One gooseberry a day...

I have developed this great interest in Indian gooseberry (aka Amla, nellikka) lately. Rich in Vitamin C and a lot of health benefits, its best eaten raw. I just LOVE the after taste sweetness that it gives. I am not sure if its psychological or if it is just purely coincidental, but my frequent cold occurrences have reduced tremendously after my gooseberry intake. I'm not joking! According to www.hinduonnet.com - "...it is the richest source of Vitamin C. In fact it contains more Vitamin C than that in orange, lime, guava or sweet lime. 100 gms of the edible fruit contains about 600 mg of Vitamin C. " (http://www.hinduonnet.com/mp/2002/03/18/stories/2002031800880200.htm)

I also like the pickled version of the gooseberry made at my grandma's place. All I had to do was boil some water in a saucepan, add some salt to it, drop the washed gooseberries into it, close the lid for a while and then transfer it to a jar after it cools down. I also added one slit green chilly to it.

Heavenly abode

It's very cozy and quiet in here. Dark too except for the thin ray of light that seeps through one of the broken hinges of the door to this heavenly den. Heavenly den indeed. We had voted this the most exotic place to be this summer. It's just got everything any of our kind can ever imagine - from luscious sugar, honey to a whole big plastic container of biscuits and confectioneries - our favorites. Cake mix, pancake mix, custard powder, caramel pudding powder... Then there is this area which we are not very interested in - rice, maida, aata et al. Not to say they are unvisited. They do have visitors alright. Smaller, bigger, different skin colored than us. But we do live in harmony with them. Its quiet and peaceful here most of the time. Except for the times when that lady barges in and distorts our organized lives. Oh no ...here she comes again! EVERYBODY ....SCRAM! RUN! HIDE! SHE IS COMING! "hey lady! Let me tell you something. We work very hard for this. Day in and day out. We don't stop. We don't sleep. We don't even stop to rest. You cant just come in one fine morning and shoo us away from here. We wont give up. So wipe that frown off your face, you lady with a bulging tummy and leave us alone! Be nice. Why cant you be more like that bespectacled tall guy of your household? We like HIM. He does us all a favor and leaves us alone. He even gave us access to the honey jar once. We were having the time of our lives then until you butted in and shut some of us inside! oh no...why do u always ignore my words and choose to shoo us down?" SWOOSH!.... there we go again .... flying into the air and all the way down to the kitchen floor. ah well... all we have to do is pop onto that floor fan, onto the wall and then back to the heavenly abode. the ants go marching one by one ...hurrah hurrah!

black pepper - add spice to your taste buds!

This King of Spices is one of my favorite ingredients in my kitchen. I always make sure I have got some ground pepper ready in my cabinet. Home ground pepper is what i prefer over the powdered black pepper that we get in the market. Fresh ground ones add a zest to your food. I think im really head over heals in love with this spice!

PHOTO: http://www.exportersindia.com/

Food @ Auroville

This weekend getaway to auroville-pondichery gave me a good chance to savor on some good food. Also considering my huge appetite during my 6th month of pregnancy! :-) We had some great Italian pizzas at Auroville and some mouth melting quiches. Le Cafe at Pondichery beach had an awesome variety of food. They just looked so colorful and elegant! And they were more mouth watering than they looked.

Im loving my kitchen

Now that I've been relieved (I'm actually relieved!) from my IT career, I've begun to concentrate more on my kitchen and enjoying it too.

Yesterday I made a successful attempt at Hommous and Pitta bread alhamdulillah. I've been wanting to try it out for a very long time now. Yesterday availability of all the ingredients and the guinea pigs (my brothers-in-law and husband this time) made it perfectly possible to give this a try. Had to do a lot of net browsing and trusting my judgment before making the attempt. I followed the video that was posted by dede on youtube for making hommous.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4uSf0d5yhw
It turned out terrific. The tahini (sesame paste) mentioned in the video is not available in the Indian market. So had to make that on my own. About.com helped me do that - http://mideastfood.about.com/od/dipsandsauces/r/tahinirecipe.htm
I was thrilled to learn that the tahini stays in the fridge for 3 months. All that effort definetly not in vain.
The pitta bread however was my own mix-and-match-recipe. You won't beleive i actually combined the pitta bread recipe I found in one of the magazines with my mother's naan recipe to make my own pitta bread which we call khubus at home.
Here's what i did for pitta bread - I dissolved about 2 tsp of instant yeast into warm water. added half tsp of sugar and left to froth for 20 minutes. After that mixed 2 cups of maida, some salt, yeast mixture and water to make a dough. Had to knead for 10-15 miutes. I placed the dough on a big plate coated with olive oil and left it covered with a moist clean cloth for nearly 3 hours. The dough had turned almost double its orignal size and fluffy inside.I then rolled 8 pitta breads with my hand before baking then in an oven. each bread was cooked for 5 minutes turning the side half way through. It fluffed up inside the oven and so did my smile :-)

The hommous and the pitta bread turned out a awesome appetizer yesterday evening.