Merry Christmas - Liz's Cranberry Sauce for Grown Ups

Today has been rather unusual as holidays go, but then again maybe not quite so unusual. The weekend was deliciously long, since I was at home on Thursday. The daughter had a concert in school, that I had to attend and I felt I deserved a couple of extra hours off. The husband and I tried a new rrestaurant a quick kind of place. I shall hopefully tell you all about it before the weekend is over.

Yesterday, we had a nice group of people over. Anju and Melanie, my aunt and cousin and a couple of other friends were over. I cooked some really good stuff. However, the cat too, decided to run out and spend a day in the backyard and came back with a wound. So this morning was spent at the emergency veterinary hospital.  Now, that was the tip of the problem. Benji was generally OK, but I now have 14 tiny tablets that he needs to be fed 2 times a day.

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A candy store for spice lovers - Kalustyan's

How or why would you pick an isolated spice store, particularly when the store is located in New York City. A city that never sleeps (had to put that in) and has anything a foodie could want. Well, Kalustyan's on Lexington Ave, in the upper 20's is what I call a candy store for spice lovers. The store has the most amazing selection spices, teas, coffee, and cookware that I can think of.

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Wilted Spinach with Carmelized Onions and Raisins

I loved reading Little Women and all the rest of the series, like a lot of people my heart was captured by Jo, the independent almost tomboyish sister. Jo had lovely hair, refered to as her one beauty in several places, I think like Jo, my one reedeeming eating habit is my love for greens. I love them year long.

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Harvest Latkes and Spiced Date Apple Sauce

At the risk of offending some of the Microsoft engineers in my life, I sometimes think working with Microsoft Office is much like my husband. It is pretty much a part of my life, and on most days it works,  some days it completely drives me crazy and other days, it totally surprises me with its multidimensional possibilities. 

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One of those bad good dishes...

I might as well warn anyone, for the most part the next few posts shall be all about bad good food, in case you are wondering what I mean by that, I mean food that tastes good, but not quite so good for you. But hey, tis the season. Also, it is going to be way to busy for me at work, so not really that relaxing in terms of the time of the year. What would normally be Santa's workshop, the office dowstairs is currently a podium for the new I-POD and the edges of the TV stand are begining to get all cluttered with mail.

However, it never stops me from cooking. One of my many weaknesses is fried calamari, actually fried food in general but I can actually get my partner in crime (PIC), to share the fried calamaris and enjoy them with untimate relish.

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Slow Cooker Fish Curry

A curry has actually earned a bad reputation as being boring, but in all fairness a curry is about as boring as a sandwich or a soup, let us face it, these days we have the simple tuna fish on toast variations, or a classic and comforting BLT, to a down right impressive and stunning goat cheese panini. The curry for me too is much like a bowl of soup that ranges from light and comforting to rich and decadent. To truly bring out your curries flavors needs care and time rather than butter and cream.

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Peniche on a Monday Evening

There is something about our household and eating out on Mondays. What I mean by this is that for some unbeknownst reason we plan on getting out, this too with the kids down in bed and realize that, we have picked a Monday. The problem with Mondays is that a lot of restaurants close down that day to recover from the weekend chaos.

Well, this Monday a few weeks back, the destination of choice was Peniche in White Plains a place serving Tapas, the delightful Spanish style small plates. The mood in the restaurant on this pre-holiday Monday evening was similar to what many other bloggers have described. Rather than being crowded the spacious restaurant had one large table a couple of smaller tables filled but was definitely quite, in fact, to the point the chatty waitress was entertaining herself chatting with us. She was rather funny rather than being annoying.

Now down to the food and drinks, we tried a cocktail called the portonic, which was an interesting cocktail made with port wine and tonic. Moving onto to the smaller bites, they had a selection of Pizza like flatbreads, rather unique and interest. We had a cheese and fruit platter and small mushroom and white truffle dish and absolutely delectable salt cod fritters. We also had an unusual quinoa dish, that was pleasing in its simplicity.

All in all a very pleasant experience, just the place you want to get to on a night where you want to eat, drink and be merry.

Peniche Tapas

175 Main St.

White Plains, NY

914-421-5012

The one that did not make it - Corn and Pomegranate Salsa

Today was one of those days that you enjoy, after a day well spent and savored. Yesterday was an incredibly  busy and very successful day for the most part, the food was all complete on time, the turkey well cooked and moist (thanks to the brineing) no major disasters, just the right number guests and all in just what you would want from an evening where you spent an incredible amount of time cooking.

