Bachchali kura Pappu

I go to Indian groceries with mixed feelings: I’m excited about all the different Indian produce and ingredients that I’m about to buy, but at the same time I’m extremely worried about the bill that I have to pay at the end of my shopping spree. We go to Indian grocery may be once in 2 months and I don’t remember the bill ever being less than $150. 

I get so excited seeing my favorite baby eggplants, bright green karelas (bitter gourds) and those ripe juicy mangoes, but my bubble bursts when I look at the prices. Well that doesn’t stop me from shopping there, but it just makes me disappointed that I’ve to pay a buck for 2 stems of curry leaves whereas my mom has endless supply of it right in her back yard. Life’s not fair. 

Well the reason for my rambling is because the price I paid for this bachali kura almost made me cry thinking of the plant we had in our backyard back home. But as I said nothing stops, we still have to buy and eat. On a happier note, this dal tastes awesome. I like bachchali kura since it has a very mild, almost sweet taste and cooking with moong dal accentuates this sweetness and is just perfect with steamed hot rice with a dollop of ghee and some of that panchadara avakaya on the side. This makes life perfect or at least masks all the imperfections.

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Greek Style Panini

Good news is our area was not affected by hurricane Irene as much as predicted. We had gusty winds and heavy rain, but thank god we did not have power outages or flooding. So all is well that ends well..

Today is the last day of our week long Blogging marathon and keeping with the theme of "Cooking with 5 ingredients or less", I made this tasty and healthy panini. Another recipe from vegetarian times magazine. It turned out super simple to make, filling and tasty too.

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Banana-Cocoa Smoothie

Hurricane Irene is causing major destruction in the east coast this weekend. As I type, I can hear the wind blowing and the pouring rain. They say there are thousands of people without power due to fallen trees. I can see a big tree limb from a neighbors tree in our backyard. I just hope my tomatoes and bottle gourd survive the hurricane (I know I'm being a little wane, but can't help thinking of them).

So for today I have this very simple smoothie that I made for snack time the other day. If you have frozen bananas this is a snap to make. I have been storing my over-ripe bananas in the freezer, so they can be used in some way or the other rather than throwing them out.

Smoothie has only 5 ingredients and is very filling. I had it with some pita chips and hummus.

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Sinangag (Filipino Garlic Fried Rice)

The theme for next 3 days for BM# 8 will be "Cooking with 5 ingredients or less". I turned to Vegetarian Times magazine for inspiration, since they have a monthly feature called "5 ingredients". I wanted to try new recipes that make a meal or at least a filling snack and do not require any side dishes to go with it.

Today I made this simple rice dish with left-over rice and it seems it is made as a breakfast dish in the Philippines with lots of garlic. Eating rice for breakfast may sound strange to some of non-rice eating people, but for us rice  being the staple grain it was served for all 3 meals in the day. I remember my mom making lemon rice or alu-bhath or tomato rice or some fancied up rice dish with left over rice, which kept us going until lunch time. 

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