Weekend eats ...

So, the best news ever - Vodka's tumor came out to be a Grade 1 - which, apparently, is the best thing to hope for when it comes to mast cell tumors - so no more surgery or treatment - Yay! The countdown is still on - 6 more days before his sutures and staples can be removed. 33 - that's how many staples there are in his franken-scar! But the monkey is a total sport, he's holding up really well - though he keeps wandering around wondering why he can't seem to find any ball to play with! :)

(Photo Courtesy: Stephanie & Shawn of Dog-e-Central)

Obviously, the occasion called for some treats - I was hoping to bake something totally human-grade, but Vodka-palatable too :) After some poking around, I found the perfect recipe to work with - Suganya's vegan lemon poppy seed cookies!

I reworked these to use vegetable oil instead of margarine (and cut that by over half) and threw in a bunch of ginger - it actually worked really well.




I think these lemon-ginger cookies should go to Sunita for her fabulous Think Spice event. The theme this month is ginger - I've used ginger in several recipes in the last few weeks, but these cookies were strongly defined by the ginger flavor - enough to be my submission of choice.

Ginger-Lemon-Poppy Seed Cookies
Adapted from Suganya's vegan cookies

Servings: 13

1 cup pastry flour
1.5 T corn flour
3 T vegetable oil
2 T lemon juice
1/4 t salt
1/2 cup brown sugar
2" ginger
1/4 t cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 375 F

Sift the flours, cinnamon and salt into a bowl.
Grind the ginger in a processor and separate out the chaff to extract the juice.

Mix the ginger juice with the brown sugar till the sugar dissolves - let this sit for about 10 minutes. I was hoping to substitute for the effect of ginger crystals by letting the zing of the ginger and the earthy sweetness of the brown sugar mix into each other - I think this is what really gave the flavor to the cookies!

Beat the oil with the lemon and ginger juices till blended.
Fold the flour mixture in gently, constantly stirring - maybe adding a few drops of water if needed for consistency.
Knead the dough and form small 1" balls.
Grease a baking sheet and flatten the dough balls onto it.
Bake for about 17-18 minutes till the edges of the cookies start to brown - the cookies may look underdone, but that's the time to yank them out! :)
Cool on a wire rack.

Eat :)


Since I'm still working through a mountain of apples from PO, I figured this might be the time to use up a couple of those and bake some more. So, I ended up with a bunch of apple-honey cookies too!

Apple Honey Cookies (Vegan!)
In honor of that Tasty Palettes girl :)

Servings: 13 (Yes, a baker's dozen :))

1 braeburn apple
1 cup Pastry flour
1 T Corn flour
1/4 t salt
1/2 t cinnamon
3 T honey
1 t vanilla
1.5 T port
3 T vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 400 F.

Mix flour, corn flour, salt and cinnamon and sift into a bowl.
Grind the apple up in a food processor till smooth to a pulp.
Cream the apple, oil, honey, port and vanilla extract till blended.
Fold in the flour mixture, a few tablespoons at a time.

Grease a baking sheet with oil spray (or use a nonstick sheet).
Take about a tablespoon of the dough, roll it into a ball and flatten it onto the baking sheet.
Repeat this with the rest of the dough, leaving about 1" gap between the cookies.
Bake for about 25-28 minutes till the edges are browned.
Cool on a wire rack.

Notes for the future:

One thing I would do differently the next time around is use margarine or butter and maybe use honey crisp apples - the cookies turned out chewy, but seemed like they could use a little more shortening or oil. Also, I think cooling the dough before making the cookies might be a good idea.

This troubleshooting guide might come in useful in the future :)





So, this weekend's meals included another round of upma - this time, the simple onion kind - lots of green chillies, ginger and onions - it made for the perfect breakfast food!

Khichdi from heaven

Good upma is a beautiful thing - it isn't always as easy as it seems, it is something that I'm always aspiring to perfect. And it makes me incredibly happy when my upma seems to be as good as my mum's - which qualifies as the perfect 10!

Speaking of upma and similar one-pot meals - I always wondered about the difference between upma and khichdi. Upma is often made with sooji, sometimes with rice rava, other times with vermicelli. And it seems like khichdi is typically a rice and lentils dish - kind of the desi equivalent of rice'n'beans? But then again, there is rava khichdi, right? Which is often this olio of sooji with a slew of vegetables. So, how is that any different from rava upma? Or are the names interchangeable? Food for thought :)

Anyway, with all the stuff happening with Vodka, I really needed quick comfort food - which can easily translate to upma (or khichdi?). I often take the easy way out and skip roasting the rava - but this time I really wanted the flavors and aromas to match the memories in my head - it is pretty amazing how nostalgic smells can be! :) So, hungry as I was, no shortcuts were taken - I worked with a mix of coarse and smooth sooji ravas and roasted them till golden before working them into the upma. That, along with liberal use of cherry tomatoes made for some really flavorful khichdi - I'm truly hoping I can replicate this!

Rava Khichdi

Or Upma. Or whatever you want to call it :)

Servings: 3-4

1 cup coarse sooji rava
1 cup fine sooji rava
1 red onion - chopped
1 green bell pepper - chopped
2 carrots - chopped
15-18 cherry tomatoes -sliced
4 green chillies - sliced lengthwise
1" ginger - grated
10-12 curry leaves
a handful of raw peanuts
1 t mustard seeds
1 t urad daal
1 T channa daal
1 t asafoetida
1 t turmeric
1 T sesame oil
kosher salt

Garnish
------------
a handful of pomegranate seeds
a few sprigs of cilantro

Mix the ravas and dry roast them till golden and the smell of the roasted rava wafts around you. Heat the oil in a wok, add the mustard. Once it sputters, throw in the urad and channa daals along with the peanuts, asafoetida and curry leaves.
Once these are browned, add the onions, ginger and green chillies and saute for 4-5 minutes.
The bell peppers and carrots go in next, saute for another 1-2 minutes.
Now toss in the tomatoes and stir for another minute.
Pour 4 cups of water into this veggie mix and add some salt and turmeric.
Cook covered till the water is at a roiling boil. Now, turn down the heat and fold in the rava gently - about 1/4 cup at a time, stirring constantly to avoid clumping.
Again cook covered on low for 4-5 minutes till the rava is totally translucent.
Add salt to taste.

Garnish with cilantro and ... pomegranate seeds! *so* good! :)

Serve with a dollop of home-made yogurt and maybe some pickles - lime or maybe avakkai?