aartipaarti

My friend Karen made the world’s largest batch of mashed potatoes (love you Karen!) for Thanksgiving.

It must be a special gift to know just how much mashers to make. Last year, I brought a similarly enormous garlicky bowl of the buttery spuds to a family Thanksgiving, only to find that the host had already made an equally enormous batch. And so, my perfectly whipped concoction, all 5-kazillion pounds of them, remained in the very same Trader Joes bag I’d brought them in for the rest of the day.

No, of course that didn’t hurt my feelings. Noooooooo. Not THIS little self-obsessed girl. Not. A. Smidge.

I was too busy shining up my halo and being “grateful”.

Ha!

Then there was the Thanksgiving when the tubers went down the, ahem, tubes. No one made any. And since we don’t hardly eat mashed potatoes the rest of the year, imagine my disappointment!

Again, yes, this is all about me. I suppose that’s what you get when you name a blog after yourself.

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Hey y’all!

How are you? I hope you had a great weekend. I did; it rained here in Los Angeles, which always puts me in a good mood. Especially when we’re watching a good movie or two (Cedar Rapids! Hilarious!), whilst a pot of soup is bubbling away in the oven.

Sometimes I’m in such a rush doing the 5000 things I’ve set for myself that, I don’t get to carefully photograph the finished product and double-triple test it… and so a pile of recipes is lying in a dark corner somewhere, recipes I’ve promised you but failed to type up. (Typing up and posting beautiful photos can take me about 4 hours… for ONE POST! Isn’t that crazy?!).

Enter: Recipe Shmecipe… a simplified recipe, written the way your mum or aunty would tell you how to make something, over the phone. If you have even a baseline idea of how to cook, this is will be all you need!

So here’s the first one, and listen up y’all cow-huggers (heehee!): it’s VEGAN! Woohoo!

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Are you guys aware of Marcel the Shell? If not, watch the first video, the one that made every viewer’s heart melt into a puddle of chocolate, liquid rainbows and sparkly baby shoes:

And now, the second one! Don’t miss the “zzzzzzzzzzz”s….

There’s a picture book too! Too cute!

-x-
aarti

Someone asked for some ideas for an Indian-inspired Thanksgiving so, I humbly offer you five of my own:

1) Tandoori Chicken or Turkey
My recipe would be enough for a whole chicken but you would probably want to double or perhaps triple it for a turkey. In this month’s Bon Appetit, there is a recipe for Tandoori Turkey; they recommend marinating the turkey in an oven-roasting bag, then on the big day, cooking it in the bag for the bulk of the cooking time. When there’s 30 minutes to go, rip open the bag and allow the top to brown. I might try this method, with my tandoori marinade recipe though. It seems a tad easier than theirs!

2) Butternut squash, lentil and coconut stew
This soup is a good starter and especially good if you’re a vegetarian or vegan; beautiful autumnal colours, lots of bright flavour. Plus, it fills up your tummy, so you’re less likely to eat that third or fourth (ahem) slice of pie.

3) Roasted Root Jumble with Feta Cheese
This one is so easy, and such a crowd-pleaser. Pick whatever root vegetables you love, toss them in oil and spices, roast until salivatingly caramelized. Top with salty feta cheese. Boomski.

4) Mujadara: Lebanese Lentils and Rice with Caramelized Onions
While rice may not be a standard addition at the Thanksgiving table, you aren’t going to get any complaints if you serve this one. We went to a Persian Thanksgiving last year, and there were not one, not two, but three different kinds of pilafs on the table. Colour this girl, very VERY happy. This Lebanese pilaf is packed with flavour, thanks to a healthy dose of black peppercorns and lots of caramelized onions. You could add some nuts and even some candied orange peel to make it a little more holiday-friendly.

