Soulful Creations

  My friend gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, I think she is a week old now!   This is for my friend who got married recently, well it is going to be their one year anniversary soon. And no, the family in the frame is not THEM!

Every time I have an aha moment about something ingenious that I concoct, I just have to type a few keywords from my concoction and behold...someone has already done it. This recipe today is also borne out of one of those humbling times- agreed I am not the most inventive cook but hey I cannot help it if other people think like I do, only they had done it ages ago! Here is a recipe for an really wonderful pesto with green peas and tuvar lilva (green pigeon peas), adapted from here Ingredients 2 cups frozen peas 1 cup frozen green pigeon peas (tuvar lilva, the skin is still on and that adds taste to the pesto) 2 cloves garlic 3-4 tbsp grated sharp white cheddar a handful of pine nuts, toasted 1 cup basil (roughly chopped) salt and pepper to taste 3 tbsp olive oil 1 tsp chilli-garlic paste. Method Process everything in a blender- I did not stream the olive oil in so the pesto was not all that emulsified. That is all- serve it on your favorite pasta or sandwich- I se...

  Wow, it is amazing how last minute things can get but lucky for me this daring baker's challenge was not only super fun, it was fairly easy (if you discount my 2 tries before this one-and I knew exactly what went wrong both times) and super delicious. The May 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Cat of Little Miss Cupcake . Cat challenged everyone to make a piece montée, or croquembouche, based on recipes from Peter Kump’s Baking School in Manhattan and Nick Malgieri . For Cream Cheese-almond butter filling 1/2 cup softened cream cheese (I uesd whipped cream cheese) 1/2 almond butter 1/4 cup powdered sugar Mix these ingredients well and then fold in 1/3 cup whipped cream . Chill until it is ready to use For Nutella-Whipped cream filling Fold 2/3 cup whipped cream into 1/2 cup Nutella and chill until use For Pate a Choux (Yield: About 14) 1/2 cup all purpose flour 2 large eggs 1/4 cup +2 tbsp water 3 Tbsp Organic unsalted butter 1/8 Tsp salt 1/2 Tbsp s...

after a really long time. I forget what we usually do on Saturdays, when my mom was visiting we used to have some sort of brunch at home (the idli, dosa kind) but then I never made anything when ma was here!   Sour Sindhi kadhi, and I thought it was going to taste like the usual- boy I could not have been more wrong. A beautiful recipe I found here - the only modifications were to the veggies I added. Ingredients 3 tbsp. Gram Flour (Besan) 3/4 cup Red Gram Lentils (Arhair Ki Dal)    3 medium Potatoes (each potato cut in 4 pieces 16 oz bag frozen Cauliflower  1 green pepper, cut into big pieces   3 medium carrots, cut into chunks ½ tsp. Turmeric Powder (Haldi)   Salt (to taste)   2 cups of tamarind (about 1 lemon-size ball of tamaring, pulp extracted)-tomato (2 tomatoes, pulp extracted) water (leftover from when ma made rasam) 2 tbsp. Cooking Oil   3 cups Water For Temepering 1 tsp. Fenugreek Seeds (Methi)   1tsp. Onion Seeds (...

With agate focal piece, for my mom...   with sterling silver heart, also for my mom! Most of these are finds from the Bead bazzar that happened in Marlborough, MA

  perhaps not! This recipe was inspired by the event Global kadai, the theme being Indian burritos. I obviously did not make it on time for the event but my life does not revolve around food events now, does it?! Ingredients 1 cup dried green peas, soaked for a few hours in water 1 green and red pepper, diced into small pieces 1 tsp amchoor 1 tsp garam masala 1 inch ginger 2 small green chillies a pinch turmeric powder salt to taste egg, optional (or any other binding agent you can think of) 2 whole onions, thinly sliced and caramelized with a little bit of brown sugar Method Mince ginger and chop green chillies- make a coarse paste out of ginger and chillies using a mortar and pestle. Pressure cook the dal with some salt and turmeric powder (I let it go for 4-5 whistles).  In a bowl, add the veggies, mashed dal, the coarse ginger-chilli paste, all the spices and salt. Mix until everything is combined well. Now here is where you would add an egg to form a nice cutlet/pa...

  I associate the orange vegetables with fall/autumn, and please do not ask me why- but I know these veggies I have used here love the slightly chilly climates.  What is not to love about soups-easy to make healthy one pot wonders that are easy to digest! You can read more about the history of soups here , quite an interesting read, might I add. So here we go with this recipe Roasted butternut squash- roasted carrot soup Ingredients 1 cup chopped butternut squash (I used the chopped frozen ones) 2 cups carrots, sliced into 2 inch pieces (carrots shrink in the oven, so do not cut them into small pieces) 1 bunch scallion, chopped- keep the white and green parts separate 2 inch piece ginger 1/4 onion, chopped finely 2 tsp dill seeds 2 tsp fennel seeds 1-2 tsp of the versatile chilli-garlic paste juice from half a lemon salt and pepper to taste Method Mix the squash and carrots with 2-3 tbsp of olive oil, salt and pepper. Line them up on a baking sheet and bake in the oven ...

  chutneys galore... Welcome to my world of experimentation- I am sure all of us have at some point made roasted red pepper chutney with peanuts, onions and ginger. That is what the red/orange chutney is on my photograph. The other chutney though was created in utter frustration to make and eat something totally different. Mom says "lets make sambhar and coconut chutney, goes well with idlis" and I go "nah, boring!".  Instead here is what I came up with: Zucchini and sesame seed chutney Ingredients 1 medium-sized zucchini, chopped 1/2 onion, chopped 2 tbsp sesame seeds, toasted/browned in a little bit of oil 1-2 dried red chillies 2 tsp urad dal 2 tsp mustard seeds 1 small piece of tamarind 1 tbsp dried coconut powder salt to taste Oil for cooking Method In a pan, heat about 1tbsp of oil. Once hot, add the mustard seeds, urad dal and red chillies- roast for a few seconds (TEMPERING). Take it off heat and reserve half of it- the rest goes in the blender. In the...