The highlight of the evening for me really was a surprise visit from the brother all the way from Seattle. He wanted to make it in time for the holiday meal but actually missed the flight he was planning to take partly due to the X-ray machine being tripped off by the camera.
We both spent the day today around the house, noshing on the remains of the feast. I do not know if it happens to you but quite often in the middle of a frenzy I forget things that I make and plan to serve, this corn salsa that I am about to tell you about is actually one such dish. We enjoyed it today and I think it deserves a special mention.

Corn and Pomegranate Salsa

Prep/Cook Time: 20 minutes
Serves 6

Ingredients

1 cup frozen organic corn kernels, defrosted (I use the fire roasted variety by trader Joe's)
1/2 cup pomegranate seeds
1 small red onion, peeled and diced
1/2 teaspoon red chili powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 lime
2 tablespoons of minced cilantro

Method of Preparation

1. Place the corn and the pomegranate seeds in a bowl.
2. Mix in the onion, red chili powder and the salt and toss well.
3. Cut the lime and squeeze in the juice and mix well.
4. Stir in the cilantro and serve with chips or with your choice of meal.

So tell me, do you have items on your menu that sometimes do not make it to the table?

Pre-Thanksgiving musings - a shrimp curry

It is that time of the year when most of us feel reflective, the growing season is winding down, the year is ending the days are getting smaller and yes, it is Thankgiving. Like most people who love to cook, it is my favorite holiday of the year. I also like to reflect more on the things that I can be grateful for. From simple things like the joy I feel in the kitchen to more complicated things. Something that really helps is my children's after-school program that runs holiday coverage. They are right across the road, this helps on a day like today. I was at home but diwas running around trying to get all the shopping done, but did feel a little guilty, so my compromise was to make the kids some warm lunch and drop it off. A classic that never goes out of style is the grilled cheese. How I did theirs today was with oatmeal bread and some turkey and tomato in the center.

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A fall kind of dish

Most people who know me, know my love for fall, I love the colors, the nip in the air, the apples, the pears and the soft rustle of fall leaves under my feet. It is the only time of the year, I am not quite so excited about the rain, not that I do not like to see the vivid colors against the sombre skies on a rainy day, or like to simmer my favorite stew on a cool dark day, the rain takes the crunch of the leaves away.

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Westchester Grocery

This little outlet was something that I had discovered by eating some amazing Chicken Seekh Kababs at someone's house almost three to four years back. I  was amazed at the great taste and then ventured onto Commerce Street in Thornwood to find Westchester Grocery. Now, these pictures have been taken with a very low resolution phone camera, yes, this was what I used earlier in the year, actually comming to think of it I am kind of low tech that way, I carry around a small no so fancy little camera for my travel and meandering kind of pictures, very rarely use the phone for taking pictures.

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Sooji Dhokla

Cooking and try out new things is often a world of surprises, some very pleasant and most unexpected. Well, for many a reason, I do not usually blog about the unpleasant. I was home on Tuesday, fighting the cold/fever combo.

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Simple Seasonal Perfect - Harvest on Hudson

There are days when you want go out and have a special meal, but want simplicity in the cuisine, well heeled but country styled settings,. particularly when the whether has this nip in the air. This is when you want to head off to a tested a tried place like the Harvest on Hudson.

I have eaten there a few times and this picture was from a meal about a year back. I was just was waiting for the right time to write about my wonderful experiences here.

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A messy tasty vacation dish

Remember I told you about the kids little two by two plots, well low and behold they did deliver the radishes as promised. Interestingly enough, a few years back my friend Ken was actually telling me about his daughter (then probably my older one's age say 7) wanting to grow their own and how radishes had a short turnaround. I was kind of half listening to all of that, well now I can relate. I shall tell you all the fun stuff we did with the radishes at some later time. Actually, we have been up to all kinds of fun stuff - apple picking, raspberry picking, I shall tell you about it by and by during those cold winter months when there shall not be any garden stories to share.

 Well, I wanted to actually get to telling you about this really simple recipe I had created when we were visiting my brother in Seattle. Despite some reservations I actually have posted this somewhat messy looking picture, since it capture the spirit of both the dish and the wonderful vacation that we had. It took us some time to figure out how to expand his drop leaf table, to fit all the food we were cookig. It is important to let you know that my brother does not really stock a spice cabinet or actually any pantry of sorts. The deal is that I send him a list before I visit and he is exceedingly dill.igent about getting anything I ask of him, so how can I complain?

