Phew! I got through the first two days of the second round of SBD Phase 1 successfully. Today was considerably better than yesterday both on energy level and on the cravings front. It is just going to get easier from here. I don’t think I’ll be able to post day-by-day menu and recap on the blog this time, but I’ll try my best to update as frequently as I can. Today it’s going to be a quick post on a brand new discovery which I feel is going to be …

It’s been almost 5 months since I got off South Beach Diet. It was early March. I had reached my target weight; I was happy with the way I looked and the way my clothes fitted; I had learned all the basics of a good healthy diet which was sustainable; my body was well-conditioned to not crave for bad carbs; my metabolism was at its best. Then came summer, it got really warm around here and my one and only true weakness started popping up everywhere – BEER! There was …

I can hear the collective yawn already – No, not another Biryani recipe! Hasn’t she posted all the possible variations out there already? Well, no, I haven’t even scratched the surface yet. Every time I make Biryani it turns out a bit different, so you should really thank me for not posting the hundreds of variations that I could. In fact every chicken or lamb curry recipe I have can be converted into a biryani recipe. But don’t worry, I promise this one is different, it is not just a …

I’ve been looking for the perfect Jalapeno Cornbread recipe for a while now. I think I finally found The One! After looking around the web for a while, I finally settled on Michael Ruhlman’s recipe and after a couple of trials with some minor tweaks, I finally have a recipe that we love.  It’s sweet, it’s spicy, it’s soft inside and a little crispy outside, it’s perfect!
 
Jalapeno Cornbread
(Based on Ruhlman’s Jalapeno Cornbread recipe)

3/4 cup cornmeal (I used Bob’s Red Mill Organic Medium Grind)
1/4 cup unbleached all purpose flour
1 tsp …

After I started blogging, I bring back quite a few Indian cookbooks every time I visit India. Due to the generous exchange rate, you get about 10 Indian cookbooks for the price you’d pay for an average cookbook here in the US. I am a total novice when it comes to the different regional cuisines of India, so when I pick up these books I make big plans for cooking my way through each one of those and dream about being an expert in all those cuisines. But after I …

Last time we had dinner at Feenie’s in Vancouver, chef Robert Feenie was already out of there. I guess it was just a matter of time before they changed the name of the place. After Robert Feenie left, famous New York chef Daniel Boulud took over that restaurant as well as Lumiere and Feenie’s is now called db Bistro Moderne.
Last week I went to Vancouver with some friends for a girlie weekend getaway and we decided to try out db Bistro for the Sunday brunch.  When I called to …