We just got back from an extended weekend break in Las Vegas. Yes, the 10th anniversary celebration was in our favorite city in the whole world. What, you don’t think it is a romantic city? It sure is, for us at least! As much as Siv and I love each other, we have totally different hobbies and interests, except for two major ones - food and poker. Where else can you get the best of both these?
We have been to […]

continue reading......

Past few days might have been the most humdrum foodie days of our lifetime. There hasn’t been any cooking happening in our house, and actually not much eating either. I won’t go into the details today, but it’s really been a difficult time. I might feel like writing about it some other time, today is definitely not the day.
One good thing that happened out of this near starvation was that I got a new found appreciation for an old favorite. […]

continue reading......

After coming back home from work really late, I had two choices tonight - curl up in bed and watch American Idol or sit in front of the PC and blog.  It sure was a no-brainer after the kind of day I had. But my stupid DVR chose today to completely @#$% me over. The whole show was recorded with no sound! I have no energy to call up the Cable company and crib, and the most they can do […]

continue reading......

I have a folder in my browser favorites called Recipes-to-Try and it is overflowing with all the links I have been collecting over the past year… I have tried so many recipes from other bloggers, and I normally thank them through comments or e-mail, but I have never taken the time to take a picture and write a post about it. The reason behind this is nothing but sheer laziness.
All the food bloggers out there know how much hard work […]

continue reading......

If you are a food blogger keeping track of the ongoing blog events, I am sure you looked at this title and thought, Star Anise and Pomegranate - oh she is killing two birds with one stone… But  you are wrong, my friend! I am actually trying to kill four birds with one stone! Confused? Did you forget that Asparagus is an aphrodisiac?
Given it’s phallic shape, asparagus is frequently enjoyed as an aphrodisiac food. Feed your lover boiled or steamed […]

continue reading......

Comfort food is something you crave to come home to after a few days on the road. Comfort food is usually synonymous to familiar food. It is something so personal, one person’s comfort food can send another person running for cover. For most of us, it is something that we grew up with, associated with a warm childhood memory, a special meal that only one’s own mother can really make perfect. So it is not surprising that Siv and I […]

continue reading......

Tofu Scramble

Tuesday, January 29th, 2008

Filed Under Breakfast and Brunch, Tofu, Vegetarian | 36 Comments

Hey, stop, don’t leave… you are in the right place… No, I haven’t suddenly turned vegan or anything like that. I had some leftover tofu that I was forced to buy, by a very persistent friend, some of which I successfully managed to hide in a guacamole. I was still left with almost 3/4th a block of soft tofu, so I asked my foodie friends here for some suggestions on what to do with it. I knew I could count […]

continue reading......

Once in a while I get e-mails from readers asking for menu suggestions for a dinner party they are planning. This is my absolute favorite part of any party- coming up with the menu. Siv and I spend days planning a menu for the parties that we throw, and come up with an over-ambitious menu comparable to that of a tasting menu at a fine restaurant. But due to utter laziness and the tendency to procrastinate doing any kind of job till the absolute last minute, more often than not we end up ditching the pre-planned menu and do a d-day scrambling to buy groceries […]

continue reading......

The holidays are finally over, time to get back to real life. We had a nice break at home, got used to sleeping at 2-3 am everyday and waking up around noon. It is going to take a little while before getting back to the rhythm of the office schedule from tomorrow. I want to kick start the regular blogging schedule on the new year by posting a recipe after the long break.

continue reading......

Is anyone else out there in the holiday mood already? My mind is already on vacation. Most people at work have taken the whole week off. I still have a bunch of stuff to finish before we leave for vacation, which I am forcing myself to get to, but this blog is really starting to suffer from my laziness.
We haven’t been cooking much lately except last Saturday night when we threw a dinner party. Siv whipped up this amazing cocktail with tamarind juice, […]

continue reading......

Thanks everyone for playing the What would you pick… game. It was comforting to know that most everyone would go for comfort food, if they had to stick with eating the same meal for the rest of their life.  There were a couple of smart alecs who wanted to take a hot guy along for dessert, I have to let them, after all it is a deserted island…
Talking about my comfort food I realized that I haven’t blogged about […]

continue reading......

I’ve been posting a lot of meat based recipes lately, so time to post something pure vegetarian. Yep, trust me, I didn’t sneak anything in, no fish sauce, no minced meat, no shrimp paste, nothing. It is a Tamil recipe, I think. Siv gave me the recipe, but he has never made it before. He makes a great mushroom dish - a thick gravy, which is very tasty, and I know that is his mom’s recipe. When I wanted to make […]

continue reading......

