Potatoes Sauteed with Burnt Garlic

03
Aug
2015

Potatoes Sauteed with Burnt Garlic

Categories: Brunch, Misc, One-pot dish, Vegetarian

Burnt garlic potatoes — Potatoes sautéed with brunt garlic

There’s something about potatoes, that lend them their ‘I must gobble these up’ quality. During the week, we follow a completely almost no carb diet, and this golden brown underground root, is nowhere close to a frying pan. But come weekend, and the pots start to get glazed with delicious sauces, the kitchen is buzzing with rich flavours and the fancy knives are sharpened for the clean-cut!

But coming back to potatoes, have you noticed how they work with almost every protein on earth! And even lend themselves to veggie gravies…

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12
Jun
2015

Chicken Roulade with Pomegranate and Wine Jus

Categories: Brunch, Diabetic-friendly, Low Calorie, Misc, One-pot dish, Weekend

Chicken roulade stuffed with pepperoni, cheese, smoked dried tomatoes and spinach...bliss — Chicken roulade stuffed with pepperoni, cheese, smoked dried tomatoes and spinach…bliss

This is a completely inspired dish and all credit goes to MasterChef shows on TV. It’s taken a couple of times to perfect, but even when the roulade wasn’t perfectly rolled, it tasted excellent. The play of colours and textures and the excitement of beating chicken into a thin even perfect layer far exceeds the trauma of cracking the flesh whilst you’re rolling it. I’d say forget the inhibitions and just go for it!

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06
May
2015

Vol au Vent

Categories: Baked, Brunch, Misc, Vegetarian

The delicately flavoured stuffed puffed pastry

For many years, and I mean many, I couldn’t pronounce this fancy word! I mean why in the world would someone call a puffed stuffed pastry a vol-au-vent? But then it’s French and the language calls for flair. Did you know the name was actually coined by Antonin Careme–an exponent of the style of cooking commonly known as grande cuisine–the most sophisticated and grandiose style of cookery in France. I never liked history, thus the name was 🙁 but I loved gobbling up these delicious crispy puffed stuffed pastries with all kinds of filling. It thus became an integral part of my cooking repertoire.

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21
Apr
2015

Arugula, Fig, Almond, Feta Salad

Categories: Brunch, Diabetic-friendly, Low Calorie, Misc, salad, Weekend

A perfect accompaniment to any meal! The feta adds the saltiness, the figs the sweet, the greens add the zest and earthy flavour and the almonds the crunch!

For the last one month we’re thriving on a low-carb diet. It’s quite a task to think of innovative tasty dishes that can be mopped up without a bread or rice, but 20 days into the diet I’ve managed to add a delicious salad to every meal. 🙂 This is a super easy salad that can be tossed together in less than five minutes.

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13
Apr
2015

Som Tum or Green Papaya Salad

Categories: Misc

I was introduced to this dish as a 10-year-old. I hated it then. I hated the beans and cherry tomatoes that went in it. It was only when I entered my 30s that I developed a taste for Thai food and boy, has that been a revelation. I’ve tried to Thai-lise every dish I can make, mimicking tastes I’ve gathered over my many trips to Thailand. But the Som Tum will always hold a special place in my heart, I learnt to make it the authentic way from a road vendor on Soi 16, who even let me whip up the dish and use her wooden mortar and pestle to make it with her. 🙂 On that trip back home, my bag was full of food stuff–squid ink pasta, sticky rice, wild rice, sauces, salt, chilli and a wooden mortar and pestle.

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09
Feb
2015

Strawberry Chimichanga

Categories: Misc

When strawberries are in season, my fridge is always full of them. They go into my protein smoothie, in a pie, as a sauce with meats, into a spinach, onion and strawberry salad and now into these super crunchy chimichangas–inspired by Pinterest.

It’s not often that a deep fried product comes out of my kitchen. Actually except for the indian pakoras and festive time puris nothing sees oodles of oil. But this one time I decided to sin on a Sunday afternoon! Blame it on the luscious berries.

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11
Nov
2014

Healthy Apple Crumble

Categories: Baked, Diabetic-friendly, Low Calorie, Misc

Sugar Free, Butter Free, Flour Free Apple, Cinnamon and Cranberry Crumble

Of late all my food has the most important “free” word of which butter-free, sugar-free, oil-free and flour-free are my favourites. But to be able to use all these ‘frees” and turn around a traditional dessert into something refreshingly fabulous is an uphill task that requires several rounds of R&D.

For years together the apple pie has been my go to food. Be it a happy occasion or a pick me out of the dumps cooking session, the flavours wafting from the cinnammony-applee-buttery- pie cooking in the oven do things to the mind beyond one’s imagination. So to take this dish and convert it into something my diabetic husband could enjoy was always one of my goals. When we decided to cut away from self rising flour, I resorted to the humble oats and almonds to create the right bite. It tastes as good as the traditional version, what it lacks is the buttery crumble, but if you don’t mind add a dollop of butter when you bring the crumb together.

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Not Without My Skillet

Category: Misc