curry for cold

Being a part of a medically-inclined family has its benefits and then it has its massive losses. You never see a common cold as common anymore. You see it as a pest that will torture you for for a week no matter what you do. So every single homely-remedy is a waste for your brain, you know it won't go away for that one week. You know you have to hydrate and keep up your fluid levels and you have to take plenty of rest. And you also know that spicy food ain't so good for those achey throat muscles. Poor throat muscles though, because I never heed this last bit of good old advice.

More importantly, after two days of "restful non-cooking", I am craving some real good curry. So here goes. I am experimenting today with my trusted old chicken, only adding rustic and welcoming flavors to keep the spirits high.

I start by adding whole red chillies to a tablespoon of oil heating up in a large open wok. I think this sort of large open vessel affords me a good surface area, so I don't have to add too much water to cook the chicken and it gets that rustic "bhuna" taste. next i add in some mustard seeds and a spoonful of cumin seeds and as soon as the sputtering catches my attention, in goes one medium sized finely chopped onion. salt makes it way in the wok to sweat out the onions and so do some slit green chilies and curry leaves.

as soon as the onions turn yellow, i proceed to add a cup of shredded coconut, turmeric, some ginger-garlic paste and some fresh coriander powder. now this is going to a very simple plate, with everyday simple ingredients. so i want every single thing to stand out and provide its own special flavor. so i keep the flame on a low-medium, ensuring that the flavors get time to blend and specially so that the coconut does not burn or dry out.

next goes in the chicken and some chili powder, if you still haven't had enough of heat for your taste. now stir the mixture and cook on medium heat for about 15 minutes and you will start to see the chicken changing color. as soon as you have enough browning, add a third of cup of yogurt, a little splash of water and put on the lid. this will ensure that the chicken is cooked through to the inside, but still has the taste of a laboriously cooked meal. check for salt, sprinkle some freshly ground black pepper right on top and serve garnished with chopped coriander.

I love to plate my dinners elaborately. But this one, shall remain rustic. Not for long I fear, it will be wolfed down as quickly as it got cooked.

chop chop your way to weight loss!

Sigh! This is so hard - trying to lose weight post baby is the hardest thing I've ever had to do...well, apart from having the baby! The fatigue is unbelievable, specially since I've chosen to have a super long commute to my dream job (yeah yeah, it is still my dream job!)

I remember when I was in 10th grade and everyone else was so svelt and cool....I was the fat kid. Very round...very very!! I started my first aerobics class and loved it so much that 3 months down the line I was super hot.

Then there was the year before I got married. Atul was to come and see me soon and I knew how much he loved working out....so I jogged. religiously. every morning. And ran up and down the stairs. I also came back home from work and worked out while watching tv -- all this was wonderful then and I was so confident I'll be able to do this any number of times in my life.

The post marriage weight was lost when I re-discovered jogging and unleashed the forces of portion control. But now...now, I'm 30. Yes, an ugly truth is dawning upon me. Things aren't going to be easy this time around. I have surrouded myself with work, I have a terribly long commute and then there's Aarav. Everything makes me realise that I have to really watch what I eat - like most of you out there....my days are spent researching what I am putting into myself. Thankfully I have realised that I don't need to add to this misery by eating things that I will not (probably) be able to burn off. But every bite seems to turn me into an imaginary balloon. And so, as I start my workout routine again tomorrow morning, I turned tonight's meal into something enjoyable, yet...HEALTHY!
A note here on how much I love potatoes. I know I can't have them as much as I would love to, but here's what I did to turn my potato into an active protein.
I love bengali cooking and my fav would be the chops. Fish chops and veggie chops alike!! Chops, the bong way, are basically a fried variety of patties. You add the boiled potatoes to fish or veggies and then you fry! I soooo wanted some chops tonight, but I also sooo wanted to eat healthy. So I used only one fried potato and the rest of my batter was soy :)

Patel cash & carry, carries my favorite soy nuggets for a tiny bit of cash. So I boil them, add in the ONE boiled potato - come on, I had to fool my mind, right? add in some ginger, garlic, green chillies and coriander and toss in a whole packet of maggi seasoning (I AM CRAZY about this flavor packet btw!)

Once my mix is ready, I coat the little patties in sooji (wayyyy healthier than bread crumbs)...note: very very little sooji and shallow fry them in 1/10th of the oil I would have used to deep fry. Crisp, yummy, and happy looking veggie chops are now awaiting me in my plate. Alongside a big bowl of daal....with a small 1/4 cup serving of white rice. And that's the way we'll roll.

