Stir fry and juice are the two things I used to make with beetroot. The other day, while thinking of some new ways to cook beetroot, I came up with this recipe. As soon as I tasted it, I heard a round of applause by my taste buds. There is no doubt that I’ll be sticking with this recipe for a very long time, I mean really long.

Beetroot Chutney

Ingredients:

To Grind:

• Beet root- 2 small
• Ginger, chopped- 1 inch
• Green chilly- 1
• Cilantro, chopped- 1 handful
• Salt- 2 pinches

Seasoning:

• Oil- 1 tbsp
• Mustard seeds- 1 tsp
• Chana dal- 1 tsp
• Urad dal- 1 tsp
• Dry red whole chilly- 2
• Curry leaves- 1 sprig
• Tamarind juice- 2 inch fresh tamarind soaked in 3 tbsp water
• Salt- to taste

Preparation:

• Grind the above mentioned to grind ingredients into a smooth paste.

• Heat a wide pan over medium heat, add oil.
• Add mustard seeds and let it splutter.
• First add the chana dal, stir constantly and let it turn golden.
• Immediately add urad dal and keep stiring, don’t burn the dal.
• Add dry red chilly and curry leaves, saute for two seconds.
• Pour the ground beetroot and combine well.
• Strain the juice from the fresh tamarind and pour it to the beetroot.
• Combine everything well and let it cook for few minutes.

• If the mixture is getting dry, you could add little water to it and cook it.
• Taste it and add salt if needed.
• Remove from the stove and transfer into a serving bowl.
• This will in fact make a great side dish for rice, dosa, Idli, chapati etc.

I am blogging from my hometown Trivandrum, Kerala. It’s been 17 days and I am having a blast spending time with my family. Honestly, there is no place on earth like home. Here is a picture from my hometown.

This time it’s more exciting as I’ve my niece in my home. I can’t explain how cute and cuddly my niece is, she’s indeed the cutest baby ever. Also, I’ve a new fulltime job here: “entertaining my niece”, it’s fun playing with her and I’ve been trying different tricks to entertain her.

Best part about being with my mom is that I get to enjoy all her yummy dishes. She has been my inspiration in cooking and she never fails to entertain everyone at home with her irresistible food. I’ve been gobbling up her food for the past couple of weeks. Out of all the dishes she made, one dish that attracted me was the goat brain roast she prepared last week. While she was cooking, I was busy clicking pictures.

This is not the first time I am trying this dish, I’ve tasted this several years ago. If you are wondering how this dish tastes, I would say this dish tastes very close to scrambled eggs. Goat’s brain is available in almost all meat stores here in Kerala. It has a very soft and tender constituency.

So next time if you come across goat’s brain do grab it and try this dish.

Goat Brain Roast

Ingredients:

• Goat’s brain- 1
• Small Onion, chopped- 1 1/2 cups
• Ginger-Garlic paste- 1 tsp
• Green chilly, chopped- 2
• Garam Masala- 1/2 tsp
• Cilantro, chopped- 1 handful
• Oil- 2 tbsp

For marination:

• Chilly powder- 3/4 tsp
• Turmeric powder- 1/4 tsp
• Fennel powder- 1 tsp
• Salt- to taste

Preparation:

• Gently wash the goat’s brain under running water and keep aside.

• Add the above mentioned ingredients for marination to the brain and spread over it evenly. Keep aside for 5 minutes.

•  Heat a non-stick pan over medium heat, add oil.
• Add small onions and salt, saute till it turns tender.

• Add ginger-garlic paste, chopped green chillies and garam masala to the onions and saute for few minutes.
• Now, add the marinated brain and cover it with the onions.

• Let it cook for few minutes.
• Scramble the brain gently using a wooden spoon and combine well with the onion.

• Let cook well and stir it constantly to avoid from burning.
• Finish it off with chopped cilantro.

• Place it in a bowl and serve as a side dish along with chapathis, rice, naan etc.

The name of this vegetable says it all, it’s terribly bitter. Don’t even think of eating this vegetable raw, you will need lots of sugar than you think to have your mouth back to normal. However, this bitter vegetable is packed with amazing nutrients and is excellent for diabetic patients. Juice of bitter gourd has been used as a home remedy for many diseases.