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Broiled Thai Red Curry Fish

I think something that I find very pai nful, is to go back to recipe notes and re-write it. In other words, if I can capture a recipe into words right away, it remains, if not it is usually  lost. The camera helps, I often go back to old picture and if and only if the recipe is worth it, I go back to the notes.

Well, this one certainly was in my opinion worthwhile, also I think it was about time to remember that I had the blog and actually get back to writing on it. Actually, I have been inundated with several things, and the classes have been keeping me busy.

Anyhow, this recipe first started out with a Thai red curry paste recipe, that I had adapted from this site. The paste stores well in the refridgerator for 2-3 weeks or more.

Thai Red Curry Paste

Prep Time: 5-10 minutes
Makes about 1/2 cup

Ingredients

1 medium red onion, peeled and coarsely chopped
1 inch piece of ginger, peeled
3 cloves of garlic
1 tablespoon paprika
4 tablespoons fish sauce
1 tablespoon dried chopped lemon grass
1 tablespoon cumin seeds
1 tablespoon coariander seeds
2 tablespoons crushed palm sugar or jaggery
5 whole dried red chilies
1 lime

Method of Preparation

1. Place the onion, ginger, garlic, paprika, fish sauce, chopped lemon grass, cumin seeds, coriander seeds, palm sugar or jaggery in a blender.
2. Add in the whole dried red chilies. Cut in squeeze in the lime juice.
3. Blend the mixture until smooth, now, I should mention that the traditional texture for such a recipe should be a little grainy.

Broiled Thai Red Curry Fish

Prep Time: 45 minutes (mostly to marinate)
Cook Time: 15 minutes
Serves 4

Ingredients

1.5 pounds of fish (I used steel head trout, in this recipe)
3-4 tablespoon red curry paste
1/3 cup coconut cream
3-4 kafir lime leaves
10-12 thai basil leaves
Extra lemon to garnish

Method of Preparation

1. Prepare the fish into 4 pieces, rub with the thai curry paste and set aside for 20 minutes.
2. Place in a baking dish, brush generously with the coconut cream, mince the kafir lime leaves and scatter over the fish.
3. Broil the fish lightly for 6-7 minutes on each side.
4. Carefully place on a serving plate, garnish with the thai basil leaves and serve with lemon slices.

Actually one of the highlights of this summer was growing Thai Basil leaves, what an amazing powerhouse of flavor in just 3-4 small leaves. We enjoyed the fish as is, but it would be wonderful over jasmine rice.

A homey lentil dish

I made this very basic lentils about a week back, actally right after I returned from India. I was rather tired, I had gone into work right after I came in however the lagged exhaustion hit later, I came back in around 3 pm and went straight to bed. I was woken up a couple of hours later by two excited people jumping on my bed. It was actually wonderful to see them. It was a nice break but a really conflicted one without the little ones.

All in all, I caught up with some old friends thanks to Facebook, and also bought a lot of reading material. I am looking forward to reading some of the books, the cool weather is just right for that. I made this immensely simple lentils and was really stunned by the flavor, I did not even temper it, all it had was the goodness of toor dal (yellow split pigeon peas), tomatoes, garlic, lime and cilantro. I finished it off by melting some butter into it. It was pure and simple wonderful.

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An early fall weekend...

The start of September this year, could not pronounce more loudly that Fall was here. It was almost like Mother Nature had come in with a big magic wand and waved it around us, “Ok folks, it’s back to school time and my favorite season fall is here!” Aadi started kindergarten this year, stealing the thunder a little from Deepta. His first day went well he is missing his old pre-school and friends. I shall miss it too! It has been a part of my life for almost seven years, since it included the daycare for Deepta. My son is a lot like me, he needs to ease into change but once settled he does well.

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Bengali Stir fried carrots and beans with caramelized onions

This past weekend was wonderful, we had friends over, sneaking in the last spurt of summer before school and the somewhat faster pace of things hit. What was especially fun was, that most of the food with the exception of some shrimp and tofu were all from the backyard. The menu was simple -fresh cucumber dip, a tomato eggplant and mushroom curry, lentils with spinach, grilled shrimp (in a chili mint marinade) and tofu (soy honey glaze and this stir fry. For whatever reason, I have not done a lot with beans, just not too sure why, but this year we seem to have a bean bonanza.

