Fruit Salad, "fabuleux " !!

This turned out really well, much to my surprise. I wasn't expecting much, since honeydew is not a big favorite. I think it helped that the strawberries were truly sweet. If they'd been sour, it'd probably have been a flop.

1/2 honeydew melon (the green melon - one of the 14 superfoods, according to the book
http://www.amazon.com/SuperFoods-Rx-Fourteen-Foods-Change/dp/0060535679
)
cut in balls and drain juice. You could dice it instead, but I just needed an excuse to buy a melon baller with my bed bath and beyond 20% off coupon.

1 qt basket of strawberries (we found amazing ones at the farmer's market, which's really what prompted my search for a fruit salad involving strawberries and honeydew)

1 tbsp fresh mint (A has a little "herb garden" which he keeps alive - it contains a potted basil and potted spearmint plant)

1 tbsp orange water (it took a foodie to find this in Central Market - this's something pretty exotic, that's made from orange blossoms)

1 pint Bulgarian Yogurt (www.whitemountainfoods.com - the factory is in Austin, if you want to take your kids on a field trip).

Lemon flavor Agave Nectar (this is sold as a sweeter alternative to cane sugar, and is supposedly equal to cane sugar in calories per unit volume, but sweeter, so you use less volume for the same resulting sweetness, thereby consuming fewer calories in the process, assuming you want to!)

Zest of one lemon (bought an organic lemon for this purpose)

Combine melon, strawberry, mint, orange water in a large bowl. In another bowl, combine yogurt and agave nectar. Spoon the fruit into a dessert glass. Top with yogurt mixture. Garnish with lemon zest. Serve chilled.

It seems pretty important to use the right proportions of the ingredients here.

Credit for the recipe goes to the recipe card section of Central Market - an amazing place to browse.

Squash Tuvayal (sort of a chutney), yellow dal,

This's a standard mix-in for hot rice. In a tuvayal, zucchini is a great sub for coconut. This's also a good accompaniment to idlis/dosas, and I've eaten this with idlis, at Raji's place. Since my friend Arundhati's made a peerkangai (ridgegourd) tuvayal today in New Delhi, I tried the same thing with zucchini (which I bought a ton of at the Farmer's Market this weekend).

Generalized Tuvayal:

Veggies that could be used:
chow chow (chayote squash), any type of zucchini (with skin), Parangikkai

Chopped veggie (with skin on) to make 1 cup
2 tsp channa daal
2 tsp udad daal
2-3 dried red chillies
4-5 pepper corns
1 tsp mango powder (amchur) or 1/2 tsp tamarind paste ½ tsp
1 pinch turmeric
2 shakes asaefotida
10 curry leaves

In 1/2 tsp oil, add all of the above (except the veggie). Fry.
Can add a small capsicum too (for color)
Saute the zucchini (not for too long).
Salt. NO WATER added. Blend (not too finely). Enjoy!

Pudina Tuvayal is another standrad chutney that's amazing:
Pudina (spearmint) leaves : 1 cup.
Same seasonings as above, in 1/2 tsp oil. NO WATER added. Saute leaves in turned off gas (else color will change in heat).

The zucchini chutney with brown rice, and moong daal, for tonight.

Moong daal:
Cook yellow moong lentils in pressure cooker (1 cup moong, 2 cup water, 2 pinches turmeric powder)
Add 1 cup water after taking this out of the cooker to waterify.

Seasoning (very basic):
1 tsp sesame oil, with
1 tsp jeera,
1 crushed dry bay leaf
1 inch ginger peeled and grated
2 shakes asafotida

Season the dal with the above, and squeeze juice of 1 lime in it after it's taken off the stove and cooled slight;y (the citric juice can cause some sort of disintegration in the substance it's added to, if the substance is too hot).

