Indian comfort food

6/24/09 Good evening people! It's 11:50 in the night. I'm comfortably ensconced on the couch watching scrubs on tv. Life post graduation is being spent on catching up on sleep, taking care of paperwork, learning some more lab techniques from the adjacent lab, plus doing some lab work of my own, working out, watching movies and trying to figure out what to do next with my life. I just need to find that 'yess! this sounds exciting' future plan for me to focus all my energies on it. It's hazy right now, but I'm sure it'll clear up in a week (it has to!).

I met a friend at the gym yesterday who's been trying to lose weight. I gave her tips that work universally-more calories out than in and no need to give up on any of the good stuff- portion control is key. It just got me thinking that stuff that I take for granted, people may not know and need to be informed. Eating healthy is so ingrained in me, that my body gets sick if I eat too much of bad stuff. Like yesterday, Jamie and me went to Easton to buy some stuff for her brother's wedding. We got a piece of cheesecake from cheesecake factory, we split it and eating even half of it was feeling like too much. Oh, we went to Victoria's Secret too and I got an itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka dot panty! So on that note, in addition to recipes, I'll try to include more nutritional information.
Today for dinner we had a typical North Indian spread. This meal felt so good and comforting. I love potatoes and so does Jamie. This time we got yukon gold potatoes and they are really waxy. We had Indian bread called roti, seasoned pigeon peas commonly called toor daal in India and spiced spinach and potato, also included is left over colocasia from yesterday.



Pigeon peas are one of the most popular pulses in India. Nearly each state in India has a unique way of cooking it and it is a staple. Nearly every other meal has to have these pulses in one way or another. The pulses by themselves cook to a creamy texture and taste well either spiced or just plain with salt and butter. These are the source of protein for vegetarians. I cup of this provides 203 kcal, 11.36 gm protein, 39 gm carbohydrate and 11 gm dietary fiber. It is rich in potassium, phosphorus, sodium, calcium and magnesium and also provides a lot of B vitamins.

Roti is a carbohydate source made with whole wheat flour. One roti is less than 100 calories. Colocasia is not a very common vegetable. Its a starch rich tuber. It is gooey when it cooks and takes on flavors well. Ideally, this meal would be accompanied by a cup of yoghurt in the end. But we didn't feel like it. In India, yoghurt signifies the end of a meal- it is the last course because it is supposed to cool your insides after all the spices.
This time, I made my own yoghurt. On Monday, I was invited to an Indian friend's house for dinner. I got some yoghurt for culture from them. You boil milk and cool it to lukewarm and then add approx 2 tbsp of yoghurt and place the container in a slightly warm place like the top of fridge or wrap it in something warm if its too cold and let it sit for 4-5 hours. It may take longer/ shorter time depending on outside temperature. The way I understand the process is that yoghurt contains the lactobacillus bulgaricus and milk acts as a culture medium in which the bacteria grows. Homemade yoghurt also has more water in it ( whey) and this is supposed to be very rich in B vitamins. Here's a picture...

How to make all this stuff?
Daal..
Pressure cook 1 cup of pigeon peas with 1 can diced tomatoes and three cups water.
Seasoning: Take some oil, when hot, add cumin seeds, onions and wait till onions turn traslucent and slightly brown, add 3 cloves of garlic, and grate about a tbsp of ginger. Add a dash of red chilli powder and asafoetida (this is a spice which adds a nice flavor, you need just a dash of this).
Mix it with cooked pulses and tomatoes. Give it a good whisk, add salt and a tsp of sugar and add fine chopped cilantro in the end.
6/25/09
Potato spinach...
2 tsp tsp oil in a pan, add cumin seeds when hot, add potatoes( I used 4 medium sized ones) and let it cook. When 3/4 cooked, add ginger garlic, saute, then add a packet of frozen spinach, let it cook a little and towards the end add 1/2 tsp garam masala, 1/2 cumin powder, red chilli powder to taste and 1 1/2 tsp coriander seed powder and salt to taste
Day before, Jamie made this portobello sandwich..she had some homemade sweet mustard salsa. She cooked the mushroom with the salsa on the pan and placed it on marble bread..pretty good..

Indian cooking is tasty but it does involve a lot of cleaning later.Just look at this..guess what our evening is gonna be spent doing..

