Orange and Avocado Salad

This is an attempted recreation of a phenomenal citrus salad I ate at Meriwether's this weekend. As usual, I substituted or omitted what I didn't have at home, and imagined the recipe up. The end product was different, but totally yummy! I'm definitely going to make this again.



Ingredients:
1. Citrus fruit - more the merrier. I only had navel oranges. Add grapefruit, blood oranges, tangerines.
2. Avocado
3. Shallots, or red onion
4. Ginger
5. Lime

Procedure:
1. Peel and cut the orange.
2. Finely chop the onion.
3. Finely chop the ginger.
4. Cut the avocado.
5. Arrange layers of orange, sprinkled onion and ginger, and avocado on a plate.
6. Sprinkle salt and pepper, and squeeze half a lime.

Eat immediately, preferably slightly cold!

Broccoli-Cauliflower Stir Fry

An extremely quick and simple dish- I prefer to eat it warm by itself, although with some modifications could be a good accompaniment to something starchy like rice, rotis, couscous, or pasta.

Ingredients:
1. Red onion
2. Broccoli
3. Cauliflower
4. Cumin
5. Olive oil
6. Fresh ginger - lots of it!
7. Asafoetida (if you want)

Procedure:

Cut the onion into long slivers. Cut the broccoli and cauliflower into any size that is convenient for you to eat. I prefer to leave them on the larger side so they don't start crumbling under heat.
Heat a little olive oil on high heat, add asafoetida if you like its taste (I do!), some cumin, and after a few seconds, add the onion in too. Let it cook on a high heat for a minute or so, just until the onion looks a little shiny.
Add the broccoli and cauliflower and cover with a lid for 2-3 minutes.
In the meanwhile, chop fresh ginger (more the merrier) and add to the pan.
Add salt to taste.
Wait for a little bit, until the broccoli and cauliflower are cooked to the degree desired. I personally like it to be borderline crisp.
Eat!

To make as an accompaniment - I would add a few tomatoes, and cook the vegetables longer until they're soft.

Spinach-strawberries salad with tangerine dressing

I totally made this salad up*, and was amazed at how good it tasted! Enthused by this success, I shall continue to experiment with salads through the summer. Veena can be my guinea pig and unbiased taster. :)

Anyway, onto business.

Ingredients:

Baby spinach - 2-3 handfuls

1 shallot

Strawberries - ~6

Lemon - 1/2

Walnuts - handful

Tangerine juice (fresh is best!) - 1/4 cup or a little less

A fraction of a serrano pepper (green chilli) - 1/3 chilli

Red chilli powder - a pinch

Salt - a pinch

Procedure:

Wash the baby spinach and place in a bowl. Slice the shallot into slivers and toss over the spinach. Add some walnuts. Slice strawberries into large chunks and toss in as well.

To make the dressing, mix a little (1/4 of a cup) tangerine juice with some finely chopped green chillis, a pinch of red chilli powder, and some salt.

Toss the salad with the dressing, and eat. I thought it tasted great!

I apologize for the picture of the half eaten salad, I remembered to take a picture after I had eaten a lot of it!

*This is mostly true. I drew inspiration from the spinach, citrus, sesame, avocado salad in Joy Of Cooking that Udit and I had made in Portland a while ago. That was amazing too, but required just a tiny bit more preparation. The toasted sesame seeds were a delightful surprise in their strong flavour!

Pappu Can't Dance Asparagus

This elementarily simple preparation takes almost NO effort at all, and tastes amazing! It also looks startlingly pretty- the contrast of the bright green asparagus with the pink of the strawberries is a delight!

Ingredients:

1. Asparagus
2. Strawberries
3. Olive oil

Equipment:

1. Saucepan

Procedure:

1. Heat a little oil in the saucepan.
2. Toss in the washed asparagus whole.
3. Slice the strawberries.
   
4. After the asparagus is cooked (it will get a little droopy), toss in the strawberries.
5. After about 30 seconds, stop heating the saucepan. Tossing the strawberries in is only to coat it with a little oil, and cook just a tiny bit.
   