Chinese vegetables in Mon-pao sauce

My husband cooked tonight, because there was a yummy pineapple that needed to be cut up and used today. He cut it, and decided to make something Chinese. This's what he told me his recipe was:

Sauce:
Some sesame oil
Add a few dried red chillies to the hot oil
Tons of garlic (to taste!)
Tons of ginger
Tons of tamarind paste
2 table spoons soy sauce
Taste and add salt if necessary (the soy sauce might have salt in it)
Saute for a while until the sauce looks good and ready.

Add (whatever we had in the frig that would pass for CHinese) - cabbage, zuchchini, peas, edamame. And the pineapple (which was the original inspiration for this).

Enjoy with brown rice.

We also had some leftover black eyed peas, grated carrots and fat free plain yoghurt.

Arnav enjoyed it so much he didn't ask for yoghurt to be mixed in with his food today. I named it Mon-pao sauce ;).

Amma, get me SOMEthing to eat...

This's probably familiar to all the moms out there. "Amma, get me SOMEthing to eat...".

My "Ok, what sort of a thing do you feel like eating?" is usally followed by, "I don't know" (very sing-song). Then come my suggestions, "Something salty?", "Something sweet?" And I said finally, "Ok, I am going to make it a surprise. "

A has been coming up with and making salad dressings based on my basic guidelines for well over a year now. And he comes up with very interesting ideas. This time he said, "Just make sure it has grated tootsie rolls in it." I said he was welcome to come and grate it himself, and he did exactly that. He grated a tootsie roll chocolate candy, and wanted me to make something to sprnkle that on! We were out of icecream, which was my first idea. My second idea worked. It was bhel. I cracked up some baked tortilla chips we had hanging around, added some pori (puffed rice) to it, and some Indian store mixture of fried junk (a very small amount - for that little authentic kick), and dried sweetened cranberries, some date chutney I'd made (grind up seed less mejdool dates, add paste of tamarind (Laxmi brand seems best), salt and sugar and spices like chilli powder) and finally on top of that, the grated candy!! I couldn't resist chopping up some cilantro, and a roma tomato, and red onion (very small amount), and a small red potato microwaved for 3 minutes, and that was it!! Sorry I don't have a picture - it's just too much work. But it looked nice!! And he finished it all.

Next time, I think I'll add some "pottu kadalai" (split dalia (a dried bean)) or chopped walnuts for nutrition.

Ajjwaini vegetable subzi

Just made this fabulous subzi for lunch. We ate this with roti.

Ajwaini Mixed Vegetable Subzi
by archanagk (from : www.archanaskichen.com)

Ajwain/ Carom seeds used in this mixed vegetable gives it a Mediterranean flavor

Serves: 4 persons

Cooking time: 30 minutes Preparation Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients : Ajwaini Mixed Vegetable Sabzi

* 1 cup carrots cut 1 inch long length wise
* 1 cup beans cut 1 inch long length wise
* 2 cups eggplant cut 1 inch long length wise
* 1 cup sliced onions
* 1 cup tomatoes cut 1 inch long length wise
* 1 teaspoon carom/ajwain seeds
* 1 teaspoon turmeric powder
* ½ teaspoon garam masala powder
* ¼ teaspoon chilli powder
* 1 tablespoon Vegetable/Sunflower oil
* Salt to taste

Method

Cook the carrots and beans. See Cooking Vegetables

Heat oil in a wok/frying pan; add ajwain seeds, onions and sauté until soft and tender.

Add the eggplant and sauté until cooked to tender.

Add turmeric powder, tomatoes, garam masala, chilli powder, cooked carrots and beans, and salt, sauté for few minutes until the tomatoes are cooked to tender. Leaving the tomatoes half cooked heightens the flavor.

Pinto Bean Salsa salad (food network), Ras Malai (C aunty)

For dinner tonight, it's brown rice, this pinto bean salsa salad, and rasmalai.

I saw them make this bean salad on the Ellie Krieger show. I also read a "More" magazine article (while I was getting a pedicure yesterday) about how Ellie manages to look so good at age 50. I love the cinematography on that show - the lighting is perfect and the fresh foods they rinse and chop are clearly the focus of the show, not Ellie Krieger. She doesn't sell her personality (unlike some OTHER shows!!). I really haven't seen other food shows where this much attention is paid to cinematography with a focus on the food! The tomatoes on her show look so wonderful and plump you almost want to touch them.