5) The piece de resistance: My stuffing muffins!
This one requires a red carpet, trumpets, court jesters, the whole 9. My mum’s stuffing is one of the things I miss the most in the world. Originally, she came up with it when she was making roast chicken, slathering our own version of harissa, which we call meet mersang, all over the bird, then stuffing it with a bread-bacon-mint-raisin mixture. These days, I’m realising that it’s probably safer not to stuff the bird, but holy crow, this stuffing has written its name on my heart. I adapted the recipe a bit and turned them into muffins, so that there’s a good crispy-to-tender ratio in every bite. Mum would also put the whole lot in a loaf pan, and bake it, then cut into slices before serving. Yum. The recipe recently caught the attention of Oprah’s magazine, O! Check it out!

-x-
aarti

So many things buzzin’ around the noggin today, so I thought I’d share them with you.

1) Food Mills
We’re hosting Thanksgiving this year, a perfect way to warm up our new table (more on that later this week, hopefully!).

Since we haven’t had a proper dining table for the past eight years, we haven’t hosted Thanksgiving all that often. When we did, it was in a very casual fashion. Our friends brought their favourite sides which ended up on whatever surface we could find: counters, coffee tables, empty chairs…

But since we’re planning on having people over this year around an honest-to-goodness dinner table, I’ve been paying particularly close attention to all the Thanksgiving advice in the various food mags. One mentioned that the best mashed ‘taters are achieved only by using a food mill (or a ricer, which I happen to use all the time. Cue hand cramps because you can only do a potato at a time!).

Do I really need another bulky piece of equipment in my kitchen? One that I may not use all that often? I have a ricer, a Vitamix, an immersion blender… I issued a survey on Facebook and Twitter and the consensus seems to be that indeed, they are bulky, and yes you may not use them all the time, but when you *do*, you’ll be mighty glad that you have one.

I’m thinking about getting this one. What do you think?

2) Tattoos
I’ve been threatening to get a tattoo for a couple of years now but I just can’t seem to settle on a design.

After I won the show, I wanted to mark the milestone by getting something on my left inner wrist; I decided a lion would be appropriate because of the verse that got me through the final stages of Star.

But I haven’t been able to settle on an image yet. I want it to be graphic, not photorealistic, but not cartoon-like either; it needs to be fierce while remaining regal. I know, I’m picky but, this will be with me until I’m playing with my grandkids, God willing. Better make it a good’un. And whenever I look for images of lions with crowns, I only find either ones on coat of arms or the Rasta version, neither of which really speak to me. So far, this is a favourite:

But there’s so much detail there that I don’t think my narrow little wrist would do it justice. A bartender I spoke to in Visalisa, CA suggested I get it on my inside arm, near my tricep. Ouch.

Meanwhile, Bren found these cute images of lions… they don’t necessarily inspire fear and wonder, but they are HECKA cute!

Check out the rest of the animals on the page. You might keel over from all that cuteness on one page.

3) Victoria’s Secret Models
Yup, it’s another body-issue thing.

I’ve always though that those models had unbelievable bodies, unattainable even. Well, turns out, I was right! Check out the kind of diets they have to follow in order to into tip-top shape for the VS show: egg powder and a gallon of water. It’s kind of reassuring isn’t it?

4) Vegan Schmegan
Ok now, don’t get upset. I still love meat, I’m not abandoning my precious bacon or any of that but… Bren and I are going vegan until Thanksgiving. There’s no real reason for it really, other than my own effort to sneak even more vegetables and fruit into our diets.

Bren’s aunt turned me on to the 21-day Vegan Kickstart issued by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, and in particular, my interest was piqued when she mentioned they were doing an Indian version. My peeps have been rockin’ the vegan diet for centuries; knowing how to sling a few spices here and there can really breathe some drama into an otherwise boring bowl of rice and lentils. Can you sense the Indian pride oozing through the screen at you?! Rawr!

Anyway, you can register for it online, which means you get recipes and encouragement sent over to your inbox everyday. It officially kicked off today, so apart from a breakfast of egg salad (we needed to finish off the eggs in the fridge!) we’re on it. I checked out some of the recipes on the site and since they’re not that user-friendly (do you have time to soak rice and urad dal overnight, then grind it, then steam it?! Didn’t think so), I’ll be posting some of the dinners I come up with here.