This simple saute is colorful and would complement almost all meals. What is nice is that people picked on it just by itself like a warm salad. This recipe is close to a weeknight dish that my mother often made, except she used potatoes instead of the turnips and cut the vegetables smaller. I have used a combination of the yellow wax beans and the green beans to offer a nice contrast of colors.

Stir fried carrots, turnips and beans with caramelized onions

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Serves 4 people

Ingredients

3 tablespoons oil (mustard or olive)

1 teaspoon panch phoron (Bengali 5-spice mixture)

1 red onion, cut into a fine dice

2 pods garlic, minced

1 teaspoon finely grated fresh ginger

2 turnips, peels and cut lengthwise into 1-inch pieces

3 medium carrots, peeled and cut into length wise pieces

2 pounds green and yellow beans, trimmed and either left whole or cut into halves

(not the intent here is to have some symmetry between the vegetables in terms of sizes)

2 green finger chillies, trimmed and slit

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1-2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

Method of preparation

1. Heat the oil and add in the panch-phoron and wait for the seeds to crackle.

2. Add in the onion, garlic and ginger and reduce the heat and cook for about 3-4 minutes, stirring the mixture frequently. At this point the onions should wilt, soften and begin to turn softly golden in the edges.

3. Add in the turnips and the carrots and mix well and cover for 5 minutes.

4. Add in the beans, chillies, sugar and salt and mix well. Cover the mixture and cook on low for another 10 minutes, the vegetables should be reasonably soft but retain just a little crunch.

5. Check the seasonings and stir in the lemon juice and serve.

Kathleen's Tea Room

LT on Whole Wheat Toast

Earlier this year, when the whether was cooler, I ventured one lunchtime to try out Kathleen's Tea Room. I think my love for tea competes very strongly with my love of wine. This visit turned out to be a fairly costly one, since I actually ended up with a ticket for parking incorrectly. Fortunately, the tea room was a lovely place to visit. A small place somewhat bring forth the appearance of an old english cluttered service room.

There tea selections were not very extensive but adequate, their service came in mismatched (as in different cups and plates for different tables) completing the atmosphere of a down home feeling.

In general, had this place been closer it would have been a good place to take a book and read on a quiter day. The tea was brewed in piping hot water (one of the most essential elements of brewing black tea). Actually a simple fact that most people overlook.

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`A somewhat lopsided view of what the place looks like.

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Stone Barnes Agricultural Center and Cafe

While we all know about the Blue Hill Restarant at Stone Barnes, there is also a little cafe with a small but quite satisfying selections of salads, sandwiches, crostada's, light baked items all of which are made from the amazing bounty of the agricultural center. If like us you want a good weather day outdoors, please to venture out to the agricultural center.

While I love to talk about food, it is one of the many attractions of spending a day here. Whether permitting you can get good exercise all across the campus, seeing animals, flowers, beautiful happenings of a working farm. The deal here is that I feel like I earn my meal.

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Onions on a conveyor belt



Hanging out with the turkeys

The above are just some snippets of a beautiful summers day with the kids and friends. It was wonderful feel like we had a picnic without having to tote a bag full of food.



Fading Away..

I would love to think that we have months and months of this beautiful summer left, but even as I go through sorting out things for tomorrow, Deepta starts second grade, I can officially tell that summer is kind of on it's way out. There are apples everywhere an official logo of fall.

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The Kati Roll Company

A kati roll is a hard concept to define. Actually the home of these amazing creations is Kolkatta, the city in India where I grew up. These amazing creations of skewered marinated chicken (hence the term Kati, which refers to a stick) are grilled to amazing perfection.

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The passionate tofu

A lot of people I know treat tofu as the poor step sister of paneer, the creamy rich Indian cheese. I first began using it in my cooking as a convienience (since it is more readily available) and later in my classes, to accomodate my vegan students. Eventually, firm or extra firm tofu has now become more of the norm for me rather than an exception. It actually absorbs flavor beautifully. This lovely delicate sauce that showcases two of the seasons gifts - tomatoes and red peppers offer a perfect match for the mild tofu.

