31.5.14

Pipérade Stir Fry #French Fridays with Dorie

This week we prepared  Pipérade Stir Fry for French Friday's with Dorie.


A traditional pipérade from the Basque region of France, is a ragout of red and green bell peppers, onions and tomatoes, seasoned with piment d'espelettet that is served alongside rice, scrambled eggs, chicken or fish stew. The pipérade we tried this week was however a simple stir fry that Dorie's created using the ingredients which go into a traditional pipérade.


As per her recipe, which is almost a none recipe, saute an assortment  of colorful bell peppers in HOT olive oil until they are crisp tender. Deglaze the pan with some red wine vinegar, season with salt and pepper and set it aside until the stir fry has somewhat cooled down. Then toss in some thinly sliced red onion, garlic and piment d'espelette or habanero pepper(as I did) into the pan and viola ! Your  Pipérade Stir Fry is done. Quick, easy and delicious ! And with the mélange of colors, an absolute delight to bring to the table.


Since summer beckons simple meals, I just paired it up the with a spinach-feta frittata and served. The combination was light and lovely. And even as I swept clean the last of the pepper strips from our plates, I kept wondering when to make it next, and what to pair it with next time. May be some grilled chicken or fish or perhaps an a gourmet omelette with cheese and lots of veggies.

  
Visit French Fridays with Dorie to know what the other members thought about this dish. You can find the actual recipe in Dorie Greenspan's book  Around my French Table and for Dorie's recipe of a traditional  Basquaise pipérade, check out the Washington post.

28.5.14

Kale Cucumber Smoothie


Memorial Day weekend was delicious. I ate everything I had been abstaining from. Pizza, ice cream, soda, doughnuts, chips.. you name it. To counter it all I was determined to start the week on a healthy note.. So this morning I resumed my yoga schedule, ate a light breakfast, brisk walked in the campus, pushing my toddler around the place and for lunch blended this kale cucumber smoothie and later followed it up with two tablespoons of granola and some blueberries for dessert. Ahh... bliss ! It was so darn satisfying...

26.5.14

Chocolate Banana Bars



Ever since those addictive Chocolate Walnut Bars got over, I had been looking for an excuse to bake a fresh batch of chocolate bars. It was just happenstance that there were two terribly over-ripe bananas lying on the counter-top on the day I bumped into Mario Batali's Chocolate Banana Bars

24.5.14

Smoked Salmon Waffles # French Fridays with Dorie



Fish recipes in FFwD schedule always put me in a dilemma ... To cook or not to cook ? The thing is, my husband does not eat fish and cooking two separate meals feels like a lot of work.  Hence I mostly skip the fishy Fridays unless an easy alternative is obvious. Today's recipe, that is the one for Smoked Salmon Waffles, presented itself with such an option. So I tried the original recipe and their non-fishy counterparts for lunch today. And husband, toddler and I felt utterly satiated afterwards. That is after our unusual lunch of savory waffles.


As I mentioned, making these is rather easy. And provided you have made waffles before, you'll probably wind up the whole process from start to finish in half an hour. It took me a little longer for it was my first time at waffle-making. In fact I got my waffle iron only on Wednesday and it took me a day to work up the courage and get to work....


Anyway.. About the recipe... The batter for these waffles is made by mixing together flour, baking powder, salt, pepper, milk, eggs, melted butter, thinly sliced scallions, snipped chives and slivers of thinly sliced smoked salmon. If desired, one can rest the prepared batter for up to an hour, or work up batches of fishy waffles right away. In my case, I made a batter by mixing all the ingredients except smoked salmon, then scooped out half a cup of the batter, stirred 3/4th oz of slivered smoked salmon into it and kept it aside while I baked a batch of scallion-chive waffles. Once the non-fishy ones were done, I spread the remaining batter on the well-greased waffle iron and baked my smoked salmon waffles. I served both the fishy and non-fishy savory waffles with crème fraîche and snipped chives.

In spite of "loving" the waffles, my husband could not help pouring some syrup over them. Toddler and I did not do any such thing. We enjoyed them with a topping of crème fraîche and declared them "Dee-li-cious !" 



Visit French Fridays with Dorie to know what the other members thought about this dish. You can find the recipe here. For more such recipes get your copy of Dorie Greenspan's book  Around my French Table and starting relishing.

I shall be sharing this at some of these weekly parties.

22.5.14

Spanish Eggplant & Bell Pepper (Dip)


I spotted  this Eggplant and Bell Pepper dip from  Tapas collection of 100 essential recipes, almost as soon as I bought the book from a local library sale, about an year back. I cooked it and  ever since have been recommending this recipe to my sister, my sister-in-law and who-so-ever visits us and expresses his or her unfamiliarity with eggplant recipes. The thing is, this so-to-say "Spanish eggplant dip" is really easy to prepare and tastes great both as a spread on toasts as well as with rice and dal. Though a Spanish dish, it pairs perfectly with our Indian meals and over the past year has become one of my go-to recipes.



