Beet greens with garlic and toasted almonds

The beets are out in the garden, and I am begining to see little peppers and tomatoes poking their way out of the plants.

This year, I have actually planted an entire host of herbs. I got the seeds and plants from, Rosedale Nurseries. I am too nervous to post pictures until the plants stabilize further. Unlike my other half, I kill plants just by looking at them. I do enjoy their beauty and try to capture them with my camera the best I can. It brings me great delight to capture an unexpected moment in nature.

The beets are usually best roasted. I did make an interesting salad with tofu and cashew nuts that I shall post when I get a second. I did however, love this simple creation we enjoyed mid week for our dinner. The pepper adds a very nice but intense heat to this recipe, you can leave it out if you wish.

Beet greens with garlic and toasted almonds

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 15 minutes
Serves 4

Ingredients

1/3 cup whole almonds
1/2 cup hot water
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
3 pods of garlic, slices
1.5 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/2 cup chopped garlic scapes (optional)
1/2 jalapeno chilie, minced
4 cups finely chopped beet greens
salt to taste

Method of Preparation

1. Place the almonds in hot water and let them soak for about 10 minutes.
2. Rinse in cold water and remove the skin.
3. Chop coarsely.
4. Lightly toast the almonds, until very lightly golden and set them aside.
5. Heat the oil and the butter and add in the garlic slices, cumin and cook for about half a minute.
6. Add in the garlic scapes and the chilie and continue cooking for about another minute until the mixture is a beautiful, fragrant bubbling mass, this takes about 3 minutes. You need to keep stirring constantly.
7. Add in the beet greens and the salt and cook for another 2-3 minutes until the greens are wilted.
8. Stir in the almonds and enjoy!

Food for a hot busy day - Another curried egg salad!

I think if you live in the east coast like me, today was certain a day to stay indoors and certain away from major cooking. Well, this is where it gets tricky. My daughter Deepta had a performance in school, which meant a lot of juggling in the evening to keep the routine intact and of course, meant having something that we could all eat. I think by now most people know, I love salads, egg salads in particular are high on my preference scale. Well, there was an egg salad that was sitting there on my kitchen bookshelf with my name on it - well actually it had Monica Bhide's name on it. It was a recipe from her cookbook Modern Spice.  This recipe had just the perfect overtones of flavor and would work wonderfully for all of us. The carmelized onions, that get folded into a nice assortment of egg and vegetables add an amazing amount of flavor to a very pretty recipe.

I actually made a double recipe, and tweaked the ingredients ever so slightly - I used a half cup of mayonaise for 12 eggs instead of the 6 that the original recipe had, I eliminated the chilies for the kids but added them back in for us and squeezed in a lime to balance the flavor and moisture. This recipe is definitely a keeper!

Curried Egg Salad with Carmelized Onion

Recipe from Modern Spice by Monice Bhide

Note (this is a double recipe)

Serves 8-10 people

Prep/Cook Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients

 3 tablespoons vegetable oil (I used olive)

1 red onion, thinly sliced

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 dozen hard cooked eggs

1/4 medium red onion, diced

` 1 organic red or orange bell pepper (seeded and finely diced

1/3 cup mayonaise (using her recommendations this would be 1.5 cups)

4 tablespoons minced cilantro

2 small green serrano chilies, minced 

3 teaspoons hot Madras curry powder (1 used about 2 teaspoons)

2 tablespoons prepared mustard

1 lime, halved (my addition)

2 cups spinach leaves, loosely packed (I used garden lettuce)

Method of Preparation

1. Heat the oil in a medium skillet heat the oil and add the onion and carmelize for about 5 minutes, the onion softens, turns pale golden and then light brown. Mix in the salt, sugar and black pepper.

2. Chop the eggs and mix with the onions and bell peppers.

3. In a separate bowl, mix in the mayonaise, cilantro, chilies, curry powder and the mustard. I squeezed in the lime juice at this time.

