Pesto chutney pasta and Miracle berry

It has been a crazy few weeks. After weaning Sunny boy I had/have postpartum depression issues. As if it is not enough, my weight seem to go haywire! I had never had a problem with my weight. Not that I was ever skinny, I love food, and I have good fitness levels and my weight has always been constant. But now I feel pressured to act.I do not believe in crash dieting and things that can prove to be problematic in the long run. But I have decided to to stick to two simple things. Number one- go sugar free, as strictly as possible. Then the second one, go for a drink of water when ever the craving to eat something strikes. A compulsive grazer that I am, I am always foraging the refrigerator or the pantry.So to get away from the habit, I am going to drink water when ever I feel like eating something. Rest of my diet is going to remain the same. Honey did loose a few pounds when he started on the sugar free diet. But he quickly exited the diet as well. I need to see how long I can stick to it. Hope to see encouraging results in the next few weeks.

We also had a tasting party the other day for Miracle Berry.It was indeed a unique experience. It is a berry that is native to Africa. The mberry version of it process the berry into tablet form and then the taster places the tablet on the tongue and allow the tablet to melt before consuming food.
We tried a bunch of things lemon, strawberry, cheese, pineapple, bitter gourd, hot chillies.Wow! it was a great experience. The tablet itself tasted like a berry. Loved it. But the surprising factor was the lemon. Lemon tasted like orange just as sweet, may be sweeter. Strawberry tasted wildly sweet. Everything tasted sweet. The chillies tasted sweet with just a hint of pungency and then the bitter gourd started sort of  mildly  bitter but then end flatly sweet. Cheese was not salty at all. We ended up wondering what it was all about. Boy how could this happen. I do not think I am going to miss sugar at all.

Coming back to the pasta, a generous bunch of basil was one of my finds the other week at the pick-your-own-farm. After the usual Caprese salad I still had way more basil than I could think of finishing, so here comes Pesto chutney yet another  Kannadised creation in my kitchen.

For the Pesto

Fresh Basil leaves 2 cups packed
Almonds toasted 2 tbsp
Tamarind 1" piece
Garlic 1 clove
Green chillies 2
Extra virgin olive oil 3 tbsp

Salt & black pepper to taste

For the pasta
Pasta (any shape but I used whole wheat Rotini) 2 cups
Zucchini 1
Grape tomatoes 1 pint
Mushrooms 4-5 medium
Extra virgin olive oil 1 tbsp
Parmesan cheese grated 2tbsp

Method:

• Combine everything under the pesto and blend it in a food processor. Add a little water to get the mixture going. Once the mixture is smooth and well combined the pesto is ready. Remove it into a glass jar and store in the refrigerator for up to a week. 
• For the pasta, heat oil in a sauce pan. Throw in the chopped mushrooms. After about 3-4 minutes, throw in the chopped zucchini. Saute till the vegetables are crisp tender. Throw the tomatoes in at the  last minute and turn off the heat.
• Cook pasta according to the package instruction. Once the pasta is drained, toss it with the vegetables and about 3-4 tbsp of the pesto. 
• Mix everything together and stir in the cheese. Add more pesto if the mixture lacks punch. Add a little bit of the pasta-cooking water if the mixture is too dry.
• Serve immediately.

Chiroti -South Indian 'Emperor' pastry

If Mysore Pak rules the hearts of Kannadigas, then Chiroti rules their weddings. I do not remember a wedding in my family that did not serve Chiroti. I have seen them in my parents' wedding album. (Obviously I was not invited to their wedding), It was there in my cousins' wedding, my wedding, my sister's the list goes on. Everything on the menu can change, you know 'Gobi Manchuri' taking the place of 'Pakoda','fried rice' instead of 'Bisibelebath'. But Chiroti has its place. Nothing says indulgence like Chiroti. So it has remained on the wedding menu for ages and looks like it will stay around for a while. While most of the meal in weddings is served on plantain leafs, mid meal extra steel plates are placed for Chirote or sometimes Pheni the noodle like cousin of Chiroti. So a lot of people who love either of these delicacies adjust their appetite or game plan after they see these plated being served at a distance. Boy demolishing an entire serving of chirote still remains a challenge to me and requires some degree of planning ahead.
The way it is served is also interesting. Chiroti in itself is just a pastry, it is not sweet but extremely rich. So once the  Chiroti is placed on a plate, powdered sugar is generously sprinkled followed by warm Badam milk. So people who like it crisp (like me) avoid the Badam milk. But those who love it softer, allow the Chiroti to sit in the warm milk for a few seconds.Even as I write these line, my mouth starts to water. I am craving for a wedding meal- the plantain leaf, the assorted nibbles on the top part of the leaf and the Chiroti in a steel plate next to the leaf- Ah! that is how I grew up, that is what my Sunny boy is missing.

I never took to these flaky pillowy buttery goodness as a kid. I simply hated the plate sized pastry staring at me mid-meals when my stomach is already loaded. As I grew older and my capacity increased and my tolerance for grease increased, I came to appreciate it better. It still remains an indulgence, something I can afford to have once in may be a year or two. I made these after a long research. Actually, Chiroti is flaky and tender, they are not crunchy/crisp at all. They are also super rich, so rich that every bite should leave a 'fatty' after taste, mostly 'shortening' or 'Dalda' ish taste. While making it, all I could think of was the person behind this delicacy. How could so much fat be incorporated in one single dish. Must have been Mughal or some Royal kitchen behind this dish. Only a royal kitchen could have afforded so much fat and only a king could have digested it in the by gone era.

