A brand new year is like a chance to start fresh, isn’t it? I know it’s just a day like any other, but there is just something about the arrival of January that shakes awake the slumbering optimist in me and sets me looking forward to a year that will be even better than the one that just went by. In my last post I asked you to tell me what your resolutions were....
Why not execute 5 things perfectly instead? Turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy and one vegetable. Who wouldn’t be happy with that? Quality over quantity. Pick your battles. Pick the ones you can win. This isn’t a recipe but the recipes are all here. It’s a guide to making a great holiday dinner. Moist turkey – dry brined. Dressing – lifted from the fabled Zuni Cafe chicken with bread salad. Gravy – think reduction for depth of flavour....
on Jun 04, 2019, Updated Apr 08, 2024 Mango is called the king of fruits for a reason and who are we to argue? It’s the juiciest, sweetest, most amazing tropical fruit that makes living through hot summer months so much more bearable. We can’t imagine ending a meal these days without biting into a chilled ripe mango with juices dripping down our chin. However, I know that many of you struggle with cutting a mango, and often end up with a pulpy mess....
Who doesn’t like meat on a stick? Indian Chicken tikka. Indonesian satay. Spanish pinchos morunos. Even a hot dog on a stick over an open fire can be a treat. Yakitori is just another great example of meat meets stick meets fire. Yakitori are best cooked over high heat Cook yakitori over high heat. Like one Mississippi or less heat. Screaming hot. That’s where the magic happens. You need to move fast when you do this but the results are worth it....
One of my favorite summer vegetables, eggplants, play a starring role in this delicious Persian eggplant stew, Khoresh Bademjan. This is an amazing dish for an eggplant/brinjal/aubergine lover to try, but it also has the mojo to convert those who are either on the fence about this delicious veggies, or downright hate it. Eggplants pair deliciously with tomatoes in Indian recipes like Baingan Bharta and Baingan Masala and in this African Peanut Stew....
You might also enjoy these recipes for detoxing dandelion greens soup and vegan caldo verde, a Portuguese soup with collard greens. When I’m looking to rid myself of some of the excesses of the holidays or eating on the road, I make myself a delicious turmeric ginger tea or this cleansing miso soup. It’s a light, one-bowl meal and it comes together easily and effortlessly. This homemade miso soup made from scratch tastes way better than a store-bought instant miso soup, and it is especially cozy and comforting to scoop it up in hot spoonfuls on a cold day or when the sniffles hit....
You might also like these recipes for vegan chickpeas bowl with yellow rice and Swiss chard and vegan Caribbean bowl. The mixed beans masala is an extraordinarily simple recipe, and I had some fun with it by adding to it almost every kind of bean I had in my pantry. There are kidney beans here and black beans and green and red mung beans, and great northern beans, and navy beans and pink beans and pinto beans and black-eyed peas....
Moroccan chicken and chickpeas is one skillet dish that I’ve been making forever. It’s not particularly authentic, I don’t think. But it’s really good. One of those homey style dishes that hits the spot. I adapted the recipe from a small lunch cafe years ago. They called it Moroccan chicken. Good enough for me. I upped the spice some and added some of the Ethiopian berbere chili powder. That’s wonderful stuff....
on May 30, 2013, Updated Apr 19, 2021 More often than not, people who are short on time wonder what alternatives they can adopt to lead a healthier lifestyle. My favorite way to eat healthy is to include more oats in my diet. Not only are the very easily available, but they are so highly nutritious and make for a healthy and filling breakfast. What I love about this oats upma is that this dish is extremely versatile, flavorful and easy to make, and yet again proves that not everything healthy has to be boring....
If you’ve never had papadum think corn chips, Indian style. Except instead of corn masa they are made with lentil flour. Seasoned with black pepper or cumin seed. Crunchy. Tasty. Fun. People say papadum are a flat bread. I don’t see it. I don’t deep fry my bread. Maybe I should try that. Might be onto something. Never say never. Pretty much everything that hits a deep fryer is tasty in my book....