4. Mix in the carmelized onions and the dressing and toss well.

5. Serve the salad in cups of crisp lettuce or spinach.

A blush of summer -Blueberry chocolate chip muffins

This week I have been really enjoying the complete onset of the farmers market season, possibly in my mind a complete herald of summer. I have been enjoying berries and of course all the bounty from our yard.A couple of weeks back I was really excited to see a lone blueberry on the tree - the first one at least on the few small bushes that we have. Well, I took a picture that came out blurry, by the time I realized it the blueberry had been eaten. The next few weeks I tried looking for the same effect and took a few more pictures and was please. Well, until I stepped out today, every little cluster had a single lone blueberry, for me a sight for sore eyes. It was just the effect that I had been looking for and I took some pictures that I think were just what I was looking for. Silently as I drank in their beauty I realized in quite pleasure, nature cannot be rushed. We cannot capture it on our terms but rather need to wait patiently and learn to enjoy and cherish its beauty on its own terms.

This morning, I made a brunch for father's day. A quite affair just the four of us. The kids were excited and I know, that is really how the father in this house likes it. On such a day, I always miss my own father. It is more than just the distance that separates up. Bapi is too sick these days to be very interactive. I cannot often speak to him spontaneously. It has to be a planned event.

Well, I made these little chocolate chip blueberry mini-muffins. I would actually call then mini-cupcakes, but I was adviced by the two cupcake experts in my house that cupcakes have to have frosting and anything without are just muffins. They tasted great, so what's in a name.

For the base, I actually used this recipe for an eggless cake. I made a couple of variations to it, used whole wheat pastry flour and melted butter instead of the oil and all purpose flour. Of course I added the blueberries and chocolate chips and most of these are already gone.

Blueberry Chocolate Chip Muffins

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients

1 cup of yogurt (preferable 1-2 days old)

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

11/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 cup melted salted butter

11/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour

1/3 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/3 cup blueberries

Ground nutmeg

Cooking spray for greasing the muffin pan

Method of Preparation

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Place the yogurt in a bowl and add the sugar and beat well till the sugar is dissolved.

3. Stir in the baking soda and baking powder and let this rest for 3-4 minutes, the mixture should appear nice and frothy.

4. Gently stir in the butter.

5. Mix in the sifted flour in small amounts until well mixed.

6. Stir in the blueberries and chocolate chips.

7. Dust very lightly with ground nutmeg.

8. Grease the muffin pans and add 2-3 teaspoons of the batter and bake for 20 minutes.

9. Turn off the heat and let these muffins rest in the oven for 10 minutes.

10. Remove from the oven and serve when completely cool.

A brunch we enjoyed - Half Moon

This post has been sitting around for almost 4-5 months, for some unknown reason, but I did want to share it with people, partly because this was a really nice meal, relaxing and festive all at once. Other than telling about the restaurant - Half Moon, in Dobbs Ferry, I did want to highlight our source for deciding on the place. This has not been the first time we trusted Small Bites, actually whenever there is a holiday and we are at a loss, I am thrilled to have a source to turn to - a predictable, reliable and trusted source.

So here we were - all four of us, for their lovely jazz brunch. The waitress seated us in a quite table on the second level, which offered us beautiful views of the soft snow that was out side and the tables of diners. We could not quite see all the musicians which might be a good thing, since my son might have been tempted to try to join themWhat we ate was a really nice New England Clam Chowder, full of clams rich but not unnaturally thick. They also had an apple and butternut squash soup, the picture does not do the soup justice. It was light but and had a gentle tang.I had - yes, you guessed it eggs benedict, in fact, that is what reminded me about this post in the drafts, because I just made eggs benedict this morning.They also has some nice pan-fried fish with mango salsa and blue potatoes.

We actually had creme brullee for dessert, just do not have the pictures. With summer right here this restaurant would be a great place to check out and enjoy!

