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