If you are diabetic, you should seriously consider including bitter gourd in your diet as bitter Gourd contains a hypoglycemic compound that helps in lowering the sugar levels in blood and urine. The most effective way is to drink bitter gourd juice in the morning on empty stomach to keep the diabetes in control. I know it sucks, but you have to do it for the sake of your health.

Bitter gourd is widely available in India. It is used in Indian cooking a lot regardless of its bitterness just for the nutrients it has. When my mom makes bitter gourd at home, she used to cook in such a way that the bitterness of this vegetable was covered by adding tamarind juice and jaggery to it.

The amazing thing about this dish is that you get to enjoy all possible tastes from this dish: bitterness, sweetness, tanginess and spiciness.

Bitter Gourd Roast: the way my mom makes it

Ingredients:

• Mustard seeds- 1/2 tsp
• Onions, chopped- 2 small
• Tomato, chopped- 2 small
• Bitter gourd, chopped, deseeded- 2
• Chilly powder- 2 tsp
• Turmeric powder- 1/4 tsp
• Cumin powder- 1 tsp
• Coriander powder- 1 tsp
• Tamarind juice, fresh- 3 tbsp, soak a golf size tamarind in 1/4 cup warm water
• Jaggery or brown sugar- 1 tbsp
• Curry leaves- 1 sprig
• Salt- to taste
• Oil- 1 tbsp

Preparation:

• If using fresh tamarind juice: soak a golf size tamarind in 1/4 cup warm water, mash the tamarind in water to get the juice out of it using your fingers. Strain the juice from the seeds and skin.
• Heat a wide pan over medium heat, add the oil and add mustard seeds, let it splutter.
• Add the onions along with little salt and saute till tender.
• Add the curry leaves to the onions.
• Add the tomatoes and cook till it turns mashed.

• Now, add the chopped bitter gourd and cook covered till the bitter gourd turns tender.

• After the bitter gourd turns tender, add chilly powder, turmeric powder, cumin powder and coriander powder.
• Saute, add the tamarind juice and jaggery or brown sugar to the cooked bitter gourd.
• Cover the pan and cook for another 10-15 minutes by adding little water to it to prevent the roast from burning.

• Taste it and add more jaggery or brown sugar, tamarind juice if you need.
• Combine everything and when all the water has evaporated, transfer to a serving bowl.

• This could be served as a side dish along with plain rice or rotis.

Note:

• If you are using concentrated tamarind paste, don’t add 3tbsp of it, use less may be 1/2-1 tsp or according to your needs.

Tips:

• Bitter gourd is available in almost all Indian stores, if not fresh you could find frozen ones.
• Remove the seeds from the bitter gourd and chop it.
• This dish is not completely bitter free.
• Jaggery or brown sugar and tamarind juice will give a sweet and tangy taste to this dish.

Plantain flowers, a Kerala veggie delicacy that I used to devour while growing up, that too plucked right from the plantain plant grown in the backyard of my house in kerala…

The scene of plantain flowers or blossoms hanging from the plantain plant is quite common to those living in Kerala. If you are in Kerala, you just have to look around to spot a plantain plant, you could spot not one but many plants standing in a row, soon you will be in the middle of plantain farm. While growing up, seeing a plantain plant or plantain flowers didn’t excite me much, as this was an everyday sight for me. But things got changed after coming to the US. Every time I see plantains in any grocery stores, I get excited. But, when I saw plantain flowers the other day at the Asian supermarket I got super excited and without any second thoughts I snatched one of them.

Lots of sweet childhood memories unwrapped along with this plantain flower…

Almost all parts of the plantain plant are useful in one way or the other. Not just the fruits from the plantain plants are edible, even the flower and the plantain shoots can be turned into delicious dishes. Plantain will fruit only once, so after harvesting the fruit, the plant can be cut and the layers peeled, the inner most white cylindrical shaped shoot is used for making delicious dishes, which has high health benefits. The plantain leaves are also used in preparing fish and other sweet dishes, by wrapping the fish or other ingredients in the leaves and steaming it will give nice aroma and flavor to the dish. Also, fresh plantain leaves are used instead of plates in South India and food is served on that. Leaves are also used as wrappers. Again, the fiber thread like part that comes out of the plant when pulled off is used for tying jasmine flowers and for making garlands, its stronger than the cotton thread.

