Short Blogging Break

The Great Sand Dunes and the Colorado Mountains

I am going to be on a short blogging break. I meant to post this yesterday but couldn't get a chance to. I hope to be back sometime next week. I am leaving you all with a picture of the Great Sand Dunes in Colorado, taken last Summer on our trip there.

Spice is Right - Ginger Shortbread Cookie bars

gingered shortbread cookie bars

Barbara of Tigers and Strawberries has a revolving monthly event called Spice is Right! Read about this month's theme on Barbara's blog. I did not have the time to submit one for last month and I told myself that I was going to make something for this month. I said this to myself so many times that I totally forgot about it, well, until late Sunday night! So, it had to be a quick and easy recipe. The first spice that came to my mind was chile powder. I had seen Emerill use chile powder on one of his shows to create a dessert and that stuck in my head. I started googling for chile infused desserts and came across some chocolate cakes, chocolate cupcakes that were chile infused. Some how that seemed a little more work. I then starting flipping through my cookbooks. I was looking at my "Best-loved Cookies" book and I stumbled on shortbread cookies. I hadn't made them in a while and as soon as I saw the cookies, I started thinking about spice options. I first thought chile powder but thought faded away from the mind pretty soon as it did not really sound very appealing. So I went with ginger instead.

I do not even remember when my first association with ginger began. Probably when my mom used to recruit me to help her clean all the dirt off the ginger after she brought it home. Yes people, don't be surprised now, ginger used (still probably does) to come with dirt back in India. It was red, clay consistency mud ("erra matti" literally meaning red dirt) that the ginger had all over when it was first bought. I am not sure if the ginger actually grew in that type of dirt or if store owners just kept it in that dirt to "preserve" it. Any enlightenment on this topic will be appreciated. The "ginger cleaning" ritual became even more rigorous in the Summers. That is because that is when my grandmother and mother did their pickling (mango mainly) and we needed ginger in large quantities for that. There used be kilos and kilos of ginger that all of us kids (cousins, siblings) helped clean and scrape. I just loved the way ginger smelled, so I didn't mind that chore at all.

It seemed to me like my family put ginger in (what seemed like) almost everything savory. They put it in tea, curries, mainly non-vegetarian dishes (lamb, chicken, fish etc), fried vegetables, savory items (murukku etc). If you pay attention to my recipes, you will see that I carry the "ginger gene" in me too. I tend to put ginger in almost everything. The major culture shock to me with ginger was when I first took a bite of the ginger snap cookies almost 4 years ago. That was the first time I realized that ginger is used in sweet dishes too. Now, it doesn't really seem very wierd to me to put ginger in sweet stuff but if you had talked to me half a decade ago, I probably would have gagged at the idea ;).

ginger

Even though I got the short bread idea from the cookbook, I did not follow that recipe. I used a recipe from a friend from my previous work place. It is a very simple, "wake-me-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night-and-I-will-rattle-it-off" kind of recipe. Here's the recipe!

Software
---------------

• 1 cup flour
• 1 heaping teaspoon corn starch
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 6 tbsp melted butter
• 1 tbsp ground fresh ginger
• 1 tbsp finely chopped fresh ginger
  

Hardware
---------------

• One 9 inch cake pan
• One small mixing bowl
  

the short-bread ready to go in the oven

Method
---------------

• Pre-heat the oven to 325 degrees.
• Cover the cake pan with aluminium foil for easy clean up. This step is of course optional.
  
• Mix all the ingredients under the software list and press the dough into the cake pan until it is evenly pressed.
  
• Poke holes all over the top with a fork.
• Bake in the oven for about 15 minutes. Pull it out of the oven and using a knife, score the cookie and cut into desired shapes.
  
• Put it back in the oven for another 15-20 minutes or until the cookie is lightly browned.
• Let it cool in the pan and break of the already scored cookie pieces.

Some Kitchen Notes:

• The first four ingredients in the list are the original shortbread recipe. I just added the ginger to it. This cookie was unbelievably delicious. When I bit into a piece that had the actual ginger in it, it was heavenly.
• I add a teaspoon of vanilla to the regular shortbread cookies if I am making them without the ginger.
  

