bAck in Business

I am back after a long long time. The vacation in India was great. I had awesome time eating to my heart's content. Will write abaout it very soon.

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Time-Out ...vacationing in India

Hardly have any time to post any blog...The reason???? well, I am vacationing in India..Been here since 11th oct now. I have eaten so many good things right now. PLan to write about them..Very soon. Till then see ya..
Dipti

My sponge cake disaster

So, yesterday I decided to bake a cake. And that too not just any cake, a Pineapple cream Sponge Cake mind you. I planned this cake a week ago, got all the ingredients and got mentally prepared for the big day. Duckie was sleeping, so instead of me taking an afternoon nap, I rolled back my sleeves and got to work.
Now the main reason I was baking this cake was simple: my dear husband S challenged me. We had a great Pineapple Cream Sponge Cake at someone's birthday. I can still remember the taste. The cake was light and had great grain texture and was very moist. Absolutely great pineapple flavor and gorgeous whipped cream layering. I admit I had two pieces. Greedy of me :). Secretly, I liked it so much that I really want to bake my own cake for duckie's birthday in december.
Forward few weeks to the baking day. Measured out all the ingredients, got the oven ready, cut out the parchment paper to layer the pan, crossed my fingers and said a little prayer and then started my baking. The recipe I had uses 5 eggs together instead of seperating them. The same quantity of flour and sugar, a little vanilla essence and a little pineapple juice. So there I was, whipping the eggs together with sugar and then when I added the essence, the mixture gave out. It just flattened on me. i didnot realize at that time, but after some research I did. Anyways I was merrily whipping, mixing and folding my mixture. Put the gorgeous colored mixture in the pan and baked it for 30 mins. :) Then it went all downhill from there. My poor cake remained liquidy inside, got burnt outside, had horrible, terrible sugar-grainy coarse texture outside and smelled disgustingly eggy.
So. All in all. My first experiment with sponge cake fell flat. but I am not one to give up. I am going on a hiatus to India, but I will be back. With a vengence.

Need to take better pictures

There are so many gorgeous food blogs on the net. And not just because of the food, but because of the pretty pictures that each blog has. Sometimes I feel embarassed of the quality of pictures I have.
So I made a promise. To myself. And to my adoring fans i.e. ME for right now. I promise to take make and put up better pictures of the food I cook. Because sometimes its not the recipe but the pictures that put you off. Somehow boring yucky food also looks good with great pictures. Its all in the presentation. Serve me a great designed platter and I will snarf it down. Same with pictures. Sad pictures and none wants to even read anything.
Oh well.
So here's to a better picture blog and great recipes.:)
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The Yeast Problem

I made whole wheat naans yesterday.
And they were great.
BUT the yeast gave me a lot of trouble. I had to use 3 packets of active dry yeast till I finally got it right. And I decided to go ahead with the last try simply because I was out of yeast packets and too lazy to go out and buy some. The first 2 tries were total disasters. The yeast just sat there mixed with milk looking like sand granules mixed in, only that sand would sink. The yeast refused to froth and become bubbly as promised. I had kept it in warm place as required. Maybe it was the temperature of the milk. All over the internet it says "warm" liquid. Could you please define WARM? The yeast manufacturer's website said 110-115F liquid. Now at that temperature you cannot drink liquid so how can that be warm??? For me, (and I hope many other people too) warm means drinkable temperature.
Then I realized I didnot have any cooking/candy/liquid thermometer. So I went ahead and borrowed my duckie's thermometer. It showed fine till 107F then started beeping. Which meant a good, high temperature for me. Then I added the yeast and mixed it well. Kept it near the oven to let it "froth" which it did not. After 15 mins I gave up mainly out of boredom and mixed it with my flour. Covered my dough, checked the clock, kept my fingers crossed and decided to check again after 1 1/2 hrs, just because then it would be too late for dinner. After around 1.5 hrs, the dough had risen. I punched the life out of it and made some naans.
AND they were good. I loved them. Ofcourse whole wheat naans taste different than the all purpose flour ones, but they are healthier.