Plantain flowers or Banana flowers:

The banana flower is a large, dark purple-red blossom that grows from the end of a bunch of bananas. Its sizable bracts, or leaves, snugly enclose delicate, sweetly scented male flowers. The female flowers, which do not require fertilization to become fruit, grow farther up the stem from the male flowers. Once the tougher, darker outer bracts are pulled away, the paler and more tender inner leaves are used in a number of dishes, prepared in a variety of ways: From Wise Geek.

Whenever my mom finds a banana flower, she used to make this stir fry and I loved this. When I saw this flower in the grocery store, I was reminded of the delicious stir fry my mom made and my mouth watered instantly. When I bought this, the only thing that I was aware was that the cleaning was a tedious and time consuming process. I recalled how my mom used to clean this staining her hands, that time I only cared about the tasty dish I would get to gobble, not helping her in anyway. I was a big time slacker then

After coming home, I called the expert, my mom and took notes on how to clean the flower and make the stir fry.

How to clean a banana or plantain flower:

• Wash the whole flower under running water.
• Cleaning the flower will stain your hands, so use kitchen gloves or you could even apply oil on your hands before doing this.
• Peel off the tough red bracts or leaves and save the bunch of florets attached to the top part of the leaves.

• Peel off all the tough red leaves till you reach a point where you can’t peel any more leaves and when you find tender ivory colored inner part in the shape of a bulb.

• You could use the red leaves for presentation, so save them.
• Save the ivory colored inner part of the flower, you are going to chop this finely, no need to separate this bulb as it’s tender.

• You can’t use the florets you saved as it is, you need to remove the stamen, looks like a string which tastes bitter.

• Open up the flower and you could see the stamen with a bulb shaped top, pull that off.

• The florets attached to the outer part of the leaves are quite big, so the stamens are visible and can be removed easily compared to those in the inner part.

• Florets found in the inner part are small, you have to open them gently with your fingers and remove the stamen from them.
• Once you separate the stamen from the florets and the inner tender bulb from the flower, chop these coarsely with a sharp knife and put them into a bowl of water drizzled with lemon juice, this is to prevent the oxidation of the flowers and to prevent them from turning black in color.

• In a fresh banana flower, the florets attached to the outer leaves are white in color, but in not so fresh flowers it would look pale and black, discard those flowers and use only the white colored florets which is found inside.

I know what exactly you might be thinking now, “what a tedious and time consuming process”. I second your thoughts, but for someone like me who grew up eating this and who wants to enjoy the taste of this dish after so many years, could blindly go through this lengthy process. I actually had fun doing this and felt so happy when I made this dish from scratch. If you are someone who wants to try this exotic flower, next time when you see this don’t let go. Follow the instructions and it’s worth making this. This dish is really tasty, packed with many nutrients and great for your health.

What are Plantains?

Plantains are a member of banana family. They are starchy, longer than bananas with thicker skin. Raw plantains are treated like veggies, while ripe plantains can be eaten as it is or used in making many sweet dishes.

Here are some of the sweet dishes you could make with plantain:

Steamed Plantain Cake

Stuffed Plantain Fry

Sweet Plantain Fry

Plantain Pancakes

Plantain Flower Stir Fry: A Kerala veggie delicacy, recipe courtesy: My dear Mom

• Plantain flower, chopped- 1 flower
• Mung bean, cooked- 1 cup
• Mustard seeds- 1tsp
• Chana dal- 1 handful
• Urad dal- 1 handful
• Curry leaves- 1 sprig
• Dry whole red chilly- 3
• Onion, chopped- 1
• Salt- to taste
• Oil- 2tbsp

To grind:

• Coconut grated- 1/2 cup
• Cumin seeds- 1/2 tsp
• Garlic, chopped- 1tsp
• Chilly powder- 1/2 tsp
• Turmeric powder- 1/4 tsp
• Water- 1 tbsp or so

Preparation:

• Chop the separated floret and the inner ivory colored bulb and put them into a bowl of water drizzled with lemon juice.

• Wash Mung bean taken in a strainer under running water and cook it in a pressure cooker with enough water and salt until it’s cooked well. keep aside.

• In a blender, grind the above mentioned to grind ingredients to a paste.

