Love and Calories!!

A sweet thick chutney, excellent accompaniment for Dahi Vadas or any other Indian chat items (street food). Ingredients: 100 gm seedless tamarind 4-5 pitted dates (optional) 100 gm jaggery/mollases 2 cups water 1 tsp toasted cumin seeds (powdered) 1/2 tsp ginger powder (saunth, optional) salt to taste Method: Soak the tamarind in a cup of water for 20 minutes. Afterwards, remove the pulp & keep aside the extract. Heat up a sauce pan & pour in the tamarind extract with another cup of water. Let it boil. Meanwhile if you are using the dates, grind it in a blender and make a rough paste. When the tamarind extract starts to boil, thrown in the dates & jaggery pieces to it & simmer the heat down. Let it boil for 10-12 minutes until it starts reducing. Add salt & the ginger powder at this time & oil for another 4 minutes. Switch off the heat & put the toasted cumin powder to it. The sauce will thicken as it cools down. The more thick the sauce/chutney, the...

The mood to cook something Caribbean came across after seeing the movie "Pirates of the Caribbean 4" yesterday! The movie did not do justice to the title & also I was wondering, why should someone make a movie again and again with the same name, spoiling the original score! Anyway, coming back to food, I researched about the Caribbean cuisine & came to know that many of the basic ingredients are quiet common with the Indian cuisine. And luckily, I had everything with what I wanted to cook! The Caribbean cuisine is famous for its goat curry & the jerk chicken but I opted for a one pot shot. So this is an absolutely delicious one pot meal from the very own Caribbean, which can be made with your store cupboard ingredients. Just marinate your chicken the day before & cook it up on your busy weeknights! Tantalize your taste buds by bringing the Caribbean sunshine right to your Kitchen hob. With those Jamaican spicy touch, am sure you will quite like the unique fla...

Two days back. when I was browsing the TV channels, I came across some chef making a grilled Sea bass Thai style. It was so damn easy & healthy that I thought, this should definitely go in to my blog. I don't know the chef's name, neither do I remember the programme's name, what I do remember is the recipe. I have improvised a bit from the original recipe. It taste yum. Trust me, you should try making it. Within 30 minutes, your healthy dinner is ready. Ingredients: 1 whole sea bass (cleaned, scales removed, if you want keep the head & tails on, its ok but I usually cut it off) 60 gm coriander leaves (finely chopped) 1 lemon (cut into thin round slices) juice of 2 lemons 1 big onion (cut into thin round rings) 1 tbsp of olive oil 2 tbsp fish sauce (if not available, then use soy sauce) 2 tbsp of ginger ( julienne) 2-3 cloves of garlic (finely chopped) 2 thai red chillies (if not available, use the finger chillies) (cut into strips, seeds removed) 1 tbsp sesame ...

This is a Pulao recipe which has a lush hue green touch to it. The name "Hariyali" aptly justifies this dish as it includes both the popular green herbs (coriander & mint) in this recipe. Apart from these, the small green peas makes the dish look so beautiful & appetizing that you just cannot stop eating when you put that one spoonful of this green rice into your mouth. "Dhingri" means mushroom, makes this pulao all the more meaty that your kids who don't eat mushrooms, will not even know that they are eating one. It melts in your mouth just like that. Perfect treat for the vegetarians. Served with some spicy gravy and yoghurt raita, you have made your day. Ingredients: 2 cups basmati rice/long grain rice (washed) 250 gm button mushrooms (washed, cut each one length wise into 3-4 pieces) 1/2 cup peas (fresh or frozn) 1 big onion (finely sliced) 40 gm coriander leaves 40 gm mint leaves 1 tbsp ginger-garlic paste 1 green chilli 1" stick cinnamon 1 tsp...

Now before you read the recipe, let me tell you, if you are a fitness freak, this is not for you. Extremely tasty but not healthy at all. Its the most popular pub dish of England, "Fish, Chips & Mushy Peas". Fish is healthy but not when it is deep fried in a beery batter. Chips is not at all fine when you know that it is double fried in this recipe. Peas...well yeah....whatever!! ;) But let me tell you, you will just love it if you make it. The golden crispiness of the fish & chips will make you forget the world for a moment. One need not waste time in making the fish, chips & the mushy peas at home cos you can buy it all instant outside, but isn't it good to know what goes in each of your favourite dish?? Don't mind the calories....u can run for an hour long more after having this one!! Ingredients: 2 chunky pieces of boneless cod or haddock or halibut fillets, preferably skinned 125 ml of any beer (heineken, budweiser or any other) 100 gm self raisin...

A very easy, filling, quick tiffin which you can make in a jiffy, if you are that busy on a week day & also not want to miss the main meal of the day, i.e BREAKFAST!! Its Bread Upma. All the ingredients in this recipe can be found at all homes, all over the world. Prepare it, cook it, eat it & off you go! Ingredients: 10-12 bread slices 2-3 tbsp yoghurt 1 big onion (finely chopped) 1 big tomato (finely chopped) 5 green chillies (finely chopped) 1 capsicum/bell paper, optional (cut into 1 inch cubes) 1 tsp garam masala 1/2 tsp turmeric powder 1 tsp red chilli powder 1 tsp cumin seeds 1 tsp mustard seeds 6-7 curry leaves 2 tbsp oil 1/4 cup coriander leaves (finely chopped) salt to taste Method: 1) Cut each bread slice into 1 inch squares with a knife. Keep aside. 2) In a big bowl, mix the yogurt,red chilli powder, turmeric powder, garam masala and salt. Now add the cut slices of bread to it, mix well until the yoghurt mixture coats the bread pieces. Keep aside. 3) Heat the oil in...

My honest confession, when you start a food blog, there is no looking back. You just carry on cooking & cooking & cooking. The pressure is so much to cook good, versatile & different food every time. Especially when guests come home & if they are aware of your food blog, then you need to match or rather excel their expectations. My best friend came home this weekend & we had a great time together gossiping, shopping & of course eating glorious food. She is a hard core vegetarian, hence my cooking skills were put to test as I said before. So I ended up making delicious Hara Kebab for her. Kebab is often the grilled or roasted skewered meat which we all talk about. So I thought, why not make it vegetarian & give my friend a surprise. "yeah, Baby...eat those Kebabs right now"...Don't worry...Its vegetarian! ;) Also I came across a "spinach event" which is going on in one of the blogger's space, so I thought, why not make my first...