Half Moon is located in Dobbs Ferry, New York

The Half Moon

1 High Street

Dobbs Ferry, New York 10522

914 693 4130

http://harvest2000.com/hmn/

The garden and salad series

Te garden is green and lush, with all still plenty of lovely green lettuce, lots of lovely fresh lettuce and berry trees that are begining to wake up. The first of these are the blueberries that adorn their tiny little plants in pretty little clusters. I have been trying hard to get some pictures with them just with one or two berries turning blue, and finally managed to get something this week. The beauty of the seasons is there predictability and of course there landmarks, the daffodils tell us that spring is on its way, followed by the vibrant forsythia's that fill our hedges with yellow and of course the rains that bring with them the beauty of late May flowers.

These delicate and pretty breakfast radishes were what came in this week. I know dear reader that you are probably getting tired of all my salad posts. It is one of those downsides of seasonal eating, you cannot plan what you get and you make do with what nature gives you.

This Lemon Wasabi Salad recipe was inspired by this post and something that I had tried a while back adding a touch of wasabi powder to the radishes. So this is how my lemon wasabi radish salad ended up.

Lemon Wasabi Radish Salad

Prep Time: 25 minutes (includes some time to let the salad mature)

Ingredients

4-6 small radishes (I used tender breakfast varieties)

1/2 teaspoon powdered wasabi

1/2 teaspoon black salt

1 red onion, thinly sliced into rings

2 cups chopped fresh green leaf letuce (optional)

1 teaspoon chaat masala

2 tablespoons minced cilantro

1/2 teaspoon sugar

1 fresh lemon, cut into half and seeded

Method of Preparation

1. Slice the radishes thinly and add the wasabi and the black salt.

2. Add in the red onion and toss well and set aside for about 5 minutes to let the flavor deepen.

3. Add in the letuce, chat masala, cilantro and the sugar and shake well.

4. Squeeze in the lemon juice and set the flavors settle for about 5 minutes, before serving.

Lately I have been at home for a few weeks, mostly nursing my shoulder and trying to figure out how to stay engaged. One of my activities have been to play house. By this, I am looking at some of the really dated furniture in our lower level, consists of a 18-year old futon that I had from my college days. We do not have a whole load of space downstairs, especially since we now have a piano, for my budding musicians, the idea of a medium sized sectional sofa sounds appealing.

Lemon Rice/Rice Pulihora

Among the many wonderful Indian blogs that I like to follow, is Sailu's blog. Here blog is usally really well illustrated with pictures, clear directions and has a wonderful mix of both authentic Indian and several experimental and innovative recipes for pasta and wholesome kid friendly mean. This particular recipe caught my attention, because of both its use of lemon instead of tamarind and also used delicate broken rice also called rice rawa. There are I guess several variations of pulihora, which I realized essentually translates to sour rice in Telegu, which is spoken in Andhra Pradesh. Well, I did not have rice rawa (broken rice available in the house), but I did have delicate fragrant kalajeera rice available. So I made a pulihora, that was very close to her recipe power packed with a lot of fresh lemon juice that ended up being a lovely refreshing meal for a summer night. Here is how I did it.

Lemon Rice/Pulihora

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Serves 4 people

Ingredients

1.5 cups of kalajeera rice

1 and 3/4 cup water

1 teaspoon salt

For the tempering

2 tablespoon oil

1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds

1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds

1/8 teaspoon asafetida or hing

1 teaspoon chana dal (yellow split lentils)

1 teaspoon urad dal

10-12 curry leaves

2 teaspoons freshly grated ginger

3/4 cup of dry roasted peanuts

3-4 dried red chilies

1/4 teaspoon turmeric

2 lemons, halved and seeded

2 green chillies, very finely chopped

1/3 cup cilantro leaves

Method of Preparation

1. Cook the rice in the water for about 12 minutes, drain and rinse throughly and set out to cool.

2. Heat the oil and add the mustard seeds, cumin seeds, asafetida and wait till the mustard seeds begin to crackle. Add in the lentils and let them brown for 2 minutes.

3. Add in the curry leaves, ginger and dry roasted peanuts and cook lightly for about 1minutes. Add in the red chilies.

4. Mix in the rice and the turmeric and mix well.

5. Squeeze in the lemon juice and stir in the green chilies and cilantro.

Note: The flavor of this rice improves considerably served after 30 minutes and also tastes good warm rather than very hot.

