Spices n Secrets

Just two vegetables and such a delicious and comfort food.


Absolutely simple to prepare and easy to digest, potato and okra/lady fingers can be cooked in several ways. But I have a family favorite that uses no spices and still can make you crave for more.
Serve this stir fried dish with roti or paratha. It makes for an awesome tiffin recipe.


But if you want a real Bengali emotion, then serve it with hot steamy rice and dollops of ghee/butter. Mash the potatoes into the rice and lightly mix in the bhindi pieces. Oh! such a yummy taste.

Ingredients:

1. 2 large potatoes
2. 1/2 kilo bhindi/okra
3. 2 tsp. cumin/zeera whole
4. 1 tsp. turmeric/haldi powder
5. 1 tsp. sugar
6. salt to taste
7. vegetable oil for frying

Method:

The number of ways a fish curry can be made is amazing.


Uptil now I have shared spicy fish curry, everyday style fish curry, and even fish and orange curry. And each one scores one above the other.


Notching up my skills, I have a fairly simple way of Doi Macch recipe today.


My recipe ditches the traditional method and has a few extra ingredients that I feel has turned Doi Macch even more yummy.
Try to find out!

Ingredients for 4 Servings:

1. 4 rohu fish pieces
2. 2 medium onions
3. 4 green chillies
4. 1 cup sour yogurt
5. 1 tbsp. ginger-garlic paste
6. 1 tbsp. melon seeds or 5-6 cashews
7. 2 tsp. sugar
8. 1 tsp. haldi/turmeric
9. 1 tsp. red chilly powder
10. 1 bay leaf
11. 4 elaichi/cardamom
12. 1 inch stick dalchini/cinnamon
13. 4-5 laung/cloves
14. salt to taste
15. mustard oil for cooking

Method:

My husband Ajit's favourite breakfast item is cheela. And he makes them often for the whole family.


Cheela can be made simple with just onions and green chillies or you can add many vegetables.


Either way, cheela is an awesome and nutritious dish that goes very well with tea.

Ingredients:

1. 1 medium onion
2. 4-5 green chillies
3. 1/2 cup suji/semolina
4. 1/2 cup rice powder
5. 1/4 cup besan/chickpea flour
6. 2 tbsp. chopped fresh coriander leaves
7. 2 tsp. red chilly powder
8. 1 tsp. haldi/turmeric powder
9. salt to taste
10. vegetable oil for cooking

Method:

Who doesn't love fried rice? Specially when it has the goodness of vegetables and beans, and the aromatic flavor of dried herbs.


Here is a recipe to an easy-to-make Mexican Fried Rice. But I should admit that this is not the traditional recipe. The traditional one is a one-pot recipe where you will have to fry the rinsed rice with the vegetables and then boil them in vegetable/chicken broth to perfection.


This is my unique way of making it where you cook the rice separately and then add it to the pan of vegetables and stir fry. You can use either freshly boiled rice or leftover rice.


So, I guess this unique recipe can become your clean-the-fridge meal!
Check out the recipe below.

Ingredients:

1. 1 cup Basmati rice
2. 1/2 cup red kidney beans boiled and drained
3. 1/4 cup sliced yellow pepper
4. 1/4 cup sliced red pepper
5. 1/4 cup finely chopped carrots
6. 1/4 cup tomato ketchup
7. 1/2 finely chopped onion
8. 4 cloves of finely chopped garlic
9. 2 tbsp. vegetable oil
10. 1/2 tsp. chili flakes
11. 1/2 tsp. black pepper powder
12. 1/4 tsp. oregano
13. 1/4 tsp. thyme
14. Salt to taste
15. Water to boil rice

Method:

Yesterday I saw a beautiful and yummy movie titled Julie & Julia.


It is based on books called Julie & Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously and My Life in France.


If you are a lover of food, cooking and blogging, then this movie is for you.


I watched it twice. And again can. That much I love.


If nothing, then you will be craving for butter during or after watching this movie. Because butter is all over. Cooking and food is glorified and seen as a pleasurable job rather than a chore.


The movie also highlights the modern day method of stress buster - Blogging. Blogging is shown as a way to reach out to the world and use writing for relaxation.


The protagonist is a first time blogger, failed almost in every creative sphere, takes a self-imposed challenge to cook all the recipes of Julia Child in a year. With a lot of trials, tribulations and laughter, she not only successfully finishes the challenge but also becomes a published writer who turns her blog into a book (and the book is turned into this movie! Yes, the movie is a biography of Julie Powell, a real person)


As a disclaimer, I must mention that the movie celebrates French cooking. And, while I am an Indian and almost always cook with Indian ingredients, I still enjoyed watching and made no mockery of French style of cooking. Infact, I am not even inspired to cook French food where an omlette is ever so slightly cooked and kept 10-20 percent raw, because I love how we Indians fry well our eggs and the omlette has a brown toasty color and aroma on both sides.


What truly made me love this movie is the sudden realization that Spices n Secrets (SnS) also took birth out of my love for food and cooking. I have been maintaining a recipe diary and for long I wanted it to be in a more secure form. Blogging then became my preferred choice.


Ofcourse, if you see, SnS is least of the design and narrative of a blog. It is very structured, with carefully chosen topics, and all the blog posts are well drafted write-ups by me and my guest bloggers.


And, while I am in love with how SnS has turned up, I do miss the old-school blogging in which the writer is typing away their day's activities in "Dear Diary" form, speak their heart out, and random ramblings of thoughts coming every now and then.


Anyone can start a blog and you don't have to be a writer. However, in my experience, if you are a writer or you have a knack for creative writing, blogging is an unending journey for you. One can express their feelings and connect so well, over a single blog post, you will be amazed.