• Heat oil in a non-stick pan, add mustard seeds and let it splutter, add dry red chilly.
• Then add chana dal and when it turns golden, add urad dal and saute till it turns golden brown.

• Add curry leaves, onions, little salt and saute till onions turn tender.

• Drain the water from the chopped flowers and add to the onions and saute.

• Add little more salt and saute the flowers till it turns tender and cooked.
• At this point, add the cooked, drained mung bean and combine with the cooked flowers.

• Now, add the ground coconut mixture and saute for few minutes.

• Combine everything well and remove from the heat.

• Serve this on the red leaves you have saved from the flower for a fancy plating.

• This makes a perfect side dish for rice or with any other flat breads.

Tips:

• In the US, I’ve seen banana flowers in Asian super markets and in some Indian stores.
• You could find mung bean, chana dal, urad dal in any Indian stores.
• Adding mung bean to this dish makes this even more delicious and rich, so don’t skip this.

A fried, puffed up yogurt flatbread treat…

This was one of the flatbreads my mom used to make as a special treat when I was young. Also, when I had visited my cousin last year this was served along with the Spicy Chicken curry and thus caught my special attention. Since then making this was on my “must to do in my kitchen” list. I added fresh and thick yogurt to knead the dough. The fried bhatura came out puffed up and tasted really rich and delish. It was easy to prepare and the dough can be made ahead of time. The warm homemade bhaturas will become the center of attraction of all foodies at any party.

Bhatura or Fried Yogurt Flatbread

Ingredients:

• All-purpose flour or Maida- 2 1/4 cups
• Thick yogurt- 1 cup
• Egg- 1
• Baking soda- a pinch
• Salt- to taste
• Sesame seeds, black or white (optional)- 1 tbsp
• Vegetable oil- enough for frying

Preparation:

• In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking soda and salt
• Break an egg to this and mix well.

• Now, add thick yogurt little by little and knead the flour for few minutes until soft.

• The dough is supposed to be sticky, so avoid adding more flour while kneading to make it a hard tough dough.
• Cover the dough with a wet paper towel and keep aside for 2-3 hrs.
• After 2-3 hrs, add sesame seeds to the dough and combine well.
• Make medium sized balls out of the dough.
• The dough will be sticky, while rolling the dough we will add flour to make it easy to roll.
• Sprinkle flour on a wooden board or on a clean counter top for rolling the dough, place a dough ball on it.
• Sprinkle little flour on the dough and roll the dough using a rolling pin.

• This dough cannot be rolled thin just like chapatis, so roll to an inch thick small round shape or oval shape.

• Roll all the dough balls and keep aside for frying them.

• Heat a deep fryer or a skillet over medium heat, add oil.
• When the oil has turned hot, place the rolled dough into the oil and fry both sides until golden brown and puffed up.

• Transfer the fried bhatura to a platter lined with paper towel.
• Fry all the bhaturas and serve hot with chicken curry or lamb curry or vegetable korma.

Tips:

• Bhatura should be served hot, cold bhaturas will turn hard and tough.
• You could knead the dough ahead of time, but fry the bhaturas just before serving them.

Had it not been my husband’s suggestion, the idea of microwaving pappadam would not have struck my head. Kudos to my husband…

Pappadum – for South Indians; Papad – for North Indians; or Crispy Indian flatbread or wafers – for others. Pappadums are usually deep fried in oil. I’ve only seen them deep fried since my childhood and so never quite had the thought of microwaving it. Pappadums are made from lentils, chickpeas, black grams or rice. There’s so many varieties of pappadums from plain to those with added flavors. In southern India, pappadum making has been a livelihood for many families in rural areas. If you visit Tamilnadu, you are guaranteed to see women making pappadums which are then dried outside their house under the sun.