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Tiffinwalah - An amazing meal

It is hardly a novelty to find good food in NYC, one can get almost anything that ones heart desires. This was a rainy sleepyI afternoon, my favorite kind of eweather, cool but not too cold, wet but more a rainy mist rather than pouring rain. I would have loved to walk miles and miles, but since I could not I settled for the next best thing - to walk a few blocks to find a place that caught my eye. Tiffin, in Indian parlance, referrs to snack and in South Indian cuisine this refers to items such as Dosa (lentil and rice flour crepes.
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Watermelon Sangria

Outside of my obsession with playing with spices, I love wine and playing with wine. I used actually be noted for my spontaneous cocktails. People loved them as much more than the food that I cooked. I have a theory on this, it is what I call the cheap wine theory, basically after a couple of glasses folks do not really complain about the edge or lack of smoothness of cheap wine. Nonetheless, I have significantly reduced dabbling with cocktails, not because I have reduced my drinking but it is sort of in line with my general hasstle free approach to cooking. Doing a creative syrup, cooling it, takes time. However, a couple of weeks back, I made this Watermelon Sangria, inspired by this recipe.

Now, what a difference the wine makes, while Doug's sangria looks like the pale red of the watermelon, my version looks much deeper and yes, you got it right I used red wine. Actually, I skipped the agave nectar, because I used a slightly sweet red wine.

This red is very happy served chilled and hence, just perfect for Sangria. I had to through in the black salt, it is a quintissential Indian combination to add black salt to fruit juices.

So I made about 4 glasses of sangria following the following measures,

Watermelon Sangria

Cook/Prep Time: 1 hour (mostly chilling)

1.5 cups of fresh watermelon juice (about 1/2 a medium sized water melon, cut and pureed in the blender and then strained.

1.5 cups of a sweet red wine

1/2 teaspoon black salt

1.5 cups of seltzer

Method of Preparation

1. Mix in the watermelon juice, red wine and black salt.

2. Chill for at least 45 minutes to an hour.

3. Place 2-3 ice cubes in serving glasses (you do not want too much or it will dilute the watermelon flavor).

4. Add in 3/4 glass of the wine-watermelon mixture.

5. Top off with some seltzer and enjoy.

Breakfast at the Market

General view of the market, walking from the station

My son loves pickles, believe it or not!

Picked up a whole bunch of peaches, made some peach crisp,

Loved these streaked squashes, wonder if they have a special name.

Cheddar cauliflower, I steamed some for dinner.

Now this cofee place was wonderful, a new addition this year, drank their iced coffee with a peasant roll from bread alone.

Thanks to all the wonderful veggies in the garden, I have not needed to get to the markets this year, I did stop a couple of weeks back at the Pleasantville Farmers market to get some breakfast and meat.

Bruised tomato mint salad in yogurt

This is a really simple inspiration from all the lovely tomatoes that we have in the house and the tons of fresh mint that is blossoming in a planter. Ok, the mint and all the summer herbs are really a big deal, because they are actually being grown by me and not the husband. I have had them from May, they are this far thriving. I have mint, oregano, rosemary, marjoram, lemon thyme and lemon verbana. I have been doing things with them as and when I can. Today it was the mint and oregano's turn. This recipe is almost like an meeting of Tzatziki and tomato raita, the flavors certainly work well together, but then again I always, say, if its fresh and local it works!

Bruised tomato mint salad in yogurt

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 7-8 minutes

Serves 4

Ingredients

4-6 small fresh tomatoes

1/2 cup fresh mint leaves

1 tablespoon fresh oregano

1 teaspoon minced garlic

1/3 cup olive or raw sesame oil (sold as gingely oil in Indian stores)

1 teaspoon red chili powder

1 cup strained or greek style lowfat yogurt

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup lightly roasted coarsely ground peanuts

Cilantro and green chilies to garnish (optional)

Method of Preparation

1. Place the tomatoes in a bowl.

2. Finely chop the mint and oregano and add all but 1 tablespoon of the chopped herbs to the tomatoes.

3. Mix in the garlic and the oil and chili powder and set aside for 10 minutes.

4. Cook lightly on a grill for 3-4 minutes, till the skin of the tomato is barely bruised.

5. Place in a mixing bowl as they are done and pour any remaining oil marinade into the bowl over the tomatoes.

6. Whip the yogurt with the salt and pour over the tomatoes.

7. Lightly mix in the peanuts and garnish with the reserved mint and the cilantro and green chilies if using.

Note: This salad can be served warm or chilled.