because stuffed okra is in high demand right now.

[today's lunch: stuffed okra]

I posted the above photo on Instagram and Facebook a little over an hour ago, and I have since received 6 requests for a recipe. Since the recipe lives mostly in my mother's head, I decided to have her dictate it to me so I could share it on here. It's a little time-intensive, and it involves a lot of stuff you'll mostly only find in an Indian household, but it is definitely something everyone should try. Also, my mother wanted to stress that you should come to her house for a demonstration. And she's an Indian mother, so she's serious.

Step One:

rinse your okra [we don't actually weigh how much we get, but we are estimating it's about a 1/2 pound. fyi if you live in close proximity to an Indian grocery store, go there for your okra -- it's often fresher] and pat it dry. we like to do this the night before we cook it so it gets fully dry and isn't sticky.

Step Two:

cut the ends off the okra and then slit them down the middle so you can stuff them later.

Step Three:

in a medium-size mixing bowl, gather the following*:

1/2 cup gram/chickpea flour [possible substitutes, if you can't get your hands on any]

1/4 tsp turmeric powder

3/4 tsp red chilly powder [can add more if you want it spicier]

2 tsp cumin powder

3-4 tsp coriander powder

1.5 tsp sesame seeds

salt to taste

1/2 cup minced onions

1 inch grated ginger

5 cloves minced garlic

2 minced green chillies [more if you want to add spice]

1/4 cup minced coriander leaves [cilantro]

4 sprinkles lemon juice

*my mother and I don't really use measurements when we cook, we pretty much just use our hands, so these are all estimates. sorry!

Step Four:

mix the above ingredients by hand, adding oil as needed to achieve the desired texture [not quite a paste. I know I'm being super helpful right now]

Step Five:

stuff the okra with the masala mixture.

Step Six:

heat oil in a skillet and add okra when the oil is warm. cover partially and cook on medium-low, stirring occasionally. takes about 20-25 minutes to cook.

Step Seven:

garnish with more minced coriander, serve, and enjoy!

The stuffing takes some time to get ready, but once you've got the okra stuffed, it's smooth sailing after that. We like to eat ours with parathas, but it's good with just about anything -- rice, chapatti, naan, bread, etc.

If any of you actually decide to try this at home, please let me know! My mother will get such a kick out of it.

xx

mommy mush: a new take on an old recipe.

"Mommy Mush" is a dish my mother has been making since I was in high school. Someone gave her a recipe for some south of the border something-or-other, she added a few of her own touches to it, and voila, a household dish is born. We didn't really have a name for it until I went to college, when Maggie Goodman dubbed it Mommy Mush, and the name just kind of stuck.

I've made it a few times in the last few years - most recently just a few weeks ago - and I've just about got it down. I thought I would share the process on here, in case anyone out there is interested in trying it out for themselves.

A small warning: I decided to take pictures after I'd already begun the process, so they sort of start in the middle of the whole thing. Sorry 'bout that.

What you'll need:
makes enough to feed 7-10 people [we don't really do small portions in my household :)]
-2 lbs. of ground beef chuck
-2 bags of Uncle Ben's Boil-in-a-Bag plain rice [1 box contains 4 bags]
-2 cans of whole kernel corn, drained [we prefer Green Giant in our house]
-1 can of extra hot rotel
-1 can of Mexican rotel
-1 can of tomato soup [we are partial to Campbell's]
-8 oz of Velveeta cheese, cut into cubes [get the Mexican cheese if you can find it for some added spice; otherwise the regular Velveeta cheddar is fine. I would like to try it with the white queso and jalapeno Velveeta one day, but I'm not sure how my parents would react]
-1/2 a large red onion, chopped
-2 tbsp green chillies, chopped
-1 tbsp garlic, chopped
-2 tsp ginger, grated
-chopped coriander [cilantro] to garnish

To begin, cook the beef as you normally would, stirring occasionally, and drain the grease once it's finished. Leave to cool.

While the beef is cooking, fill a 5- or 7-quart pot [your choice] 2/3 full and drop in the 2 bags of rice, still sealed. Bring to a boil and cook for 5-7 minutes. Pour out water and let rice cool, still sealed.

In the meantime, go ahead and chop the onions, green chillies, and garlic, and peel the ginger.

When the pot cools a bit, saute the onions and ginger on medium heat [our little trick is to grate the ginger over the onions before we put them in the pot to save ourselves having our hands over the heat for too long. I added my own trick and put in just a pinch of red chilly powder over the onions and garlic]. Stir occasionally.

Once the onions are a light brown colour, add in the green chillies and garlic. Let those mix in for a few minutes -- and throw in another small pinch of red chilly powder, if you're so inclined. Keep on medium heat.

After letting those mix together for a few minutes, reduce the heat and add in the beef and stir. Cut open the bags of rice and add them to the mixture, and then add in the corn, both cans of rotel, and the can of tomato soup. Fill the soup can with water and swish around a bit and pour in also [just watch out for those sharp rims! I got myself a nice slice on my finger the last time I made it...]. optional: add in a 1/2 tsp of red chilly powder here, if you want to make it a little spicier. Mix well, leave on low-to-medium heat, and cover, stirring occasionally.