Pinto Bean Salsa Salad

Dressing:
1 small clove garlic
1 1/2 limes, juiced (about 3 tablespoons)
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon chili powder
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Salad:
1 (15-ounce) can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
1 1/3 cups fresh corn kernels (from about 2 ears)
1 orange or yellow bell pepper, seeded and diced
1/2 small red onion, finely chopped (about 1/4 cup)
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
1 small Hass avocado, halved, seeded and diced
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro, leaves and stems

Make the dressing: Smash the garlic clove, sprinkle with a pinch of the salt, and, with the flat side of a large knife, mash and smear the mixture to a coarse paste. Whisk the garlic paste, lime juice, remaining salt and chili powder together in a bowl. Gradually whisk in the olive oil, starting with a few drops and then adding the rest in a steady stream.

For the salad: Toss together the beans, corn, bell pepper, and onions. Add the dressing and toss to coat evenly. Gently fold in the tomatoes, avocado, and cilantro. Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper, to taste, and serve.

For dessert, we usually have fresh fruit, but tonight we're going to make Ras malai using the lowest fat ricotta cheese we can find. Here's the recipe I got, from C aunty.

Rasamalai
1 tsp. Rosewater
32 oz. Ricotta Cheese
1 Cup Sugar (we plan to use sucanat)
6 cardamoms (
powdered)
1/2 cup sugar
16 oz fat free Half and Half
1 TBS. powdered UNSALTED pistachios (the default ones are salted in most stores!)
1 pinch saffron

Mix ricotta cheese and Sugar in a rectangular baking try.
Mash it into a paste with a fork and bake it in a pre heated oven at 350* for 30 minutes.
When done(the cheese mix will leave the sides of the pan), it will set like
a thick pudding.
Remove from oven and cool.
When cool cut into 1" squares and set aside leaving the pieces in the pan.
Boil fat free half and half with the 1/2 cup sugar in a pan for 5 minutes adding cardamom.
Then pour over the cooled rasamalia pieces. Sprinkle with rose water , pistachio
and saffron. Serve chilled.

Enjoy :)

What is a balanced meal??

Some experts describe it as specific percentages of fat protein and carbohydrate. Our grandmas might say it is a starch and lentils and two vegetables. Here are 4 basic rules I found, for perfectly balanced meals. A balanced meal:

1. Contains at least 2 food groups,
2. The meal includes a vegetable/fruit and a protein. A grain (preferably 100% whole grain) is recommended, but optional. Some examples of the protein, are beans, nuts, or dairy.
3. A little sugar and saturated fat is fine, but too much throws it off balance.
4. Eat appropriate portions to leave the table satisfied but not stuffed.

Some things we've been trying to do, are: include plant protein (as in, not dairy alone) at every meal. This's not hard when you have either lentils/beans/tofu/nuts/seeds with all meals. (Tofu, apparantly, is not good for boys - as it's a plant source of estrogen. That's according to Mothering magazine, and I find that the things they scare you about, scientific medical studies scare you about 10 years later - Mothering magazine is always ahead on the list of things to worry about!). Our strategy is to eat a handful of nuts/seeds if we're in a hurry and didn't get protein at a meal. Also, eating a sweet WITH protein is a good way to eat the sweet, according to my online acquaintance M. I've been trying to focus on this for my 7 year old who gets the "wanties" for sweets right after school.

We have a whole grain, veggies, dairy (fatfree plain Horizon organic yoghurt), lentils, and often fruit, most nights (specially for A).

The challenges for vegetarians, is to get adequate amounts (as defined by the U.S F.D.A) of the following:
-protein
-iron
-Vitamin B12
-omega 3 fats

Many vegetarians claim this not to be true. Most doctors don't seem to have studied much nutrition, according to registered nutritionists, who probably make this claim. It's hard to know who is right. My own research suggests these are clearly lacking in vegetarian diets, but I am not an expert researcher in this subject. My area is computer science, and I just enjoy studying nutrition as a hobby...