Yummy Guacamole

Ingredients:

1. 1 avocado, medium ripe
2. 1/2 fresh tomato
3. 1/2 onion, preferably red
4. Dash of lemon, if you want
5. Fresh coriander/cilantro
   

Equipment:

1. Knife
2. Bowl for mixing
3. Spoon

Procedure:

1. Chop the onion, tomato, and avocado in that order.
2. Mix everything in the bowl.
   
3. Add coriander.

Notes:

1. The avocado will brown quickly so cut it only a few minutes before you plan to eat the guacamole. Or, sprinkle some lemon on it to prevent it from browning.
   
2. I personally don't like squishy guacamole, but if you like your guacamole more like a paste than a cubed salad, buy a ripe avocado.
   
3. You don't really need any salt or anything else..this is perfectly delicious as it is, just the vegetables.

Easy Peasy Pancakes

So while the authorship was rather easily established, shaking off the laziness wasn't that easy!

I always thought pancake batter was the most complicated, mysterious thing to make, and resolutely stuck to buying readymade pancake mix from the supermarket.

Thanks to my flatmate, I now know they aren't all that mysterious!

Ingredients:

1. One cup self-raising flour
2. One egg
3. One cup milk
4. A tiny bit of salt/sugar depending on your preference
5. Oil or butter to cook
6. Fruits- optional (blueberries work well)


Equipment:

1. Bowl to mix ingredients
2. Fork or whisk
3. Flat pan to cook
4. Deep round ladle


Procedure:

In the bowl, mix together the flour, milk and egg and whisk gently until all the ingredients are completely combined.

Add the salt or sugar to taste.

Heat a small amount of butter or olive oil in a non-stick pan and use the ladle to scoop the batter onto the pan. Let it spread on its own, or assist it by swinging the pan about a bit.

Allow the pancake to cook on a medium flame until holes start to appear all over the surface. Once the holes have appeared all the way till the centre, turn over for a very small amount of time and remove.

Repeat until the batter is finished. The first pancake never looks that good, and takes the longest, but it speeds up substantially after the first one.

Serve immediately.

Eat with maple syrup, or strawberries and cream, or ice cream, or nutella, or bananas, honey.... anything you like really.

Tip: If you want chocolate flavoured pancakes, instead of directly mixing chocolate into the batter, try putting chocochips in instead. Then, when you cook them, the chocochips melt inside the pancakes. Eat immediately!

Tip # 2: Make mini pancakes, about the size of button idlis, and serve in a bowl with ice cream and strawberries as a dessert.

Tip # 3: Add more milk to make thinner pancakes. Thin pancakes (without sugar) can be accompanied with a filling such as spinach and fetta, or tomato and onion with basil, for a main course.

Recipe courtesy: Mariana

And quite easily done, isn't it!

A new author!

One of my oldest and dearest friends is now a co-author for this blog! We figured we had a lot of cluelessness in common (with respect to cooking). New recipes are soon to come! I have been experimenting in the kitchen quite a bit lately! :)

Mango Salsa

Ingredients

1. Reasonably ripe mango
   
2. Onion (Preferably bright purple)
3. Red bell pepper (ripe capsicum)
4. Green jalapeño pepper (can be substituted with green capsicum)
5. Lemon juice
   
6. Coriander
7. Chilli powder to taste (optional!)

Equipment

1. Knife
2. Bowl to mix everything

Procedure

1. Chop all the ingredients and mix them together!

This is my new favorite thing to make. I eat plain, with tortilla chips, with tortillas, or rice. It tastes amazing anyway! The trick is to get brightly colored ingredients, so it is not only a treat to eat but is pretty to look at too! I don't add any salt, because it tastes fine without it. I think all of us that eat packaged food a lot ingest too much Sodium anyway.