by Currylicious | Mar 7, 2013 | BLOG
I have been postponing this post now for a long time simply because I wanted to sit down and write about this wonderful cooking experience with a 10 year old girl, Anaya.
Anaya is such a sweet, brilliant, creative 10 year old who loves to cook. On her 10 th birthday, her mom Shruti decided to host a birthday party where Cooking was the theme. Anaya was thrilled with her mom s idea and decided that she wanted to throw a party by cooking a meal for a bunch of her close friends at her home.
Shruti had found me on Facebook through one of our common friends and decided to call me to help Anaya prepare this wonderful meal for her friends. I was super excited, immediately got working on what Anaya and her friends liked to eat and what they didn’t care too much for and so forth.
I exchanged a couple of emails with Shruti, Anaya s mom who in turn checked with her daughter to see if all of us were in agreement:)
So here goes the menu:
For Appetizers, we decided to make
Paneer or Indian Cottage Cheese Quesadillas.
For the dip, we made fresh Guacamole with Onions and tomatoes and a hint of lemon juice!yum!
For Main course,
Penne pasta with broccoli and peppers in a Pink sauce.
Shruti also mentioned that Anaya loved mangoes so I decided to whip up a
Mango Smoothie with a wedge of strawberry!
We took about 2 hours to prepare everything. Anaya wore her apron and chef hat and looked like a Junior Master Chef:) in the kitchen. She loved to chop and sauté and mix and did such a wonderful job.
I am pretty sure she will be a great food critic when she grows up as she aspires to be one:)
What can I say? Anaya was thrilled to serve her friends with all the food that we cooked together and the kids simply loved it and were so appreciative.
I must certainly commend her mom of being so supportive and giving me and Anaya an opportunity as wonderful as this that I will treasure lifelong:)))
Thanks Shruti and Anaya for a great cooking experience in your wonderful home.
by Currylicious | Mar 2, 2013 | BLOG
Benjamin and Rebecca are this wonderful sweet couple who got in touch with me since they had received a gift certificate for a Private Cooking Class with Curryliciousme from Ben’s parents. As always, I exchanged a couple of emails to get to know their preferences- what actually were their favorites and what they did not care for much. After a few exchange of emails, I gathered that Becca was in Hyderabad, India for a few months for studies and that they both loved Indian food!!!
I cannot tell you how adventurous the both of them are! So we came up with a menu – an authentic Indian menu with an appetizer, Kadai paneer, Peas Pilaf and Dal/ Lentil Soup for main course and a sweet vermicelli pudding with raisins and cardamom(sweet heaven!)
They arrived at 1:30pm as we had discussed. We introduced ourselves and I made sure they were comfortable and felt at home:) I had everything ready and organized including the recipes printed out, all the ingredients measured out for ease and pots and pans for them to cook, Chef knives, chopping boards and so forth. Before every cooking class, I always like to see what each person is comfortable doing and assign them tasks accordingly. The main goal here is not to freak them out but for them to enjoy the complete experience and have fun with it. I am a happy girl if I hear from them a week later that they recreated something and came out awesome.
That is the confidence I want to give them and a wonderful fun cooking experience that does not frighten one to take risks and try new food!
Becca wanted to do the appetizer round so we let her be in charge of that and she did an excellent job. We made a chickpea salad with grated coconut, cumin and cilantro.
Then Ben was interested in making the Kadai Paneer so he started chopping some onions, tomatoes, garlic, ginger and bell peppers. Me and Becca started working on the lentils on the side. It was so much fun. Just peeking at what each one’s doing, chatting, laughing, sharing experiences, food stories:)))
The reason we always start lentils early is since they take a long time to cook. So we toasted the lentils with a bunch of spices, ginger, garlic, onion and tomatoes and added water and let it cook covered for sometime stirring intermittently.
By then Ben had started to work on the Kadai Paneer. He had a hot pan of oil with some cumin, garam masala, lemon pepper, garlic powder, cayenne along with chopped onions, green chili, onions and tomatoes. Once that was cooked Ben transferred it to a blender and put it aside. Then Becca started chopping the Indian Cottage Cheese or Paneer into cubes and tossed them in butter to get all the sides browned up a little. Ben loved to crush some fresh coriander seeds in a mortar and pestle:) Then we added some oil on another heated pan, added some more chopped onions, bell peppers and tomatoes and let them cook the crushed coriander seeds and some dried fenugreek leaves.