Pappadums are mostly served as a side dish with meals in South Indian cuisine. However, in North Indian cuisine, it’s mostly eaten as an appetizer or as a snack by adding various toppings on it. Once eaten, pappadam climbs the ladder of favorite list for anyone, especially for kids. Kids love the crispy texture and are usually seen having fun by smashing them. I used to do the same when I was a kid

Yesterday, when I was about to fry the pappadums for lunch, my husband happened to enter the kitchen and suggested me to microwave the pappadums. I literally laughed at him and asked him to keep this weird idea with him. Then he convinced me to give it a shot. I placed the pappadums in the microwave and hit the 1 minutes cook button. For the entire minute, my eyes were curiously watching the process through the glass door. When I found nothing happening after 30 seconds of cooking, I stared at my husband with ambiguity. Suddenly, I saw blisters forming on the pappadums which put a smile on my face. I added an extra minute as it wasn’t crispy enough. When it was done, crispy pappadums came out of the microwave. When I tasted the pappadum, it tasted exactly as the fried ones.

If I can make the same tasty crispy pappadums in a microwave without frying it in oil, why would I ever fry them? It’s healthy and non-greasy. Since I don’t reuse fried oil, this saves me a lot of oil.

Pappadum or Indian crispy flatbread

Ingredients:

• Pappadums- depending upon how many you want, available in almost all Indian stores

Preparation:

• Place the pappadums on a microwavable flat dish.

• In my microwave, I had to cook for 2 minutes to get crispy pappadums(cooking time varies with the power settings on your microwave and the type of pappadums used, so watch them until you get the crispy texture sometimes it could be low as 20 seconds).
• Make sure to wear a microwave gloves as the dish would be really hot after the cooking.
• Enjoy the pappadums by itself or by topping it with your choice of topping.
• I topped the pappadums with Tomato Rice and Fenugreek Dal

Tips:

• Pappadums made in microwave are crispy but they won’t puff up like the ones deep fried in oil.
• This is a healthy alternative to deep fried ones.
• Avoid crowding the pappadums while placing them on the microwave dish.
• Cooking time depends on the power settings of your microwave and the kind of pappadum, it could vary from 20 seconds to 2 minutes.

A simple and humble dish that has been reigning over the taste buds of all the Keralities for centuries…

Chammanthi (in malayalam) is a side dish made in less than 5 minutes by grinding grated coconut along with other ingredients. This is one of the popular side dishes in Kerala cuisine. I don’t know to which category I should include this, as this will be seen for breakfast, lunch and dinner. For breakfast, this is often served with Dosa, Appam or Idli. For lunch, this will be seen along with Rice, and again you can see its presence for dinner. This is also served along with rice porridge.

This dish is a real time saver and a money saver too. Just plain rice when eaten with this dish is enough to conquer your hunger. And the amazing thing about this dish is that if this is served along with any other hyped dishes, you’ll be stunned to see the speed with which this humble dish gets emptied from the platter. I am not at all exaggerating. Once you try this, you’ll be its slave for the rest of your life. Are you drooling yet?

The required ingredient of this dish is grated coconut. In order to enhance the taste of the chammanthi, often one more ingredient is added to the coconut. If you add cilantro to the grated coconut, you’ll get cilantro chammanthi; if you add raw mango, it becomes mango chammanthi; if mint is added, it becomes mint chammanthi. The taste of these chammanthis are totally different.

My favorite way of indulging in chammanthi is by adding dry fish to the grated coconut. Dry shrimp or dry tuna is the best fish choice. Dry shrimp chammanthi was introduced to me by my grandma; almost all meals are accompanied by this dish at my grand parents. My grandma used to make this using the traditional grinder “Ammi-Kallu”.

“Ammi-Kallu”, has 2 parts, one flat surface made of rock on which the ingredients to be ground are placed and a cylindrical stone which is used to grind the mixture. Believe me, the chammanthi made by grinding the coconut mixture using this traditional grinder is tastier and incomparable to the chammanthi made in a branded blender.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a traditional grinder in my kitchen, so I had no other choice but grind it in a blender.

Dry Shrimp with Grated Coconut:

Ingredients:

• Dry shrimp- 3 tbsp

• Grated coconut- 1/2 cup
• Small onions or pearl onions- 3-4 no’s
• Chilly powder-1/2 tsp
• Ginger, minced- 1/2 tsp
• Tamarind, whole or paste- if whole, a small slice, or 1/2 tsp paste
• Salt- to taste
• Water- 1-2 tsp or enough to make a coarse ground mixture.

Preparation:

• In a blender, add the above mentioned ingredients and grind it to a coarse mixture.

• Don’t add too much water while grinding, as it would make the mixture watery.
• If you want the chammanthi to be a finely ground mixture, grind it according to your needs.