So, let us be kings for a day and indulge in Chirotis. Only change is that the original recipe calls for shortening and I hate it. Worked out mine without the shortening. In fact substituting the shortening for the butter and ghee in the recipe makes it much easier to work with the dough and faster too.

We will need,

All purpose flour  1 cup
Butter 60 grams
Salt a pinch
Ghee 1 tbsp
Rice flour 2 tsp
Ice cold water a few tablespoons
Ghee / refined oil to deep fry (oh! yes more fat)

To serve
Sugar powdered
Cardamon
Milk
Badam Milk Mix

Method:

• Place the flour and salt in a food processor. Cut the cold  butter into small pieces and throw it into the food processor. Pulse till the mixture is crumby. 
• Add ice cold water by the tablespoon till the mixture comes together into a dough. 
• Remove the dough and wrap it in a piece of plastic and rest it in the refrigerator for an hour or two.
• Meantime, mix the ghee and the rice flour till pluffly and smooth paste like. It is called 'Saathi'
• Once the dough is well rested, divide the dough into 4-5 parts, using a rolling pin roll out each part like a roti. Smear the Saathi using a pastry brush and set the roti aside. Follow it with another roti and a layer of Saathi till all of the dough is used up.
• Now gently roll the stack of rotis a bit using a rolling pin and brush it with more Sathi. Start to roll the roti from the edge on one side and roll it into a cigar/log shape. Gently all the while.
• Cut the log/cigar of roti into two and then the twos into two and so on to end up with twelve pieces of dough. 
• Roll each of the piece of dough between your palms to give it a roundish shape. Place it on floured surface and roll it into 4-5" discs. 
• Deep fry these discs in hot ghee till they  fluff up and the color changes slightly. Flip them once.Cook  till the color changes and remove. Drain these on several layers of paper towels.
• Once the Chirotis are cool, serve it with a mixture of powdered sugar and cardamon and hot badam milk. Both on the side. That way everybody can decide how sweet they want their Chirotis to be.

Phew!! I need to hit the elliptical after this. 

Saffron Baklava

Summers are for garden parties, barbeques and picnics. We never prefer dinner parties in summer, hey! we have the entire frigid winter for dinner parties. But garden parties, barbeques and picnics are great on a nice and warm summer day. I hate to cook in the kitchen during the hotter days as well. Boy! turning on the oven makes the kitchen one inferno. This past week we were invited to a sandwich party and the food was lovely. I pitched in with the dessert and foolishly I set upon making a Baklava. The end result was fantastic and everybody loved it. But the kitchen got really hot, so hot I was wondering if the eggs would get cooked if left on the counter. So I have decided not to turn on the oven till the sun decides to sleep longer.
But it is Saffron Baklava for now. I have another version of Baklava as well. Love to Indianize-Kannadize everything in my kitchen.
I love making Baklava because it is one of those dishes that making twenty is as easy as making two or two hundred.It is easily scalable and perfect for a large party.

We will need,

Fillo sheets  1/2 package
Butter  1 stick (115 grams)
Almonds 1 + 1/4 cup
Sugar 1/2 cup + 2 tbsp
Saffron few strands
Cardamon 1 skin discard and the seeds crushed

Method:

• Thaw the fillo sheets on the kitchen counter for a while, may be 20 minutes. 
• Toast the almonds either in the oven or on a thick bottom Kadai till fragrant and set it aside to cool.
• Once the almonds are cool, pulse it in a food processor with 2 tbsp of sugar. Remove and set it near by.
• Melt the butter and a grease a 12 x 8 baking dish with the melted butter and set it near by.
• Remove the fillo sheets from the package and spread the sheets on a parchment lined cookie sheet. Cover it with  a damp kitchen towel.
• Pre heat the oven to 350 F.Start assembling the Baklava.
• Spread one sheet of Fillo on a work surface and brush a little melted butter thoroughly. Fold it into fours and place it in the dish. Repeat with another layer.
• Brush the top most layer with some more butter and spread the almond mixture generously.
• Place another butter filo layer followed by more almond mixture, alternating with the almond and the fillo layer ending with two sheets of fillo each folded into fours at the top. 
• Once the layers  are done, cut the Balkava into desired pieces, the knife barely touching the bottom most layer.
• Place the Baklava in the oven and bake till the top is golden and the baklava is fragrant.
• Remove from the oven and allow it to cool completely
• Prepare the sugar syrup. Combine the sugar with half a cup of water and bring it to a boil. Reduce heat, throw in the saffron and cardamon and simmer till the mixture attains single thread consistency. i.e when the syrup is pulled  between wet thumb and fore-finger, the syrup should form a single thread.
• Remove the syrup from heat and spoon over the hot syrup on the cool fillo layers. Rest the Baklava for a few hours on the counter uncovered. Cut the pieces thoroughly using a pizza cutter and serve.

Hunna Huralikayi Huli / Mature green Beans curry

My favorite time of the year is here. The pick-your-own produce is in full swing and the farmer's market is full of vitality and colors. This past weekend we hit our favorite farm and loaded up on beautiful and fresh vegetables. We loved what we saw and we loved what we ate and are eating. This time around we got a bunch of our favorite vegetables including the bitter gourd, egg plants, capsicum including the purple ones, never seen that one before and the purple colored mature beans. I was delighted  to see the mature beans still hanging on the plants and decided to get a bunch of those. I hope I did not ruin the farmer-lady's plans of converting it to seeds for the next season. As usual Sunny boy had a great time at the farm. He picked a lot of good and not-so-good vegetables and then 'helped' me shell the beans too. They sure to grow up fast.