Easy, Breezy Saturday Brunch

counter-clock wise direction: idli, peanut chutney, vellulli karam (garlic & spice powder) with ghee, mullangi (radish) pappu charu and fruit (mango & cantaloupe)

It was easy because it only took me a few minutes to throw this together. Breezy coz it is very windy outside today, but a very beautiful day neverthless! This is what we ate for our brunch this Saturday morning. I had idli, peanut chutney and mullangi pappu chaaru/sambhar in the freezer that I thawed and re-heated. I had made this last week and freezed some of it. While the food was in the microwave, I got busy cutting up some fresh fruit - cantaloupe and mango. Brunch was ready! See that is one of the pleasures of freezing food. It works for those days that are really crazy and hectic.

Shrimp Curry (in a spicy onion, tomato, tamarind sauce)

shrimp curry

This is my entry to always energetic Anthony's Curry Mela for this weekend!

It is hard to believe that this is my first non-vegetarian post on this blog. I do eat chicken, some fish and shrimp but I don't cook with them that often. That are a few reasons why that happens/has been happening lately. Whenever we go out to eat, almost 90 percent of the time I order non-vegetarian. So, when I cook at home, I feel like eating vegetables. The other thing that contributed to my sparse non-vegetarian eating habits is that, for the past 8 weeks, I was a part of a group "walking" program where we were supposed to walk and also count the fruits and veggies we eat each day. So, every time I thought of cooking something non-vegetarian, the thought that I couldn't count them came to my mind and I just refrained buying meat at the grocery store.

Growing up, my mom never cooked shrimp at home. I think she just didn't like the taste and smell of shrimp! Although, my dad was a "shrimp eater", he always had to eat it outside since he couldn't make it on his own :). For some reason, since my mom never made it at home, I wouldn't eat it anywhere else too. My mom did cook other sea food though. The fish pickle that she makes is just out of this world. YUM! For that matter all the non-vegetarian pickles she makes are really good - the mutton pickle, the chicken pickle, just thinking about them makes my mouth water! For a person who doesn't "eat" non-veg she is an amazing non-veg cook! Yeah, that is right, my mom doesn't eat non-vegetarian but she does cook it for the family and guests! We have seperate utensils at home that she cooks non-veg in :). Yeah, is pretty funny to watch her cook non-vegetarian trying to avoid touching everything else and only managing with the few utensils set out for this particular task :)).

Back to shrimp, I never ate shrimp until I came to the U.S few years ago. I don't remember the first time I ate it either. It must have been at a friends house when I was studying here. I really did not like the way it tasted, so never cooked with it. But all that changed when I went to Chilis/Carlos O Kellys (don't remember which one) couple of years ago and I ordered a dish and the waitress said that for a couple of bucks extra, I could get an order of grilled shrimp that will be placed on top of the dish. I thought I would try it and told her that I would like a side of it not mixed in with my actual meal. The shrimp that she brought was so yummy! It was grilled, sprinkled with some lemon juice and that totally changed my view on shrimp.

Now that you know my entire association with shrimp, back to this post. This shrimp curry is a spicy, yet tasty concoction. It goes really well with jeera rice or even plain basmati rice. The spices in this recipe can toned down (or up) to your liking.

First a few kitchen notes

• I skip the marination part if I am really in a hurry. Instead of the 30 minutes I specify, I sometimes do it for about 10-15 minutes, the time it takes me to chop all the other veggies/spices up.
• The cumin + caradamom + cloves powder can be substitued with regular garam masala but the taste will definitely be different. I usually grind this masala up and store in the refrigerator for a month or so to use in different dishes.

Software
---------------

shrimp marinating

For the marination

• 1 tsp salt
• 1 pinch red chili powder
  
• 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
• 1 tbsp fresh lemon/lime juice

For the Curry

• 1 pound raw, shelled and deveined large shrimp (about 50-60 shrimps)
• 1 large onion, chopped fine
• 2 Indian green chilis, slit length wise
• 2 tbsp garlic chopped fine
• 2 tbsp ginger, chopped fine
• 1 tsp turmeric powder
• 1 large tomato, chopped fine
• gooseberry sized tamarind, soaked in hot water, juice extracted
• 2 tbsp freshly grated coconut
• 1 heaping tbsp cinnamon + caradamom + cloves powder
• 1 tbsp coriander powder
• 1 tbsp chili powder (I think I added more than that, so this can adjusted to your liking)
• salt, to taste
• 2-3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

Hardware
---------------

• One sauce pan
• small bowl for marination

Method
---------------

• Toss the ingredients for the marination for together with the shrimp. Set aside in the refrigerator for about 30-45 minutes.
• Put the sauce pan on medium high heat, add the oil.
• After the oil heats up add the onions and fry for about 3 minutes.
• Add the garlic and ginger, fry until onions are translucent.
• Add the turmeric powder, stir.
• Add the tomatoes and fry until they are mushy.
• Add all the masalas, the caradamom + cloves + cinnamon powder, the coriander powder, the chili powder, salt, coconut and stir.
• After a minute or so add the tamarind juice, another cup of water and bring to a rolling boil.
• Add the shrimp, add more water if necessary, the gravy should be too watery. Cook the shrimp until they are done (which is very quick, about 5-6 minutes), take off the heat.
• Add the mint and the coriander leaves.