By the way, the strongest animal, the gorilla, apparantly lives only on green leaves. WOnder how it pays for these deficiencies...!! There's no B12 in any vegetarian source at all - so unless you have a B12 fortified cereal (or something else) or a multivitamin, vegetarians are not getting enough...

Healthy punjabi khichdi

This's something I cook when everyone at home is sick and doesn't want to be in the kitchen ..

Ingredients:
1 cup Sugam brown rice, wahsed
1/2 cup moong daal, 1/4 cup channa daal washed
1 packet frozen spinach (or really, any leftover green leaves you have - maybe even things that've grown out of what looked like radish)
1 packet frozen veggies of any sort (such as the corn, peas, carrot, beans mixture that's easy to find in just about any store with frozen veggies)
3 roma tomatoes
1 TBS garam masala or sambhar powder (based on your mood)
1/4 tsp turmeric
8 cups of water
1 chopped white/yellow onion (not red onion, basically)

Put everything but the onion in a pressure cooker with 8 cups of water. Turn it on with the load. Wait for a few whictles (2-3).

Meanwhile, if you feel up to it, saute the onion with ginger powder (an acceptable sub for grated ginger, specially in my 2nd tea of the day). Add it to the pressure cooker whenever it's opened.

This tastes really yummy and is packed with nutrition ..

Finding the Best Way to Cook All Those Vegetables

This is a nytimes article I paste here.

Finding the Best Way to Cook All Those Vegetables

A growing body of research shows that when it comes to vegetables, it’s not only how much we eat, but how we prepare them, that influences the amount of phytochemicals, vitamins and other nutrients that enter our body.
The benefits are significant. Numerous studies show that people who consume lots of vegetables have lower rates of heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, eye problems and even cancer. The latest dietary guidelines call for 5 to 13 servings — that is two and a half to six and a half cups a day. For a person who maintains her weight on a 2,000-calorie-a-day href="http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/specialtopic/food-guide-pyramid/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier">diet, this translates into nine servings, or four and a half cups a day, according to the Harvard School of Public Health. But how should they be served?
Surprisingly, raw and plain vegetables are not always best. In The British Journal of Nutrition next month, researchers will report a study involving 198 Germans who strictly adhered to a raw food diet, meaning that 95 percent of their total food intake came from raw food. They had normal levels of vitamin A and relatively high levels of beta carotene.
But they fell short when it came to lycopene, a carotenoid found in tomatoes and other red-pigmented vegetables that is one of the most potent antioxidants. Nearly 80 percent of them had plasma lycopene levels below average.
“There is a misperception that raw foods are always going to be better,” says Steven K. Clinton, a nutrition researcher and professor of internal medicine in the medical oncology division at Ohio State University. “For fruits and vegetables, a lot of times a little bit of cooking and a little bit of processing actually can be helpful.”
The amount and type of nutrients that eventually end up in the vegetables are affected by a number of factors before they reach the plate, including where and how they were grown, processed and stored before being bought. Then, it’s up to you. No single cooking or preparation method is best. Water-soluble nutrients like vitamins C and B and a group of nutrients called polyphenolics are often lost in processing. For instance, studies show that after six months, frozen cherries have lost as much as 50 percent of anthocyanins, the healthful compounds found in the pigment of red and blue fruits and vegetables. Fresh spinach loses 64 percent of its vitamin C after cooking. Canned peas and carrots lose 85 percent to 95 percent of their vitamin C, according to data compiled by the University of California, Davis.
Fat-soluble compounds like vitamins A, D, E and K and the antioxidant compounds called carotenoids are less likely to leach out in water. Cooking also breaks down the thick cell walls of plants, releasing the contents for the body to use. That is why processed tomato products have higher lycopene content than fresh tomatoes.
In January, a report in The Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry concluded that over all, boiling was better for carrots, zucchini and broccoli than steaming, frying or serving them raw. Frying was by far the worst..
Still, there were tradeoffs. Boiling carrots, for instance, significantly increased measurable carotenoid levels, but resulted in the complete loss of polyphenols compared with raw carrots.
That report did not look at the effects of microwaving, but a March 2007 study in The Journal of Food Science looked at the effects of boiling, steaming, microwaving and pressure cooking on the nutrients in broccoli. Steaming and boiling caused a 22 percent to 34 percent loss of vitamin C. Microwaved and pressure-cooked vegetables retained 90 percent of their vitamin C.
What accompanies the vegetables can also be important. Studies at Ohio State measured blood levels of subjects who ate servings of salsa and salads. When the salsa or salad was served with fat-rich avocados or full-fat salad dressing, the diners absorbed as much as 4 times more lycopene, 7 times more lutein and 18 times the beta carotene than those who had their vegetables plain or with low-fat dressing.
Fat can also improve the taste of vegetables, meaning that people will eat more of them. This month, The American Journal of Preventive Medicine reported on 1,500 teenagers interviewed in high school and about four years later on their eating habits. In the teenage years, many factors influenced the intake of fruits and vegetables. By the time the study subjects were 20, the sole factor that influenced fruit and vegetable consumption was taste. Young adults were not eating vegetables simply because they didn’t like the taste.
“Putting on things that make it taste better — spices, a little salt — can enhance your eating experience and make the food taste better, so you’re more likely to eat vegetables more often,” Dr. Clinton said.
Because nutrient content and taste can vary so widely depending on the cooking method and how a vegetable is prepared, the main lesson is to eat a variety of vegetables prepared in a variety of ways.
As Susan B. Roberts, director of the energy metabolism laboratory at the Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition, put it, “Eating a variety of veggies is especially important so you like them enough to eat more.”
well@nytimes.com