A sad update on my gardening venture. The past week's scorcher dried up most of my plants,including the sunflowers.My coriander did sprout. They were not irradiated after all, but they ended long before they could be on our table. May be I should try again,  the season is still long enough of a couple of attempts.

The mature green beans are a delicacy and we relish it very much. Traditionally, it is cooked with eggplants and potatoes in a curry and served with Akki Rotti or rice. This is our dinner tonight

We will need,

Mature green beans shelled and the skin discarded 1 cup
Eggplant cubed 2 cups
Potatoes cubed 1 cup
Huli Pudi/ Sambar powder 1.5 tsp
Tamarind concentrate 1/2 tsp
Onion 1 small
Coconut 1/2 cup
Ghee 1 tbsp
Mustard 1/4 tsp
Jeera 1/2 tsp
Hing a dash
Curry leaves a handful
Salt and Jaggery to taste

Method:

• Peel the onion and discard the skin. Stick it to a metal skewer or a fork and hold it over the flame. Roast it till the skin develops charred spots. Remove from the fire and set it aside to cool.
• Combine the coconut, Sambar powder, tamarind and the cooled onion in a blender and puree the mixture into a smooth paste along with a little water.
• Remove the coconut paste into a thick bottom stock pot and add 2 cups of water. Bring it to a boil. Simmer and throw in the beans, eggplant and the potatoes. Cover and cook till the vegetables are tender.
• Meantime, prepare the oggarane/tadka. Heat Ghee in a pan. Throw in the mustard seeds, Jeera, Hing and curry leaves in quick succession until they pop. Remove from  heat and pour the contents into the curry. 
• Adjust salt and throw in a small piece of Jaggery. Stir well and remove from heat. Serve hot with Rice or Akki Rotti

Mango Milk shake

It is blog hop time.I missed the email earlier this month some how and was caught by surprise when I found other buddies posting already. This time I am paired with Gayathri.She has a wonder blog and I have been eying quiet a few of her recipes for a long time especially the Vatha Kolumbu. But the dish calls for ingredients not normally found in my pantry. So that one will have to wait. For now it is the Mango milkshake to fit into my Thursday fast :)

Made a small substitution. Instead of the fresh fruit called for by Gayatri, I am using Mango pulp therefore skipping sugar altogether.

We will need,
Whole Milk 1 cup
Mango Puree 1/2 cup
Cardamon powder a tiny pinch
Crushed Ice as preferred

Method:

• Combine everything in a blender jar and blitz till smooth.Serve immediately or well chilled.

Sending it out to  Radhika's Blog hop Wednesday .

Soup with avocado cream

Of late, I have been going through a rough patch. I have become very slow, as if somebody pushed the button on the remote for a speed of 0.2x from x; an unexplained lack of interest in everything I do and lack of motivation to do things that apparently I loved to do; I have stopped dropping comments on my favorite blogs, I have posted fewer recipes; The kitchen is a mess, the living room resembles an earthquake zone, but I do not have the energy to clean up or brighten things. The days look long and I am just looking for my hour to shut down and snooze. Then I wake at unearthly hour and try to kill time counting sheep and imagining weird things. Sometimes I feel so tried and so long to be alone that Sunny boy ends up watching cartoons for hours. I get irritated for no apparent reason, crying and loosing my temper for little things. I have been wondering for a while as what could be wrong with me. PMS? come on those dont last for months. Postpartum hormones? hey my baby is two and a half! Then I started considering menopause...but barely thirty and menopause did not fit in either. But that was the strongest suspect. Otherwise, why would I, a very enthusiastic person, who had all the time in the world for everything she liked/wanted, who's best friend was sunshine, and who signed up for motherhood after carefully weighing in all the options and of course brought up in the best of traditions and educated and modern for god sake, act like a psychopath portrayed in the movies? monster-like one minute and terribly sorry and full of self-pity and crying the other? I could see something just was not right, I was not being my own reasonable self. I could not subject my actions to any logic and I could not explain my own behavior to myself. This had never happened to me before. How can 'I' ..'I' of all the people in the world act unreasonably?
Despite knowing that something was wrong, I never bothered to seek help. I still have not, but at least now, I guess I know what could be wrong.

It was just a matter of chance. I was speaking to my  friend the other day, she started telling me her experiences after weaning. The story could have been mine. Everything started with me weaning Sunny boy. I had nursed him till he was very well past two. I felt ready to call it a day, I felt he was ready to call it a day too. We did it and it was not painful at all. There was no crying, no protesting nothing. It was one fine day and we both decided that nursing was beyond us and we could do well with just hugs and kisses. Sunny boy is doing very well indeed. (The only day Sunny boy demanded to nurse was at the ER with a cashew stuck way up in his nose and waiting for the doctor to pull it out. That story for another day). That was it, else that is what I thought.

But that is where the trouble began. While nursing, a mother's mood gets a lift because of all the good hormones Oxytocin and Prolactin. When the mother starts weaning, there is a gradual drop in the levels of these hormones and then bingo postpartum depression hits you when you cannot even imagine. Hey no body told me about this one. My doctor kept asking me if I am feeling blue soon after delivery. Well I was slightly sleep deprived but with my beautiful baby in my hands and all the good hormones baby sitting my nervous why would I feel blue? I was on the top of the world. She never told me when I can expect it to kick me,it did at a time when I was least expecting it. Well, you act up when you are pregnant, people are sympathetic, 'oh! poor gal,I know pregnancy can  be hard'..your baby bump justifies everything. Then when your baby is young and nursing, you act up and people are still sympathetic,'poor gal, she is sleep deprived, good work gal, keep up with the good work'..... the baby at your breast justifies everything. But once the baby talks and walks, there is absolutely no sympathy. 'Hey! what is wrong with you? are you crazy' is all you get, when actually your nervous are being whacked by the dancing hormones.