Indian cuisine is most often associated with flatbreads like roti, naan and paratha. But in former Portuguese colonies like Bombay and Goa, a humble dinner roll, pav, took a firm foothold and has remained firmly entrenched in the local food scene over the centuries. You can buy pav in western Indian bakeries, but this simple bread roll is easy enough to make at home. In Goa, a street vendor called a poder (derived from the Portuguese word for baker, padeiro) still makes the round of neighborhoods every morning, a big basket of pav balanced on his bicycle, honking the horn to alert residents that breakfast is here!...
on Oct 25, 2024 This Saffron Milk Pudding Bites is pure happiness! One bite into its creamy, jelly-like texture and warm, cozy flavors will transport you straight to your childhood’s halwai ki dukaan. Making this Diwali sweet is really easy too, and it’s perfect for beginners! It comes together with just 2 main ingredients – milk and cornflour. It’s then flavored with kesar and cardamom to make a cozy mithai that is soo perfect for Diwali 🫶 I love coating these kesar pudding bites in desiccated coconut at the end....
on Nov 12, 2016, Updated Apr 20, 2021 I’m back with this Slow Cooker Korean Pork Bulgogi with Gochujang that’s a cross between Bulgogi and something that I ate recently at our favourite local Korean restaurant. And to be very honest with you, I’ve been making this slow cooker Korean pork bulgogi almost every week because A) we are in love with our slow cooker and basically don’t need reasons to cook in it B) we discovered how much we love spicy Korean food like these Korean Chicken Wings and C) Denver’s Mangalorean connection means pork is a regular feature in our house....
You might also like these recipes for vegan Thai green curry, Thai curried chickpeas and vegan massaman curry. You do need to have some Thai Yellow Curry paste on hand to make this curry, but that is something you can easily put together on a leisurely weekend day and then reap the benefits of for months to come. I have for you a great vegan recipe for the paste today too, and you can also check out my recipes for other Thai pastes – red and green – making the spice mixes at home....
You might also like vegan apple cake and vegan orange cake. If you love vegan banana bread, you will love this vegan cake loaded with bananas and topped with a creamy peanut butter icing. In our home, we call this cake the Elvis Cake. And it really is all that. The rock ’n’ roll legend’s love for food was well-known, and the infamous peanut butter and banana sandwich he adored, dubbed the “Elvis,” is the stuff of food excess lore....
You might also like these recipes for vegan carrot cupcakes and vegan carrot cake pancakes. Who doesn’t love carrot cake? Especially when it has a soft and silky crumb and melts in your mouth in a pool of cinnamon-scented sweetness? This vegan carrot cake is all that and so much more. This is the dessert I make most often for guests because everyone who eats it raves about it. Many have told me it’s the best carrot cake they’ve ever eaten....
You might also like these recipes for vegan blueberry pie, vegan strawberry pie and vegan peach pie. Because sometimes you just gotta have pie, I have for you today this scrumptious vegan Cherry Pie. I live in a pie loving household and any kind of fruit baked into a pie crust is always welcome around here. But a cherry pie? Now that took a while because I love cherries and I normally wouldn’t share them with someone – or something – else, like a pie, but this pie is so, so good, I just had to....
We are constantly looking for ways to help you navigate your weeknight cooking and make things even easier, so starting this week we are including total cooking times after each recipe in the menu below. Four of the six recipes this week are ready in under 35 minutes, and one in 45 minutes. You can always move things around and cook the longer recipe on a weeknight when you know you will have a little more time on your hands....
All the big south Indian flavours. Bold spicing. Green chilies. Coconut milk. Tamarind. And the bite of black pepper. No idea what I’m talking about? It’s time to fix that. Seriously. You need to put this in your mouth. You need to make the south Indian spice mix ahead of time I’m putting this up front. So there are no surprises. You can make this recipe in 30 minutes. It’s not that hard....
Adai (pronounced ud-a-yee) was one of the first foods I tasted in my Tamil mom-in-law’s kitchen. It became an instant favorite. Unlike its simpler but yummy counterpart, a plain dosa, an Adai is a star, hiding complex flavors beneath its lovely, golden skin. It is also, in my opinion, a little more fun to cook because it lets you play around quite a bit with the ingredients so you can make your own special version suited to your own special tastes....