I saw 'rainman' the other day. I really liked it. I like both Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise. I love Alfred Hitchcock movies. I love the suspense he builds with music, the camerawork, the stories are great too and his actors are very pleasing to the eye. I have two short stories DVD that I plan to watch today...
Workoutwise, I've added swimming to my list. I took a swimming 101 class at OSU and liked it so much that i named one of my email ID's as swimmingfan. At the end of the class I was able to do freestyle but now the breathing facedown is hard for me. I swim on my back which is quite fun. Water makes me nervous and I love it at the same time. I want to include it in my routine of treadmill,elliptical and biking...I did two laps today after workout..quite fun..I also practised underwater breathing on the deep end...
A new thing that we've been doing lately- we've been adding sliced orange to our water pitcher in the fridge, so we drink orange flavored water.quite nice and refreshing...

Hello again!!

Hello people! Its been such a long time. Sorry I've been so quiet but when your nose is in the grindstone and pedal to the metal....well you get the picture. Phew!!! I finally defended my thesis on 12th June and submitted my thesis to grad school on June 19th. I tell you I've never done so many all nighters before. One day I was surprised myself when I was working till 7:30 in the morning and even then I wasn't supertired but I felt I should be and slept for an hour. It's interesting how we are so wired to sleep at night. But I never forgot the blog and kept taking pictures to post coz there have been so many good eats that I have to tell you about it. So brace yourself, this post is gonna be looong. Feel free to read it in sections. I'll proceed in the sequence in which they were made. Then there's our blooming garden which is a source of so much pleasure..ooh let's start!!



First, Jamie made this Cawliflower with almonds and lima beans. It was very good. But the flavors are so subtle that it took some zen meditation from me (whose taste buds are spice hardened) to appreciate the hint of flavors. This recipe is from a cookbook by Madhur Jaffrey. This is what went in:

Approx half a cawliflower
1 cup lima beans
1.5 tsp cornstarch
1/2 cup whole blanched almonds
2 cloves of garlic- fine chopped
2 tsp sesame oil
1 tbsp dry sherry
2 quarter sized fresh ginger
11/4 tsp salt

Put cawliflower in cold water for 0.5 hour. Add lima beans to boiling water and cook them for 5 minutes and then drain. Then mix cornstarch, sherry, sesame oil and 2 tbsp water. Heat oil and saute almonds. Stir fry garlic and ginger in the same oil. Then add cawliflower, lima beans and almonds. Add 2 tbsp water and cover with a lid. Cook until cawliflower is crisply tender. Remove lid and add the cornstarch mix made earlier. Saute for 30 seconds and its done. Jamie made pasta with this- shell pasta with tomato sauce topped with bread crumbs.



This is another dish with orzo pasta, sauted broccoli, mushrooms pine nuts, a red chilli, julienned carrots and salt and pepper. Its been such a long time since I made this- I don't completely remember the recipe, but its about 7/8 right.



OMG!Don't judge a dish by the way it looks! When we were making it, both Jamie and me were like this is gonna be a disaster, but it turned out to be soooo good. This is sweet and sour tofu
I made the sauce Jamie fries the tofu.
Make a paste by mixing 1/4 cup cornstarch with approx 2 tbsp water.
Cube extra firm tofu (This is where we went wrong, we chopped it too small)into 1 inch cubes and fry them in 1/4 cup oil.
For the sauce, 3.5 tbsp white vinegar,
1/4 cup water,
2.5 tbsp sugar,
1tbsp soy sauce,
1tbsp ketchup,
1 tbsp brown sugar,
1/4 tsp ginger powder,
1/2 tsp salt,
11/2 tbsp corn starch mixed in 2 tbsp water.
Mix everything except cornstarch on medium heat and add corn starch after everything has dissolved. You have to keep an eye after adding cornstarch coz the sauce thickens and can burn.
Mix the sauce with fried tofu and garnish with toasted sesame seeds. My mouth is watering even when I'm writing about it...mmmmm
We had it with garden fresh bok choy. This was a first. I'd never had this leaves before. We grew them in our garden

In the garden.....



On the plate...



Bok choy has a cabbage like taste. It has a pungent flavor which I did not expect..like parsnips.Anyways, we made stir fried bok choy. Take a tbsp of oil, 1 clove of garlic- fine chopped, 1 tsp ginger, 2 tbsp soy sauce, 2 tsp sesame seeds and we used about 2 heads of bok choy. It turned out to be really good with sweet and sour tofu.

and here's the salad....



One of our dinners was a garden burger. Jamie bought the patties from the Clintonville farmer's market. It was awesome. The ingredients in the patty were so unusual- I'd never have thought to combine these ingredients for a burger patty. It had spelt berries(wheat), black beans, carrots, onions, oats, kale, apples, garlic, ginger, balsamic vinegar, thyme, salt and pepper. I first thought this is store bought patty- nothing much to write about, but then I had a bite..my eyes opened wide and I knew it had to come here..