What is surprising is the fact that despite all the advances in the modern medicine, there are these unspoken, un-highlighted areas which can catch well meaning, educated and well informed women like me unguarded. Now that I know what could be wrong, I am better equipped to handle myself. If only my doctor gave me a heads up on this one. It is also surprising that such a big problem is still not mainstream, there are not many researches on this one and not many resources to help one cope up. So friends, if you are there like me, hang in there and this too will pass.

Here is a soul warming soup recipe made during one of my down days.

For the soup

Carrots 1 cup chopped
Mushrooms 2 cups  chopped
Chickpeas cooked 1 cup
Vegetable broth or chicken stock 2 cups
Extra virgin olive oil 1tbsp
Garlic 1 clove smashed
Salt and pepper to taste.

For the avocado cream

Ripe Avocado 1
Green chillies 1-2 minced
Juice of half a lemon
Fresh coriander
Salt to taste

Method:

• Heat oil in a stock pot. Saute the garlic for a few seconds.Throw in the carrots and mushrooms. Cook till they are tender but crisp. 
• Throw in the rest of the ingredients and  two more cups of water and simmer for a few minutes till everything comes together about 15minutes.
• Prepare the avocado cream in the mean time. Scoop the avocado from the skin, discard the seed and the skin. Place the flesh in a bowl and mash it with the back of a fork. Throw in the remaining ingredients.
• To serve, ladle the soup into a bowl and place a dollop of avocado cream on top and serve it right away.

 

Carrot Pacchadi

Yogurt  aka curd  aka mosaru makes me weak in the knees..Can I ever become vegan? Thanks much but I love my yogurt a lot. I love it when I have lots of yogurt on hand and I have the liberty to cook and eat yogurt anytime of the week. I also sneak in yogurt in a lot of recipes substituting sour cream, heavy  cream and end up getting a good result most often than not.So next time your recipe calls for sour cream and all you have is yogurt, go for it. 

I get pastured raw milk and set my yogurt. Eating good stuff has one unintended side effect,you simply cannot eat the bad or mediocre stuff at all. I also love the fatty version. Since the milk I get is raw, we skim the cream just once before setting the yogurt, it is so rich and creamy that after our meal ending with the customary Mossarranna / curd-rice, my hand feels like just out of a manicure! Bless all the fat. By the way, I was reading in Wall Street Journal a few days ago that a balanced diet leads to better health than low-carb (Atkins) diet or no-fat diet. Come on... did we not know it already?Was not balanced diet the best? K.T.Acharya rocks. It was just the giant agri-agro-processing industry lobbying that kept these fads going for so long. Who ever thrived on these fab diet any way. I have become so skeptical of all the phoney doctored research that comes out and are being funded by the corporate giants. That is one reason why governments should invest in research-to get out facts unbiased by vested interests.

Now for the carrot Pacchadi

We will need,

Carrots 3 medium 

Yogurt 1 cup whisked

Ghee 2 tsp

Mustard  seeds 1/4 tsp

Jeera 1/2 tsp

Fenugreek seeds 1/4 tsp

Hing

Curry leaves a handful

Green Chillies 4-5 (more if necessary)

Salt and Jaggary to taste.

Coriander fresh a handful

Method:

• Wash and clean carrots. Peel and discard the skin. Chop it into 1" pieces and pressure cook in about 1.5 cups of water till soft and mushy. Remove from heat and allow it to cool.
• Once the carrots are cool enough to handle, open the lid of the pressure cooker and mash the carrots using a heavy spatula or a masher. 
• Stir in crushed Jaggery into the mashed carrots. Gently heat the mixture to bring it to a simmer. 
• Prepare the Oggarane.Heat ghee in a pan, throw in the mustard seeds, Jeera and fenugreek seeds. Once they stop spluttering, add the curry leaves, slit green chillies. 
• Pour the ghee mixture onto the carrot mixture and  remove from heat. Whisk the yogurt and temper it with a tbsp of the hot carrot mixture. Pour it back into the carrot mixture and whisk gently. 
• Adjust salt and finish with chopped coriander. Serve with rice.

Mango Pickles / Uppinakayi

Recently I figured out that I am very bad at managing time. Never in my life until now did I feel that there are fewer hours in a day than I actually need. Now a days, drafts lie in my inbox for weeks before seeing the light of the day, books pile on my work table still to be read and digested. My 'to-be-done' tray is filled to the brim and I need look into all those assorted papers before marking them as 'done' and of course the usual routine, vacuuming, cleaning and Sunny boy-sitting etc phew. I do not seem to have enough time at all. I am jealous of all the people who get might things done in like a matter of minutes!

Back to some more pickles. This time it is the universal favorite 'mango', the king of fruits. We manage to eat this fruit in a variety of ways- sweet, savory and tart dishes, which makes our palate jump up  in joy. I happen to adore this variety and this is how exactly my grandmother will make. In fact it is so good that some times I just pop a piece of pickled mango as a snack, and keep rolling it over my tongue. Heaven. I would not feel like eating anything else. Hey! that gives me an idea..heard of cookie diet, brownie diet, paleo,primal and what not..How about mango pickles diet? Pop a small piece of pickled mango and keep rolling it over your tongue and bingo! you get thinner? No thank you, I still need my rice, saaru, yogurt after everything :) By the way raw mangoes always reminds me of old Kannada movie cliche.. When a character is pregnant, she is shown craving for raw mangoes or she is shown eating then like she is just out of Somalia. Ha, prude movie makers and puritanical audience, now a days probably audience will not even get the point of such connotation.

