I am a soup-o-holic

A staple in Sindhi households is Sai Bhaaji, which is spinach cooked with some dill, tomatoes, onions and Bengal gram. Now I've noticed that as far as Sindhi food is concerned most homes have some variation of the same recipe. What I have done is converted the Sai bhaaji into a yummy wholesome soup.

 

Ingredients :

• Spinach 1 Bunch (Washed and roughly chopped)
• Tomatoes 2 Medium (Finely diced)
• Onion 2 Medium (Juliennes)
• 1/2  cup Channa Dal ie. Bengal Gram Dal(washed and soaked for at least 2-3 hours the water in which it's soaked should be drained before using the dal for cooking)
• Green Chillies 2-3 (Finely chopped)
• Ginger 0.5 inch (Zested)
• Garlic 10 cloves(Zested)
• Salt to taste
• Oil 3 tbsp

Preparation:

1. Heat 2 tbsp oil in pressure cooker and fry the onions till they are tender and start to change color.
2. Add the remaining ingredients except the garlic and add some water.
3. Pressure cook for about 3-4 whistles.
4. Once the cooker loses the pressure, open it and blend the spinach.
5. In a small vessel used for tempering, heat 1 tbsp of oil and to that add the garlic. Once the garlic becomes a light pink in color add it to the spinach.
6. Add water to bring the soup up to the consistency you like and serve it.

Now this is typically eaten with rice in Sindhi homes, but it's just as lovely as a nice hot soup. Go on, try it.

The easy peasy lemon butter beans

I personally am not a big fan of green beans. To me they are tedious to prep and cook and not very exciting to eat but ever since we've started eating organic vegetables one thing that really makes me happy is the quality of vegetables, so even the beans looked so nice, fleshy and inviting to me that I got some last weekend.

I wasn't too enthused but I have to say, I really liked the final dish and it was pleasantly easy to make. I realized, if I am steaming the beans it's not necessary to cut the beans into small pieces like we do for most Indian preparations. Whoa! With that my problem of the time taken to prep the beans came down drastically. I simply washed them, trimmed the ends and cut them into 1/3rds, next time I thing I'll just trim the ends and steam them whole.

So here's what I did after the cleaning and cutting, I simply tossed some sea salt and put the beans in a steamer along with some butter in a small bowl so that the butter would melt while the beans are being steamed. Once done I simply added the lemon to the butter that had melted nicely and tossed this lovely lemony butter sauce onto the beans and wallah they were ready. Now you see why I had to call it the easy peasy lemon butter beans :) I paired these with some paneer tikka and a nice green salad. Oh yes, we mix it all up.

Beyond Indus

While on our honeymoon we had a brief stopover in Chandigarh, where I had my life's best food experience in the form of a chicken tikka, it tasted like heaven, I don't remember ever tasting anything that comes close to it, until of course last week when I ate the Dal Indus at Beyond Indus at Taj Club House.

Ambiance: (-1/5)

Ever since I heard that they have a few specialities from Sindh I have been looking forward to an evening there. In my mind that evening was to be a peaceful happy evening spent with my much deserved cheat meal. But to my shock Beyond Indus was right next to Blend which is the bar at Taj Clubhouse. The music, besides being unbearably loud, was awful too, the noise was giving me a heart and head ache and to top it all I could barely listen to the husband. What I don't get is, how can a place like Taj be so lousy, how could they have missed one of the most essential part of dining out: ambiance, how could they assume that people who come to dine tolerate trash from another place that was so loud that our glasses rattled. If I wanted loud music I would go to the bar! Another thing that I didn't like was the oval tables and uncomfortable seating. I couldn't stand it for more than 10 minutes so I complained and we were moved to the adjacent restaurant, where a band played some songs completely out of tune, but after the trash music at Beyond Indus we were thankful for the tune-less band.

Service: (3/5)

The girl who attended us when we entered couldn't understand us or speak with clarity. She referred to me as "Sir" and when we complained about the music she replied " Well, you see it's Friday night." I was tired after a long day or else I would have really made her miserable. I am not a Sir, I have come to a restaurant to eat and not to tolerate trash that's being played in the bar next door and it is SATURDAY. Anyways I just let it slide. The people who served us after we were moved were good though, we received quite a few apologies for the noise but I'd still say, how dare they assume that they can impose shit like that?

