I have been staring at this picture for a few days now, just couldn’t come up with a better name even after all this time! The nutty part of the name comes from the almonds in the marinade and not from the fact that I was going nuts trying to think of a name. The almonds were an afterthought, a last minute addition really, but I think it made the dish! The plan was to make a marinade with coconut cream. (I just realized that it would’ve been Coco-nutty chicken …

Oh Kale, how much I love thee! I don’t know why I have this fascination with bitter foods, I do have the sweetest personality! Okay, that is a lie, the personality part that is, but the worst I get is a little sour sometime, never bitter!  I love bitter melon and all types of bitter greens like mustard green, broccoli rabe, chicory and the good old muringa ila (leaves of the drumstick tree) from back home. I don’t think Kale is as bitter as some of those other items, but …

We Seattleites are obsessed with weather. People over here spend so much time outside in summer, as if it is the last time we will ever get to see the sun! This year especially since the weather has been so inconsistent, any day we get some sun everyone is out in droves. I am the kind of person who needs to spend at least one day a week at home without any human contact in order to get rejuvenated and refreshed for the work week. That’s why I love winter, …

Once upon a time, a girl and a boy fresh out of college moved to a big city far away from home to pursue their dream jobs. They were both living away from home for the first time, all determined to enjoy the new found freedom and were making more money than they had ever dreamed of; the combination was dangerous. They started living it up, partying hard, life was fun and easy and they never worried about the future for even a single second. 
One day a mutual friend introduced the …

I can’t believe it’s only been 6 days since I got back from India. Life is already back to normal, except for a bit of jetlag that hits me in the afternoon. It is almost like I never left at all. We celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary on Friday and managed to get away for the weekend. After getting back home, I even made dinner tonight. Now that everything is back to normal, I’ve started feeling guilty about not updating this blog. Since I have a few of my mom’s …

I am more than half way through my vacation and now I don’t even know how I’ll ever be able to go back to my desk job. Not having any responsibility suits me just fine. Wish I could do this back home in Seattle, just laze around all day and eat yummy home cooked hot meals three times a day. I am getting horribly homesick these days, I can’t even remember why I decided to take this month long vacation alone. Oh yeah, I do, because I was too impatient …

I am writing this post from Kerala, where I’ve been for the past week. This year has been really hectic so far and then suddenly I end up here having absolutely nothing to do. I am in such a Zen state that all my plans for collecting as many Kerala recipes as I can and blogging frequently are all put on hold. I have so much free time these days I should really be using it in a more productive way, but the lazy part of my brain is telling …

Am I on a roll or what! Two recipes in a week, it’s been a long time since that has happened! Just trying to get all my drafts cleaned up before leaving for India. I have such mixed feelings about this India trip, while I am all excited about seeing my family, just thinking about being away from Siv for a month is making me really sad. Because of this, I’ve been treating him extra special these days. This dish was part of a special homecoming dinner I made for …

 
This is a new dish I invented during my half-hearted SBD attempt last week. The recipe itself is nothing new, but it is the unusual combination that turned out to be a surprise, a good surprise. One of the most popular recipes on this site is the Lemony Kale and Chickpea stir fry. This one is very similar, only difference is that the chickpeas were replaced with white beans and the kale with asparagus. So, is it worth an entire post if it is just the same recipe? Probably not, …

Recently there was an article on Bon Appétit called 3 Reasons You Should be Cooking Lamb. The reasons listed were Nutrition, Flavor and Versatility. Those who like lamb already know about the last two points, but I’ve never paid much attention to the nutrition part before. The article says: 
Lamb is an excellent source of protein (one serving provides 50 percent of your daily value), vitamin B12 (45 percent of your daily value), and zinc (30 percent of your daily value), and the leaner cuts of lamb have only around 72 …

Yeah, I know my last post was all about SBD and now here I am posting a pulao recipe, I do get the irony. I am all set to start my diet tomorrow, so we can just call this my pre-diet indulgence. In reality this was just a bi-product of extreme laziness, hunger and an ill-stocked refrigerator. All I had in the fridge when I woke up hungry this morning were a few chicken thighs and a pulao seemed like the best option for a one-pot no-fuss Sunday lunch.
I am …

If I had any kind of poetic talent, I’d write a hymn about pork belly. It is the most wonderful food in the world. Some of the fat layers melt away once cooked, rendering the most tender piece of meat with a buttery layer of fat. I have no words to describe the texture and the taste other than Heavenly! I love this cut of meat in all forms. Bacon is born from pork belly, need I say more?
But why does everything that tastes so damn good always bad for …

I haven’t posted any Tamil recipes in a while, not because Siv is not cooking anymore, but because he has a tendency to stick with a few tried and tested recipes whenever he does. I think I have posted all the dishes that he regularly makes. Today when he said he wanted to cook goat, I asked him to cook something new aka a bloggable dish, as I’ve been having a creative block lately. So he immediately made a call to his mom, asking for ideas and she gave him …

I’ve been trying to figure out ways of getting out of this blogging rut I am stuck in. Someone suggested creating cooking videos, but boy, that sounds like way too much work. But I can see how the videos can be helpful, especially for those who are totally unfamiliar with a particular cuisine or are novice cooks altogether. It can be pretty nerve racking to imagine how a few seemingly nondescript list of ingredients turn into something so delicious looking (if I say so myself) like this bowl of chicken …

A pure vegetarian recipe is long due in this space. We have been trying to incorporate more vegetables into our diet lately. While I enjoy salads and simply sautéed veggies tremendously as a side for meat or seafood, I really need something spicy to go with a rice based meal. Eggplant is one of those vegetables that can take spices really well. I grew up hating this vegetable, but these days I am okay with it as long as it is not cooked to death. I made this one just …

It’s late and I am too tired to write a blog post, but I just had these mutton chops for dinner for the second night in a row and had to write down the recipe before I forgot. It was that good!! Yes, I know I am tooting my own horn, but someone’s got to and nobody else seems to want the job. I used goat chops (you can buy goat meat in Halal meat stores in the United States), but if you can’t find goat, use lamb, just reduce …

Hope everyone had a great Valentine’s day. Ours was pretty low key on the day itself, though we had a grand celebration with friends the night before. In the past we used to make reservations at some nice restaurants and go out for dinner on v-day, but it has almost always been a total disaster. Food is normally overpriced, quality is sub par and the service is guaranteed to be spotty. I think it is officially the worse night to go out for dinner, even worse than New Year’s eve. …

I’ve been blogging for 3+ years now and I am still not completely satisfied with the quality of my pictures. But given where I started from, I sure have come a long way! You will know what I mean if you’ve seen some of my initial posts. Most of the pictures were shot directly from the pan on the stove, using the camera flash as the light source. I have been meaning to update those old posts with new pictures for a while now, but been too lazy to do …

I am struggling  to keep my new year resolution to try and be a more “regular blogger”; without much success.  It is really hard to maintain one hobby, then I had to go and take another one on. A bunch of us are doing a project called Project 365 from the beginning of this year. The idea is to take and post a picture every day for the whole year, to journal our lives one picture at a time. I didn’t think I’d last this long, but it has become …

I haven’t posted a Naadan Kerala dish here in a while; so here goes one which qualifies in terms of ingredients at least. I kind of made up the recipe as I was cooking, so I can’t claim that it is a traditional dish. It sure tasted like one to me though. We haven’t been eating carbs at home since the beginning of this year, but suddenly I was craving for some rice yesterday along with something really spicy. Yes, all that gloating about sticking to the new year resolutions …