The Good Crustacean

I love sea food in general, but back home crustaceans were an important part of my diet. Shrimp, Prawns, Crabs, Clams (though I am not sure if clams are classified as crustaceans, i love them) and Dried shrimp. There is one more variety of shrimp called as "karandi" in marathi. This variety is actually smaller than shrimp can makes tasty curry, fritters and pattice. There is even one more smaller variety of shrimp called as "zavala". This variety is so tiny that there is no way you can remove the shell or anything else. The only option is to eat it whole (eyes and all) But the shell is so soft and the fish so tasty that you wont even feel anything whle biting. There is no aftertaste as such. These make very very tasty curry, fritters and dry gravy kind of entree.
The reason I am inclined to write this blog is, being a sea food lover and being restricted here in the US by the variety of fish (salmon and tilapia are good but the fish from Arabian Sea are more tasty), the minute I find good quality Indian fish I am excited and salivating by the mere thought of curry and fried fish. Today in our local market I found some good quality head-on, tail-on, the whole shell on- tiger prawns. I had seen them before but wasnt sure if they would taste as good as my beloved Indian prawns. But this time, I decided to be a little daring and buy some and make curry.
I got home, put the kid to bed and rolled up my sleeves and got to work. Cleaning, de-veining, washing, marinating, ...I was in crustacean heaven. All the time I was thinking of the possiblities of the prawns. Curry?? Biryani??? Fried Prawns?? Sukka Prawns??? Prawns Koliwada????? mmmmm...But at the back of my mind there is still a teen-weeny doubt about the taste. And mind you I am a very good cook when it comes to fish, but somehow the farm raised prawns here do not make good curry as back home.
So the prawns are marinated and in the freezer rightnow. I have deciede to make curry and some fried prawns. S loves them. I have kept the head on the prawns( removed the eyes and the eeeky parts). This gives a different flavor to the curry. Lets see what happens. Will definitely write about it. I can just smell the curry and hot chappatis and rice right now. Hope it turns out the way my mom makes them
Hope they are The Good Crustacean.

been a long time

I know its been a long time since I posted any recipes. But I hope to post few right away (by that i mean in upcoming days). Look forward to my new kababs, Samosas. I have new pasta recipes that i want to post. I have tried out few desser recipes that i will post soon.
Dipti

Barbecue- 1

Doesn't it look great???

This weather is perfect For grilling. In India we never did any grilling. Whatever had to be cooked, my mom did it in the oven and it turned out quite good. Here I switched over to the grilling side very very quickly. The food tastes amazing, it is very easy and convenient and a great way to invite friends over and have a party.

Few days ago my bro-in-law was over with his own grill. So we had a barbecue party at that time. I had marinated some chicken earlier- recipes will be posted soon. and we grilled some veggies too. All in all it was a great time. We ate the chicken with some hot ready made naans and had the veggies as a side dish. Its making me think that all food tastes better when cooked on an open grill. But there is only one way to find out, right?? Buy a grill yourself!! I have been hankering S for quite sometime now to buy a portable grill:) Lets see what happens.

There are so many wonderful things that i could actually grill and enjoy. And its not just meat but think about the veggies and fruits and desserts and pizzas and yummm.

Only if I had a grill.

Picnic

My in-laws and my brother-inlaw w/ his g.f were here last weekend. Since it was supposed to be nice and sunny on friday, we dedcided to go to the zoo. The zoo near our place doesnt have that good food and I always wanted a chance to picnic at the zoo.
So 2 days before the day I went grocery. This time I made a list and that really helps:). I was in and out of the grocery store in 45 mins. Otherwise I usually take around ateast hour and half. So making a list helps and ofcourse the fact that my duckie was on a walk with his grandpa and might go home anytime.
Then a day before the picnic I prepped and half-cooked everything. Since this was the first time that I was having a picninc with my son, I wanted to take something with me that he would love and wouldnt be too time consuming. So here is the menu:
Potato chips.
Bengal Gram channa salad
Spinach Parathas
Grilled Chicken sandwiches.
No Soda but plain water.

Potato Chips: No picnic is complete without potato chips. I love potato chips. A walk down the chips aisle and I go crazy. So many different flavors. So many varities. And chips not only from potatoes but sweet potatoes, corn etc..But for the picnic instead of the sea salt -pepper, jalapeno, barbecue, onion sour cream, ranch, masala etc etc I go for the plain chips. My mom makes potato chips at home. Dries up the potato slices and fry them in oil. Season them accordingly with salt, pepper red chilli powder, lemon, chaat masala etc. Now if I had my mom's patience and perseverence then I would have made my own chips and taken them with me. And they taste fantastic. But this time it was a big bag of plain potato chips.