Having done the Daniel Fast before, which is even more restrictive (no white sugar, no caffeine, no alcohol), I think we’ll be fine, but already I’ve craved braised chicken and a slab of tuna. Funny, huh?

Tonight’s dinner was corn pasta with butternut squash, cremini mushrooms and sun-dried tomatoes with harissa, thyme, rosemary and a little cinnamon. Oh and a touch of honey. SO GOOD. If you’d like the recipe, let me know and I’ll put it up tomorrow.

5) Oh, and this…

Pumpkin Gnocchi from Happyolks on Vimeo.

…from a new fav site, Happy Yolks.

Well that’s all the randomness for now. Time to sip on some warm apple cider, read a book and pass out.

-x-
aarti

I come from farming people.

My dad grew up on a farm in Mangalore (India), replete with rice paddies, coconut trees and cows. One of my fondest memories is of he and his younger brother waxing nostalgically about waking up before the crack of dawn, downing a cup of steaming tea, then running out to plough the paddies. After hours in the fields, armed with a gigantic appetite and speed-of-lightning metabolism, they’d rush back into the farmhouse where their mum had prepared a huge, satisfying breakfast: fish curry and rice.

I liked everything about the story except for that last part. Fish curry and rice?! I was NOT a fish fan growing up, and there’s no greater way to distance a fish-hater than to conjure up a picture of fish for BREAKFAST!

These days, I think I’d quite like that.

Uh oh, I feel an attack of the side notes coming on!

Side note #1: Give it up for my fellow Mangalorean: former Miss World, and current queen of Bollywood, Aishwarya Rai!

Yeah. We don’t all look like that in Mangalore.

Side note #2: I like to think that those agricultural genes account for my build; this body was made for coercing stubborn bullocks through mud and for carrying hefty jugs gurgling with freshly harvested milk! Even this morning in Pilates class, while I struggled through some of the ab exercises (curse you, Teaser!), I glided through the lunges. Nope, these thighs aren’t the long, elegant ones of say your garden-variety Victoria’s Secret model, but they are made of strong stuff and I’m learning to love them.

Where was I?

Oh yeah! I felt those genes kick into gear in another way a couple of weeks ago…

I had just finished up my cooking demo at the Savor the Central Coast festival in San Luis Obispo, CA.

This was the most beautiful demo set-up I’ve ever seen! Everyone gathered in this massive old wooden barn, complete with strung lights, reclaimed iron legs on the demo table…

…and a huge, simple cross hanging in the window (the event was held on a former mission).

After I wrapped up, someone asked me if I’d like to milk a goat.

Um, what? WHO says no to that?!

And so, meet my new friend Cherry.

Cherry was a big’un with a very sweet face.

At first, she was a little standoff-ish, sizing me up out of the corner of her eye. I don’t blame her. You don’t want just anyone handling your, um, teets.

After letting me practice on her thumb, Cherry’s owner showed me how to put it into practice on the “real deal”.

And then it was my turn. I looked her in the eye, and said, here we go, love. I reached for her gently, scared of hurting her but, sensing my nervousness, Cherry bucked a little.

Hmmm, I told myself, trepidation wouldn’t work with my girl. A good strong grip was the ticket (man, there is no way to write about this without a double-entendre or three, huh?).

Success!

It was so satisfying, you guys! As I sat there, milking away, I felt the world kind of melt away a little bit, and for a very small second, I channeled my ancestors… although they milked cows not goats, and probably didn’t view with it even an ounce of the romanticism I did!

I tasted a little of her milk, directly from the source, so to speak: sweet, extra creamy, and none of the gameyness that I usually associate with goat milk. Plus, it was warm. Such an interesting sensation — made me realise how accustomed we are to drinking chilled milk.