I love eggs. These are so good when you're busy- they cook fast, good source of protein and you can season them in so many different ways. We made Koo Koos. This is from a recipe book. There's no way I would've thought of pairing together cawliflower and eggs.



Take a couple of cawliflower florets. Put them in boiling water for a few minutes. Then under cold water. Give it a fine chop and saute in oil with a dash of salt and pepper. Meantime, beat eggs with a pinch of baking soda, add salt and pepper and the cawliflower mix. Pour it in a pan. Cook it covered on low flame for 20 minutes. We had it with fage yoghurt.



Have you folks ever had tempeh? We got some from the Indonesian store. I did not like it very much. Maybe because it is fermented soy and it doesn't have a very good smell. We fried the tempeh after coating it with a mix made of 1/2 cup water, 11/2 tsp coriander seeds powder, 2-3 cloves of garlic and 1 tsp of salt. We had it on top of salad made of bok choy, cawliflower and boiled eggs with gado gado dressing( remember? the peanut based Indonesian dressing?). Doesn't even sound appetizing, does it? Well, I think tempeh is an acquired taste.



Deviled eggs! I love it. Jamie makes these. When I was a kid, I hated cold eggs. Now I can eat them. She boils eggs, cuts them in half, takes the yolk out and mixes it with mayonnaise (to taste- if you want more creamy, add more and vice versa), salt and pepper, blends the mix with a fork such that there are no lumps and spoons it on the egg white. For decoration she sprinkles some paprika on it. They were absolutely delicious!

I'll end this section of recipes with a dessert. Since there was a lot of cake around my B'day, we decided to make this cake when we didn't have any cake in the house. This is Low fat tiramisu, totally made by Jamie. Frankly, this is so so yummy, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference from the original and yet it's so low in fat. The recipe is from heart healthy cookbook. The picture is a tad hazy, but I'll give you the complete recipe

Cherry Chocolate tiramisu
You'll need
1 cup water
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp instant coffee granules
1 tsp vanilla extract
6 ounces ladyfingers
8 ounces fat free/low fat whipped topping, thawed
2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
16 ounces frozen unsweetened pitted dark cherries; thawed and undrained
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp cornstarch
1/4 tsp almond extract
1/4 cup slivered almonds, dry roasted

In a small bow, stir together water, 1/4 cup sugar, coffee granules and vanilla until sugar has dissolved.
To assemble, dip ladyfingers (sugar side in coffee) in coffee sugar mix prepared above and make a layer of this in your dish. Spoon whipped topping over it, covering evenly and sprinkle with cocoa powder. Repeat. Cover the dish with a plastic wrap and refrigerate for 8-24 hours.
Meanwhile, halve the cherries(Jamie had bought fresh cherries, she froze it, cut it in half and threw the pits)add 2 tbsp sugar and cornstarch until cornstarch is dissolved. Bring to a boil over medium high heat. Boil for a minute stirring constant. Remove from heat and cool it. Stir in almond extract and store in refrigerator until serving time.
When serving, spoon cherry mix over individual servings. Sprinkle with toasted almonds too.
Nutrients/serving: Calories: 246. Total fat 2.5gm, sat fat 0gm, polyunsaturatedfats: 0.5gm, monounsaturated fats: 1gm. Carbohydrates: 51 gm. Sugar: 32gm. Fiber 3gm. cholesterol 4mg. Protein 3 gm; sodium 69mg.
Okay, the sugars are still high, but hey this is a dessert and if you work out and eat this, I'm sure the sugar won't get stored as fat.

Our garden is really growing well. We harvested bok choy, radicchio lettuce so far. Radicchio was very crunchy but very bitter. We made a salad and I had to take bites of bread in between to mask the bitter. Cucumber vines are spreading with yellow flowers, cabbage is growing. We had to get harvest all of radicchio to make room for the spreading cucumbers, tomatoes? look at them!!



Our single strawberry harvest..

..

Jamie got this cute Cleveland Browns grill from home..isn't this cute? We plan on grilling some portobello mushrooms and corn on this.



I got a noodles and company menu from RPAC. Plan is try some of their recipes at home. Will let you know how it turned out. I'll end here. Hope everyone is having a great summer! Cheers everyone!

Smita

Where is Summer?

