All posts tagged: Vegetarian

Cinnamon Sugar Muffins

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Some things in life are simple. 1+1=2, beach + margarita = holiday and cinnamon + sugar = awesomeness! When I chanced upon this recipe, I was skeptical. The ingredient list was small. The process was easy. And the final product seemed very basic. But the more I kept thinking about the muffin that’s going to be coated with cinnamon sugar, the more I wanted to make it. The story goes back a couple of years – in a mall in Bangkok. (It’s nothing like the Hangover II, so get your mind out of the gutter!). Now BKK is a shopper’s paradise. I landed and checked myself into a hotel which was bang opposite one their biggest malls – yes, I had my priorities in order! The city is hot as hell, so it’s very thoughtful of the government to connect malls to other malls via air-conditioned pathways. The end result being, you feel you are in the biggest mall on the planet! My daily routine consisted of getting up early, grabbing a quick brekkie at …

Strawberries and Banana Breakfast Smoothie

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My fridge is filled with boxes and boxes of Strawberries. Yes, tis the season to be jolly …again! I’ve raved about my strawberry love many times before so you already know I’m crazy about the little suckers. And I always stock up whenever they come around. Apart from eating them dunked in hot chocolate fudge or enjoying them with the traditional fresh cream I also like to make a mean smoothie out of it. Besides, I just bought a nice Morphy Richards blender this month … so I need to puree and blend! I call this my breakfast smoothie because it gives me the necessary kick to start the day. Yes, I need a kick… I am NOT a morning person. Come to think of it, I’m not a night owl either. I’m a nine-to-fiver! Unfortunately those kinds of jobs are hard to come by and even if they do, it will involve sucking up to someone in a government office! Now that I’m done ranting about the lack of optimal timed employment, I come …

Penne a La Vodka

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Featured on Foodgawker.com and Tastespotting.com on 24th Jan 2013 Featured on The Berry on 26th Feb 2013 I’m still detoxing after the excesses of December, but this dish needed to get made! I just got assigned an additional role at work and to add to that, we have a new boss. Changes, changes, changes – how I hate them! (Especially, when I’m not the one making them!) Since I’d sworn off alcohol atleast for a month (part of the detox plan), I needed to find an alternative. (And No, I can’t make the ‘special’ brownies). So I gave myself and my frazzled nerves some loving, in the form of Penne a la Vodka. It doesn’t count as cheating because technically, the alcohol content is supposed to burn off when you deglaze the pan with it. (It’s another story that when you’re off alcohol, even a whiff of it can send you into a happy place). Anyway, this is a classic recipe and loved the world over. It’s sophisticated enough to serve at a dinner party …

Cannellini Bean Dip

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Featured in Tastespotting.com on 5th Dec 2012 Featured in Foodgawker.com on 5th Dec 2012 If you ever get bored of eating hummus (highly unlikely) this dip will easily fill the void. And ‘easily’ is the key word here. It takes all of 5 mins to whip this up and you can flaunt it around in your guest’s faces as some exotic dish. Unless of course, the guest happens to be my Mom. In that case, the story will differ. She will just take a whiff of it and declare with uber confidence that – ‘it’s just a form of Rajma… white in this case’ – chapter closed. All tales of how you bought it from GNB and paid 150 rupees for a 400gm can will vanish from memory because you don’t want to be cut down to size! The next debate will clearly be on why I eat such ‘processed’ food when I can just head down to the market in the morning and pick up some fresh organic stuff. And the final closing argument …

Roasted Pumpkin Soup with Chili Maple Croutons

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Now don’t be babies and skip this post because it’s got ‘kaddu/ kumbalkayi’ as the star ingredient. I know I ran a mile when my mom made pumpkin playa when I was a kid. There was so much drama about not eating it, that my mom finally relented and stopped making it for many years. But I guess I was always a hypocrite when it came to pumpkins. There’s a special halwa (sweet) called ‘Kashi Halwa’, that’s made out of pumpkins for our wedding ceremonies. I used to wait patiently furiously tapping my banana leaf for the waiter to serve us the halwa. I would quickly devour it before he finished serving the rest of the table and act like he missed serving me. The look on the waiter’s face was priceless!  But topping that look was mine, when my mom finally told me that the halwa was made out of pumpkin! Evil evil woman! After that I had to make my peace with the pumpkin. (If only to avoid the dichotomy while eating the …

Pasta with Roasted Vegetables

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Featured in Foodgawker.com on 16th Oct 2012 Featured in Tastespotting.com on 21st Oct 2012 No matter how good my refrigerator is, I can’t store things forever. Especially fruits and vegetables. I don’t have the luxury of taking a lovely evening stroll to source my produce everyday, like the friendly aunty who lives across the street from me. I go to a hypermarket close by and bundle everything I can into the car and lug it home once a week. I know the hypermarket claims the produce is super fresh and challenges anyone to claim otherwise. But everyone knows that even the supposedly ‘fresh’ produce in supermarkets is already stashed in cold storage for weeks to help transport it intact. Now is this a rant on the troubles of city living or the hypocrisy of large corporations? No. I just have a rule that once I buy something perishable from the market, I need to finish it within a week. In a perfect world, I would have planned the menu for the week in advance. I …

Hassleback Potatoes with Garlic and Sour Cream

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Featured in Tastespotting.com on 12th Oct 2012 I’ll admit the only reason I made this is because it looks so cool. Like an armadillo or a fat fan or an accordion. A restaurant in Stockholm invented these and hence they took on the moniker of the restaurant. (The restaurant was called Hasslebacken!). I like fancy looking food, but I don’t really have the patience to make it look fancy. That’s why I’m always envious of pastry chefs. How many hours of practice and restraint does rolling out a perfect sugared rose take?! When you look at a hassleback potato you’re thinking it involves a fair bit of work. Well, it involves some work, but nothing more than slicing and stuffing. On a day when the whole of Bangalore was cooped indoors because of the bandh – I figured I might as well give it a go. The final product is a potato that is crisp on the outside and soft in the middle. Almost like soft crisps. (Oxymoron, I know!). Also since it’s mostly served …

Veggie Chic Menu at Caperberry, Bangalore

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I like my chicken and my bacon and my pork and mutton and prawns and …you get the drift. So when I excitedly signed up for the Veggie Chic menu created by Chef Abhijit Saha of Caperberry, many eyebrows were raised. Is she turning vegetarian? Is she just coming there to mock us with terms like Ghas Phoos? And finally has she not read the menu? My answer to all the dear veggies – I just thought the Veggie menu looked exciting and why should I pass up an opportunity to be entertained by a culinary genius just because the menu didn’t have anything that walks, swims or clucks! Now that we have resolved the mystery of my presence at the dinner, let’s move on to important bits – the restaurant and the food! Caperberry means provocation of desire in Hebrew. It’s also really a berry as well – green and tart… but the earlier definition is more in tune with what the restaurant wants to achieve. Caperberry is located at the Tanishq building on …