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 …

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 …

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 …

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’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 …

Yay, I finally baked a cake! And it felt great! Now I kinda understand what they mean when people say stuff like baking is therapeutic (which I always thought was b.s.). There is something about mixing up a bunch of ingredients and shoving it in the oven hoping that something great is going to come out of there. You’ve got to get it right the first time, there is no patching it up once it is done, unlike most of my dishes.  If something goes wrong, it is very difficult …

So, how are you all doing on those New Year Resolutions? Broken any yet? I don’t mean to gloat, but I’ve been doing an awesome job on mine. What? It’s only been four days since the year started? Oh well, let’s see how this week turns out before I go get myself a medal.
I heard on the radio today that the two most popular resolutions this year are Eat Healthy and Save Money. Big surprise! Aren’t those the most popular resolutions every new year? Anyway, those two are …

Throwing a dinner party is stressful. How-much-ever one likes to cook, the day of the party will always be so chaotic that will make one wonder more than once, why the heck didn’t I just order some take-out! But at the end of the day it sure is more fun to serve something homemade than the best restaurant fare in town. A small word of praise from the dinner guests is all it takes to forget all that hard work and makes you want to do this all over again.  …

Our kitchen has been pretty cold and quiet lately, it gets used once a week maybe. Even though I keep telling myself that I am just too busy to get into the kitchen, that’s really not the reason. Even when I have the time, I’d rather curl up in bed and watch TV or read a book than even think about cooking. It just feels like a big chore lately, looks like I’ve lost my cooking mojo. Has anyone been through this before? If so, how did you come out …

As I might have mentioned here before, I am just not a turkey person. Just the size alone completely puts me off and the meat is pretty tasteless and dry too. I think it is the most overrated meat ever! If it was any good, wouldn’t people eat more of it throughout the year instead of waiting for the Thanksgiving feast? If it was truly tasty, why don’t I see it in more restaurant menus and not just in the sandwich section of a deli? I just don’t get why …

I think I’ve set an all time personal record for the longest blogging lull in this space. It’s been almost four weeks since my last post. I do have a valid excuse this time though. We are going on a much awaited vacation in couple of days and it got extremely crazy at work trying to finish up everything before the vacation. To top it all, I got sick. Okay, it is just a cold and it started just yesterday, so I guess that doesn’t really count as an excuse. …

I made this eons ago, but never posted the recipe as the picture didn’t look all that appetizing. Today while hunting through the drafts for my next post I realized that I only had chicken dishes in there. I am sure you guys have had a chicken overload by now, so I had to get this one out to give you a break from all that cluck cluck. Don’t let the lackluster picture and those burned edges deceive you, this is a great way to have pizza on South Beach …

Whenever I think about spicy chicken dishes there is one dish that stands out in my mind; one perfect chicken preparation that I measure all the others against. It’s been more than a decade since I last had it. So I am not sure if it is as good as I remember or if it is one of those situations where you keep talking about something and build it up so much that after a while the original is kind of forgotten and gets replaced by this exaggerated version. Anyway, …

When someone tells me that they don’t like salads, I always think that they might be using the wrong dressing. Of course I don’t tell them that as I don’t like giving out unsolicited advice (except here on this blog. Here it is really not unsolicited, is it? You are reading out of your free will ). I think some of those store bought readymade salad dressings can turn someone off of salads forever! And let’s not even get into the health factor. Most of these prepackaged dressings …

I am one of those people who start salivating at the mere mention of the word Chettinad. It is the spiciest cuisine I have come across and you all know spice is my favorite flavor. Now, whenever I mention a region in a dish title, I know what’s going to follow next – the authenticity police will be here in no time. What I really want to tell them is – screw you! The explanation that follows is for those who are genuinely interested in the background of a dish. …

Comfort food has been discussed to death over here and in many other forums. To me, comfort food is what I won’t mind eating every single day of my life if I had to. In fact I had a post about two years ago asking the readers to share their pick if they had to chose one single meal for the rest of their lives. Hey, that gives me an idea, since I’ve met many new friends after that post, let’s play that again! 
 So tell me, If you get stuck …

If I had to pick my favorite meal of the day, I’d pick brunch without giving it a second thought. It might be because brunch is a strictly weekend deal, so it feels special or it may just be the fact that no brunch is complete without eggs. I absolutely love eggs, in any form and any time of the day. What’s not to love? It goes so well with everything, there are so many ways to have eggs that you’d never get bored. I know there are all those …

It is not yet soup weather here in Seattle, but then again I am not really one of those by-the-season eaters anyway. I can have a nice hearty bowl of soup even when it is 100F outside, provided there is air conditioning inside. This soup was invented out of necessity last week as a quick fix lunch by throwing a bunch of ingredients together from the pantry and the fridge, aren’t all good dishes invented that way? I didn’t have any chicken or vegetable stock in hand, so I used …