We added the brown paneer cubes to the pan and transferred the blended mixture as well and let it cook for few minutes. We added salt as per taste and they simply loved it!!!! By then, the dal was ready as well.
We also cooked some hot peas pilaf in my traditional cooker that my mom had passed over to me from India. Ben and Becca were very excited to cook in a traditional cooker and Ben almost was surprised to hear the whistle that the cooker made!!! I had given them some taster samples of the hot peas pilaf with kadai paneer and dal and they enjoyed every bite of it. I also packed them “dibbas” or boxes with all the food they made:) so they can have it for dinner later today evening.
For dessert we also made a pudding with vermicelli, clarified butter, raisins and cardamom. I hope they enjoyed it!!!
Looking forward to many more cooking experiences with wonderful people like Ben and Becca….. and they have promised to be back soon:)
Much love as always…………………………
by Currylicious | Feb 8, 2013 | Recipes
Its been snowing all day, and I never complain since those are the days I spend some quality time with my husband and kids. I think the snow storm compels everyone to be bound home for safety, roads get nasty also so we all rather stay home safely unless it is something really important!!!
What a nice compelling way to bond with family? LOL! Today is such a day- my husband ended up working from home and he ‘s always attending calls and in meetings all day long. I decided to start the day late with brunch. So the menu was Homemade Waffles with Strawberries and syrup with powdered sugar dusting like the snow!!!! Then I made my husband’s favorite masala scrambled eggs with toast.
We watched a movie together and now its dinner time! I decided to recreate the Guacamole that is served with tortilla chips at California Pizza Kitchen under the Short eats menu for 5$. I have to be honest- I simply love it and am left craving for moreeeeeeeeeeeee.
I checked my refrigerator and had all the ingredients to recreate the recipe and the will, ofcourse:) so decided to go for it!
Ingredients
Avocado-1
Jicama- 1/2
Red/ Orange Bell Pepper-1/2
Black beans- 1/4 cup
Onion-1/2
Jalapeno-1
Sweet Corn- 1/2 cup
Lemon Pepper- 1/2 tsp
Garlic powder-1/2 tsp
Cumin powder-1/2 tsp
Lemon-1/2
Black pepper coarsely ground powder- 1/4 tsp
Cilantro leaves for garnish
Preparation:
I start by dicing Onion, Jicama, Bell pepper finely. I use frozen sweet corn, so I let water boil and thaw it by letting it sit in the boiling water for about 5 minutes or so. After 5 min’s, transfer the corn to a bowl of cold water. Then I take a bowl, peel the avocado skin, take all the avocado pulp and transfer in the bowl. I add all the spices, salt to taste and mix it as I mash the avocado well to incorporate all the ingredients together. Then I squeeze half a lemon and mix the lemon juice with mashed avocado. Add diced onions, jicama, bell pepper, jalapeno. Mix well. Transfer the corn and black beans at this point. Mix again and garnish with cilantro leaves. Enjoy!
Let me know if you liked this recipe.
Thanks and as always with much love from my kitchen to yours……
by Currylicious | Feb 4, 2013 | BLOG
I know that everyone was excited about the Superbowl yesterday and today is of course the discussion day about last evening ‘s game!
Well, I had an interesting time yesterday evening not watching the Superbowl but cooking for a group of wonderful people who got together to watch the game.
Debbie had called me a few days back and left me a message saying it was last minute and that she was planning on having me cook some delicious appetizers for game night. She wanted to see if I was available to cook for a bunch of her friends who were gathering at her place to watch the Superbowl yesterday evening. When I called Debbie, I was so thrilled to know that she and her girl friends were going on a trip to India and so she wanted me to make some Indian Appetizers so they can enjoy them while watching the game. So we came up with a Menu Plan and I promised to get her place at 5:30 pm with all the ingredients and grocery.