Food: (5/5)

We tried their Tomato+Fennel soup which was Meh at best. For starters we tried their sea food platter which was again just about okay, but then everything changed. The only thing that single handedly turned the disastrous evening to an evening I shall remember fondly for a long long time was the Dal Indus with Phulkas that we tried for the mains. Now, if I shall say so myself I make really good phulkas but I don't know anyone who'd make them for me, or any good restaurants that make them as good as they were at the Indus, which means every time I have to eat good phulkas I have to make them, but not anymore, now I shall simply go to Beyond Indus. The Dal was outta-this-world level of yumminess. My second best meal till date. Okay so if you understand the concept of Diminishing Marginal Utility let me tell you that for me every morsel was heaven and only got better. I was really really really happy. Every morsel I went mmmm---ymmm-ummm.

For desserts we tried their lahori rabri, which was anything but rabri. I wonder if these guys understand that texture is really important, you cannot make rabri and then blend it finely into pudding. So while everything else was meh or passable, for the Dal Indus and phulkas I have to give them a 5/5. Maybe I shall marry that dal.


Pocket friendly: (2/5)

So this meal for 2 cost us 4000. So it's definitely not very pocket friendly but for the second best food experience of my life, I'd say, I'd happily be fleeced. So will I go there again? You bet I will but only for the Dal and phulkas.

Dinner 492

That's a nice garlicky mushroom pizza without the pizza base, gluten free pizzas who woulda thunk :D accompanying the gluten free pizza we have chatpata paneer, salty cucumbers and a bowl of curd. Burpppp!

Anda burji

I didn't see any specific value add in putting up recipes on my blog since the internet seems to be overflowing with them but then I read too many recipes where I shake my head in disagreement or want to improve upon them. So I thought well, I will put down my recipes every once in a while and if find yourself shaking your head in disagreement or want to improve on it, do let me know :)

Now lot of people have trouble eating eggs, specially because of the smell and I have an excellent recipe of eggs that don't smell, look or even taste like eggs. If you have been in Mumbai then you would know that on the streets specially at odd hours like 4 am there are a bunch of stalls that will make you an delicious anda ( egg in Hindi) burji with pav.

What you'll need:

• 6 Whole eggs
• 1/2 tsp of turmeric
• 1 tsp of paprika ( this is what is popularly known in hindi as kashmiri mirch, it doesn't have much heat and is generally used for it's vibrant color specially in tikkas)
• 1 tsp of cumin powder ( optional)
• 2 green chillies finely chopped ( optional, add these only if you enjoy heat)
• Salt to taste
• 2 Tbsp of coconut oil
• 3 Medium sized onions finely chopped ( a good rule to follow would be about half an onion for each egg)
• 3 Medium sized tomatoes ( same rule here, about half a tomato for each egg)
• Handful of fresh coriander leaves

What you'll need to do

1. Heat the oil in a non-stick pan and fry the onions on a low flame till they are translucent and turn a light pink color.
2. Add the tomatoes, green chillies, cumin, salt, turmeric and paprika, then cook the tomatoes of a low flame till they are soft and cooked properly.
3. In a bowl beat the eggs together and after the tomatoes are cooked add the eggs to the pan.
4. Stir the eggs slowly till they are cooked properly and garnish them with the coriander.

That's it, your eggs are ready!!

Dinner 493

Ever since our new neighbors moved in I have been the happiest as they get mutton/chicken for us from some good shops they have identified in the neighborhood. So what I made today was a yummy mutton curry made painstakingly ( oh caramelized onions take forever ) with rice. Yes, you read it correct. It's the first meal I am having in days that has rice! Anyways here is the rather unflattering picture of the totally yummy meal, I'd forgotten all about taking a picture and had started hogging!

