Many of you have expressed interest in my suggestions for daily meals.  Below are some suggestions for dinner for the week. These suggestions are efficient and time-saving, as I know how hectic it can get with busy schedules!

Saturday is a good day to begin planning meals for the upcoming week so you can plan to do your grocery shopping and make sure you have all the necessary ingredients on hand.  Then on Sunday, you can begin preparations by chopping all the vegetables (aside from potatoes as they do not hold up too well).  Another time-saving tip is to freeze hari cilantro chutney in ice cube trays. This is a convenient way to store chutney.  Also, tamarind chutney can be refrigerated for about two months.

There are some dishes that can be prepared well in advance (about two days prior to serving).  You can always make changes to dishes prepared ahead of time so it does not seem like leftovers.

One challenge I’ve faced in preparing meals is making dishes suitable to each person’s taste. For example, I prefer spicy food, while my husband enjoys mild dishes.  What I do is prepare mild dishes, but then will also serve with ginger relish, green chili pickle, or any pickle or chutney.

For daily meals I prefer one gravy dish with another vegetable dish. I also serve with plain yogurt or raita, roti or paratha. For your convenience, you can always serve ready-made parathas.

Sample Menu #1

• Toor dal (arhar dal)
• Green beans with Peas
• plain rice
• raita
• ginger relish
• rotis

For this menu, you can prepare enough dal and beans to last two days. The first day you can serve dal with just tempering.  You can change the daal up the second day by adding zucchini tadka.  With green beans, on the second day, you can add them to make a sandwich or wrap, using the left over rotis or parathas.

Sample Menu #2

• Sprouted moong salad
• Matar paneer
• Aloo gobi
• plain yogurt with salt and dry roasted cumin powder
• plain parathas

You can make enough sprouted moong and aloo gobi for two days.  You can change the sprouts by adding in plain rice by tempering the oil with asafetida, cumin seeds and whole red chili.  You can use the left over aloo gobi by making a sandwich or wrap using the left over parathas.

Sample Menu #3

• Moong dal with spinach
• bhindi masala
• cabbage with peas
• plain rice
• roti

For this menu, you can prepare enough dal and cabbage with peas last two days. You can mix cabbage with plain rice this combination taste great.

Sample Menu #4

• Pav bhaji
• Lentil vegetable soup

This is good for a weekend meal and can be served as a lunch or dinner.

Sample Menu #5

• Aloo paratha
• plain yogurt
• tomato chutney

This is great for a weekend brunch.

These are some easy and healthy suggestions for quick convenient meals.
Next time I can give some suggestions for get together hoping this will be a help.

I first tried Phirni a few years back while visiting my family in India. Phirni is considered to be a popular dessert, but it was the first time I had ever heard of it! My sister took me to a very upscale restaurant in Delhi and we decided to order Phirni for dessert. When the dessert came out, I was speechless. It looked superb and the presentation was excellent. It was served in an earthen bowl beautifully decorated and garnished with saffron and sliced pistachios. I was reluctant to try it out, but my sister, knowing my love of cooking, insisted I would love it as it is similar to a rice kheer. But instead of using rice grain as you would in rice kheer, in Phirni you use ground rice. The texture was very creamy, similar to a pudding.

I asked the restaurant for the recipe and tried making Phirni several times when I returned to the US. However, I was unable to master the same texture. It tasted fine, but it just wasn’t the experience I had at the restaurant in India. I had fallen in love with this dish and just had to master it! Finally, I figured out that since Phirni is traditionally served in an earthen bowl, the bowl absorbs some of the water, making it more firm (like JELLO). I knew it would be difficult to duplicate so I decided to give the recipe my own twist. I tried adding different fruits with it. It turned out best using peaches. It is very refreshing and great for summer.

I will be posting this recipe soon, so stay tuned! Until then, happy cooking!

Yestrday was the second day in DC. As expected it was hot and humid, but Mansi (my granddaughter) had fun.   She didn’t mind the heat and Raghav (my grandson) was happy as long he could ride on a bus and a subway. We did a lot of of walking and that was good for me.

We saw many monument including the Old Post Office, which was a lot of fun.  When we entered the building two photographers were taking photos. Mansi had her photo taken and he made it look like President Obama was giving her a kiss on her cheek, and Raghav had a business hand shake with president, Mansi had a kick out of it.

Mansi and Rakesh (my son) went to National Art Gallery while every one else stayed back in the hotel. Before sleeping we had fun playing cards.

Today we are taking a bus to NYC, where we will spend a couple of days checking out the sites.   Meenakshi (my daughter-in-law) has planned out the trip and I have decided to lay back and enjoy.

Today was our first day in Washington DC with kids and grand kids. My grand daughter is very excited for this trip. She want to see every thing, going with her list today we went to see several museums at the Smithsonian.  She enjoyed the Natural History Museum the most.  My grandson at the end of the day insisted on going on a bus, so we took the bus through Georgetown.  The weather is hot and humid we have been spoil with San Diego weather so that made the walking outside tiresome. Tomorrow she wants to see Washington and Lincon Monument, White House and list goes on. I will be posting the photos soon and tell you about my trip.On Monday we are going to NYC for three days.