And just when I was thanking my ancestors for leaving a little bit of that instinct in my bones, the owner told me something that made my chest swell with even more pride: Cherry had never been milked by hand before! Yay! In fact, she said that I did such a good job that she gave me a blue ribbon.

Yeah yeah, she probably gives that out to everyone, but let me have my moment, ok?

-x-
aarti

So, yesterday, I told you guys about the utter joy I got out of growing my own oyster mushrooms using the Back to the Roots mushroom kit.

Well, guess what?!

If you’d like to try them for yourself, I have a special present for you!

Check out the special offer that the co-founder, Nikhil Arora, is extending you and me:

“I’d love to offer your readers a discount, they can use code mushrooms4me10 and get 10% off and free shipping on 2 or more! Also, if they post a pic of their fully grown kit on our facebook page, we’ll donate one to an elementary school of their choice!”

Cool, huh?

The Back to the Roots website has a long list of recipes you can make using these little ones, but consider making these beauties:

These are my Shroom & Tater Potlis (or parcels), inspired by Yotam’s recipe in his exquisite tome, “plenty”. My version uses (of course!) plenty of ginger, garlic and my favourite vinegar of the moment, malt vinegar.

I love cooking in parchment. When I was a little girl, we spent a few weeks in London one summer, and I remember going back to an Italian restaurant over and over because they served a pasta dish that had been cooked in parchment. My sister and I couldn’t get enough of it; the dish itself was delicious but oh, the simple joy of a paper-wrapped surprise coming to the table! Even though we knew exactly what was in that package, I remember hardly being able to control my excitement as it came to the table.

Why do kids love that so much? And why do we lose that ability as adults to take pleasure in such a simple thing? Every time the waiter ripped open the parchment for us, plumes of steam thrust themselves into the air, scenting us with cheese and garlic. We oooh’d and aaah’d.

Potli (POE-tlee) means little bundle in Hindi, I believe; we’ll wrap up a handful of aromatic spices in a piece of muslin or cheesecloth and drop that into a pot of boiling rice, or a pot of slow-cooking meat, similar to the bouquet garni of many a Western kitchen.

Mum would also use that word to describe the delicate little bun old Indian women tie their hair into, a whisper of the luscious locks of their youth. Or she’d use it to describe a cute little swollen-with-momma’s-milk baby belly. It occurred to me that when my mum sees the photos of these little parcels, that’s probably what she’ll call them! (See? All food IS Indian food! If you don’t understand the reference, click here).

When I made this dish for Bren last week, he called it “elegant”, a word which I wouldn’t use to describe my food. I’m a rustic (read: messy) cook and I’m ok with it. But someone I wanted to impress was coming over, this would be on the menu. It’s almost effortless, super mega (yup, there I go again) delicious and reminds me to take a second to enjoy the simpler things in life.

Note: if you’re making enough to feed 4 as my recipe calls for, you will probably need to supplement your Back to the Roots harvest with some store-bought ones. I used a host of wild mushrooms in this version, but I’ve also made this using a combo of brown mushrooms (creminis), shitakes and a few oysters (for texture). Use whatever you have. It will be delicious no matter what!

I don’t have much of a green thumb.

I can grow things, but then I get bored or I forget about them. Quite callous that way, now I think about it. As soon as the plant starts to go awry, I walk away. Bren is all about nursing it and attending it. He can’t believe that I turn my back so easily.

Perhaps it’s because I think I know how it will end, and I can’t take the idea that I failed it. Probably something true in there somewhere.

WOAH WOAH WOAH!

Didn’t expect to get that intense in this post!

Forgive me folks. I’m feeling a little under the weather and the days have been beautifully grey over here in la-la so I suppose having this cloudy ceiling over us lends to some introspection.

I promise there’s some joy in here somewhere. Where was I?

Oh yeah.

Grow. Your own. Mushrooms.

POW! How about that for a ray of sunshine!