As I said before, this curry should be spicy and full of flavor. This should not taste sour at all. The tomatoes and the tamarind impart a good flavor and taste to the dish but they should not dominate the taste. The dominant ingredients in this dish are the spices and the shrimp.

Jihva For Mango Recipes - Pudding and Pachadi

Over the weekend, I tried out two different recipes from the "Jihva for Mangoes" event that lovely Indira of Mahanandi hosted. I glanced through the recipes and looked for something easy to make and two different kinds of recipes caught my attention. The mango payasam or pudding versions made by Santhi and Sailu. The other recipe that looked really good was the mango thokku/pachadi recipes made by Lakshmi, Menu Today, Kitchen Mate and Santhi.

Mango Pudding / Payasam

mango payasam garnished with shallow fried golden raisins and cashews

I followed Santhi's recipe entirely for the mango pudding except that - I boiled the milk in a microwavable container until it came to a boil so I didn't have to keep stirring it on the stove top. I do this trick everytime I need to boil milk and it works perfectly. I also added about 4 tbsp of sweetened condensed milk at the very end and fried up some cashews and raisins in a tablespoon of ghee/clarfied butter and added it to the pudding at the very end.

Mango Pachadi/Thokku

mango pachadi/chutney/thokku

After looking at all the mango thokku recipes, I mostly followed Kitchen Mate's recipe, except for the methi seeds and the gingelly oil. Instead of the methi seed powder, I added the powder (chana dal, urad dal, coriander seeds, methi seeds, jeera, red chilis) I had prepared for the spinach chutney.

grating the raw mango

Software
---------------

• 1 cup peeled,grated raw mango
• 1 red chili broken into pieces
  
• 1 tbsp mustard seeds
• 1 tsp turmeric powder
• 1 tbsp - 1 tsp chili powder
• 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  
• hing, a pinch
• 1 tbsp of the afore mentioned spice mixture
  
• salt to taste
  

Hardware
---------------

• one small sauce pan

Method
---------------

• Put the sauce pan on medium heat. Add one tbsp of oil, add the mustard seeds and the red chili pieces. After the mustard seeds splutter, add the hing and the grated mango, stir for a couple of minutes.
• Add the turmeric powder, cook for another 5-10 minutes until the raw smell goes away. Add the chili powder, spice mixture, salt and stir for another few minutes.
• Add in the other 2 tbsp of oil and stir and turn off the heat.

Both recipes turned out really good. The pudding was really yummy with just a hint of mango in every bite. The chutney was sour, spicy and GOOD! With hot rice and ghee it tasted delicious. Thank you Santhi and Kitchen Mate for the recipes!

Chocolate Chip Banana Nut Muffins - ARF/5-a-day

chocolate-chip banana-nut muffins, chocolate cupcake, and baby bananas

First off, I will try to explain the picture above as the picture may not be worth 1000 words in this case. I don't want any of my blog readers thinking I burnt the muffins :).

The regular light brown looking things are the chocolate-chip banana nut muffins. The dark chocolate cupcake you see above is what I made from my leftover chocolate cupcake batter from last Sunday. I had put the extra in the refrigerator, tightly covered in a container. Before I baked it, I put it in the microwave defrost cycle for a couple of minutes until it regained its consistency. I added some white chocolate chips on top of the cupcakes. On to the bananas. I think this variety of bananas are called baby-bananas. These are NOT the bananas I used in the recipe. They are the smaller version bananas and I bought from the Oriental store last week. These bananas are slender and only about 4-5 inches in length. The skin of these bananas is very thin compared to the thick flesh of the regular bananas. I also feel that these bananas taste a LOT sweeter than the regular bananas. In Telugu, my native language, these are called "chekkara keli" (chekkara meaning sugar, keli meaning banana originated from the Hindi word "kela" meaning banana).

Now on to my post, I try to participate in Cate's ARF/5-a-day that happens every Tuesday as much as I can. My previous entries to this event were Kiwi jam, Quesadillas and Guacamole, Yu Choy dal/lentils, Spinach chutney with chapathi chips, Penne with creamy veggie sauce.