Bengal Gram channa salad: I have posted this salad before. This dish tastes better even if its made 1 day in advance. So I soaked and cooked channa I day before. I cut and diced the tomatoes and onion the next day. This time I didnot add any cucumber or boiled potato. But just garnished it with cilantro and chaat masala. Everyone enjoyed this dish.

Grilled Chicken sandwich: This was very easy to make. I grilled the chicken a day before. toasted the bread- kaiser buns this time before going to the picnic. sliced the tomatoes and went to the picnic. At the picnic I just assembled the sandwich. This time it was a cold sandwich. S loves hot sandwiches but this one tasted as good so it didnt matter. I had 2 of these. Wait for the recipe.

Spinach PArathas: Not all parathas taste good cold. But spinach is and exception. They can be taken on a picnic or a travelling journey. S didnot have any parathas but my inlaws did and so did my duckie.

Chocolate cupcakes: I made this cupcake from a pre-packaged box. But since it was a picnic, it didnt matter and no one cared. It was as good.

All in all we had a great time out in the sun. The animals were awake thankfully. There were no accidents, mishaps or even minor injuries. The food was good and tasted good. So it was a successful picnic and I hope I have many more of these.

Does anyone...?

Does anyone ever preplan an entire week's menu ahead and stick to it? I tried doing it quite a few times. Sometimes I was successful enough and stuck to the plan. But sometimes, I would just give in to temptation and do something else. My mom used to plan week's menu many times and damn she used to stick to the plan. Well i try my best:)

Party Food

I have a party at my house this saturday. There are over 14 adults and 6 kids in total. This time I have decided to cook everything all by myself instead of having a potluck. After days of thinking up the menu and many many considerations later, I have come up with the following menu:

Sev puri: Basically I just have to boil the potatoes and dice up onions and tomato and cilantro. I have chat masa ready. Tamrind chutney is always there in my fridge and green chtney hardly takes any time. The best part is I can assembel the puris and potato well beforehand and then the guest can serve themself with whatever toppings they need. Neat, huh?

Ragda Pattice: Another crowd pleaser. I will boil and make the pattice on friday itself and keep it in the fridge. Then on saturday, in afternoon i will shallow fry the pattice and keep them ready. When the guest start arriving, I will pop them into the oven and they will remian warm till dinner. Ragda hopefully wont take much time and should be done by morning so that it gets more flavorful by evening. Rest of the toppings will be same as sev puri so work will be easy for me.

Veg Pulav: I have a very simple pulav in mind. Nothing fancy. just plain veggies like carrots, peas and french beans. Packaged garam masla and pulav masala, Some yougurt added while cooking veggies, some vegetable stock added while making rice and presto! i have a great pulav:)

Kokum saar -sweet version: I love this saar. The sweet-sour taste is a perfect accompaniment to any spicy dish especially rice. Its mainly eaten with pulav, "masale bhaat" etc.

Kulfi: The perfect dessert to finish up whenever chaat is served. My mom came up with this idea. I was racking my brains as what would be the perfect dessert, because somehow kheer, cake, sheera, gulab jamun were not right. I was thinking more like ice popsicles but my mom had this great idea. She even gave me the recipe. I , obviously have tweaked it a little to suite my taste. Thanks mamma!! So malai kulfi it is:)

now for the kiddies menu: Since there are going to be atleast 6 kids and not all kids eat ragda pattice, i decided to cook something special for them. Even my duckie doesnt eat chaat. So I am going to make moth(matki) lentils, rice, varan( maharashtrian dal) and chappatis (well actually phulkes)

I am going to do this all be myself. I hope I am able to do it. Will post later about how successful or not was the party menu. Wish me luck!!

There's a Duckie in My Kitchen

Hello everyone, my name is Dipti and I am based in Naperville, IL. I am happily married to a fellow foodie and mother to a naughty 16mnths old boy who I believe will grow up to be a foodie like his mom and dad.
I love trying out different recipes and experimenting on my husband who sometimes is quite lavish with his praise.:)
My son loves to play in my kitchen with his toys and leaves them behind for me to pickup. Dog, teddy bear, car, ball and almost everytime his yellow duckie. My littleone (LO) has a very curious nature and loves to follow my each and every move in the kitchen. Sometimes he sits in his high chair with his duckie and I explain each and everything to him.
Hence the name- There's a duckie in my kitchen. This blog is a collection of my recipes, tried and tasted, for him- my duckie:)