Grains

How do you know you're getting grains as whole as possible, by reading the ingredient label? Look for the phrase, "100% whole wheat" in the label. These ingredient lists could be written in a tricky manner, and misleading names are very common. Laws require them to list everything, but there're no laws against misleading labels. SOmething that's not 100% whole wheat, would still say "whole wheat". The goal is to make consumers feel a sense of "this's as healthy as this food can get".

"Maida" (hindi word), which's also called enriched wheat flour, because it's lower in fiber, has no nutrition (whole wheat has B vitamins), and is known to be harmful -has been implicated in all sorts of diseases. The starch content is the same whether a grain of wheat is whole or enriched (i.e. processed), but when the starch comes packaged in high fiber, it is more easily excreted by the human body, and therefore doesn't raise the body's sugar level in the same unhealthy way that the enriched wheat grain would. This means the glycemic index is different for the 2 (100% whole wheat being the healthier one, and enriched wheat being the unhealthy one). In other words, whole wheat raises blood sugar in a steady manner, not in a sudden peak followed by a plummet, that the enriched wheat is responsible for.
"Maida" is such a staple in Indian diets, specially North Indian diets, that it's worrisome. It's just as bad as white rice, which's common in South India.

Sugam brown rice, 100% whole wheat bread (nature's own) or Rudi's organic honey wheat bread, Margarita's 100% whole wheat tortilla - these are staples in our pantry. White basmati rice is too, but we eat it pretty rarely. Of all the white rices, basmati seems to have the healthiest glycemic index. We also buy 100% whole wheat pasta, spaghetti of various kinds. Whole Foods is best for this. Central Market is alright. Cracked wheat, specially in an upma, tastes wonderful.

Goals we're trying to come to agreement on as a family:

We're playing with arborio rice (risottos), and trying to learn about quinoa.
We'd like not to have too much wheat.
Wild rice is interesting and also worth exploring.

When we eat idlis/dosas, we get in waaay too much white stuff. I'd love to learn to make these with brown rice. Recipe, anyone? Ofcourse, there're the adais and pesarattus made with lentils and very little white rice. We need to do adais more often...