Good afternoon people, How are you guys doing? Aww Gina I'm so sorry you had to through that heart in your mouth experience with your poster, but you took care of it, awesome! How is Emily's ankle doing? I hope it gets better soon. You must be missing running. Hasn't the weather been cold lately? Yesterday, I didn't get a jacket and it was freezing. I hate to feel that way in June!
Moving on, for me, I am done with the major chunk of writing and today I am doing the bibliography. I want to be done with it today. Side by side lab experiments are also going on.

Its been just 4 days since I've missed out on writing here and it already feels like such a long time. I've been reading, writing, doing experiments, tending garden, working out, watching a movie here and there and cooking.

These 4 days, Sunday I made this black lentils and kidney bean soup. I'd made it for you guys the first time you came to my house, but it got burnt during the reheating process. Does that ring a bell? Well I made it again coz I really like it, its yummy and very nutritious. Black lentils contain a high level of protein, including essential amino acids isoleucine and lysine, however they are lacking in methionine and cystine. Apart from these goodies, it is loaded with dietary fiber, folate, vitamin B1 and minerals like molybedenum, manganese, Iron, phosphorus, copper and potassium. The dish I made translates to 'Buttery lentils' It has

1 cup lentils
1 can of kidney beans- cook the lentils first and then mix the kidney beans.

For seasoning,
heat vegetable oil (2-3 tsp)
add cumin seeds (1tsp)
4 tomatoes (I chop into cubes and roast it in oil and then puree it in a blender)
1/2 tsp red chilli powder or 2 small dried red chilli
4 cloves garlic
2 tsp coriander seed powder
1/2 tsp garam masala
1 tbsp butter
1 tsp ketchup
1/2 cup fresh cream (I used half and half)

Roast all the seasonings upto garam masala first- heat oil, then add cumin to a light golden brown, tomatoes- when tomatoes are roasted then add coriander seed powder and garam masala, red chilli and add garlic last. I prefer not to overcook the spices, that's why I add them in the end so that they roast just for a couple of seconds.
Blend all this. Mix it with the cooked lentils, add cream and butter and give it a gentle boil. Garnish with coriander leaves and serve with rice. Its very filling and tasty. But beware! It can cause gas! so Gina- Beano beforehand!





Monday, Jamie and me walked to Columbus metropolitan library to get some DVD's she'd requested (Monty pythons- the meaning of life and the life of Brian). We were starving when we got back and made this sandwich. It was absolutely delightful.

Whole grain bread
Dill dip from grocery (Kroger)
To the dip we added red and yellow bell pepper, some fine chopped cucumber, onion and we sauted some zuccini and pine nuts
Mix everything together and place this between the slices of bread.
We also had oven baked fries with this.









Tuesday, I was having a craving for these South Indian rice pancakes with potato curry and coconut chutney. I get the mix for the pancake from the Indian store. It was okay from the original standards. The homemade pancakes are golden brown in color and very crispy. I feel that most westerners do not like south Indian food as much as north Indian food. I don't know why. The coconut chutney was damn tasty.
I took a handful of frozen coconut, 1/4 cup roasted peanuts, 1 green chilli, coriander leaves, a small piece of ginger. Blend it away and season it with mustard seeds roasted in a tsp of oil. The pancake tore but I took the picture anyway.










Wednesay, Jamie created another lovely dish from orzo pasta. I always thought orzo was rice. Apparently, its pasta shaped like rice.



Cook orzo pasta
Olive oil- 3tbsp
Red bell pepper..1/2
Large onion ¼
Mushrooms…1 small can
Red beans….1/2 can
1 can diced tomatoes
Seasoning..basil, Italian seasoning, minced garlic, salt and pepper
Grated parmesan, parsley topping





It was very very good. I hadn't eaten much the whole day, so I thoroughly enjoyed this.

I saw 2 movies in these 4 days - The color purple and Monty Python's the meaning of life. The former was a great movie, but it was kinda sad to see how the black women were treated by their husbands in the early 1900's. Oprah was there in the movie too.
Monty python don't even get me started on it! it was SUCH a drag! I had higher guffaw expectations from monty pythons- but I just managed to get one big one. So one of the teachers is giving a sex lesson to this bunch of boys and is quizzing them in between. So he asks one of the students, how would he start foreplay? The student says by rubbing the clitoris. The teacher then screams 'Why do you want to stampede to the clitoris? why not just start with a kiss?' I guess this was kinda an unexpected response and caught us off guard. Both Jamie and me had a rollicking laugh at this one. The movie has 10 parts where they take you through the ages to finally arrive at a silly meaning of life- live in peace and harmony. I would've been really mad if I had to put myself through this movie doing nothing else. Thankfully, I was doing some thesis work on the side. So it was bearable.
I'll end here. Good luck with your poster tomorrrow!