You think if you’ve seen one thoran (a traditional Kerala vegetable stir fry with coconut and spices) recipe, you’ve seen it all, right? Well, that is true to a certain extent. But this one had to be blogged about, since I normally hate carrots. Yep, I hate cooked carrots, I can have them in salads and stuff. But my mom made this delicious carrot stir fry, by shredding the ingredients in the food processor first. I loved it! Okay, most of […]

continue reading......

Regular readers here will know that I am not a big vegetable fan. But now with my parents in town, every meal must accompany a veg dish, normally in the form of thorans (a stir fry with coconut and basic seasonings) or mezhukku purattis (a simple stir fry with seasonings).  My mom goes nuts with all the new leaves and veggies she finds in the Asian grocery stores here. I never get time to click though, but this purple cabbage […]

continue reading......

Growing up, all the breakfast dishes at my house fell into one category - Spicy! Dosa + chutney, idli + sambar, puttu + kadala, appam + egg curry, kappa + fish curry, poori + chicken curry, the list goes on…  Don’t think I grew up in a weird family, these are the typical breakfast dishes of a Malayali.
But after moving to US, breakfast- if it ever happens- is normally cereal or yogurt. My body doesn’t even need breakfast anymore, the two […]

continue reading......

A few weeks ago, I was alone at home on a Thursday night, watching TV in my pajamas when I got a call from my friend M that she and my other friend M were in front of Cascadia restaurant across my house, and wanted me to go down and join them for a drink. Cascadia is kind of a dressy place, especially on Thursday nights. I was in no mood to dress up to go down, so I invited them up […]

continue reading......

It is time for the weekly dose of that authentic Kerala recipe. Pavakka aka bitter gourd aka bitter melon has been my favorite vegetable for as long as I can remember. I know there is a big group of people who absolutely hate this vegetable, it is really an acquired taste. But cooked the right way, most of the bitterness of pavakka can be masked, or it can elevate other flavors in a dish. My all time favorite pavakka dish is […]

continue reading......

If you are a regular visitor here, you’d know I am not big into Vegetarian cooking. Growing up I used to like very few vegetables, my mom used to include at least one vegetable dish into every meal. Some of those I truly hated, but we were supposed to eat everything that was on the table, something about building character! Among those dishes that I disliked were anything with eggplants or snake gourd, sambar, rasam, and most types of dry legumes and daals except for […]

continue reading......

Arugula Soup

Monday, April 30th, 2007

Filed Under Greens, Recipes, Soups and Salads, Vegetarian | 13 Comments

Arugula is a small spicy green leaf with a peppery flavor and is normally combined with milder tasting greens in mixed greens salad. Some think it is too bitter, I think it is an acquired taste, I really love that peppery taste and regularly use this in salads. Arugula and almonds processed to a smooth paste makes a nice side dish for grilled meat. According to Wikipedia, Arugula has been grown as a vegetable in the Mediterranean area since Roman times, and was […]

continue reading......

Mango is a tropical fruit consumed mainly in its sweet ripe form in the US, but in some parts of India the unripe version is a bigger hit. The taste of green sour mangoes with salt and hot chili powder is part of a lot of Indian childhood memories… 
This is a traditional Kerala dish, a thick chutney made of raw mangoes and coconut. This quick and easy chutney is very versatile, quantity of ingredients can be adjusted to get the best taste to suit […]

continue reading......

Today is Vishu, the astronomical New Year of Kerala, marking the start of the harvest season. There are a lot of customs associated with Vishu, which have been covered in detail on different sites, so I’m not going to repeat any of those. Read all about Vishu here and here.
Growing up in an atheist household, my Hindu festivals were mostly about the food. My parents adapted the non-religious aspects of all the festivals. So Vishu was all about the feast, fire works and Kaineettam […]

continue reading......

When I invite friends home, normally there is one vegetarian among ten hardcore non vegetarians.  Since the only vegetarian in the group is my best friend, she gets to make a personal request, and she always ask for my spinach cutlets. It is a very easy recipe, and the patties can be made a day in advance, so I’m more than happy to oblige. These cutlets are so yummy, even the hardcore carnivores hog these, I always end up making enough for the whole […]

continue reading......

Is Ginger a spice or vegetable? I’m not sure if Ginger qualifies for the A to Z of Indian Vegetables event, since the instructions specifically says, use a vegetable, and I think of ginger as predominantly a spice. But if I use Ginger as the main ingredient in a dish,  it could be considered a vegetable, right?
Vegetable or not, noone would disagree on the greatness of Ginger, it has been used as a medicine in India for generations. Ginger is a great remedy […]

continue reading......

This dish is one of my childhood favorites. Mine is a hardcore non-veg family; when we were growing up we used to have fish almost every day and some kind of meat in the weekends.  But on those rare days when there was no non-veg at all, there were 2 or 3 dishes that would get me by. Pumpkin Erissery with rice and papadam is one combination I could forget my carnivore self for. I still make it once in a […]

continue reading......