The selection process is very difficult as I am receiving many deserving entries. In order to pick and select the winning recipe, I have devised a check list to help me judge each entry. In general I will only consider recipes that I feel are complete in regards to ingredients, measurement, and instruction. From there I am looking for creativity and a recipe that my viewers would enjoy to prepare on their own.

Below is my checklist:

1. Ingredients should be listed with measurements
2. Method is explained clearly, so it’s easy to follow
3. Spices are used in balance
4. Creativity

My grand daughter is visiting me and we decided to prepare this holi plate today.

I am starting my preparations for Holi, which is the festival of colors and is celebrated with great enthusiasm by farmers. Holi is known as a harvest time. It is truly a beautiful site, with green farms and colorful flowers!

Holi is celebrated as a day when everyone comes together to celebrate. Social restrictions and gaps are forgotten as people of different backgrounds and economic status celebrates together. A bonfire is prepared the night before Holi. The next day friends and family play together with specially prepared colored powders. These powders are called gulal. Colored water is playfully splashed on each other as well.

I love the spirit of the holidays! The holidays bring back a lot of fun memories from my childhood. My parents loved celebrating any occasion which made them and people around them happy. On Holi, I remember my mother being up very early in the morning to make the preparations for playing with the colors. After all the preparations were done my father would come wake my brother and sisters up by putting gulal on our faces and screaming “Holi hai!” – Which translates into “Happy Holi!”.

On Holi, family, friends and neighbors visit each other throughout the day playing colors. Snacks are offered and a special drink known as thandai (milk and almond drink) is offered.

Holi is on February 28th and today is already 22nd. I am beginning my preparations as we speak! Unless the house is full of the sweet aromas from the dishes you cook, it doesn’t feel like Holi. I like to prepare some traditional holi snacks including gujia, shakkar para, one of the burfi, namak para, and khasta kachori. I will let you know what additional snacks I make. In the meantime, please let me know how you celebrate Holi and what snacks you made!

HAPPY HOLI!

For the past couple of weeks, I have been looking forward to a family trip (including grandkids) to Big Bear, which is a small ski resort near Los Angeles. The kids wanted to play in the snow, make snowmen, and go sledding. Last year was the first time they played in the snow and they had a blast. Especially my grandson!

Alex has been as excited as him and was looking forward to this trip. He is a very prepared person which is great because I tend to a last minute person. Maybe that’s because I know he is there to take care of things!

Unfortunately I had to miss this event, last few days I have came down with a bad cold and fever. I insisted they should go without me and take lot of photographs. Of course I called them often so I can hear their excitement and their screams on the phone.

My grand daughter tried to make me feel better by saying how much they missed me and reassured me that we will make the trip to Big Bear again next year and that we can also bring along my other granddaughter, Rhea, who just turned one. With that type of promise, I can’t help but look forward to next year!

This past weekend was a busy one for me as it was my granddaughter’s FIRST birthday!! The party was very fun and every one had a great time. I planned the menu and prepared a variety of dishes for this special occasion. We also decided to cater some dishes.

The menu included the following dishes: mattra chaat served with toppings including tomatoes, cucumbers, potatoes, chopped ginger, and chutneys, mini peanut butter jelly and cream cheese cucumber sandwiches shaped like hearts and butterflies, warm gulab jamun, fresh fruit and cheese skewers decoratively placed in oranges for presentation, and a chocolate fountain, which were all prepared by us. We had pesto and tomato cream pastas and fresh vegetable and cheese panini sandwiches catered. My daughter in law’s co-worker prepared the fresh chocolate and pumpkin spice cupcakes with animal designs. We also got a two -tiered bundt cake catered. We truly had a wide variety of food and everyone ate to their heart’s content. We received a lot of compliments about the dishes prepared! The kids especially loved the desserts and had a ball dipping strawberries and marshmallows in the chocolate fountain.

I think the beauty in these dishes was in the presentation. I decided to serve the mattra chaat toppings on big collard green leaves and fruits on skewers looked really nice. You can see this in the pictures posted.

This was a very special event and I’m glad I had a big part in planning in!

A viewer asked me while making dough why I recommend different temperatures of water. For samosa dough, I say warm water while for kachori I suggest chilled water. Since I have started making these cooking videos, I am learning everyday something new about cooking and I have been paying more attention when I am cooking. I do like to experiment with recipes and enjoy modifying recipes to my taste.

So going back to water temperature, one day I was watching food network about making pastry dough where they were talking about using cold butter and water to make dough that made me think! I don’t like hard crust in khasta kachori. I always wanted its crust to be more flakey, so I went to my kitchen and tried making kachori dough with ice cold water after trying few times I thought I was happy with the crust and produced the video. But wait when you try kachori next time, wrap the dough with cellophane paper and refrigerate for half an hour or longer, before you fill the kachori, kachories will be even more flakey.

I am still attempting to try samosa dough making with chilled water. If any one of you tries before me please let us know the result.

Next time you make kachori try this variation in preparing the dough, I am convinced the crust will come out flakier.