Of cold weather and fried food

Phew! What a long day it has been today! I was in school till 8:30 pm. Today I walked home. On days I don't go to the gym, I try to walk home. Its a 3 mile walk and its not too bad. I feel very irritable when I don't sleep well. Yesterday was one such day and was too groggy to write. But, worry not, I did have a culinary adventure. Catherine is my friend from Kenya. When she started talking about Indian food being a part of their staple diet, it was very surprising to me. Then it dawned on that a lot of Indians went and settled in Africa for trade purposes and apparently some of our food got absorbed into African culture. It is good fun talking to Catherine. Sometimes the African pronunciation is slightly different from the way we say it and it does make me smile. So day before yesterday, Catherine was very keen to make 'Bhajias' and her enthusiasm to make bhajias rubbed off on me. This is a fried snack food. These feel best on a cold rainy day with a hot cup of tea. Daywise, yesterday was perfect...cold rainy day. This is how you make it

Batter
1 cup chick pea flour ( can buy it from the Indian store)
salt to taste
chilli powder to taste
1/2 tsp Coriander seed powder
1/4 tsp Cumin powder
water

make a paste which is neither too watery nor too firm, roughly the consistency of a smoothie

Chop
potatoes into thin slices
Onion slices
cawliflower ( I used frozen)
A lot of different vegetables can be dipped in the batter

Take enough oil for deep frying.
Heat the oil. ( Test the heat before you fry by adding a few drops of the batter- if it splutters and rises to the top, then its done)
Dip the veggies in the batter and gently place them in the hot oil.
Fry till both the top and bottom are golden brown.
Remove from oil onto paper towels to absorb the excess oil.

Let it cool so that you can bite into it. This goes best with chai tea.

Me and my friends made it during the winter chill in North India. We'd make this and wrap ourselves in blankets and drink ginger tea.

Okay, this is not the healthiest stuff around. But I must have made a deep fried food after at least 10 years. So I did not feel too bad.
I'm so glad that the Kroger close to my house has newly started this set up like in upscale grocery stores- where you can pick what nuts you want and how much you want. I like it better than picking bagged nuts.

I feel like doing a spices glossary on my blog. I will do it one of these days.

Its 12:11 am right now. I gotta sleep before I start typing gibberish.

Good night and sweet dreams people!

Spring salads

Gosh its been so hot this past few days! Oh did I tell you me and Jamie got a garden patch close to our house? well we did and we are so excited about it! we got gardening books from Columbus metropolitan and spent saturday out in the sun with our neighbour(who is giving his patch to us as he's leaving Columbus), fencing it and getting it ready for plants.

All this and biking - the heat really got to me and I craved salads. So, yesterday we made a spinach and canned beets salad.
Here goes the recipe
Spinach (according to the size of salad you desire)
1 can of beets, rough chopped, not too small ( well, one can was enough for 2 of us for a dinner plate sized salad)
2 sticks of celery

Dressing
4 tbsp olive oil
1.5 tsp white wine vinegar
2 tsp honey
1 clove of garlic

drizzle the dressing on salad with salt and pepper and voila! its done and its absolutely delicious!! The beets do add a nice flavor which was very new to me in salads. You can also add sprouts. We didn't have any so we had to skip it.

Today, we had another interesting salad. Has anybody heard of gado gado? Apparently its an Indonesian salad dressing. I love living in Clintonville. Its eclectic, people are environment friendly, there's the bike path and the park behind my house, antique shops, thrift stores. So one nice weather weekend, on the walk to kroger, we had to pass this Indonesian store called 'Tanahairku'-http://www.tokotanahairku.com/ and we bought 2 salad dressings because they had interesting names. One was called Gado gado. It has roasted peanuts, onion, garlic, peppers, natural coconut sugar and other herbs and spices and another one is called 'Bumbu pecel' (haven't tried yet, but sure will let you know whether its a yay or nay) You have to mix the dressing block with hot water to get a nice creamy texture.
aand We made lettuce wraps! This is how Jamie made it

Make the dressing first (there are instruction on the box- of course you can make your own gado gado paste if you wish)
Boston leaf lettuce ( I think you can use any crisp lettuce which can be wrapped)
Grated carrots
julienned tomatoes
mung bean sprouts
green onions
( yup, we did grocery shopping today)

So onto your lettuce leaf, place as many carrots, tomatoes, sprouts and green onions it will hold, drizzle with dressing, wrap the leaf and crrrrrunnnchhhhh!!!! It is very good.

These days, I really want to improve my stamina. On a good day, I can run comfortably for half an hour. But sometimes, after 10 minutes my abdomen starts cramping and I have to stop and skip machines. Emily says, breathing deeply helps. Will have to try that out.

I took my summer clothing out from hibernation, have to fold my laundry, and pack my sweaters in. Golly ! my room is one big mess and its getting on my nerves! so I will either get it out of my sight or be nice and fold it..until next time..over and out!

Smita

Food and art

Its 4:3o in the afternoon and I'm in the lab waiting for my virus to adsorb on my cells. Its quite boring to sit and wait for it - what better way to kill time than write a post!

Today, I was looking for a link I'd saved in my favorites on my laptop when I came across a link on 'Fractal foods'. According to wikipedia, a fractal is a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts each of which is a reduced sized copy of the whole. For instance, if you look at this large snowflake, each small star is a replica of the big star.

Apparently, fractals abound in nature- there are different kinds of fractals depending on the degree of similarity/type of similarity- yup, statistical/mathematical- most of which I don't understand at this point. Fractals can be seen in crystals, clouds, systems of blood vessels, pulmonary vessels, lightening, foods like broccoli, cawliflower. Here are some pics.

Here's a link where they zoom in on the broccoli http://www.fourmilab.ch/images/Romanesco/Lcr2.html

Its quite pretty actually. Can you apply this information in any way? Probably not. But you sure can look at the familiar in a new light!

I guess its time to get back to work and go home..phew!

Enjoy the rest of your sunday!

Smita

Satuday and 85!

Hello everyone! Its so nice and beautiful outside that it shouldn't be wasted inside. I plan on going biking. Today is my first day of blogging. The inspiration came from two of my friends who happen to be nutrition majors and since I so thoroughly enjoy food and nutrition, I decided to start one of my own with a similar focus. Of course, other than these topics, I'm also passionate about a lot of other things- music, art, fashion, etcetra which I intend to share with you folks as and when I come across something interesting.
Coming from India ( yes, I love spices ) and having been in the US for sometime now, I experiment with mixing Eastern and Western cuisines to some surprisingly good results. Like the other day, my roomate had a craving for mashed potatoes with all the creamy works. So we made that and I had some Indian wheat flour dough. So I stuffed the potatoes in the bread and flattened it using a rolling pin and cooked it on the griddle and it was sooo good. Till I have a camera- visualize a light brown Indian bread (called chappati) with golden brown dots on it and yoghurt on the side.
ciao everyone and have a great day!

Smita