Tips:

You could substitute dry shrimp with dry tuna, raw mango, cilantro.

After a long day, when I don’t feel like spending too much time in my kitchen, easy breezy recipes comes to rescue me. One such recipe that I’ve fallen for lately is Peas Paneer or Mattar paneer( in Hindi), which is a famous North Indian veggie dish, often served with Naan. I order either Mattar paneer or Palak paneer ( Spinach paneer) as the veggie dish whenever I dine in Indian restaurants. I never thought that I could make Peas Paneer in less than 15 minutes in my microwave. If I had known this before, this dish would have made frequent appearances for my lunch and dinner.

For those of you who don’t know much about Paneer, here are few interesting facts about Paneer:

• Paneer is the most common Cheese in India, commonly used in North Indian cooking.
• It is completely lacto-vegetarian as the making of paneer does not involve Rennet (which is traditionally derived from calf stomachs, but today may come from genetically modified microbes or fungi) as the coagulation agent.
• It is a good source of protein for hard core vegetarians.
• Paneer is one such cheese which can be prepared easily in anyone’s kitchen.

Preparation of Paneer:

• To prepare paneer, food acid (usually lemon juice, vinegar, citric acid or yogurt) is added to hot milk to separate the curds from the whey. The curds are then drained in a muslin cloth or cheesecloth and excess water is pressed out. The resulting paneer is dipped in chilled water for 2–3 hours to give it a good texture and appearance.
• From this point, the preparation of paneer diverges based on its use. In most of the Indian cuisine, the paneer, wrapped in cloth, is put under a heavy weight, such as a stone slab, for 2–3 hours, and is then cut into cubes and used in curries. Pressing for a shorter time (approximately 20 minutes), results in a softer, fluffier cheese.
• Frozen Paneer is available in almost all Indian grocery stores and it can be used in all types of curries.

Common Paneer dishes are:

• Mattar paneer ( Peas Paneer)
• Palak paneer( Spinach Paneer)
• Chilli Paneer( Spicy Paneer)
• Paneer pakora( Fried Paneer)
• Paneer Tikka Masala
• Paneer Makhani ( Butter Paneer)

Mattar Paneer or Peas Paneer, Microwaved:

Ingredients:

• Paneer cubes- 1 cup
• Frozen Peas, thawed – 1 cup
• Onion, minced, medium size-1
• Green chillies minced- 1 tsp
• Ginger minced- 1/2 inch
• Chilli powder- 1/4 tsp
• Cumin powder-1/2 tsp
• Garam masala- 1/2 tsp
• Tomato paste ( no salt added) or fresh Tomato puree- 5 tbsp
• Cashew nuts  – 8 no’s
• Cilantro chopped- 1 handful
• Oil- 2 tbsp
• Salt- to taste
• Water- 4 tbsp
• Microwave proof dish with lid – for microwave cooking

Preparation:

• Grind onion, green chillies and ginger into a smooth paste.
• In a wide non-skillet pan, heat the oil, add the paste and fry for 5 minutes until the raw smell of onion goes away.
• Add the tomato paste, chilli powder, cumin powder, garam masala and the peas along with 1 tbsp water and give it a stir.

• Transfer this into a microwave proof dish, close it with its lid and micro high for 3 minutes.
• To the above Peas mixture, add little salt, paneer cubes, cashew nuts, 3 tbsp water and mix gently.
• Cover the dish and again microwave for another 2 minutes and let stand for 2-3 minutes.
• Garnish with cilantro and serve hot with Naan or Rice.

Tips:

• Adjust the spice level of this dish accordingly.
• If you don’t have a microwave, you could make it in the pan itself, after the peas has cooked well, add the paneer, cashew nuts, salt and cook for few minutes. Don’t mash or break the paneer.

Gearing up for Thanksgiving, starting with Cranberry sauce with caramelized onions..

Thanksgiving is the time to express our gratitude to our family, friends and everyone out there. The best way to show our love and appreciation to others is by making a scrumptious meal for them, the moment they devour our food, all the silly dislikes and bitterness they carried in their hearts just vanishes and a bridge to peace and contentment sprouts immediately. Obviously, food has the power to bring friends and family together, to heal the hostility we had developed for others in our strenuous attempt to triumph.