We will need,

Green raw and firm Mangoes 3 cups chopped
Koshar Salt 1 cup
Byadagi chillies 20 (more if preferred spicy)
Mustard seeds 1.5 +0.5 tsp
Fenugreek Seeds 1.5 tsp
Hing
Peanut oil 1/4 cup

Method:

• Choose firm and fresh mangoes without any blemishes for pickling. Clean and wash the mangoes with plenty of water and wipe it dry using a kitchen towel. Air dry for a few hours.
• Chop the cleaned mangoes. Reserve the seeds and the flesh clinging to the seed for another use.(I usually make Mango Tokku with it;It can also be thrown in Mossoppu ).
• In a clean jar canister, place about two tablespoon of salt at the bottom. Start layering the chopped mangoes followed by tablespoons salt. Using up all the mangoes.
• Cover and set it aside in a cool place for a couple of days till the mango is shrunk and wilted all over.
• Stir the mixture using a wooden spoon and cure it for a couple more days.
• Toast the chillies and 1.5 tsp of mustard and fenugreek seeds on a medium hot skillet and allow it to cool. Once cool, grind the spices into a slightly coarse powder. 
• Open the canister of mangoes, toss in the spices and stir well using a wooden spoon. 
• Prepare the Oggarane. Heat the oil, throw in the remaining mustard and hing. Allow it to cool very well. Pour it on top of the pickled mangoes and stir again using a wooden spoon. If making a large batch, take out small batches of pickles and prepare small quantities of Oggarane. Oil in large batches of pickles will make the pickles smell rancid after a while.
• Cure the pickles for a few more days, stirring it using a wooden spoon every two three days.
• Serve it with any Indian meal or if you are like me, toss some cooked pasta, butter, a generous helping of mango pickles and some cilantro. Slurp! That is Sunny Boy's favorite way to eat pasta too..

Mixed Pickles

Is modern life complicated for no apparent reason? I think so. There can be a dozen variety of salt! Something as basic and simple as salt found  in the supermarket next door comes in as many as 6 varieties.  Sea salt, coarse sea salt, kosher salt, table salt, iodized salt, gourmet salt..gosh!I am flabbergasted.Years ago I was researching on the sales of vanilla ice cream and I found at least a dozen varieties as well..vegan, vegetarian,french vanilla, vanilla, extra creamy vanilla, home-made vanilla,all natural, organic, raw etc. For a minute I started thinking that my years of learning economics where every theory starts with the assumption of homogeneous goods, was just a big joke. What! homogeneous products? you must be kidding me! I cannot find as much as a simple pack of salt or pick up a box of vanilla ice cream without much thinking. After these many years of shopping I am on the way to shopping-nirvana, I believe I can read the labels, understand the ingredient list and decipher the bombardment of so called 'information' on the box. 

The next question that comes to mind is the length of the ingredient list, some goes on for ever. One vanilla  ice cream had a list of ten ingredients where as I make excellent vanilla ice cream at home using as little as 4 ingredients. Indeed we have complicated our lives beyond need, beyond our imagination. It is funny too. When ever I ask Honey to pick up something from the supermarket and send him with as detailed a list as possible, he still gets lost, calling up time and again for more information, for there are so many options to choose from. Indeed I have stopped shopping at a regular supermarket and started buying more and more at our local price club. They offer only one or two options. If I want vanilla ice cream, there probably will be just one brand, one variety. Salt yes, may be two brands, two variety, still much better than to navigate the aisle filled with twenty brands and a dozen variety. 

Actually this problem of variety has such a great consequence with respect to my current post. Pickles are something we all love and make with a great deal of gusto. I always make mine using my grandmother's recipe. I have followed the same recipe but used different variety of salts to end up with perfectly distinct results. There is no way we can have a perfect pickles recipe without having mentioned the variety and brand of salt used. This is where my grouse start from :( If there were fewer variety of salts that were more consistent in taste, pickling would have been much easier.But then that is not to be and General mills, Kraft, Unilever and P&G each wants us to see at least one variety of salt that they sell in our pantry taking the number to at least four in each kitchen . (not that they all sell salt, just for the sake of argument!) Sadly a chunky proportion of the four will end up in the dustbin after months of sitting idly in the pantry. But who cares, as long as they get us to buy their stuff, the General mills, Kraft, Unilever and P&Gs are happy. In fact they did be happier if we brought their stuff and threw it straight to the dustbin but returned to buy more of it. Come on, how fast can the 'Fast Moving Consumer Goods'  move? We cannot be buying more than one tube of toothpaste, or one pound of plain old salt each month. So here comes variety. The more the variety, the more we want to buy and the more we add to their bottom line-top lines. Grr...I hate it, more so when my pickles do not turn out the way it is intended...

Thankfully this turned out alright and here we are, we will need,

Lemons 2.5 lbs 

Bitter gourd 1 lb

Green Chillies 1/2 lb

Salt 1.5 cups  (Morton Koshar salt)

Dried red chillies 20-25

Mustard seeds 1 tsp +1/2 tsp

Fenugreek seeds 2 tsp

Peanut oil 1/4 cup

Hing a generous dash. 