No Fuss Shrimp...

This week I ended up inadvertently changing the entire look of my blog. I often keep playing with buttons on the dashboard. This week when I logged on, the dashboard said something like, template designer. So I clicked on a button or two and without warning, I had a new looking blog.

Talk of change you can believe in. Well, so like it or not, I now have a totally different set up to the blog, that I am trying to get used to. Last evening we had some friends over and I made a few interesting things actually a Mexican inspired menu. I did not take any pictures and with the slow cooker I felt like I was on top of my game, I shall be posting what I made over time.

I made this no fuss, shrimp gently kissed with spices, that I mixed with the garden lettuce leaves I tossed with red onions and sliced strawberries. Sorry no picture, of the salad either. Just could not make the time.


No fuss -citrus spice kissed shrimp.

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients

1 lemon
1 orange
1 teaspoon freshly grated ginger
1 jallapeno, minced
1 teaspoon salt
1 pound of large shrimp, shelled with the tail-on
1 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup lowfat sour cream
3-4 tablespoons oil
1 teaspoon garam masala

Method of Preparation

1. Cut the orange and lemon into half and squeeze the juice into a bowl.
2. Mix in the ginger, jallapeno, salt and the shrimp and let the shrimp marinate for 15 minutes.
3. Stir in the sour cream.
4. Heat the oil and add the shrimp in a single layer in a skillet and cook for about 6 minutes on each side.
5. Sprinkle with the garam masala.

Fresh greens shrimp salad

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Serves 4-6 people

Ingredients

3 cups shredded fresh greens
1 red onion thinly sliced, cut into rings
10 strawberries, hulled and sliced thinly
1 serving no-fuss citrus kissed shrimp prepared as above
Newmans balsamic vinegar dressing

Method of preparation.

1. Mix the greens, onions, strawberries and shrimp and toss well.
2. Serve with the balsamic dressing on the side.

Kashmiri spiced roasted vegetables

Well, this week along with the turnip greens we were blessed with some turnips, not a lot about 3 fairly large and pretty purple topped varieties.
Well, I pondered on what to do with them, I like these with lamb, however I needed to put together a vegetarian main dish and my vegetarian (sans garlic eating MIL) is visiting for the week.

I did not know whether this would work with lettuce which is the other thing that we have so much of in our garden. So finally I thought of adapting a fairly rich recipe for the oven.

I know that a lot of people avoid the oven in summer, but I have to tell you I prefer it sometimes to stove top cooking. Today it was time for the oven.

Kashmiri spiced roasted vegetables

This recipe came together very nicely and with fairly interesting results.Kashmiri Dum aloo uses small baby potatoes, that are deep fried and then cooked till dry in a nice spice base.

Here I roasted vegetables and then baked them further with the spice and yogurt sauce.

Ingredients

3 medium turnips, peeled and cubed

2 potatoes, peeled and cubed

1 cup medium sized broccoli florets

1 cup medium sized cauliflower florets

1/3 cup oil

1-2 teaspoons salt

1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger

1/8 teaspoon asafetida

2 cups low fat yogurt

1 teaspoon fennel seeds

1/2 teaspoon cloves

1 teaspoon red chili powder

Method of Preparation

1. Prick the vegetables well, until they appear porous. This is a tip I got from some recipe that Sanjeev Kapoor had suggested. It makes the vegetables crisp and helps absorb the sauce.

2. Heat the oven to 400 degrees.

3. Place the vegetables in a baking pan and drizzle with some of the oil and salt and bake for 15 minutes.

4. In the meantime, heat the remaining oil and add the ginger and asafetida and cook until the ginger is nice and crisp.

5. Add in the yogurt.

6. Grind the fennel and cloves to a powder and add in with the red chili powder and remaining salt. Bring the sauce to a simmer, it should be a fair thin sauce.

7. Pour this over the vegetables that should be nice and crisp at this time and cook for another 10 minutes, until the sauce is almost absorbed by the vegetables.