I shopped all morning yesterday, getting prepared for the evening’s cook off. I was very excited and reached Debbie’s place at 5:30pm. Words simply cannot describe how nice she and her husband are, and the beautiful house they have. They were such wonderful hosts and made me feel so welcome and at home. The kitchen was spectacular and Debbie was so kind to get me whatever I needed- like pots and pans and bowls and spoons. One by one, the guests started arriving. I started organizing and prepping. There were about 14 people altogether and a bunch of 7 beautiful girls who hung out with me in the kitchen chatting and asking me about India and the food.
The menu that we planned was:
Chickpea Salad with grated coconut, cumin and cilantro
Cocktail Papads with Onion tomato cilantro and chat masala
Crostini topped with baked eggplant
Bite sized Quesadillas with an Indian twist
I must say that as I put forth every single dish- everyone was so appreciative and gave me feedback on each dish. When you work with such a group of people, who tell you exactly what they liked about the dish and want to know about what goes in their food, there is nothing more rewarding than that.
My guess is they liked the Crostini with the baked eggplant the most:) I leave it to them to comment:) if I am right.
The evening was perfect and I enjoyed cooking for such a warm, welcoming beautiful group of people. I look forward to going back there like Debbie mentioned to cook some dinner parties for her in future.
I wish them a WONDERFUL, SAFE, ENJOYABLE TRIP TO INDIA!
With much love….
by Currylicious | Jan 30, 2013 | BLOG
I have not been writing much and the reason being it was my 5 year old’s birthday. She wanted a cup cake party and so I decided to take some time out to plan the event. I wanted the kids to have fun, get messy but also wanted to get creative with the idea.
I decided to order aprons for all the kids and got some foam stickers so they could first decorate their aprons. Once I had the final count, I even wrote each of their names, so it would be fun for them to find their spots and aprons:)
I rented two long tables and a few chairs. My 5 yr old loves Princesses! So I managed to get her Princess table cloths, Princess cups for the cup cakes, Princess Cup Cake stand and list is endless.
I baked cup cakes for all the kids, and filled some bottles with frosting. I got Pink, Yellow, Chocolate frosting for all the kids. I went and got some teeny weeny M&M s, sprinkles, decorations. I got some Tiara candies to top off each cup cake that the girls decorated and some cup cake shaped candy toppers for the boys.
I got colorful bags for party favors and some cupcake shaped stickers and fruit snacks for all the kids plus they were allowed to take each of their aprons that they had decorated.
The party began, the kids came rushing in found their spots and seats based on the names written on the aprons. They first decorated the aprons with stickers, then wore their aprons. Then I gave them each a cup cake that I had baked at home and handed them their favorite color frosting bottle. They needed a bit of a help squeezing the frosting out of those bottles. Thankfully, I had a few moms who were excited to help so it worked out great,
Finally I had all the cupcake decorations in small paper cups for each of them, so noone complained and everyone got messy and completely enjoyed decorating their cup cakes.
We also managed to get a wonderful click with the kids showing their decorated cupcakes before eating them up:) The fun doesnt end there. My 5 year old suddenly the day before her party wanted a BARBIE CAKE! I wanted to order one from the bakery but wasnt prepared to pay through my nose for a barbie cake:(
So- I DECIDED TO DO IT!!!! I must admit, it wasnt easy but it wasnt that hard too. All you needed was to bake 3 differently sized round cakes, trim off their surfaces to get a smooth surface, make a hole in the middle using a cookie cutter so you can insert the doll through it. Finally, smother it with your favorite frosting.
TIP: I coated it with a layer of frosting and placed it in the refrigerator for an hour for it to set before coating it with the second layer of frosting.
Insert the Barbie once you are done with the second layer of frosting and fill any empty spaces with frosting. I also wrapped the Barbie’s body tightly with cling wrap so I can do some decoration over it as well.
I then decorated the Barbie cake with small candied flowers on her so called gown! It was a lot of work but so worth it!!!! The kids were thrilled and wanted a bite of the Barbie Cake as well-(am sure they were high on sugar by the end of it)
They had so much fun and each of them got to take away their aprons home for future use as helpers in the kitchen!
I cant wait to plan the next event/ party!