Method:

• Wash, preferably using warm water the jar to be used in pickling. Air dry it overnight. 
• Wash the vegetables and wipe it dry using a fresh and clean kitchen towel. Allow it to air dry for a few hours.
• On a clean and dry cutting board, chop each lemon into 6 or 8s, the bitter gourd into 1/4" thick rounds. The  green chillies can be left whole or can be slit lengthwise into two.
• Take the jar, make sure it is thoroughly dry. Place a bed of about 2 tsp of salt at the bottom. Place a layer of chopped lemons followed by another tsp or so of salt,followed by the bitter gourd and then salt.
• Repeat  the layering, throwing in the chillies in between. After using up all the vegetables, finish with more salt on top. Cover the jar and set it aside in a cool dry place.
• After 2-3 days the vegetables would have shrunk. Open the jar and stir the whole mixture using a wooden spoon. Cover and set it aside for another 3-4 days. 
• 3-4 days later, toast the dried chillies, 1 tsp of mustard and fenugreek seeks on a hot skillet one after the other and allow it to cool down completely. Grind it in a coffee grinder till the spices are coarse and fragrant. Set it aside.
• Prepare the Oggarane, heat the oil, throw the remaining mustard seeds and the hing. Once the spices stop sizzling, remove from heat and allow it to cool down completely.
• Once the oil is cold, open the jar of pickles and throw in the ground spices and the pour in the cold seasoned oil. Stir using a wooden spoon. Set it aside for 3-4 days.
• Every 3-4 days stir the pickles using a wooden spoon, till the vegetables are cured  and has attained the desired texture. I prefer mine to still have a bite, so I cure it for 2-3 weeks. If you like your pickles to fall apart, I would say may be 2-3 months is a good time.
• The pickles can also be refrigerated at  this stage and once refrigerated, the pickles need not be stirred. But it is absolutely essential that we use a dry spoon every time we dish out the pickles.

Enjoy as a part of any Indian meal.
P.S: Sunny boy loves his pickles even with his pasta. "Khara! Amma Khara" he would say between gulps of water and goes back to eating his pickles.

Pineapple Pacchadi

Indian meals is all about the paraphernalia I mean the pickles, raitas, tokku, chutneys, pacchadis, papads and assorted fried nibbles like Sandige, Balaka etc. Even though the modern times have taken a lot of things away from us, we still are diligently making pickles and tokkus and papads. Women still wake up at unearthly hours be able to cook delicious meals complete with all the paraphernalia, men help out women in the kitchen on days calling for elaborate meals and the whole family comes together to make the annual papad and pickle making  ritual. A lot of us are getting help from super markets and sometimes lucky folks find people to make these for them. I end up making all the pickles, tokkus and chutneys at home but papad or 'Happala', not my department. I have been asking mom for the recipe but she does not bother giving me one because she knows right now I will not be able to make them with Sunny boy all over the place.

For this season it is lemon-bitter gourd pickle and mango pickle and then mango tokku with the leftover parts of raw mango.

Pacchadi is loose term which assumes a definition depending on where the recipe hails from. In Karnataka it is salad dressed with spices and generous amounts of yogurt, in Andhra it is a sort of  quick-fix pickles with oodles of spices and oil, in Tamil nadu and Kerala it is somewhere in between, might be spicy. Here is a recipe for Pineapple Pacchadi which is a version of the pineapple pacchadi by Priya Sreeram. Loved the original recipe and when Radhika paired me with Priya for the bloghop, I got to my favorite very easily.As always I tweaked this recipe a bit to work it bit faster. Substituted canned pineapples for fresh ones and coconut milk for fresh coconut. Thanks for the wonderful recipe Priya.

We will need,

Pinapple  1- 8 oz can chopped

Coconut milk  3 tbsp

Mustard seeds 1/4 +1/4 tsp

Turmeric a generous pinch

Jeera 1/2 tsp

Peanut oil 2 tsp

Green chillies 3 slit length wise

Curry leaves a handful

Yogurt 1/2 cup

Salt to taste

Method:

• In a mortar pestle, crush the 1/4 tsp of  mustard seeds and Jeera into a coarse powder. Set it aside.
• Place the coconut milk with half a cup of water in a thick bottom saucepan and heat it gently. Throw in the turmeric, a  generous pinch of salt, pineapple bits (reserve the juice for another use) and one green chilli. Bring it to a gentle boil.
• Throw in the crushed spices and cook for a few more minutes till the spices are fragrant and the pineapple are tender. Remove from heat and set it aside to cool.
• Prepare the oggarane or tadka. Heat oil in a small pan, throw in the remaining mustard seeds, green chillies and curry leaves. Once it stops crackling which is a matter of seconds, remove from heat and pour over the pineapple mixture.
• Once the pineapple mixture is cool, stir in the beaten  yogurt and adjust salt. Serve it at room temperature. 

Sending it to Bloghop 18 
 

Pudina coconut Chutney

Have been thinking of dropping a word here supporting my Gay friends. So President Obama has decided to stop federal opposition to Gay marriages. A small step but sure enough to make a lot of people happy. I am one of them. Well in the first place why should  a court of law or an elected government decide who we should be in love with, who should be partners for life or even marry? If two adults are happy being together why should any individual or a court of law or a government have any problem? If it is simple enough to say I love oranges and you love pears, It should be simple enough to say I am Gay and you are not.

Disgracefully in India it is criminal offense to be gay. A country which has celebrated diverse eroticism from times immemorial, accommodated such ideas in mainstream temples and has had historical instances of homosexual behavior, and a country which has learned to live with a great deal of diversity decides to embrace the Anglo-puritanical stance on something that was always a part  of our ancient fabric only to prove how mindless we have become. It is indeed sad that it is a way of life  in India to live with cruelty of various sorts, baby-wife battering, female infanticide, sexual assault, eve-teasing, homophobia.

Like all the other cruelties mentioned, Homophobia violates the basic of all principles, 'Live and let live'. If only we knew to appreciate it better being gay would not have been criminal in India.