After about 7-10 minutes, add the cheese. Mix well and cover, again stirring occasionally.

Once the cheese melts, it's ready to serve. Usually takes about 10 minutes, depending on how low or high you have your heat. Garnish with coriander and dish it up.

It's a personal choice, but we like to add a small dollop of sour cream once we have it in our bowls to add to the taste. Also, a lot of people like to scoop it up with Fritos, although I usually pass on that one. It's up to you. Regardless, I hope you enjoy it.

Bon appetit!
xx

this one time, i made thanksgiving dinner.

Last Thursday, I was somehow trusted with feeding my family for Thanksgiving. My parents were out of town and flew back only on Thursday afternoon, and since it was the first time I'm been in the States for Thanksgiving since 2006, I wanted to make sure I got my traditional Thanksgiving dinner: chicken biryani.

So since my mother wasn't around to wave her magic wand, the task fell to me to feed everyone. I looked through a few recipes online and watched a few videos to get some ideas for how I wanted to make it - eventually I chose one to use as my main guide and tweaked it a little to make it my own.

What follows below are pictures of my endeavor along with the steps I took to get there. Hope you enjoy!

Above you have all the ingredients for the chicken marinade:

• chicken [I bought one package of drumsticks and one of thighs and cleaned them. with bones is better than without]
• 2 green chillies, chopped [this was an addition of mine]
• plain yogurt
• garlic, chopped
• ginger, grated [the recipe called for it to be chopped, but I prefer grating it]
• turmeric powder
• chili powder
• garam masala powder
• salt
• coriander powder [again, an addition of mine]

Add all of these ingredients to the chicken, mix it up nicely, and let it marinate for an hour.

[winner winner chicken dinner] 

[close up of your green chillies, ginger, and garlic]

[your standard masala dabba to hold all of your spices]

[here's what it looks like all mixed up. I might have gotten a little over-excited about the yogurt]

After this, I washed the rice and soaked it in water for half an hour.

Meanwhile, I chopped some onions and tomatoes. Technically the recipe called for sliced onions, but I don't like slicing onions. Call me crazy.

[chopped onions, tomato, and cilantro]

[onions with some other stuffs]

At this point, I put some oil into a huge pot and heated it up with some cloves, cardamon, bay leaves, and some of those chopped onions. Once those started getting a bit brown, I added the tomatoes and then eventually the chicken.

I brought this to a boil and then reduced the heat to low and let it cook slowly, stirring every 5 minutes or so.

While that was stewing, I filled another large cooker with water, and heated it with some bay leaves, cardamon, and cloves. I then added the rice [after draining it from the water in which it had been soaked], brought that to a boil, and then reduced the heat and let it simmer.

I cooked both of these until they were thisclose to being done - essentially almost all the way, but not quite.

Then I fried the last of the chopped onions in some hot oil to use for the layers.

At that point, I got another large pot and started layering - started with chicken on the bottom, then a layer of rice, added some of those fried onions, some turmeric powder, chili powder, coriander powder, and garam masala powder, and some saffron that had been soaked in warm milk, then added another layer of chicken, another layer of rice, and some more of the spices.

This is what it looked like:

I then put the lid on, put the pot on a griddle plate [to keep it from getting direct heat], and heated it on low for about 15-20 minutes.

This was the finished product, after being mixed:

Next on my list: the ins and outs of tandoori / butter chicken.
woo pig.
xx

first cooking lesson with the big b.

Tonight I had my first proper cooking lesson with my mother. I have been helping her in the kitchen for as long as I can remember, but I had never before cooked an entire meal for the four of us. I figured since I'm moving in a few weeks and will mostly be responsible for my own meals, now is as good a time as any to learn.

My mother and I decided I would learn "mommy mush" - a dish so named by Maggie Goodman because, well, it looks like a big pile of mush once it's all finished. We bought everything we needed yesterday, and today we went into the lesson with only one rule, imposed by me: my mother was only allowed to supervise. I realised that if it was just me helping and her doing everything - as it has been all these years - I would never properly learn.

First order of business? Well, my mother was taking a much-deserved mini nap on the couch, so I gave her an extra few minutes, gathered all the ingredients, and sliced my thumb on one of the can lids in the process. Typical walking disaster. But my mother says it's a sign of a good cook, and you should never argue with mother.

Then came the chopping of stuff. This is something I have a lot of experience in, and I say I did a pretty decent job. Judge for yourselves:








Come on, you couldn't expect me to not go crazy with the chillies. Who do you take me for? While all this was happening, the meat was browning and the rice was cooking, so once that was finished, I browned some onions and then tossed everything into the pot. This is what it looked like before I added the cheese:





Now, I forgot to get a picture of the final product, but just picture this with a whole load of melted Velveeta cheese, and you get the idea.

Overall, everything went smoothly. My father approved, and I got a double stamp of approval from the brother. And my mother loved it. Which is more than enough for me.

So concludes our first cooking lesson. Here's hoping we can squeeze a few more in before I move.
xx