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays, apart from making the big feast, it gives me a chance to spend quality time with my family and friends. A perfect holiday with black Friday, when I could go little over board and shop crazily. A time when everyone will be seen happy and caring for others. It gives the opportunity to look back and to flip the pages in my life until that day, and to remember those people who had helped me, influenced me, encouraged me, appreciated me and refined me to the person I am today. I simply wouldn’t be what I am today without many. I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to ALMIGHTY, my parents, my siblings, my husband, my family, my friends, my teachers and to each and every person I had met and known over the years.

The Thanksgiving dinner or the Thanksgiving feast symbolizes the tradition and custom of the families having the dinner together on the Thanksgiving Day. Dinner is served, generally centered around a large roasted turkey. Turkey, being the main dish for this dinner, Thanksgiving is sometimes colloquially called ‘Turkey day”. Other dishes commonly served are Cranberry sauce, Stuffing, Gravy, Mashed potatoes, Green beans, Bread rolls, and for dessert various Pies are often served: Apple pie, pumpkin pie, sweet potato pie etc.

Have a fantastic Thanksgiving everyone!

Cranberry sauce with Caramelized Onions: Slow-cooked onions bring extra flavor to this simple sauce and cloves add warmth. I never thought that this simple sauce would taste this good, it had a refreshing taste. I couldn’t resist having this sauce with almost everything I had today, even the sauce itself tasted so good that we don’t need anything to go with it. Truly splendid.

Yields: 2 1/2 to 3 cups

Ingredients:

• Fresh or thawed frozen cranberries, rinsed- 12 oz bag or 3 1/2 cups
• Large yellow onion, medium diced-1
• Granulated sugar-1 cup
• Ground cloves- 1/8 tsp
• Salt- a pinch
• Freshly ground black Pepper- 1/2 tsp
• Water-1/2 cup
• Vegetable oil- 1tbsp

Preparation:

• In a saucepan, heat the oil over medium-heat.
• Add the onions, cloves, a pinch of salt and pepper powder.
• Reduce the heat to low, cover, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are golden-brown and very soft, 20-25 minutes.
• Remove the lid, increase the heat to medium high, and cook the onions, stirring often, until deep caramel brown, an additional 2-3 minutes.
• Add the cranberries, sugar, a pinch of salt and 1/2 cup water and bring to simmer over medium-high heat.
• Simmer for 1 minute, then cover, turn off heat, and let cool to room temperature.

Tips:

• You could half the ingredients and make this sauce, which will be good for 2 people.
• The sauce may be prepared up to 3 days ahead and refrigerated. Return to room temperature before serving.

When button mushrooms got glazed..

Lately, whenever I get a chance to cook, I have been quick fixing everything, from appetizers to desserts. It’s not that I have lost my passion for cooking, it’s just I have moved to a different state and in the process of settling down. It’s hard to move out of a place where you have good friends and family always around, but what I feel is, this separation helps our relationship with them grow even more healthier and stronger. No matter where you are true friendship lasts forever.

Apart from getting yet another chance to meet new people and to explore new places, the part I love the most is that I could explore new restaurants and new kinds of food. New place didn’t disappoint me in this matter, it is incredibly packed with many restaurants which I have never dined before. Hoping for more fun and food, I hereby start a new life in this new place..

Glazed Stir Fried Mushrooms

Ingredients:

• Button Mushrooms- 1 pack
• Minced garlic- 1tsp
• Red pepper flakes- 1/2 tsp
• Fresh Rosemary sprigs- 1
• Thyme sprig- 1
• Pepper powder-1/2 tsp
• Salt- to taste
• Balsamic Vinegar- 1 tbsp
• Butter or olive oil- 1-2 tsp

Preparation:

• In  a wide skillet, add  olive oil, add garlic and saute.
• When the garlic starts to turn golden, add red pepper flakes, give it a stir and add mushrooms to this.
• Add fresh herbs to this, rosemary and thyme, along with salt and pepper powder.
• In medium high heat, stir fry the mushrooms until it turns brown.
• Finally, glaze the mushrooms with 1 tbsp of balsamic vinegar.
• Stir fry in the vinegar for a second and remove from the stove.
• Serve hot as a side dish or spread the glazed mushrooms over baked chicken or steak.