Coming back to food, many of my comfort foods are quite simple, Tovve , Tili Saaru etc. Comfort breakfast are things like Idli, Kadubu, mostly steamed foods.Somehow steamed foods make my mornings fresh and easier. I have never been a person eating say Chitranna for breakfast,  that is my sister! Pudina coconut chutney goes so very well with any of the steamed breakfast offering. For Idli my favorite accompaniment is Sambar. But sometimes I ache to eat my Idlis with some good flavourful Pudina chutney.  All these days I was not all that happy with the chutney my blender churned out. It was way to coarse for my liking but last month I got Magic Bullet and it works like a charm grinding coconut chutney. Ever since it has been chutney and more chutney.
I still miss the stone grinder so ubiquitous in south Indian kitchens. It makes the perfect chutney. The fibers in the coconut would have broken down, the spices fresh and fragrant and the chutney right consistency and texture. If only we could get the result with much less hard work.

We will need

Coconut grated 1/2 cup
Roasted Channa dal/ Putani/Hurikaddale 2  tbsp
Green chillies 3-4 (adjust according to taste)
Curry leaves a handful
Pudina  1 big  bunch
Tamarind  1" piece
Garlic  1 clove (small)
Salt to taste

Method:

• Tear the Pudina leaves from the stalk, discard the stalk.Wash it in plenty of water and drain well. Reserve.
• Heat a heavy pan on medium heat. Puncture the green chillies using the tip of the knife and toss them onto the hot pan. (If not punctured, the chillies might explode!)
• Toast till there are blisters on the skin. Remove from heat and set it aside to cool
• Throw the curry leaves on to the hot pan and turn off the heat. Keep it moving so as to not burn them. Once the edges are brown, remove from the pan and set it aside
• Combine all the ingredients in a  blender and pulse till well combined and smooth.Add a little water if necessary. Serve it with hot Idli/Kadubu/Poori etc.

Mutton Saaru Gowda style / Mutton curry

Well, I do not like to cook meat, nor do I eat it. But Honey is very fond of meat and I do not have a problem with that.I have cooked meat for him, after all I wanted to find a way to his heart, but it was always problematic. I was so averse to the idea of cooking and eating meat. But once I started a blog and identified myself as a foodie, my horizons broadened. After all it is food right. One man's delicacy is another's poison. The first question was, how do I look at the meat part of the food? Vegetarianism in India is pretty recent considering the length  of our history. There are instances in Mahabharata and Ramayana where meats/ games were served on various occasions. Bheema prepares a feast consisting of a variety of animals for the  coronation ceremony of Dharmaraya. Then the  Ashwamedhayaga where the butchered horse was roasted and consumed. Look at Sushrutha Samhita, it is full of remedies calling for venison, turtle and god knows how many more animals. It was only after the Ahimsa theory of Budhism and Jainism that vegetarianism started to become mainstream.  The Jains were so thoughtful that they refused to eat root vegetables which have been harvested after 'killing' the plant. But what about rice? or wheat or any other grain for that matter? Are they not living beings? We sure know they are, equivalent to the embryo in the animal world. So when ever we eat rice or any other grain, we are committing 'Himsa'. My question therefore is,is it alright to subject plants to violence and still be committed to Ahimsa in the animal world? Or do I stop eating all live foods and starve myself? How do I go about it? It is a dilemma. For a foodie like me, who loves to look, eat, write about, read about food, is it not a torture to go through such dilemma? I have not found a solution yet. I kinda brushed it down the carpet. The only way to be ethical and be committed to Ahimsa is to follow what Ayurveda suggests.

• 'Mita bhuksh' eat little -always eat only to fill half your stomach, fill the remaining quarters with air and water;
•  'Hita buksh' eat food at the right temperature neither too hot, nor too cold. Sorry ice cream you are out;
• 'Kshuta buksh' no idea what it is. got to call mom.
• 'Rutu buksh' eat what is in season. Basically it says eat local.

So lets gather everything  now. Eat fresh and local, eat food at the right temperature and eat moderately. According to me this is the best philosophy for a foodie. It is good for our own physical health, will reverse the epimedic of obesity, reduce carbon footprints, causes less 'Himsa', and brings no ethical baggage with it.

With this premise, I have stopped looking down upon meat eaters. Well it is one's choice. I am sorry that I bulldozed a dear friend's idea of bringing hamburgers for a barbeque party. (Not that I will allow it another time, but at least I am feeling bad about it!). Sorry Mr Zimmern cannot be your party either!

For now it is just mutton saaru the popular  gowda style courtesy a dear friend Shilpa . Shilpa and her hubby were at our place the other weekend for a friend's birthday (Sri, hope you are reading this). She was charming enough to dish up this rich and spicy gravy. Honey and Sunny boy enjoyed it very much. Imagine this, I wanted to raise Sunny boy a vegetarian!

 We will need,

Mutton 2 lbs
Ghee 2 tsp
Onion 1 medium
Green chillies 20 (ouch)
Garlic 7 cloves
Ginger 1/5"
Cloves 6-10
Cinnamon 1" piece
Coconut grated 1 cup
Cardamon 2
Coriander 1 bunch trimmed and ends discarded
Mint 1 small bunch trimmed and stalk discarded
Salt to taste
Sugar a generous pinch
Lemon juice for serving

Method:

• Wash and clean the mutton in several changes of water and set it aside.
• Place the ghee in a pressure cooker and heat it. Throw in the mutton and brown it for a few minutes. 
• Meantime, combine the rest of the ingredients except the  lemon juice salt and sugar in a blender and pulse till the mixture is smooth. Add a little water if necessary.
• Pour the spice mixture into the browning mutton, add more water and cover. Cook till the mutton is tender about 2-3 whistles.
• Remove from heat adjust salt, throw in the sugar and lemon juice.
• Serve hot with Ghee rice.