Owing to the citrus flavoring, and seasoning of  paprika and cilantro, this "dip" tastes very similar to Baigan Bharta. But as I mentioned, it is much easier to prepare and gets done much faster.

The original recipe calls for processing the cooked eggplant and bell pepper in the food processor along with the other ingredients. I however have never felt the need for it. So far, I have always roasted the eggplant and bell pepper and then cooked the dip in the skillet. Non-processing it, leaves the "dip"  chunky, which lends it a charm of its own.

20.5.14

Carrot Chili Pepper Quinoa Salad


I love exploring cuisines and I love to cook from books. So when the hosts of Food of the World decided to travel to Mexico, I picked up a couple of avocados, a pineapple and some jalapeño peppers from the grocery store,  a copy of The "I Do Not Know How To Cook" Book Mexican from the library, then flipped through the pages of the book to find a match for the ingredients in hand. 

17.5.14

Hummus # French Fridays with Dorie # Food Revolution Day 2014


Guided by Mardi Michels this Friday the Doristas are participating in Food Revolution DayFood Revolution is a movement started by Jamie Oliver to inspire parents, kids, teens, workers and everyone else to get back to basics and start cooking good food from scratch. This year he chose “getting kids excited about food” as the theme for Food Revolution Day, which is today and our charge from Mardi is to share a recipe from Around my French Table that we think every child should know how to make.


Now my son is only two and a half so I wasn't really thinking of making a meal when I signed in for #FRD2014. The idea was to make something simple that would give the little boy a feel for cooking.. Since last January, we have been experimenting with a lot of recipes. Mostly smoothies and some muffins like this Chocochip Cherry 'n Coke Muffins whose ingredient list alone was good enough to excite him. Keeping his familiarity with the blender and his love for apple and cheddar in mind, I thought Hummus and Savory Cheddar Chive Bread with chunks of apple would be an exciting for him. And I was right. He enjoyed the process of making both. However something about the bread was not right so I decided to keep it off the post and talk about hummus today. 

Personally, I think hummus is a great recipe to have in ones repertoire. It can be prepared in no time... just whir together chickpeas, tahini, lemon juice, garlic, cumin powder, salt and pepper in the blender and you are done...  


And once you are done, the possibilities are endless.  You can build simple or fancy sandwiches with it as the base, serve it with crackers or make appetizers of all kinds to entertain friends...


And if you are like me, you could simply sit with a spoon and your bowl of hummus and call it a meal..



Thanks Mardi for involving us in #FRD2014. This was fun !

Visit French Fridays with Dorie to know the recipes from Around my French Table that other kids found exciting !


I shall be sharing this at some of these weekly parties. 

16.5.14

Chocolate Walnut "Jammy" Bars # Baking Partner's Challenge



This month Suja Manoj of  Kitchen corner try it challenged the Baking Partners with two simple seasonal treats... Chocolate Walnut Bars from Faye Levy's Chocolate Sensations and Lemon Bars  from The Secrets of Baking, Sherry Yard and The Good Cookie by Tish Boyle. Both bars looked tempting... but in a house of chocolate lovers, baking two non-chocolatey treats in a row would be sacrilegious (remember these Blueberry Coconut Friands), so I decided to bake the Chocolate Walnut Bars or  Chocolate Walnut "Jammy" Bars today. 

15.5.14

Leeks Vinaigrette with Mimosa # French Fridays with Dorie

Last week we were assigned to make Leeks Vinaigrette with Mimosa for French Fridays with Dorie.  

Had it not been for FFwD, I would have never thought of making any dish with leeks as the star ingredients. However since Dorie's recipes are unique and never ceases to surprise, I decided to try. The ingredient list was small, so sticking to the recipe felt important. But there was no way that was happening this time. There was no sherry vinegar in our local grocery store.  I had to make do with whatever I had and proceeded thus....

I trimmed the leeks off the root and the dark green parts, cleaned them, tied four of them in a bundle and cooked them for 20 minutes in salted boiling water. Meanwhile I boiled an egg and in a cup whisked together some Dijon mustard, olive oil, walnut oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper and a pinch of sugar. Once the leeks were done, I snipped the thread holding them together, sliced two of them crosswise, left the other two as it is, poured the vinaigrette over them and finally grated a quarter of the hard-boiled egg over the leeks. 