Salad Basics

These ideas come from the nytimes.

A vinegarette is nothing more than 1 unit acid and 3 or 4 units oil (I like olive oil).

The acid could be vinegar, or citric juices such as freshly squeezed lime juice, orange juice or even grape fruit juice.

Lime, orange or grapefruit juice might need to be sharpened with a bit of mustard. Vinegar does,t - it is more acidic. Mustard can be bought in bulk in many stores. The addition of a little mustard helps bind oil and acid together, making for a more stable emulsion.

The oil could be just about any oil you like the taste of uncooked. Neutral-tasting oils such as canola, safflower, sunflower and grapeseed require less acid; more flavorful oils - extra virgin olive oil, most of the nut and seed oils - demand a stronger hit of acid for balance.

The best dressing in the world can't save a salad if the greens haven't been thoroughly dried before being dressed. That is hard to achieve. We try to put the leaves between 2 large paper towels and gently pat it. Some people buy a salad spinner to spin off excess water.

Oils

There're several choices of healthy oils to use in daily cooking. I read that olive oil is great when you don't cook with it. It's perfect to drizzle on salads. However, if you're going to cook, specially Indian style, you want something with a higher smoke point. Once the smoke point is reached, free radicals start forming, and it's really bad for you. We alternate between grape seed oil, sesame oil, and canola oil. Sesame oil works better with Indian foods, and canola oil, until you get used to it, has a very slightly fishy odor to it. Grape seed oil is amazing in that it only has 1 g saturated fat. It doesn't have enough monounsaturated fat either, and you need it. Remember that 30% of your daily cals need to come from fat. You don't need saturated fat after the age of 2, according to western scientists (Ayurveda disagrees, telling people to have cups and cups of ghee daily - and I am only exaggerating mildly.)

Oh, and we store ALL oils in the frig. Reduces their oxidization rate.

Flax seeds : a sub for coconut

We try and get in flax seeds into ourselves in some fashion everyday. If it's flax seed oil, just drink the ghastly thing, 2 tablespoons a day. Or, 2 tablespoons of ground flax seeds, add to something. It can be used anywhere coconut is used for similar resulting taste. It's really important fo vegetarians. We pretty much have no other significant source of omega 3s, and if you read about omega 3s, one wonders how anyone in India is even completely formed - I mean, you'd think we'd have missing body parts - that's how important omega 3 is alleged to be. Specially for the brain.

A better but non-veg source of omega 3s, is fish oil. Nordic Naturals is a good brand (devoid of PCBs and Mercury). We're going to eventually do these daily because they contain less omega 6 (which is bad for you). They are supposed to leave an unpleasant after taste. And, being fish, they leave me with an unpleasant feeling in the head as well, as in, I just ate parts of a thing that used to swim and breathe. Ofcourse there're plants that swim and breathe. It's just how I was programmed in childhood, okay?!

Remember to refrigerate anything with omega3. It oxidises easily, forming free radicals and losing the omega3 fats when exposed to light or air..

I can't imagine the flax seeds in the breakfast waffles Arnav wolfed down, retained any of their omega 3 fatty chains after they were baked and toasted. It's insane how so many baked goods are sold with flax seeeds in them - what is the point??

More kuzhambu with ground flax seeds added in at the very end - super yum.

Spinach chettinaad

Spinach chettinaad style..

Ingredients:

This spinach dish is from C aunty (one of my best friends in Austin) and tastes AMAZING.

1 tsp oil
2 pinches asafoetida
3 cloves garlic chopped
2 teaspoon whole corriander (cilantro) seeds
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
Legally this requires an onion at this point, but I skip it.
10 cups organic baby spinach leaves (I buy central market or Earth's best - they're triple washed)

Pan on stove. Oil. Seasonings. All the spinach. Salt to taste. Lid. Cooked for a short while with 1 cup water. Cooked too much, the spinach loses its nutrition. Couldn't talk anyone into drinking the water used for steaming the radish thingy, and ended up adding it to the spinach. Grind coarsely using a hand blender. The magic ingredient here is the corriander seeds. The secret to cooking the spinach minimally, is this. Once the oil and seasonings are put in, add water first (no spinach yet). Add salt, bring it to a boil. THEN add spinach. You'll see the leaves wilting. Turn off gas. Wait for it to cool before pureeing.