Avarekalu Kadubu / Indian Beans Kadubu

It is going  to be a long rant on a contentious topic... the latest Time magazine's cover page depicting a mother nursing a toddler. Somewhere inside me there was a voice that kind of made me nod my head in disapproval that TIME had to resort to sensational photos to be able to sell more. But looking at all the resentment and disgust the photo generated, the other part in me got up vehemently to defend both TIME and the women in the photo.
I personally nursed my sunny boy well past two. In fact I weaned him without much protest (sort of baby led weaning) a couple of months ago. It was a very fulfilling experience for me and nourishing for my baby.I knew I was giving him the best while he knew his Amma is always there for him. It was such a blessing when we were traveling, when  he bumped into something and got a boo-boo, when he was sick, when he was tired, when he woke up hungry in the middle of night. I did not have to worry about a thing. Nursing comforted him, satisfied his hungry, reassured him that things are alright and he did not have to keep howling though long hours on international flights. I have nursed him in public areas, airports, train stations, trains, flights, bus, subway, Central Park, malls, kerbside, in the parked car, even while he is strapped in his car seat in a moving car(that was quite an acrobatic feat,but it was better than his nerve wracking cries). I have nursed him with cover as well as without cover. Nursed him even as people smiled at me in appreciation and also when some jerks smirked. I was just feeding my son. If I could eat my food in full public view, so should my baby. It is just the way nature intended. What can be wrong about it?

But strangely in the modern world, we find nursing especially older babies disgusting, even if it is something very very natural. The very fact that people talk about it is strange. No one talks about the urge to eat when hungry, nobody is judgmental about cauldrons of coffee people carry with them in the morning. Why even talk of breastfeeding?or worse why be judgmental about it? It is just a baby eating his food. Even with teeth babies are entitled to the food that the nature designed. Why should a baby stop nursing soon after he has his teeth? Just because he has his teeth does not means he knows how to use it. A few babies teeth pretty early, does that mean you wean them at 4-5 months? a few babies do not teeth till they are 15 months old, so are they entitled to a much longer nursing routine? Why should we even decide how long it is appropriate for a baby to nurse? Should it not be decided by the baby and the mother? If it is OK for adults to have choice and control over what they eat, should not a baby have a say in what it wants to eat (errrr apart from coins, tiny toys and every little thing that comes in the grip of their tiny hands.I mean only the edible stuff). So it is OK for me to say I hate broccoli, I love Carrots, but it is wrong if my baby wants 'Amma's milk' and not 'cow's milk'. Is it not unreasonable?

About the cover, great! the model is attractive, the baby is cute. So what? should not a nursing mother have a positive body image? Should not she feel that she is attractive. According to the public psyche, she should not. Just look at the choice of nursing clothes available at any major retailer, It is woefully boring. So a nursing mother is supposed to be boring, be discreet about nursing and not nurse in full public view. Is it fair?
Would not the world be a better place if we lived and let other live their life!!

Back to the food part now..I have always been fond of rice based dishes for breakfast.  Idli, Dosa, Kadubu et al. On days I run out of Idli/Dosa batters, it is going to be Kadubus, sometimes spiked with Averakalu, some times mixed vegetables and sometimes greens. It is Avarekalu for now.

Serves  2-3

Idli Rawa/ Rice Rawa/ Cream of Rice  3/4 Cup
Avarekalu 1/2 cup
Green Chillies 3-4 (adjust according to taste)
Ginger 1/2" minced
Curry leaves a handful
Coriander a handful
Jeera 1/2 tsp
Hing a dash
Salt to taste

Method:

• Bring 2 cups of water to boil. Throw in a generous pinch of salt and the Avarekalu. Cover and cook till the Avarekalu is tender. Remove from heat.
• Place the cream of rice in a mixing bowl.
• Mince the green chillies. (If serving the Kadubu to kids, slit the green chillies length wise so  that it is easy to fish it out later). Chop the curry leaves and coriander fine.
• Throw in the green chillies, curry leaves, coriander, Jeera, Hing,ginger and salt into the cream of rice.
• Fish out the Avarekalu out of the water. Toss it with the cream of rice mixture. 
• Set up a steamer to steam the Kadubu. I set up a pot of boiling water and place a steel  colander to steam my Kadubu. A bamboo steamer or a Idli steamer will also work.
• Make a well in the center of the cream of rice mixture. Pour about 1/4 cup of hot water used to cook the Avarekalu. Stir the mixture. It should resemble bread crumbs. If not add little more water. Upto 1/2 cup of water might be needed. The mixture should resemble  bread crumbs but should come together if patted into small balls. But  it should not be as soft and moist as say a chapati dough.
• Bring together about 1/4 cup of the mixture and pat it gently into small balls using both your palms.
• Place the balls in the greased steamer and steam for 7-10 minutes  till the Kadubus are cooked.
• Remove and serve it with coconut chutney.

 Busy little hands..Sunny boy loved it.
As prosaic as it might sound, this is my Doddamma's- (my aunt-my mother's only sister) recipe.  When I got married, break fast was a hard time. I had no ideas for breakfast except Idli and Dosa. My Dodamma gave me a host of recipes including this one. She makes the cream of rice herself using the stone grinders which makes amazing upmas and Kadubus but I get things done from the super market :)
Sending it out to Cooking with love series hosted by Torviewtoronto