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 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 | Jul 11, 2012 | Nandini's Food Court
Last weekend, I was at this brunch place in Montclair, New Jersey- Absolutely fabulous and I was thrilled to see their Vegan and Vegetarian selections on the menu.
After pondering over an extensive menu:) and the indecisive person that I am esp when it comes to food- I decided to try their Vegetarian Chickpea burger with baked Sweet Potato Fries. I must tell you this that during my stay at Double Tree in L A prior to filming Master Chef, I happened to order their Vegetarian burger made of chickpeas and it was falling apart/ crumbling to say the least and dry!!!!
This one that I tried at Montclair was phenomenal!!!! Moist, crisp, dense and came with onion, tomato, sprouts:) and pickle!
OK now, I was also thinking of coming up with a bunch of dishes with Tempeh and have been experimenting in my kitchen. Suddenly, after we finish brunch, I run across the street to WHOLE FOODS and my husband thinks I have lost it as always 🙂 I grab an organic slab of 5 GRAIN TEMPEH. Now many of you may wonder what TEMPEH is?
TEMPEH is made of natural culturing process with organic grains like soybeans, brown rice, millet, barley, rye, apple cider vinegar and tempeh culture (typically Rhisopus oligosporus)LOL (thats my inner Microbiologist speaking out). It is low in calories and a great substitute to meat due to its HIGH PROTEIN content. Tempeh originated in Indonesia and has a distinctive nutty taste and nougat-like textured.
The thing about TEMPEH I have learnt over the past few months is that it easily absorbs the flavors of the other foods with which it is cooked making it adaptable to many types of dishes. I tried substituting TEMPEH with the Indian Cottage Cheese that I use in my traditional Curry and it turned out delicious!!!
According to my research- the soy protein in tempeh tends to lower cholesterol levels, while consuming protein from animal sources tends to raise them, since they also include saturated fat and cholesterol.
I can go on and on about health benefits and effect of TEMPEH on cholesterol ………After 3 days of trips to the park with kids, I decided to take a break today and cook up something with the Tempeh that I had picked at Whole Foods. I decide to make an awesome burger with TEMPEH. I love beets and so decided to use a beet sauce and bake some squash chips to go with my burger. The key is to season my tempeh with a bunch of my toasted spices and to use a binding agent !! The binding agent that I used in this case was CHICK PEAS and it turned out beautiful. I could use potatoes but chose to give Chick peas a shot! I use olive oil and use fresh GRAY SQUASH from my Farmers Market to bake some chips to go with my TEMPEH burger:)
by Currylicious | May 25, 2012 | Nandini's Food Court
Its been raining and I feel like making a hot bowl of my spicy currylicious tomato soup but with a twist as always! LENTILS:) yes, I add some lentils to my tomato soup. The room fills up with flavor and fragrance of the spices that I add to it which makes it spicy as well. It’s Currylicious and healthy on a rainy day like today and the best for stuffy congested sinuses! Check out the recipe in my recipe section!
by Currylicious | May 25, 2012 | Recipes
Ingredients
4 ripe tomatoes
4 cloves of garlic
An inch piece of fresh ginger
Few fresh black peppercorns
Coriander leaves
Cumin seeds, a pinch
Pinch of turmeric
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp coriander powder
1/4 cup yellow lentils
Juice of 1 lemon
Canola oil
Preparation
Chop tomatoes, garlic and ginger.
Boil 1/2 a crockpot of water, add all the spices, then tomatoes, garlic and ginger. Let them cook for about 5 to 10 min s.
Transfer tomatoes, ginger garlic mixture into a blender and blend well.
Meantime cook your lentils and either use a hand blender or a whisk to break down the lentils to a smooth consistency. Add the lentils onto the blended tomato mixture.
Now grind the peppercorns and transfer them as well.
Finally take a small pan and add some oil, add cumin seeds, mustard seeds and wait till seeds splutter.
Now transfer this to the tomato lentil mixture. Garnish with coriander leaves. Smells and tastes Currylicious! Enjoy!