Cucumber kosambari, black eyed peas subzi

I made Arundhati's cucumber Kosambari for dinner tonight http://chefatwork.blogspot.com/search/label/cucumber and then a basic North Indian style black eyed peas subzi (see bwlow) as well. The subzi involved:

Ingredients:
1 tsp sesame oil

seasonings:
1 tsp jeera (cumin)
2 pinches heeng (asafoetida)
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 inch grated ginger
3 cloves garlic

5 ripe tomatoes pureed in the blender
1 big red onion chopped up
4 small red potatoes (with skin to retain SOME nutrition - it's got a bit of iron I hear) - chop and boil in water until soft (but not flaky).
Black eyed peas
2 tsp garam masala
1 tsp chilli powder
1/2 cup frozen sweet green peas, microwaved for a minute

Oil, all seasonings (tadka), red onion. Saute for 5 mins until translucent. Add tomato puree. Add the garam masala. Put the potatoes in. Add pressure cooked black eyed peas. And the sweet green peas. Add a cup or 2 of water, salt, and let it all come to a boil, and we're in business.

It looks nice - the different colors together, in the reddish gravy.

Blueberries for dessert. A twist, was lemon juice added to the blueberries - something we learnt to do from our Italian neighbor. Blueberries are suppsoed to be among the 14 super-foods, very anti-oxidant rich (which just means B vitamins). Margarita's whole grain tortillas from whole foods market for rotis, and brown rice for A and that was dinner. Horizon organic fat free plain yoghurt in the end, ofcourse. Every proper South Indian ends a meal with yoghurt. It has to be relished with the remaining curries, after the grain is polished off!

Brown Rice

Brown rice is acquired taste. It took me years to get over missing white rice. Remember I am Tamilian - white rice is a staple and comfort food (specially when it comes seasoned with spices and with sour yoghurt, and lime pickle) . Polished fiberless white evil white rice! I really didn't want any kid of mine to have to deal with white rice withdrawal, or grow to love white rice too much. So. He started off with brown rice. To him, hopefully, this healthy stuff will be comfort food.

We get this wonderfully softenable brown rice (Sugam brand) from MGM foods http://www.mgmindianfoods.com/. It's not organic, but other brown rice brands are inedible in comparison to this one.

The owner of MGM foods, Mr.Matthews, is a sweetheart - albeit his Video-Nazi-ness. He takes one look at you to determine if you're the kind that will return movies late. If you are, he'll say "No video today" in his sweet Malayalee accent. He said "tomorrow it will come" to us for the longest time, until he was sure he could trust us. We told him, "Just charge us a fine if we return it late no?" And he was thrilled. It seems (he lamented) desis argue with him about fines all the time. My husband came up with the title of Video-Nazi for him. Quite perfect, like the Soup-Nazi of Sienfeld fame - quirky to the point of becoming a legend.

Back to brown rice, it's cooked like this. Rice cooker. 1 cup brown rice with 2 cups water. Turn it on. It's ready and soft and fluffy in 45 minutes. I can't see how anyone would not switch to this. Alright, I can, but really it's an easy switch.

Fun places to lose yourself in grocery shopping

The most fun place to shop for veggies, is the nearby sunset valley farmers market. http://www.sunsetvalleyfarmersmarket.org/ We *try* to walk there (takes 10 minutes), and start off with one of their strange organic coffees. Then we go on to picking local veggies grown organically. They're not certified organic, but they're local and a good approximation to organic.. It's also a place A practises his addition and subtraction and making change, as he's in charge of making payments and getting change. It's open Saturdays 9 to 1.

