just not writing about my own. Partly because my body and mind are still on vacation or wishing it were. We went to visit my parents in New Jersey for Thanksgiving, then here

for a week and if that wasn't all 2 1/2 work days didn't do me any good. And although I sound like I am complaining- I am not- I am just trying my hardest to be a better blogger.

Thankfully a holiday dinner brought me back to my senses and the writing.

I tentatively planned few things for last weekend because I wanted some down time with the husband, the house and our pet fish, Fatty. And boy did we get some downtime.

The only concrete plan was to go to a friend's house for Italian themed dinner on December 25. She made Mushroom and Basil pesto for bruschetta, stuffed Pork tenderloin with Sundried Tomato pesto, cannelini beans-a recipe by Marcella Hazan, Prosciutto and green pea risotto and really good tiramisu too. Her parents brought mixed salad and roasted chicken. My contributions? Broccoli and Cauliflower Gratinate by Lidia, Pasta Puttanesca with homemade fettuccine, slow roasted Brussels sprouts and cranberry salsa with goat cheese for the bruscetta.

Everything tasted great. She agreed the pork was a little overdone, but that didn't matter because everyone was fixated on the risotto. The homemade pasta was a big hit as well. Mind you, she made the pasta dough before I arrived because she's a pro and a great friend. Speaking of homemade pasta, I've made it once before. Since I didn't and still don't have a pasta machine, manual or kitchen aid, I rolled out the dough for Tagliatelle on my counter. It was a process I don't like to talk about but will repeat if I am craving homemade pasta, or buy a pasta machine first.

There are lots and lots of recipes out there for puttanesca. And they all look good. I browsed many for direction and made my own version of the dish.

Pasta Puttanesca

3 tablespoons olive oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
4-6 anchovy fillets in olive oil
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 28oz can (whole) tomatoes, plus juices
1/4 cup capers
1/2 cup black olives, pitted and chopped
1 teaspoon dried oregano
Fettuccine, spaghetti or any long pasta is good for this recipe. (Homemade pasta is better however dried pasta works as well.)

Bring a pot of water to boil. Add salt to season and then stir in the dried pasta. Cook the pasta following the instructions on the box. For homemade, cook the pasta 5 minutes before the sauce is done. Drop fresh pasta into boiling, salted water and cook for 3-5 minutes.

Heat olive oil in medium-large pan on medium heat. Add garlic and anchovy fillets to the pan. Gently mash the fillets with the back of a rubber spatula or wooden spoon. After couple minutes the anchovies should have melted into the garlic-oil mixture. Stir in red pepper flakes and cook for 2 more minutes. Add tomatoes with juices. (some recipes call for adding capers and olives before the tomatoes- it doesn't matter.) Simmer the tomatoes until the sauce thickens, then stir in the capers and olives with some of their juices and dried oregano. Simmer on low for 10- 15 minutes. Stir in the cooked pasta and cook for 2- 5 more minutes or until the pasta is nicely coated with the sauce. Serve hot or warm.

For the holiday weekend, I tentatively planned to clean the house on Friday, shop on Saturday and study for an upcoming exam on Sunday. Two of three were accomplished, and that's good for me. Most of my house is clean. Saturday, we went to one of the busy malls that's further away and almost always like a zoo. Sadly, I came away with NOTHING. I was disappointed on every front, especially for a dutch oven. I bought one from a housewares stores only to read negative reviews of it online later that night. I returned it the next day. The husband, a deal finder, is keeping his eyes open for the one. At 4pm on Sunday, I started studying for that upcoming exam. As I was browsing through the course syllabus I noticed we don't have class this week; and there went the studying, out the window.

Hope you enjoyed your break. Any plans for NYE? We've got a couple- tentatively speaking. Around here tentative is the word of the month.

a belated thanks

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving this year. Ours was filled with time with the family. We left for the shores of New Jersey early morning on Thursday. Why drive so far on the day of? Well because my mom and sister decided we wouldn’t have a traditional meal and instead we would eat homemade Indian food. Both the husband and I are trying to establish our own family traditions, one of which is to make turkey on this day. We weren’t thrilled about the menu however like a dutiful Indian daughter, I trotted home with my husband.

Mind you, I enjoy love Indian food. I will be the first to point out, Indian food runs in my blood and I can't go too long before craving it but this isn’t the time to make roti, curry, rice and daal. It’s one occasion we have to be able to stuff ourselves with mashed potatoes, green beans and pumpkin pie and get fat without guilt.


At work we had a lunch to celebrate the holiday. They would provide the meat and we were asked to bring in a side dish. In matter of seconds I knew I would bring stuffing. I searched the web for an interesting recipe but ended up creating my own. Forewarning this recipe uses boxed ingredients. I prefer to cook from scratch so this is a bit strange, even for me, but I have never made homemade cornbread and that night was certainly not going to be different. It is my goal to make it from scratch one of these days!

