Mirchi Vada Recipe | Mirchi Pakora Recipe | Chili Fritters

You can call it Mirchi Vada or Mirchi Bhajji or Mirchi ke Pakore, or Mirchi Bhajiya, or Bharwan Mirchi ka Pakora, or Chili Cutlet, or Chili Fritters, or Stuffed Chili Pakora, or there are probably 20 other names for this.

These are spicy chilies stuffed with a spicy potato mixture, dipped in chickpea flour batter and deep-fried...this snack is for those who can handle the spice on their tongue and the smoke out of their ears.

Beetroot and Peanut Salad Recipe | Easy Simple Salad Recipes

It is rare for me to spend time preparing a salad when I'm already spending time cooking 3-4 other items for a meal.  It is very easy for someone like my mom to serve a salad along with an already elaborate meal.  And looking at how she makes salad-making pretty easy (here is my mom's amazing Strawberry and Mango Salad recipe), here's another salad that she makes, that I like, that is so simple, that I want to share: Beetroot and Peanut Salad

Carom Seed Crackers Recipe | Ajwain Biscuit Recipe | Eggless Baking

What British call as scones and what Americans call those soft, fluffy breads that they can eat with soups and stews as biscuits are different from what people in India, for example, call the crunchy and sweet or salty crackers as biscuits.  The sweet biscuits can't be called cookies (for those who know Indian brands--think Parle G biscuits or Britannia biscuits!).  Crunchy biscuits and other 'namkeen' snacks make a great accompaniment to the Indian Chai.  These flavorful and savory carom seed biscuits (aka ajwain biscuits) do too.

Lapsi Chawal Kadhi Recipe | Rajasthani Cuisine

Another popular but still not the worldwide-popular dish in Rajasthani cuisine is Lapsi.  And just like how the Dal Bati Churma goes together, or there's the Dal Chawal Khatta combo -- this one is a Lapsi Chawal Kadhi combination:

Lapsi is sweet, made with broken wheat.
Kadhi is sour and savory, spiced and flavory.
Chawal is plain rice, versatile and nice.

Colorful Mixed Salad

I have eaten a lot of dishes from the Apple headquarter's cafeteria in Cupertino, California.  From their pizzas to pastas, from their healthy juices to mango lassis, from their Indian food to Mexican quesadillas.  But of all their foods, my favorite is their mixed salad.  You can choose the ingredients and dressings to build your salad, and if you choose it well - you can enjoy a crunch-a crisp-a soft-a sweet-a tangy and a lot of flavors and textures in each bite.

I do not try to recreate their salads when I make salads at home now, but the way I make salads has changed.

Quick Vegetable Pulao Recipe

Ever since I started handling my twins on my own, my workload for cooking and cleaning has increased multi-fold.  So I’m trying to prep a little faster, make things a little simpler, and cook a little quicker these days.  While two years back I used to do a lot of things from scratch and use individual whole spices and follow all the detailing, it has changed quite a bit now.  So when I made this quick vegetable pulao one day – instead of adding black peppercorns, cardamom pods, bay leaves, and all those whole spices for pulao – I added some garam masala powder that is made of the similar spices that go in pulao.  Taste was not entirely compromised upon, just prepping and cooking time was.

The day I prepared dinner for my family - for the first time

It had been a month and half since I came to Bangkok and had not cooked anything special for my family except baking cakes a couple of times.  So yesterday I cooked the entire dinner from appetizer to dessert for my family for the first time.  I had major butterflies in my stomach if they'd like my food as much as others always did, but the dinner turned out great.

Moong Dal ki Kurkuri Poori Recipe | Korma ki Poori Recipe | Tea Time Snack Recipes

She deep-fried them one at a time in a small kadhai and told me it's called Korma ki Poori.

"Why is it called Korma ki Puri?" I asked.  "What's the korma in this?"

Aate ka Sattu Recipe | Marwari Badi Teej Festival

Sattu is a sweet that's spread and set in a plate specially for the Marwari Badi Teej festival, but it's a sweet that you can make anytime of the year in the form of laddoo or barfi.  I had mentioned in an earlier post that Sattu for Teej can be made from roasted gram dal (phutani dal aka dalia: phutani dal ka sattu), rice flour (chawal ka aata), chickpea flour (besan), and whole wheat flour (gehun ka aata).  This post shows you real quick how to make a simple whole wheat flour sattu (aate ka saatu).

Three ingredients are all you need!