The second most fun place to shop is the gourmet grocery store called Central Market. The 70,000-square-foot Central Market Westgate was designed to be reminiscent of a European-style market, with aisle upon aisle of fresh produce, meats, seafood and an incredibly large cheese department. You'll find more than 600 varieties of fresh produce alone. We live 5 minutes away from here (we recently moved out of the suburbs, into a new neighborhood near downtown Austin). Having ruled out public schools, and fallen in love with a private school that goes up to 9th grade (where they cook in class, by the way, watch birds, grow wildflowers and have the most incredibly designed math material imaginable...), we figured we might as well live close to it. This location is amazing. Every kind of store in walking distance - downtown sort of living (7 mins from downtown Austin), and a brand new development with green belt ("forests") in the back. The deer and other wildlife (snakes, scorpions etc) bring back fond memories of growing up in IIT Madras campus (also a forest). http://www.iitm.ac.in/The%20Campus/ (It's a beautiful setting - but clearly someone unimaginative wrote up the description of the campus!! They forgot to mention the deer, forests, snakes, and the occasional tiger!) Minus the tiger sightings, it's a pretty similar setting here! There's a wonderful community feeling here as well, and I got together with another neighbor and organized a neighborhood party to get to know everyone. We also started up a walking group to explore the nearby trails. The entire city only has 400 residents, and pour neighborhood has 35 so far (60 eventually). There aren't many young children A's age in walking distance, but there're plenty about 5 minutes drive away.

The 3rd most fun place to shop for us, is Whole Foods Market. It's designed to be a unique experience - healthy foods galore, amazing customer service ("can you find me eggless 100% whole wheat organic spaghetti made in the U.S " and they get it for you without batting an eyelid).. Since we try and eat 100% whole grains, and stay away from preservatives & colors, and organic produce - this's really quite an amazing place. The only snag is it takes 15 minutes to get there. Spoilt by 5 minutes to any place, 15 is really a bit too much. We have to go there once a week to buy organic walnuts and dried cranberries (that we try to eat everyday). There's so much more to explore here...http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/stores/lamar/
There's a good reason it's called "Whole paycheck" though. Particularly now that gas is so expensive and they ship everything from Calfornia.

Sun Harvest is a great alternative to Whole Foods. So is Wheatsville co-op. At Sun Harvest, it's fun to talk to the people who actually moved things into bins. Whole foods is an army - people working at 2 ends of the store have never met.

Inspiration to cook with flair!

My mom's of the view that if you have to do something anyway, do it with flair. She's extraordinarily creative, and everything she does is like a work of art. And science.

I learnt as a kid from my mom, that dosa while being poured on to a stone, needed a different temp stone than the poured batter did that needed to be cooked. A dosa poured straight on to a too-hot stone gets cooked as you pour it, making it hard to shape it as desired. Rotis, on the other hand, need the hottest possible stone. Julia CHild is a bit like my mom in her desire to understand why things are done a certain way.

And then there's my husband, who loves to cook, and does so "with emotion" as he calls it! I enjoy cooking with him, as rare as it has become!

Julia talks (like my mother does) about viscosity and separation of fluids, and makes things make sense.

What's more, Julia Child FAILED her first attempt at cooking college (as I would have!). She then set out to find "true meaning" as I now have! So there. Soul mates, all of us here.

However, the guy who's absolutely my main inspiration to cok withand for, is my 7 year old. He reads recipe books like they were amazing stories. Creative salad dressings we've come to love have been his ideas - such as olive oil mixed with sambhar powder and tamarind paste.

I was recently inspired by my friend Arundhati's food blog. http://chefatwork.blogspot.com/
The pictures and recipes and her little essays there really got me excited about cooking.

I am inspired by Ellie Krieger's show: http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/ellie_kriegers_healthy_recipes
I also enjoy http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/show_ea
He's funny, and often talks about nutritive value, and is the sort of person I enjoy hanging out with (nerdy, dry wit).

I am enjoying learning about various cuisines - and excited there's SO much I have not yet explored...