This week though, Cate put a twist to the whole thing. She asked us bloggers to find ARF/5-a-day worthy recipes from other food bloggers site. As soon as I saw that, I thought to myself, "that is going to be easy" but alas as you will read below, it wasn't easy choosing what to make.

On Sunday afternoon I set the laptop on the dining table and started blog hopping. After a few minutes, I was over whelmed with a plethora of choices to choose from. A realization sunk in that I need to do something else than just blog hopping to figure this out. I made up a condition for myself to make this easier. I decided that I would have to come up with something that uses ingredients that I already had on hand.

I got up, glanced at the raw materials in the refrigerator, peeked in the cabinets to see what I had on hand. Now, once again I started blog hopping. Few more minutes later, I was even more confused on what I was going to make. Then my eyes fell on the bananas that were on the banana holder on the table on the counter. I noticed that they were I had 3 bananas that were a little on the ripe side, and one overly ripe banana (very squishy to touch) kind. I knew exactly what I was going to make - Banana nut muffins. I have made these muffins a lot of times before but have never ever used the same recipe. That was mostly because, I would forget where I got the recipe from. I then remembered that Saffron Hut had made some banana nut muffins and they looked really good. I looked up the recipe, bookmarked it and went about my day!

I did make modifications to the recipe i.e. made it a little more unhealthy (which is very unlike me :)). I usually try to add healthy ingredients, reduce the unhealthy ingredients when I am baking but today, I did the opposite. Being a chocoholic that I am, I had to add chocolate to this :). Hence they became Banana nut - chocolate chip muffins.

The modifications I made to this recipe are that I added 1/4 cup of brown sugar and 1/2 cup of regular sugar instead of the 3/4 regular sugar. Being a spiceaholic that I am, I threw in some nutmeg and cinnamom. I added some good vanilla. As I said above, I added about 1/2 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips to the party!

Now to the exact recipe!

Software
---------------

• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
  
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 4 ripe bananas (I had 3 medium ripe and 1 overly ripe banana), mashed thoroughly
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/3 cup melted butter (unsalted)
• 1 tbsp vanilla
  
• 1/3 cup walnuts, chopped coarsely
• 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• about 30-36 chocolate chips
  

Hardware
---------------

• one small mixing bowl
• one large mixing bowl
• one muffin tin
• paper muffin cups (optional)

Method
---------------

• Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
  Sift together all the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, nutmeg and cinnamon) into the large mixing bowl.
• Mix all the wet ingredients (melted butter, mashed bananas, granulated sugar, brown sugar, vanilla) in the small mixing bowl (and yes, the sugar is considered a "wet ingredient", atleast according to Alton Brown).
  Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix with a fork or spoon so all the ingredients are well incorporated. (or just put on some food safe gloves and mix it up with your hands).
• Set aside 2-3 tbsp of walnuts. Add the rest of the walnuts and the 1/2 cup of chocolate chips into the batter and mix well.
• Put the paper muffin cups in the muffin pan, fill the cups until they are a little more than 3/4 full.
  Add about 2-3 chocolate chips and a few walnuts on top of the 3/4th filled muffin cups.
• Bake them for about 15-20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted comes out clean and the muffins are brown on top.

Thank you Saffron Hut for the recipe and thank you Cate for hosting the event.

Easy, Speedy, Tasty - Egg Bhurji Frittata Style

Warning: No skillets were injured when making this recipe :) - read below for what I mean :)

Last week,came home from work one day, very tired with no energy to cook anything that would take a lot of time. I immediately thought of egg bhurgi with just onions. When I was in school here, I made this quite often when I was pressed on time. On one of those ocasions, I was in the process of making egg bhurji and one of my roomates asked me if I could try NOT to scramble the eggs. She asked me if I could try leaving them on the skillet on low heat so they cook all the way through without the need to scrambling them. She said her mom did it that way. I used to leave the eggs undisturbed on low heat for a while until they were set and flip it carefully if the top looked like it needed some cooking.

I started with the intention of making what I usually make but this time as I started chopping my onions, gathering other ingredients when I thought I would take this one step further by making a desi frittata out of it. I was only using 3 eggs, and I did not have a small enough oven-safe skillet. I then remembered Rachael Ray saying one time that her mom never distinguished between an oven safe skillet and a regular one. She went on to say that her mom always put aluminium foil on the handles and put the skillet in the oven. I decided to do it this way too and it turned out perfect. I wrapped the plastic handle of my skillet atleast 5-6 times with heavy duty aluminium foil before putting it in the oven!

