Hint of Saffron — Tasty Cuisines with Indian Spices

Eggplant Pate

April 28th, 2010 · Appetizer, Gluten-free, Vegan

When I started making this recipe, I wanted to make a traditional spicy eggplant dish that you find in Indian restaurants. As I was about to start cooking, I realized that I did not have tomatoes since I had used that to make a spicy split pea lentil recipe that turned out really tasty. Then I realized I was missing another key ingredient, Paneer (Indian Cheese). At this point I was too lazy to go out to the store to pick those items. I had to think fast as to what I was going to make for the blog and dinner. My daughter was starting to get impatient and she shouts “Dad, I am hungry! Is the food ready yet”. Ah, the pressure between trying to come up with a recipe when I do not have all the ingredients and a hungry little girl. Think, Think, Think.

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→ 5 CommentsTags: Appetizer · Gluten-free · Vegan

Lassi (Indian Yogurt Drink)

April 22nd, 2010 · Beverage, Gluten-free

It has been more than a month since I posted a recipe. Life has been hectic since the last couple of months while our house was on the market. I could not cook much at all. I really missed cooking and posting recipes every week. Now that we are settled nicely in our new place, I am much more relaxed and will start to post recipes every week. I will start off by posting two recipes of a drink from India called Lassi. It is a drink made with yogurt and cardamom or roasted and ground cumin. It can be made in various ways but one of my favorite ways is the traditional way and one with Mango (that is popular in Indian restaurants).

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→ 6 CommentsTags: Beverage · Gluten-free

Shrikhand (Traditional Indian Yogurt Dessert)

March 11th, 2010 · Dessert, Gluten-free

In case you were wondering why I have disappeared from the blogosphere and have not added any new recipes for a little more than a month, here is the scoop: We decided to sell our house. As part of that, there was a lot of preparation that had to be done – cleaning the house, finding the broker, the paperwork and did I say keeping the house clean. Finally our house is on the market and it has been a few weeks since it went on sale. It’s really a chore to keep the house clean – we have to clean it up the previous night so that the mornings are easier on everyone. Also, I have to make sure I do not cook food that will spread the aroma or smell of the food around the house, depending on how you look at it. If I do cook with spices, I make sure I air the house out to get the aroma or smell out by morning! Anyway, long story short, now that we have got the routine down pat, I decided to start cooking again. So now I will “try” posting the recipes every Thursday again until we move the first week of April to a new place.

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→ 4 CommentsTags: Dessert · Gluten-free

Palak Paneer (Spinach with Indian Cheese)

February 3rd, 2010 · Entree, Vegetarian

In case you were wondering what happened to me, especially, since it has been weeks since I posted a recipe. Well, I am safe and sound. There has been too much going on in our lives. We are going to be selling our house and due to that, my cooking has taken a backseat temporarily. We have been prepping our house for the sale. Finally, we are at a point, where the house is ready to go on the market. Once we put our house on the market, the last thing I want to do is make the house smell like spices. Some prospective buyers might like and some might not like spices. So the plan is to make 3-4 recipes so that I can blog about it for the next several weeks. What will I do after that? Not sure. I will think of someway to cook after that. Maybe cook at my friend’s place since they let me know that they are okay with being used as guinea pigs for my recipes! I will let you know how that goes.

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→ 6 CommentsTags: Entree · Vegetarian

Punjabi Chana Masala Dal (Lentil)

January 14th, 2010 · Dal, Entree

Whenever we used to travel around India, my dad used to rent a car or a van with a hired driver. We used to travel with a few of our relatives and we would all fit ourselves in 2 cars. It you can tolerate the traffic on Indian 2 lane highways (one lane in each direction) going at 90-100 miles per hour, I don’t think you will ever need to go to Disneyland! That is how crazy the driving there is.

So there was this one incident where the driver was going at a speed of 90 miles an hour. There was a car in front of our car and a bus in front of the other car. There was a truck approaching from the opposite direction. I was sitting in the front seat watching and recording on video all this for posterity in case we die! Our driver decided to overtake the car and bus that was about to overtake the bus. The truck from the opposite direction was approaching fast and we had to overtake the bus and the car that was overtaking the bus. My wife, who is not Indian and was on her first trip to India was sitting at the back sweating looking at the unfolding drama. She was telling my parents to tell the driver to slow down and my parents consoled her by saying to look out the side window! She was hysterical. While this was going on, the driver had successfully overtaken the bus and the car and just made it in the nick of time before the truck from the opposite end approached us. Whew! That was a really really close one.