Myriad Musings

Once every couple of months I try to clean up all the lentils and beans stocked in my Pantry before I restock.  I always replace Toor Daal (Staple south Indian sambhar), Urad Daal (Idli dosa ingredient) and Moong Daal (easy to digest) as soon as they get used up. The rest - Chana, Rajma, Back Masoor, Yellow Masoor, Green Whole Mung, Black Chana, Black-eyed peas, Red Karamani, Yellow Peas, procured Lima Beans, butter beans, Thatta Payiru get cycled.  I make it a point to buy low quantities of all these except  Chana and Masoor. Chana and Masoor are versatile and work very well in many dishes. This again is rescue cooking - Pantry rescue.   I love to cook in earthenware pots, looks pretty and supposedly very healthy according to all the siddha medicine doctors. Daal cooked in such pots is supposed to be very tasty, but, my palette is not sensitive enough to identify such gastronomic differences as steel/earthen pots. I made a quick daal with Chana and le...

This is going to be my mornings from now on.  Gau will eat a muffin before school.  I will bake muffins once or twice a week, in the morning.  Weekday morning at that.  My prep work should cover any chopping, grating, slicing, buying, gathering necessary for the muffin.   Morning work will be limited to mix pour and bake, between making breakfast and lunch for all of us. Muffins are not breakfast per se, they are more of a pre-breakfast snack for both the kids and the hubby.  The older one has breakfast at school, the younger one around 10 at home. My last veggie shopping trip, the little one demanded grapes.  This being off season for grapes the one I tasted made my mouth pucker.  I compromised and got him Indian Plums.  His crush on plums lasted until we got home and he bit into it. He quickly switched allegiance to the apples in the bag. This is a riff of a BBC Recipe .  I don't like plums myself - skin a tad bitter, flesh...

Navarathri started yesterday.  In culinary terms, it means 9 sundals (beans/channa/moong salad basically) for the 9 days of navarathri, Sweets on the first day, friday, saraswathi puja day and Vijayadasami day.  Onions, Garlic are not allowed on festive days; Traditional sundals are all about a tadka of mustard, jeera,  hing and freshly grated coconut on cooked, salted beans/chana/moong/lentil.  My challenge is to come up with variations on the traditional sundal while maintaining the satvic nature of the food. First Day :  Sweet Stewed karamani sprouts inspired by Just Bento . 1 cup karamani (cranberry bean variety, not the back eyed pea variety) 1/4 cup jaggery/brown sugar 1/4 tspoon dried ginger (or to taste) 1/2 medium coconut grated 1/4 tspoon salt I soaked the karamani overnight,  then let it sprout in a collander all day. Pressure cooked with just enough water to cover the karamani - otherwise it gets mushy Add the jaggery, dry ginger sal...