Happiness in a bowl a.k.a Dinner 494

Don't you guys love it when you have this idea in your head and it all comes together beautifully? The joy, the joy. Last night I stumbled upon a show where the cook made a base for clams using green apples, Lebanese cucumbers and bunch of fresh herbs. The combination of sour green apples with cucumbers sounded really tempting and I decided to try it and it was pure gold. What I did was simply chopped up a sour green apple, some lebanese cucumbers and some iceberg lettuce, then tossed them in a bowl with some generous amount of lemon juice and salt and finally topped it all with some crumbly salty feta and capers. Ah, these one bowl salad meals are so convenient and yum, you must try them. Half way through my dinner I realised I had some amazing stuffed Olives that could be added too and ran into the kitchen chopped some of them and what bliss it was, this addition was after the photo so you don't see them in the photo. Here it is, my very own lovely 'Citrus Crunch'

Dinner 496

So my visit to the grocery store had me find some exciting gems; sumac, coarse sea salt, crumbly hand made feta from auroville and some Lebanese spice mix from Fab India, consequently what I made was so extremely yummy baba ganoush and a large bowl of some fresh salad with feta, olive oil, lemon and the lebanese spice mix. Now the lebanese spice mix though nice is rather the kind of spice that would go well with meats and not on fresh salads. Well enough talking and now the picture of today's dinner.

Dinner 497

Today was a rather stressful day at work, the kinds that leave you wanting to go out for a drink, but good old me came back home, cooked my dinner and didn't go astray, I however burnt the paneer tikka which instead of a creamy tikka turned out to be a crispy hard chewy piece of well..paneer!! The usual suspects line up today had a very fresh and crunchy bowl of lettuce with a humble little knol khol. I indulged myself a bit today and added a bowl full of fresh curd topped with some yummy-licious kitul treacle that I bought from Sri Lanka.

Dinner 498

I love seafood and a holiday means I have all the time to cut, clean, devein, so tonight I made some prawns in a garlic tomato sauce that was pure gold and accompanying this were the usual suspects; cucumbers, knol khol and radish. If you are reading this blog you ought to let me know what are you eating :)

Dinner 499

Well after 12 hours at work and endless phone calls once I reached home I had no energy to cook even if it meant just 15 mins of work. Still, I wasn't going to stray from my plan!! Presenting to you the take away dinner at the end of a long and stressful day. It's a simple chicken tikka and yes, that's all I had but it was gooooood :)

Dinner 500

Hello there, so I thought of this amazing recipe on my way from work and it tastes like a dream! I really love tomatoes and I think tomatoes and garlic is a match made in foodie heaven. So I simply took these both, popped them in the oven for about 30 mins and lip smacking garlicky tomatoes were had. So here is today's picture:


Today's menu:

1. About 100 gms of Paneer Tikka. I must write the recipe of this one sometime, it's been a hit with whoever has tasted it and is super simple to make.
2. Garlicky tomatoes.
3. A lot of cabbage with a generous amount of curd thrown in.

Dinner 501

So we begin today. I was wondering if I'll actually reach dinner number 501 and if I have again bitten off more than I can chew, but then I realized there is one sure shot way of reaching the magic number and that is 'reverse countdown' :D yes I am loony like that. So with a load of worry off my mind I present to you tonight's dinner:





It's really simple:

1. A humble little knol khol.
2. Some crunchy lettuce onto which I drizzled some vinegar and olive oil.
3. Chicken Kheema with peas.
4. And a bowl of fresh curd with a dash of roasted cumin and salt.

So what did you guys eat?

My experiments with eating right

So last year Mr.Loony and I joined an awesome bootcamp in an effort to become healthier. Now anyone with half a brain will tell you that as far as health is concerned nutrition is number one and so naturally along with bootcamp came a lot of changes that we made to our lifestyle. It's been crazy, from eliminating junk to reducing our grain intake there is a whole lot of changes we had to make and we are slowly getting a hang of it. If you ask me now, frankly it's a few simple rules:

1. You need to consume adequate protein
2. Include some good fats ( yeah you read that right fats)
3. Eat lots of Vegetables (preferably organic), eat fruits in moderation and reduce the intake of grains.


That's it. Simple ain't it? So next time I pick up a anything to eat all I have to ask myself is if it complies with any of these simple food guidelines. Nope? then I don't eat it. My observation has been that I may have been golden throughout the day but come dinner and I tend to falter a lot more than on any other meal, so well I decided to post 501 dinners here so that I have something to look forward to. Now you'll ask me why 501 and all I'll say is stick around with me while I myself figure that out, will ya?