Crater Chocolate Cake | Eggless Baking

Molten chocolate cakes or Chocolate lava cakes are very popular.  When you cut into one, the chocolate "lava" magically flows out.  So you basically have a chocolate cake that you can eat with the rich, saucy chocolate "lava" which is like a chocolate pudding, or a chocolate sauce.  This Crater Chocolate Cake is NOT the Chocolate Lava Cake.

Sweet, Sour, and Spicy Mango and Strawberry Salad Recipe

When my mom came to stay with us after my delivery to help us with our babies, she also cooked a full meal for lunch and dinner so we could eat healthy and fresh food every day.  The full meal basically consisted of roti, curry, rice, dal, and salad, and once in a while there were desserts.  She made several kinds of salads and the best part was that there were no fancy salad dressings needed.

One such salad was this simple, delicious, sweet sour and spicy Mango and Strawberry Salad.

Easy Eggless No-Bake Blueberry Cheesecake Recipe | Eggless Dessert Recipe Ideas

There are three parts to making an eggless no-bake blueberry cheesecake:

1. Base / Bottom Crust Layer

To make the base crust for cheesecake, you can use graham crackers, digestive biscuits, Nilla wafers, Oreo cookie biscuits, or any such biscuits that can be crushed to a texture that feels like sand.  You can easily make graham crackers at home with this recipe.

Healthy Homemade Mango Roll-ups and Oven-dried Tomatoes

Call it mango leather, mango fruit roll-ups, mango cigar rolls, or oven-dried mango strips - it's the same thing.

Call it sun-dried tomatoes, oven-dried tomatoes, or dehydrated tomatoes - it's the same thing.

What would take 3-4 days under the sun for their water content to evaporate and dry out will take only 3-4 hours in the oven (the trade-off is smaller quantity).  And since making one or the other in an oven required 4 hours of electricity, I just made the mango roll-ups and oven-dried tomatoes simultaneously.

Singhare (Water Chestnut) ki Poori and Arbi (Taro Root Vegetable) ki Sabzi Recipe

After my marriage I was at my in-laws’ place for a month before coming to US.  During my stay there was some festival or some religious fasting day that occurred, I cannot recall which one.  But I very clearly remember when my mother-in-law prepared Singhare ki Poori and Arbi ki Sabzi for lunch that day and served me, after asking for two servings I was so embarrassed to ask for more even though my tongue and tummy screamed for more.  It was the first time I was eating those dishes, that combination, and it became my instant favorite.

Simple Chocolate Bark Recipe

Here's another recipe without quantities that I will share today.  Because let's face it - just how many teaspoons and tablespoons and cup measurements in different recipes can you remember?  But a basic idea - you will always remember whether or not you have the tools to measure.

Here's a simple recipe to make Chocolate Bark in which once you understand how to melt the chocolate the correct way - adding flavors or nut toppings or all other variations are absolutely up to you.

Tilli Phalli ke Karele Recipe | Bitter Gourd in Sesame and Peanut Gravy Recipe

My mother-in-law makes very good karele (bitter gourd) ki sabzi, in both dry and gravy form.  This recipe of karele ki sabzi made in a delicious sesame and peanut gravy made by her tastes great and you can’t even tell any bitterness of the bitter gourd.  (Boohoo, bitter gourd!)

Gond ke Laddoo Recipe | Edible Gum Laddu

Gond is called edible gum in English. Gond provides heat to the body, so food items (for example, laddoo, panjiri, chikki, etc) made with gond are great to eat during winters.  The heat in gond is said to help lactating mothers produce more milk, so gond ke laddoo made with other nutritious ingredients are excellent for new mothers after delivery.

Ker Sangri Sabzi Recipe | Rajasthani Cuisine

Ker Sangri ki sabzi is a very popular dish from Rajasthan.  Ker (the small balls) are the sour berries and Sangri (the sticks) are the beans.  These unique variety of berries and beans grow on trees in places as dry as Rajasthan.  The green ker berries and sangri beans are dried until they shrink and turn a dark brown, almost black color.

Corn Capsicum and Cheese Toast Recipe

On days when husband surprisingly returns home from work earlier than usual and the preparation for dinner has not even begun and he is hungry and there are no leftovers from the day before or the day....

It's a situation that calls for a quick fix.  Let's hurry up and look in the refrigerator.

Aate aur Badam ke Laddoo (Whole Wheat Flour and Almond Ladoo) Recipe

When my mother-in-law came to visit us, she made some really yummy aate ka laddu and made them wholesome by adding almonds.  These wheat and almond laddu were so appetizing, I loved eating them every little while especially with a savory mixture or bhujia.  Sweet ladoo paired with savory/spicy mixture had become my favorite snack to munch on all day.