Target for 16th April: 6 lbs loss. Days to go: 12, on the stake: unwanted fat and the loss of an hour of sleep every morning.

Let's hope I write back with healthier recipes, from a lighter body!!

Slow, unsteady, but successful!

this has been a month of being ill - first aarav, then me, then aarav and now me again. thankfully, we packed off all our bottles of cough syrups and painkillers and aspirins way before this month's big cake was due.

my colleague's son (a brilliant, handsome 8th grade musical talent) was playing the lead in his high school's recreation of the fiddler on the roof ..... she sought me out to do the cake for the cast & crew and my brain cells immediately stopped all publishing work. yes - that's how distracted i get when i have a new assignment on hand. i researched photographs, jewish toys, nativity pictures and various other things to finally be able to create my own vision for this challenging task.

the cake was a basic chocolate, with whipped cream and fresh strawberry filling.

the toppers were all clay (except the cottage sitting atop the cake - that was more cake, :) )

the day of baking, was pure pleasure. of course my palms still hurt from rolling out and softening all that clay, but i'm in sculpting heaven :)

thanks Karen.....it was an absolute pleasure being able to get into this "fiddler" headspace for the month. i owe you one!

...till you turn it to gold!

isn't that what life is all about - opportunities and options that you can turn back to look at with pride? another such chance is ready to make my March brilliantly creative. a new cake order has been booked for the end of this month and this time, there is less baking and more clay modeling involved. i am palpitating already - scared to put myself out there another time.

i trust myself, that is not the issue. the issue is nerves. i have to steady myself and make a plan. the sketch is ready - ambitious but aptly so. i already have ideas for the characters that i need to build on and the clay is waiting, waiting for me to turn it into gold.

:)

delusional me!

as if my life this year isn't crammed up with enough things to do, my wandering mind led me to the daring baker's challenge and i had a sudden inspiration - since i love baking so much, let me try to cross one baking hurdle every month. good thought? well, not so much. the last time i tried, i packed a good 40 lbs on my petite frame and the result is 5 years later, i'm still shedding, post my wedding.

so here goes. in addition to one baking challenge every month, i will overcome one fitness/ health obstacle each month as well. hopefully this will keep me right.

Baking Challenge for March:

Piping in Chocolate

the french and their foo-foo ways of dressing up their food has always attracted me. not only am i a big fan of any good piping project (never having been patient enough to be able to make my piping look good), i love la technique du cornet - the art of dressing up a dinner plate with chocolate swirls/ floral patterns/ anything foo-foo-ishly awesome. so here goes. while i don't want to waste good money on practicing my piping skills, i can definitely get my hands on some mehendi cones and parchment paper to get the job done. once i feel that my hands are steady with the cone, i will move to a piping bag.

By the end of March, I should have posted a picture of a beautifully decorated dinner plate for all to see. Nice, eh?


Health/ Fitness Challenge for March:

if Atul is reading this (note, his is the only name that has a capital letter adorning it - R.E.S.P.E.C.T!) he will probably be sighing with the thought of...didn't you just buy a fitness dvd yesterday? and am i not going to be miserably upset with you for buying that aerobic step tonight (haha, more to come mon cher) and now what are you going to do with the incline trainer i bought you in november?

well, to answer it all..while i experiment with what goes well in shedding this blob of slob back to a lean human, this month's fitness challenge is to make my way up to 5000 vertical feet on my incline trainer - AT LEAST ONCE in march.

So far, on my most enthusiastic journeys on the trainer, i have managed 2000 vert. ft in one go - 700 calories shot in one shot. phew! mais no, mes enfants, i have to go further than that. this time, it shall be a 5k challenge!!

So watch out for updates and henna colored toddler pictures. this is going to be so much...aggravation. Yahoo!