I found this company, Back to the Roots, at the Eat Real Fest in LA a few months ago. As soon as I spotted it, I felt my ancestors’ farming genes kicking into high gear. I remember feeling positively giddy as I carried around this little box of potential beauty and life. From the outside, it’s a nasty looking box of white fungus and used coffee grounds. But on the inside, I could just imagine those microscopic spores just aching at a chance at life!

For the first few days, I wondered whether I had already squashed these little spores’ dreams. Nothing sprouted. Nothing changed. And then, one fine morning a little gross-ness appeared on the top of it. I’m being honest. I mean, it looked like, um, fungus. Which kinda made my tummy queasy.

And then, this happened…

(you can click on any of these to blow them up and get a closer look).

That’s when they took off. Every day, they grew exponentially more. In fact, they were growing so fast that they scared Bren a little…

Aren’t they GORGEOUS?

I can imagine this being a fabulous present for children, especially if you don’t have a garden… what a wonderful way to teach us not to judge a book by its cover!

Check in tomorrow — I harvested these beauties and made them into a tremendous dish, my fav at the moment: Mushroom and Potato Parcels.

Yours in spores and green thumbs,
-x-
aarti

At the beginning of the year (side note: holy joe! This year has whizzed right by!), Bren and I went to the South Beach Wine and Food Festival. One of the demos I knew I didn’t want to miss was of course, that handsome lad, Jamie Oliver.

At first blush, Jamie’s boy-man appeal is apparent: the excitement that pours out of him when he handles six different kinds of beets parallels that of a little boy on Christmas Day. There’s that every-man quality, gilded by that Cockney accent, that cuts right to the core of the matter. I love how he talks to the camera, or I suppose just to the side of it, as if you’re one of his best buds hanging out in the kitchen with him. When I think about it, his on-camera style has definitely influenced mine.

But I also love the way he cooks: a focus on fresh, seasonal produce combined with rustic, unfussy cooking techniques… it’s the way we all would cook if only we had his imagination. At least, that’s what I think.

That’s why when Jamie said that if anyone called themselves a cook, they needed one of these…

…I rushed out to get one (And I’m sure it’s a coincidence that Jamie actually has his own line of m&ps, teehee!).

I mean, I’ve always had a version of a mortar and pestle in the kitchen but after my teeny-tiny one broke, replacing it just fell to the bottom of my priority list.

But ever since I got a new one, I have found myself looking forward to using it. It sits permanently on my counter, not only because it’s beautiful but also because there’s a flavour emitted through the warmth of that stone crushing garlic or grinding seeds to a powder, that the cold blade of my spice grinder or blender just can’t touch.

Perhaps it’s because it reminds me of the massive mortar and pestle type of thing that my family and ancestors use in India to make the wet masala (wet spice paste) that is the foundation of curry-making:

(Photo from Ruchik Randap)

And so I bring you what I’m calling the Rolling Stone Salad, so called because the dressing comes together in the womb of the mortar and pestle (ooh! Maybe that’s another reason I love that thing; it’s so expressly feminine!): garlicky, smoky-nutty with the slight acidic sweetness of orange and a punch of sourness from the Chaat Masala. This is a salad that comes together quickly using a combination of pantry and refrigerator ingredients, a perfect hump-day dinner!

If you’ve blessed me by coming to any of my cooking demos recently, then you may have heard me talking about how Indians, or at least the Indians in my family, often think that all good things, all civilized things, all things worth lauding… originated in India!

Whether it’s the decimal point, the number zero, traditional medicine (ayurveda), the cotton gin, lining your eyes with kohl, how Sanskrit or Tamil (depending which end of the subcontinent you’re from) is one of the oldest languages in the world… we have a lot of pride in our long, LONG history!

It reminds me a little of the father character in My Big Fat Greek Wedding… while he thought everything goes back to the Greek, for my family, everything goes back to India.

Hence the hilarity of this video that my mum sent me yesterday… and the ball-sy claim that “all food is Indian food!”.

Enjoy!

-x-
aarti