I put grated carrots in this recipe, because I had only one lonely carrot in the refrigerator all by itself and I just decided remedy it of its lonlieness by pairing it up with some eggs and onions :). I really loved the crunch the carrot imparted to the bhurji. It is going to be my intentional addition from now on.

I know the ingredients list seems long for the title but believe me, it doesn't get easier than this :).

Now on to the recipie:

Software
---------------

• 1/2 small onion, finely diced
• 1 garlic, finely sliced
• one big carrot, grated
• 1 small roma tomatoes
  
• 3 eggs, slightly beaten
• 1 Indian green chili, chopped fine
• 1 tsp coriander powder
• 1 pinch cumin powder
• 1/2 tsp chili powder (optional)
  
• 3-4 tbsp crumbled paneer
  
• 1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
• 4 tbsp chopped cilantro and chopped mint
  
• salt to taste
  

Hardware
---------------

• one small oven safe skillet or do what I did at your own risk :)

Method
---------------

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
  
• Heat the skillet on medium heat, add the onions, chilis and the garlic. Fry for a minute.
• Add the grated carrots, tomatoes fry for another 1-2 minutes. Add the salt, cumin, coriander powder, chili powder an stir.
  
• Add the eggs and cook for a minute or so. I usually make a slit with a flat wooden spoon in the middle and get the uncooked egg to flow in to the crack, eventually making it to the bottom of the pan.
  
• Put the crumbled paneer, mint and cilantro and after the mixture is about half set, put the pan in the oven for about 10-15 minutes until the frittata is golden brown.
  

Serving Suggestion: We ate this up with some frozen store bought rotis and it was yum! But this could be served by itself on a brunch or for breakfast.

Green Market and a Thai Salad for Friday Lunch

Every Wednesday night, there is a "green market" here in our town outside an organic food store under the building's awning. Local farmers who grow different veggies and greens put up stalls late afternoon. All the produce is hence organic and freshly picked. In addition to the fresh produce, they also have some baked goods like bread, baklava, organic chicken eggs etc. This is different than the regular Saturday morning farmers market that happens all through the Summer into the Fall.

I went over there after work yesterday. I had actually forgotten about this market when I went grocery shopping over the weekend. Since I already had an over flowing refrigerator, I couldn't shop as much as I wanted to. But I did buy some fresh "spicy greens" for salad, some fresh radishes and half a dozen eggs.

So, I put together a salad for lunch tomorrow with the greens and radishes.

Here is how I did it:

I cleaned the greens and radishes, chopped up about two of the radishes, also chopped up about 3 baby carrots, added lightly toasted almonds and walnuts for crunch. For the dressing, I used Jamie Oliver's Thai Salad Dressing. I didn't have any basil on hand so I just used fresh mint instead. I also omitted the red chili and instead went with a teaspoon of the wasabi paste for the kick (And I know wasabi is not exactly Thai but it is good, isn't it?). I also omitted the garlic cloves since I did not want to eat uncooked garlic in the middle of the afternoon at work!

Have a good weekend everybody!

A basket full of chocolate cupcakes!

Update on May 05: Tony was kind enough to feature this in his weekend curry mela. Go check out the mela to see what other foodies have submitted!

Well..the basket of cupcakes didn't stay as full for long. They were gone very quickly! This is what I made late Sunday night when a "something chocolate" craving hit us. I thought of making pudding first but I didn't have any cream on hand so settled for the cupcakes. And the thought of letting the pudding cool in the refrigerator before we can devour it did not appeal to me. As I said, it was kind of late at night!

These cupcakes are very easy to make and take only 15-20 minutes of prep time. The rest of the time is baking time. Unless I am baking cupcakes for a party/give away, I never frost my cupcakes so I can avoid the extra sugar and all the work. I just sprinkle them with some decorative sprinklers or just a dusting of powdered sugar will satisfy my "frosting" desire!

I got the basic recipe from Hershey's Website. They are called "Spring Surprise Chocolate Cupcakes". I have made "filling/surprise" cupcakes before where a "surprise filling" is put in the cupcake and baked. When someone bites into the cupcake, they may either bite into the filling or see the filling and get "surprised"! Get it? I have done a cream cheese and chocolate chip filling, fresh raspberry filling, any kind of fruit jelly/jam fillings etc. Basically the surprise filling can be anything you fancy, just that if you put something heavy, you may risk the filling dropping to the bottom of the cupcake which is not such a good thing. May be next time I bake cupcakes, I will put a surprise filling in so I can capture that on the camera!

