Myriad Musings

Mich's low fat carrot cake has been calling to me for days (since the day she posted it to be exact). I finally wound up making it yesterday. In muffin form. Now, the trouble with muffins is, unlike cakes, they look complete when you take them out of their tin. Especially when they come dressed in a paper liner. Lazy bones don't feel the need to exert more effort into making a frosting. So, I left out the frosting, making it even more low fat,and everyone still loved it! Ingredients for the Cake from Delia Smith's website 150 g dark brown soft sugar  (I found the previous cake I made too sweet, so used less than the recommended 175g) 2 large eggs at room temperature  120 ml sunflower oil  200 g wholemeal self-raising flour (I used chapathi flour+ 1 teaspoon baking powder) 1½ level teaspoons bicarbonate of soda  3 rounded teaspoons mixed spice (my hubby and my eldest son hate cinnamon and nutmeg, so I used 2 squares of grated  inji mittai, available ...

I always want to make restaurant quality side dishes at home. The catch is I cannot bring myself to use the requisite amount of oil. But after making mediocre okra repeatedly, I decided to just surrender to the fat. I decided to go all out and make a North Indian Style Okra Potato Curry for  mooli parathas.  Aloo is the bacon of India, add it to anything to improve the desirability quotient; Frankly though, Okra is perfect, doesn't need any further gilding. 20 Okras, trimmed, halved and cut into about 2" pieces 4-5 smallish potatoes thinly sliced. 2 medium sized onions chopped 3 green chillies 6 pods garlic 3 tomatoes chopped 1 teaspoon poppy seeds 2 cloves 1 inch piece of cinnamon 1 teaspoon fennel 1 teaspoon cumin 2 teaspoon coriander seeds 3 tablespoons oil divided 1 teaspoon turmeric 1 teaspoon chili powder salt to taste coriander leaves for garnish Heat 1 tbspoon oil, fry the okra and transfer to a plate Add 1 tbspoon oil to the pan and fry the ...

There is a distinct confusion about which keerai is ponnankanni - the fully green one or the red and green one. The blog world leans towards the mild green one while I lean towards the other; it's English name is dwarf copper leaf, need some red in the leaves to warrant such a name right?  Both my images are from Kamala's Corner                                                                        OR    Mufalatti apparently means Badly Made in Italian.  Since this rather rustic dish lacks the elegance of Gnocchi, the quick thinking cook preempts nasty comments by lowering expectations.  Smart!  One ...

Life with Gau is a constant tussle between developing good habits for work, play and food and letting him simply have fun.  Whether the struggle is at its most intense when it comes to regulating game time or food intake is a toss up.  Weekends exemplify both.  He has firm ideas about what I should cook and serve. He considers it blasphemous that I add beans when I make burger patties for him.  He thinks baking fries is a terrible idea.  He will never try kanji or ragi dosa unless I bribe or yell.... You get the idea? Saturday mornings start very lazy for us and then there is a rush to get Gau to his music class by 10.  He usually insists on eating out Sat morning, eating just the Pooris in Sangeetha without touching the vegetable laden side dishes.  The battle is stacked against me 3 to 1.  Today ash had a very long sleep in and I was able to persuade Gau to come into the kitchen and help me make Pear Pancakes. An adaptation of Kim Boyce's Pe...