Cooking with 10 year old Anaya on her Birthday

Cooking with 10 year old Anaya on her Birthday

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

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.

Cooking with 10 year old Anaya on her Birthday

Cooking with 10 year old Anaya on her Birthday

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

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.

Creamy Cottage Cheese Curry prepared in a wok

Creamy Cottage Cheese Curry prepared in a wok

I want to start by introducing all of you to what a “Kadai” is? Kadai in India means a wok:) I prepare this awesome “currylicious” cottage cheese dish in a wok tossed with colored bell peppers, onions and tomatoes. I throw in a bunch of spices that the flavors and smell travel to my neighbours and they say “not again, Nandini- We smell another curry in the making. Are we invited”?

I just feel very generous today 🙂 and would love to share this recipe with all of you. I bet you will fall in love with this currylicious dish!!!

Recipe: Creamy Cottage Cheese prepared in a Wok

Recipe: Creamy Cottage Cheese prepared in a Wok

Ingredients

1 Onion

1 Green Chilli

1/2 Green bell pepper

1/2 Red bell pepper

3 cloves of garlic

1 inch piece of fresh ginger/ 1 tsp ginger powder

1 Tomato

Indian Cottage Cheese

Canola Oil

1/2 tsp butter

Spices:

1 tsp cumin seeds

1 tsp coriander powder

1 tsp turmeric powder

1 tsp cayenne powder

1 tsp coriander seeds

2 tsp dried fenugreek leaves

Preparation:

1) Chop onion, bell peppers, ginger and garlic roughly.

2) Grind onions, green chilli, garlic and ginger together.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3) Heat a pan with oil. Add cumin seeds, turmeric,

cayenne, coriander powder and salt to taste.

4) Transfer the ground onion-chilli-garlic-ginger mixture

to the above pan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5) Mix so that the spices blend with the

mixture and cook for 3 minutes.

6) Puree the fresh tomato

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7) Transfer the tomato puree to the pan.

8) Mix and cook for another 3-4 minutes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

9) Using mortar and pestle, grind the

fresh coriander seeds.

10) Transfer the ground coriander seeds to the

pan and mix with the peppers and onions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

11) Now is the time add my favorite Indian herb,

dried fenugreek leaves!

12) Using the palm of your hand, crush the leaves

and add it to the pan and mix well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

13) Now carefully transfer the mixture of onions, peppers,

crushed coriander seeds and fenugreek leaves onto the pan

that has the previously cooked onion tomato paste mixture.

14) Mix everything together gently.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

15) Now cut the cottage cheese into medium

sized cubes

16) Take another pan. Now this is the only time I would ask you to use the 1/2 teaspoon butter. Trust me!

Follow my recipe and you can prepare restaurant quality curry at home 🙂

Add the butter and toss the cubed cottage cheese till they turn brown.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

17) TIME TO PLATEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!