newly discovered sin

trader's joes lava cake is the best thing that landed on my mouth recently.

I really regret not finding out about it when my mom was here. Glad I bought 2 packets

The pics are of the packet, and before and after indulging :). If I had a spare cameraman - I would have put up my photo too. Currently can't find my mouse will rearrange the pics again. Yup it is served hot.

Omg- where is my mouse.

lots of work

so no cooking only fruits ...

peach + strawberries (some photography)

Indian cooking - cheers!!

The difference between engineering drawing and free hand drawing is exactly what is the difference between Indian cooking and any other cooking. I can never bake a cake. 2 cup of that 1.75 cups of this ..blah blah...

But here, the approximation makes it an art - I just love the free style involved in it - this much salt (that reminds my salt is almost over), a pinch of haldi - I never bother to mention those details because that is something you learn on your own. This is optional - that adds an extra zing :).
And that's what I am loving about cooking. Though I must say, writing a cooking blog is tough. You want the other person to taste and smell the good food. My LAN right now cannot transmit it to you guys but well for now I am posting the recipes with picture.
Anyways - you might have noticed - the quality of my pics have improved :) - I do take the feedback :).

P.S: Vids is having a blog too. I plan to make my recipes available there too.

ladyfingers with a twist :)

Well never intended the word twist to be taken so literally. And you can see the before after pics of my lady finger (okras). They really seem to be twisted :)

Anyways this dish surprisingly came out to be good. I prefer it to be dry and not with gravy as some people suggest.

Ingredients:

- Okras (as shown in the picture)

- besan (half cup) Dunno what it is called in eng.

- yoghurt (1-2 spoons)

- fresh ginger

- green/red chillies

Procedure (its a little elaborate for my convenience but the taste is worth it :)):

1) Heat tava. Switch off gas. Add besan till it seems done (I would check with a distinct aroma). Take this out.

2) In the same tava fry the okras till they are cooked. (I almost thought of killing myself waiting for this to get done :( - just takes a loong time). Take it out.

3) In a tava - add oil, fry jeera, grren chillies and red chillies

4) Add besan, okras and then some yoghurt. I added some water too as my yoghurt was really thick.

5) Grate some ginger and sprinkle on it.

5) Cook till it is done. I prefer it to be fairly dry.

Methi and corn pulav (pulao)

Since I had some methi left (from last sunday) and also some corn left (from last year). Ankur might remember that I had it since a year ago in my freezer I thought instead of plain rice I would make some pulao.

Ingredients: Methi, pulao, biyani masala (any std brand), some corn.

Procedure:

1) In a cooker, heat some oil. Add bay leaves and jeera.

2) After they seem done - add methi leaves and some corn.

3) Add rice (my proportion of methi and rice was 1:2). Corn was little (as much as it was left).

4) Close the cooker. Let it be done. That's it. I have just tasted a spoonful of the rice right now and it tastes reasonably good :).

Aloo with coconut milk

So I am having some veggie married friends as guest at my place and as one of my single friends rightly remarked - the trouble with married friends is that they can differentiate good food from bad food.

Well however I thought of still experimenting.

I remember visiting Rajesh with KAmra nad he had made coconut milk and aloo (potato). Well at that time, I was least bothered about my culinary skills so didnt register much but this is some reverse engineered reproduction of the recipe.

Ingredients - you need potatos (I tried with Pink potatoes but since I am not a racist even brown potato is fine), make sure you have cleaned it properly as we would not be peeling it, oil, jeera and coconut milk (if you do not have some then just grind some fresh grated coconut in mixie).

Procedure:

1) Heat oil. Add jeera .

2) cut potatoes and put in oil - cook the potatoes (this takes a while)

3) Once the potatoes are somewhat cooked - add few spoons of coconut milk and maybe some water.Add salt, little haldi (turmeric powder), dhania powder etc.

4) Cook till the potatoes are done and the curry looks saucy enough.

Note1: Cooking the potato takes some times so be prepared.

Note2: As my boyfriend said potatoes and coconut - so much calories!!! Potatoes is one of the other things he does not eat :) but this tastes good with just rice (no dal required).

Curd rice - VC ishtyle

VC is nominated ot be one of the best cooks in our gang. And though I haven't gotta chance to learn a lot of dishes from her but there is one simple thing I learnt and that is her delicious curd rice. And then you'd ask - how much more can you engineer a curd -rice. Well read on ...
That's how I make it.
You need - Curd and rice, fresh ginger, carrot. Red chillies and coriander.
1) In a pan - heat a little bit of oil (I use olive oil for my cooking). Add some mustard seeds, some dal, if you hace red chillies then couple of them.
2) I then add curd and then grate lots of carrot and ginger on top of it. I add a little water too and switch off the gas.
3) Then I add some well boiled rice to it. and mix well.
4) Store in fridge - serve cold :).

