When it is Avocado season, I go mad using avocados in every possible recipe. My dear husband is flabbergasted because the only recipe per him, that does justice to an avocado is Guacamole. Inevitably there is always a batch in the fridge for him, but I need more creative uses for the lovely stone fruit.
With the gazillion cookbook’s I own, it would be a shame to let them collect dust. I do pick up my favorites and rummage through the pages greedily for some ‘flashbulb’ recipes, but the rest of them are read once and relegated to the back shelf. Samar’s book runs the ambiguous path of a cross between ramblings of one’s life and recipes that relate to that phase, scribbled onto pages of a scrummy diary. As he states in the preface to the book – he is a glutton. And if he needed to feed his rambunctious appetite without upsetting the balance at home (his wife is a vegetarian), he had to learn how to cook. Years of living away from home, coupled with hosting innumerable impromptu parties has given him the ammunition to be creative with his cooking techniques. The book is a result of him documenting his attempts to create palatable meals through a blog in the Hindustan Times and a column in the Mint.
Yes, I know what you’re thinking. A recipe for Masala Fried Fish?? I mean, how basic right?! You chuck some chili and turmeric paste and deep fry the fish and it’s done. Fini. Like honestly, why even bother listing it here. But I have, because we make this at home very often and it’s used as a bait to eat the rasam rice. It’s part of the family repertoire of quick fix meals when all we want to do is put our legs up and chill or in most cases, order in some greasy Chinese.
I might have suddenly gone all Jamie Oliver and tried to find recipes that can be made under 15 mins. The slow food movement guys can have their leisurely life, but if I have to lovingly watch over a stew for 24 hrs, I think I might bust a blood vessel. In my defense I do Yoga and Meditation to ‘slow’ down, but all areas of my life are filled with a frenzy of activity. Tiramisu under 15 mins sounds like a bad clickbait title but I’ve tested this multiple times and it’s definitely for real. I’ve obviously not counted the time it sits languishing in the fridge before you serve it, but you need to cut me some slack for that!
This is the cake you make when you have a bounty of Apples from the farm or you have a large number of people around the dinner table and you need a dessert that smells like Christmas. I like making non-fussy desserts – a bowl of ice cream with hot chocolate sauce, a large slice of chocolate cake, a decadent brownie or a fruit bowl with custard. This is not to say I don’t like a frilly mielle fuielle, or a triple layered cheesecake – it’s just that I don’t have the skill or the patience to attempt it. When I need to serve a fancy dessert, I just buy it from a patisserie and that’s that. Why mess with the experts, no?
Yes, I’ve been lazy again. But it was the lazy people that invented the wheel and the bicycle because they didn’t like walking or carrying things (Lech Walesa). In my case, as established before, I hate kneading bread. I probably need the arm exercise but it just bores me to pound around a ball of dough. Maybe some people use it as a form of stress relief, but I can think of more creative options to gain back my sanity. So it’s not very surprising that I’m always on the hunt for things that say no-knead. If there’s no need to knead (ha ha ha), I’m in!
I have a weakness for Potatoes. So much so, that I think it’s my favorite vegetable in the whole world. I remember coming across a meme on the Internet that echoes my sentiments – “Potatoes can be used to make Fries…and Vodka. Other vegetables – please get your act together!’. There’s nothing that gives me greater joy than a bucket full of golden, salty fries or a bowlful of creamy Potato Salad, even a simple Aloo Jeera will lift my spirts up!
The FoodPorn Diaries 