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one for the state!

often times i have marvelled on how i have never been able to understand politics. power corrupts, that i have seen. but power makes one an idiot? and then, missing all the delicious flavors that were wafting from this silly item in the news, i googled for the images of a vada-pav. instantly, i was reminded of the hundereds who flock to the veggie burger that rules the hearts of mumbai, at a shocking 22 cents a piece and i suddenly understood why everyone would want to label this burger as their own.
http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_by-shiv-it-s-now-beedi-vs-vada-pav_1164651

so when do we make vada pav chez nous? hmmm let me think. when we celebrate, when we can't think of anything better to eat, when our taste buds are ready for a super nova explosion and even on valentines day! so here is the tried and tested way to mess up any diet plan - fry the god of all things carb (duh, the potato!) and sit it nice and cozy between pav slathered with chutney(s).

yet another journey in my kitchen begins with boiled potatoes finding their way into a heated wok, slick with olive oil and fragrant with ginger, garlic and (super)finely chopped onions. once the potatoes and the ggo mix (ginger/ garlic/ onion - what? i am my own rachel ray, thank you!) are married and settled into a peaceful and fragrant routine, i pay my salt taxes and add some hing and turmeric for good measure. i love tons of turmeric in my potato mix for the vada - after all, the pav should be home to 3 colors - the green of the coriander chutney, the red of the garlic chutney and the bright yellow of the vada.

since the origin of this burger is in maharashtra, i would not go far without some chopped curry leaves and green chilies. within seconds i am ready to fry. now a note on the frying business. i have always shyed away from woks laden with a ton of oil - something about the business of frying makes me feel that i will look 10 pounds heavier the day after. i had assumed this was another kink in my brain. i figured soon that it is not just me, a lot of people equal frying to unhealthy and keep far away from it. as always, there is a science to it and if fried at the right temperature and quickly, most foods do not absorb alarming quantities of oil. In fact, frying can sometimes leave your food light and airy - again, if done right.

making sure that my potato mixture is now cool, i proceed to make little (an inch and a half in diameter) balls of it. meanwhile, i have assembled the batter for the vada's crust - 3 tablespoons of besan and a little bit of water. let's take a minute here to ensure that the batter is just right in consistency. neither too liquid, nor difficult to put a spoon through. there, we're ready!

now normally i would just proceed with the frying, but ahha ha ha, we wait. after checking the seasoning on the batter, i would add a teaspoon of baking powder at this point. yes, i am the crazy lady who bakes as if there is no tomorrow, but this is frying, right? right! baking powder, in any recipe (baked or fried) works with the water in the batter and on the principle of releasing carbon di-oxide into food, thus acting as a leavening agent. human-speak? adding baking powder is going to make your batter light and airy and super crisp, there!

now quickly, using 2 forks, i roll each ball of the potato mixture in the batter - the forks i use, just so that i don't coat my potatoes in too much or too little batter. if this were a dry coating, i would just use a ziplock bag, but wet coating can be slimy and using 2 forks just makes me feel like a super chef (making vada-pav, ha!). making sure that my oil is super hot - you can ensure this by slipping in one drop of the batter right into the oil, if it pops up instantly, your oil is right - start frying the vadas. rest them on layers of kitchen towels, so that you can mop up any oil that has figured out a way to cling to your wada. crisp, deep friend heaven is staring you in the face.

now if you can manage to steal yourself away for a bit, grind together one whole pod of garlic with some roasted coconut and red chilies (that have soaked in warm water for 5 mins). this would be your yummy red garlic chutney. now grind together a bunch of coriander, a few green chillies and add a dash of salt and lemon juice. there you have your fabulous green coriander chutney.

on dry roasted crisp slabs of pav, slather these chutneys to your heart's content, add one (or two!!) vadas and GO!!

here's a picture from our valentines day dinner, of a very unromantic, but super pleasurable meal. oh yeah, the fried green chillies on top are the cherries on a proverbial cake - i would never eat vada pav without them!

baking builds character...

...and don't you doubt that!! when you are baking, all the love and dedication you put into a project is just half of what it takes. i came upon a severe baking crisis yesterday and all it would have taken to botch up the project would have been a moments weakness - one tear down and i would have crumbled. but the past wise words of the then sleeping husband drove me into talking myself right out of utter failure.

the project was not for me, but for sheetal (my friend who's going to be a new mommy soon). and for her alone. i got up, charged ahead with a new plan and was ready with a cake - an hour late, but ready!!

i'm very thankful to sheetal and deepak for letting me bake for their special day and for being so generous with their encouragement and their love. it is difficult to push your limits and to try your boundaries. but it is even more difficult without loving friends and their kind words to even find situations to test yourself with.

little baby on the way: you are blessed with really sweet parents (and smart, if deepak is reading this!), so smile and get ready, for your welcome in this world and your journey with your mum & dad is going to be so super special.

much love,
your flour-covered aunt!

ps: photographs courtesy Sheetal's awesome photographer friend: Bhumika