My Cornbread Stuffing

3- 4 stale Jiffy cornbread mix muffins or 2 cups pan-baked, crumbled
1/4 cup of stale bread, cubed (I used French baguette)
Olive oil
2 tablespoon butter
1 onion finely diced
2 stalks of celery finely diced
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 cup low sodium chicken stock
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme (fresh can be used but I didn’t have any on hand)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Salt and Black Pepper, freshly cracked

Few days or a day before making the stuffing, follow the instructions on the box to make cornbread. I’ve always used Jiffy so I prefer it however if you like a different brand use that and follow its instructions.

Preheat the oven to 350F degrees

Crumble the cornbread and cube the bread. If the bread is too dry to cut, briefly soak it in water. Finely chop onion, celery (with leaves) and garlic. Add olive oil and butter to a large sauté pan on medium heat. Add the chopped vegetables and sauté until onions are translucent. Season with salt and black pepper. Stir in crumbled cornbread, season with salt and black pepper, again. Once the cornbread is incorporated into the onion mixture, stir in cubed bread and low sodium chicken stock. Season with thyme, lemon juice, salt, and black pepper and mix well.

Transfer the stuffing to a baking pan and bake for 15 minutes or until the liquid has evaporated. Serve warm. Since I brought this to work for lunch, I reheated the stuffing in the microwave. For winging it, this was a success if I must say so myself. I would make one change to the recipe, I would decrease the amount of lemon juice or eliminate it altogether. It added a slight sweetness to the stuffing that I didn't care for, but others didn't mind.

In addition to homemade cranberry sauce, beer and cheese soup, and homemade spice cake, we had fried chicken bought from a local grocery giant. Fried chicken with cranberry sauce and stuffing, anyone?


On the day of giving thanks, we ate a full fledged Indian meal with dishes I can’t remember because I was dreaming about homemade rolls and occupied my time with the kids and the rest of the family. Although we didn’t eat the way we had hoped, we were grateful to be with people we adore, most of the time.

And of course, I thank you, my readers, for coming around to read this blog, even when I've disappeared from the Internets for unknown amounts of time.

Green Gold- Basil Pesto

Every chance I get I use homemade pesto to enliven dishes. especially something like this in dreary cold weather…

Homemade Basil Pesto

Bunch of basil leaves
1/3 of cup of pine nuts
2 garlic cloves, peeled
1/2 cup of olive oil
1/3 cup of freshly grated Parmesan-Reggiano cheese
Freshly ground black pepper
Salt

Pulse basil, pine nuts and garlic cloves in a food processor or blender. While the processor is running, add olive oil in a slow steady stream. Scrape down the sides of the processor. Add Parmesan-Reggiano cheese and black pepper and pulse. The cheese is salty so I do not add salt until the cheese is blended in. Taste. Add salt based on personal preference. Scrape down the sides and blend one last time.

I stopped buying store-bought long time ago because it’s easy to prepare and doesn’t have hard-to-pronounce ingredients. Basil is a seasonal herb so I make few cups during its peak harvest in the Summer and freeze it for year around use. Few ways to enjoy it is as a dip with toasted bread, a pasta sauce, with extra drizzle of olive oil it’s good for salad dressing and my favorite is to layer it on brie and bake it in the oven for eight minutes. Brie’s melty, ooey-gooey goodness pairs perfectly with the pesto.

fulfilled my sushi fix, for now

(this is an unplanned joint review with Liz, but having her as a personal friend that's likely to happen)

The ladies and I planned a sushi and movie night because Beluga offers half off sushi on Wednesday nights. In my opinion Beluga has all things we foodies/food lovers look for: great food, service, price and atmosphere. We only ordered from their half off sushi menu so this review does not reflect the rest of the menu. Out of many options, we ordered some unique rolls like Red Roll, Crazy Roll, Jade Roll. Most of the rolls tasted fantastic however couple missed the mark for me. For instance, the Jade Roll was made of an orange substance wrapped with rice, pickles and something else. And after eating the Jade Roll I learned I love sushi and I love pickles, I just don’t love them together. The fish tasted reasonably fresh and the rolls were well wrapped- a sign of an experienced sushi chef. For drinks we started with a bottle of Pinot Blanc (or Gris) from Oregon and it was refreshing. It was a delicious wine as an aperitif but unfortunately its sweetness competed with sushi’s flavors. Later on, I tried a drink with Lychee. Growing up in India, Lychees were common so when I see it on a menu or in a drink I get it. This mixed drink was deliciously strong.

The service was wonderful; from the time we entered until the time we left we were at the staff’s beck and call. Our server was even nice enough to refill our wine glasses and informed us gratuity was included in the bill. The roll prices vary from $5 to $20 each; so on half off night, we came away with a bargain. Beluga’s ambiance is fashionably contemporary. It has multiple rooms and each room has unusual color schemes and interior.

And the movie we were supposed to see after dinner? didn’t happen. Instead we stayed for drinks at the bar, where I tried the lychee drink. The bartender was a fabulous Polish man that we adored. He had the personality of a bartender without the fluff, fun and lively.

Beluga’s sushi ranks fair (on a “the best” to “don’t bother” scale) compared to my other two favorite sushi places, Jo An and Dancing Wasabi. However for a fun night with friends Beluga outranks them all. We’re already planning to go back for drinks, half off sushi and the Polish bartender.

Liz also wrote an in-depth review of the night at Beluga. And she’s got pictures too!