And, while it may seem you are sending out words in a void of air, it is actually being read and smiled over. Some would muster up the instincts to comment, some wont. But never ever does it mean, your post was unread!


Anyways, Julie & Julia, the movie I started the discussion with today, please watch it. The movie is there in Netflix. Let me link the books for you to read and add to your recipebook collection.


You just never know what this movie will inspire you to do. Maybe you begin scramming your kitchen for ingredients and begin cooking. Or plug your computer for starting a blog of your own.
   












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I love to exfoliate my skin no matter what the season is.


If it is summer, the dry and hot season calls for scrubs that are nourishing yet gets rid of dry flaky dead skin cells. And, if it is winter then dry skin syndrome heightens and scrubs becomes even more essential.


Today I have a recipe that is so delicious smelling that you can almost eat it.


Actually you can ! Because all the ingredients are edible.


Edible ingredients also means active ingredients that really gets down to work and give you a nice smooth skin feel after every exfoliation.


I am a coffee person and it struck me to include it into my skincare. And BAM! Comes into picture my DIY Coffee Chocolate Scrub Bar for not just face but the whole body.
The benefits are:

• Coffee has antioxidants and when applied directly onto skin, the skin cells improve.
• Some studies tells that coffee protects the skin from harmful UV rays and other skin damages.
• Coffee grounds are natural scrubbing agents that promotes good blood circulation as opposed to micro plastic beads that are used in commercial skincare products.
• Coffee has the exact same effect when applied on skin as it has when taken internally. The aroma of coffee is invigorating and very stimulating to the senses, and fills one with energy.
• Coffee reduces cellulite on skin. It also reduces puffy eyes,
• Sugar is a humectant, meaning sugar attracts moisture from the environment into your skin and helps keep skin soft and hydrated.
• Sugar is a natural glycolic acid, so it exfoliates dead skin cells.
• Milk has lactic acid which is a great cleaning agent.
• Milk has fats, so it is moisturizing the skin.
• Milk itself is loaded with vitamins which treat dry skin, boosts collagen, fights dark spots, and repairs ageing tissues.

I have used a premix meant for making hot chocolate/chocolate drink. And the reason is that a premix is a mixture of sugar granules, cocoa and milk powder. This way I don't have to measure and add sugar, cocoa and milk powder later into the scrub.

Ingredients:

1. 1/2 cup filter coffee granules
2. 1/2 cup hot chocolate drink mix (alternatively use 1 tbsp. of each - sugar granules, milk powder and cocoa powder)
3. 3/4 cup coconut oil

Method:

Storing & Usage Options:

In an Indian household, breakfast means bread, egg, roti, sabzi, paratha, poha, etc.


Dishes like pancakes, waffles, croissant, sausages, etc, are not considered common Indian breakfast. In fact, these are considered more as a dessert and delicacy.


One evening, wanting to experiment with pancakes, I made some for my family. It was an absolute hit-and-trial and I was rather amazed at the results.


Believing pancakes to be a good evening snack, everyone loved it and so the recipe became blog worthy!


I made a good enough stack of pancakes and drizzled thick sugar syrup instead of the quintessential maple syrup on not just top of the whole stack but inbetween each pancake. I then cut the stack like a cake and served each person a slice with extra syrup! This way you get a mouthful feel.

Ingredients:

1. 1 cup all-purpose flour
2. 1/2 cup shredded fresh coconut (you can use desiccated coconut also)
3. 3/4 cup of milk
4. 1 egg
5. 2 tbsp. sugar
6. 1 tbsp. baking powder
7. 1 tsp. vanilla essence
8. 1/4 tsp. salt
9. Sweet syrup (maple or sugar) for serving

Method:

I have been reading a book nowadays, called Winning in Testing Times, edited by Namita Bhandare.


It is basically a compilation of speeches that were delivered at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit in 2010.
From Manmohan Singh, Gordon Brown, Nandan Nilekani to Wasim Akram, Dr Ravi Gopal Verma, the Summit was an excellent gathering of people from almost all professions.


Each of the speeches and the question-answer rounds have been noted in this book. And all are so inspiring.


I finished the first speech by Dalai Lama and he had an interesting thing to say about parenting. And, I felt it is worth sharing.

1. Everyone is influenced by their mother. So, for a child (who later becomes a person) to become good natured and compassion, the mother has to be very kind and loving. In the words of Dalai Lama," At a very young age we survive on our mother's affection. At that stage the maximum affection we receive is from our mothers. That experience is absorbed by every particle of our body … Those who receive the most affection from their mother at an early age are safer and feel more secure. Those who grow up lacking a mother's affection or in abusive conditions, always remain insecure no matter how smart they may turn out to be."
2. The next remarkable point Dalai Lama made was in the context of religion and state development. But I found it to be application to parenting as well. He says that, "Without human action, Buddha's blessings are not very effective, are they?" He means that there are scores of scriptures and classes held on Buddha and his teachings but if people and state do not sit down to implement it, change will not take place. This got me thinking that no matter how many books on parenting and child care we read and no matter how many educational and learning toys we gift our kids, if parents/guardians do not deliberately sit down to talk, play and spent time with kids, never will they be able to change their parenting style for good. A lot of our efforts to raise to a child is dependent on television, mobiles, tablets and computers because with a click of a button songs can be played, alphabets are taught, and dances can be shown. We never really think about raising a child technology free and ourselves dancing, singing or teaching numbers and alphabets. Coming to Dalai Lama's point, human action is required to implement the things that are taught in parenting books. But, sadly we all prefer to pick and choose what suits our lifestyle and interest.