My mom loved it so much that whn I was in India I made it almost everyday. Also though my boy-friend doesn't eat rice (health freak), he did eat it. Nothing works better in Indian heat. Since I am calling Bama for dinner this eve then be ready for the photgraph soon.

chai - but no milk ?

Ever ran into the case when you wanted chai but found your milk can empty. Well Mary introduced me to Milkmaid tea and trust me it sometimes tastes better than the normal milk tea even without ginger!
It's simple - pour water - boil some tea leaves till the water is tea colored and the tea seems completely boiled. Strain the tea and get it into the cup.
Add two teaspoons of milkmaid to it.
That's it. No need to add sugar. Try it out. You can always have few milk maid cans tucked away in some neglected shelf without worrying really hard about their expiry. Moreover milk maid is my personal favourite and I manage to add two spoons in my mouth before adding two spoons in the tea :) .

P.S- Yup you are right! The cup in the adjoining picture is empty :).

Soupy chicken curry for grad students

This works well for grad students who do not really want to struggle with multiple steps involved in cooking. Kamra introduced me to it and Paramesh has testified that it tastes great. So have I. I recommended it to my dad too but he said everything except the chicken cooked.
Ingredients - onions, tomatoes, jeera, ginger-garlic paste and chicken.
1) In a cooker - heat a little oil - add jeera (i also add bay leaves and cloves), ginger-garlic paste. Fry for a minute - add onions and 2-4 tomotoes - both coarsely chopped. Add green/red chillies, haldi, a little bit of garam masala too. Add a little water - add chicken.
2) Boil in high till a whistle. Put the cooker to sim - boil in low till another whistle.
That's it :). Serve hot with rice Haven't made chicken in my house for ages- will make some and post the pic.

aloo methi

Yup this is my favourite :)). In India the biggest pain for my mom was getting the methi leaves and cutting it leaf by leaf. For me thanks to Deep we have frozen packs of methi leaves.

It's the simplest and you can try out the alternatives too.

Ingredients - Potatoes, methi leaves, kasoori methi pack (optional), red/green chillies, a couple of cloves. Some babylos cheese (this I accidentally bought instead of yoghurt but it gave me a great creamy flavor. You can drop this ingredient totally or choose yoghurt (didnt try this) instead.

1) Peel potatoes. Cut them. Cut some onions too.

2) heat oil in pan (some people use butter but i would avoid). Add some cumin seed, 2 cloves, may be cinnamon(I don't know where my mom has displaced that so I did not put it)

3) Add onions and fry.

4) Add potatoes. Cook them well. (Tip - you can boil the potatoes in your microwave in advance and that would work well too).

5) Once potatoes are cooked - add methi leaves and let them cook (if you are using frozen methi leaves it is a good idea to let them defreeze beofe putting it in).

6) Add cheese (optionally can add some milk - it takes away the bitterness of methi )

(my mom skips point 6)

7) Now patience baby patience - cook till methi is soft and tender

Serve hot with roti.

Alternative - you can add good amount of yoghurt + milk and some peas and leave it watery to make it methi malai mutter :)

Eggplant with yoghurt

Yup that was my first try a few weeks ago- I took a snap of what I cooked so that I can email it to my mom but well the photgraph had higher purpose in life.

This dish is originally from Orissa. You require the follwing:

Eggplant (Brinjal) - obviously and yoghust (obviously again).

Apart from that you need to have usual stuff like haldi, red chilli powder, jeera, garam masala etc and red/green chillies, coriander (optional), onion, tomatoes.

1) Cut brinjals veritcally (I prefer small brinjals from indian stores). Apply haldi and little salt on them and fry them in the oil till they are cooked.

2) In a heating pan, all all your jeera etc and fry cut onions till they are translucent. Add tomatoes (1 or 2 is enough) too and cook till the tomatoes melt to form puree.

3) In a separate vessel put yoghurt + little water and add your brinjals.

4) Put point 3 stuff in point 2. Cook for a few mins and tunoff your gas.

All this looks a littlebit like the photo below. Since it was monday night I didnt cut half of my brinjals so the photo is not the best representatative of how the recipe would look. But nonetheless...

Alternatives: My mom uses coconut onion, gingler garlic paste instead sometimes and that tastes awesome too. I wil ltry that out soon.

Bottom-less pit

Ask a girl on a weightloss program to think of something - what comes in her head - umm - food ? Think something else - umm -umm - tasty food.
yup - and I am on a futile weightloss program (futile coz i have been feasting on buttery indian hotel food for last few days) and am thinking about food a lot lately( more than I am thinking about my boyfriend). So thought I will hone my culinary skill and document all the good recipes I have tried and tasted.
And I really wanted to name this blog bottomless-pit however seems like that is taken away and to continue with the naming convention I have used so far - I will name my blog aratikadav456 (aratikadav123 vis already taken :)). Hope my lazy sunday afternoons will keep this blog fairly updated. Also if the camera that I stole from saurabh does not let me down - my recipes will be accompanied by some photos :).
And here is my only oath - I wouldn't post anything that I haven't tried out on my own.