 

The grated egg was suppose to look like mimosa on the stalk.  It was not until later that I found the above image of mimosa... so my plate of leeks simply looked like cooked leeks with vinaigrette and grated egg. 

My husband avoids egg yolks so there was no "mimosa" on his plate. He neither praised nor complained about the leeks vinaigrette.  I thought  that the walnut-balsamic vinegar vinaigrette was great and that the leeks that had been cut crosswise tasted better since the vinaigrette had seeped into them. I however was not thrilled about the dish, just glad that I tried.

Visit French Fridays with Dorie to know what the other members thought about this dish. You can find the recipe here. For more such recipes get your copy of Dorie Greenspan's book  Around my French Table and starting relishing.


I shall be sharing this at some of these weekly parties.

13.5.14

Pineapple, Orange & Celery Juice


My toddler is a healthy eater by choice. Given the option between a slice of pizza and lentil-rice, he invariably chooses the latter. He loves fish, likes boiled eggs, adores yogurt but the one thing that he refuses to eat, rather drink are juices. Store-bought apple juices he can do, but something about freshly made juices repulses him. He simply does not like them...

12.5.14

Blueberry Coconut Friands(Glutenfree)


Happy Mother's Day to all of you ! Hope you all had the most wonderful time with your mothers and your babies... As for us, we had a lovely time with our family friends in the playground, playing with the  boys and eating pizzas for lunch and since all celebrations call for a cake, I baked these Blueberry Coconut Friands later in the afternoon  and enjoyed them for tea... Wish I had thought of baking them earlier for they would have been the perfect treat for our picnic of sorts... 


10.5.14

Iraqi-style Brown Rice with Chicken, Carrots & Peas

Both husband and I love our spices. So it was only natural that I picked up The Iraqi Cookbook from the library the other day. I had intended to cook a good many recipes from the book... but as it turned out, I simply couldn't get past "Timman Jazar" or rather my version of it for it was so damn delicious !


In Iraqi, timman means rice and jazar means carrots. So translated literally timman jazar means Rice with Carrots. I however could  not resist throwing in some peas into the wok and so had to rename my 'timman' preparation thus..  Iraqi-style Brown Rice with Chicken, Carrots & Peas.

2.5.14

Tuna Rillettes (+ Salad Niçoise Sandwich ) # French Fridays with Dorie


In French cuisine, rillettes are appetizers usually made with pork or goose meat that is diced, seasoned, cooked, then pounded or ground and served as a spread.  As the title suggests, this week the Doristas were assigned to prepare Tuna rillettes... that is a spread with tuna. 

The recipe was quick and got done in less than 10 minutes. All I had to do was to empty two drained cans of tuna in the jar of the blender, add a finely chopped shallot, bit of curry powder, bit of ground all spice, few tablespoons of heavy cream, salt, pepper and lime juice to it, blend the mixture to a smooth paste and refrigerate for a couple of hours before serving.

Of course we, that is my son and I did not wait that long to taste the rillettes. As soon as the spread as ready, I scooped out a spoonful, tasted and immediately decided to make myself a Sandwich along the lines of Salad Niçoise, the salad that had inspired the Mediterranean Chicken salad. Little boy on the other hand tasted the spread and asked me if I had made a fish smoothie... Yes my rillettes did seem like a smoothie because of the 4 tablespoons of heavy cream that I had added at a go, but it was tasty nevertheless...

And in my "Salad Niçoise sandwich" it was simply wonderful ! 


For the sandwich, I toasted two slices of bread, generously slathered the rillettes on both of them, then piled  a handful of baby spinach, 4-5 strands of boiled green beans, 3-4 thin slices of boiled potato, 4 halved cherry tomatoes, 3 halved black olives, 2 capers and an anchovy on one slice of bread, seasoned it with salt and pepper and sandwiched it with the second slice of bread. Since the rillette had enough flavors, I decided to skip the vinaigrette. That was a good idea for the sandwich was perfect as it was. In fact I enjoyed it so much that I decided to repeat today's lunch menu for the next few days....   



Visit French Fridays with Dorie to know what the other members thought about this spread. You can find the  recipe for the tuna rillettes here . For more such delicious recipes order your copies of Around my French Table and join the Doristas in this tasty adventure.

I shall be sharing this recipe at some of these parties.

1.5.14

Mexican Carrot Cake


I love a traditional carrot cake with cinnamon and nutmeg and bits of walnut. It is rich and flavorful and probably one of  my all time favorite desserts. However from time to time I like to experiment with other recipes, specially when the list of ingredients lists an ingredient that I would have never imagined or considered otherwise.. Such was the case with this Mexican carrot cake.. The list of ingredients was short. It did not include any kind of flour. However "flour tortillas" were part of it and those were enough to arrest my curiosity. 

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