As with every recipe, I make, I did modify this recipe quite a bit. I added in flax seed flour, some nuts, some more chocolate, in a typical Rachael Ray style added some nutmeg, added salt, reduced the sugar etc. Here goes my recipe!


Software
---------------

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup flax seed flour
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup cocoa or dark cocoa
• 1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg powder
• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup of finely chopped walnuts
• 1 tbsp confectioners/powdered sugar

Hardware
---------------

• one muffin pan
• one large mixing bowl
• one sifter
• one small sifter

Method
---------------

• Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.
• Sift together the flour, salt and the baking soda into the large mixing bowl. Add the flax seed flour, cocoa, sugar and mix well with a fork so all the dry ingredients get mixed thoroughly. At this point the dry mix looks like a pre-packaged chocolate mix package.
• Add in the water, oil, egg and the vanilla, beat at a medium speed using an electric mixer until the dry ingredients are well incorporated into the wet ones. Beat for 4-5 minutes until you see the bubbles on top. Mix in the nuts.
• Put the paper muffin cups in the muffin pan. Fill the muffins until they are a little more than 3/4 full. Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
• Cool on a wire rack.
• After the muffins are completely cool, take the powdered sugar in a small sifter and "sift" the sugar on top the muffins!
  

This makes about 15-18 cupcakes.

Serving Suggestion: Serve with a tall glass of soy milk! YUM!

PS: This is a totally non-food related paragraph! Does anyone watch LOST on ABC? If yes, did you watch tonight's episode? My jaw totally dropped after watching it. I CANNOT believe they did what they did! This is probably the best episode this season in my opinion. Sorry, I just HAD to talk about it as I cannot seem to stop thinking about the episode!

Proud Owner of a Roti Grill - Thanks to Santhi

roti grill in action

Thanks to Santhi of Me and My Kitchen, I am now a proud owner of a "roti grill". Santhi had read one of my comments on a blog where I commented on how I had never seen a roti grill in my life before. She immediately e-mailed me offering to send me one. It arrived last week in the mail. I couldn't wait to use it so I did get to use it over the weekend. This roti grill comes in handy for all those unlucky folks like me who have an electric range. If you have a gas range, you don't need this to make phulkas. Shammi of Food, in the main has an amazing post on phulkas!

Thanks again, Santhi. I will be thinking of you everytime I make phulkas/rotis!

roti grill

Mamidikaya Pachi Pulusu

YAY! My second mango post of the year! Can you sense my excitement? The first dish was raw mango pulihora.

Usually when things are made with raw mango, it is best to use mangoes that are a little sour. Using the sweet raw mango does not do justice to this dish and the pulihora.

Firstly, I want to explain what this Telugu recipe title means. The word "mamidikaya" means raw mango. The word pachi means, raw. Pulusu is used primarily for tamarind sauce. The word pulusu originated from the word "puli" in Tamil which means tamarind. In this case though, there is no tamarind involved. I have my own reasoning of why it is called pulusu though. This same exact dish is made with tamarind pulp instead of mango. Now, way back when, who ever discovered that this could be made with mango, decided to just throw in the word mango infront of the already existing regular "pachi pulusu" ;). I could be totally wrong, so don't take my word for this :).

This particular dish "pachi pulusu" is very common in the "Telangana" region of my state Andhra Pradesh. This is a very easy recipe, that is usually served cold with hot rice. I only make this simple, comforting dish once or twice a year that way I feel it doesn't loose it's "charm" :). That is just my theory though!

As soon as Indira of Mahanandi announced the Jihva event and announced May's theme (mangoes), two dishes came to mind. One of them was mango jam (Indira has already blogged about it) and this one! I was hoping Indira wouldn't make this before me.
For the pulusu:

Software
---------------

• 1 small-medium non-ripe mango (preferably sour)
• 1/4 cup finely chopped onions
• handful - chopped cilantro
  
• salt to taste

Hardware
---------------

• One medium sauce pan

Method
---------------

• Peel the mango and cut the mango into 2-3 inch slices. Put the pieces in the pan, add water so that all the mango pieces are well covered and the water is a couple of inches above the mangoes. Add salt, and boil the mango on medium-high heat until the mango breaks apart when touched with a fork.
• After the mango mixture is cold enough to handle, using a potato masher mash up the mango pieces or just use your hand and mash it up. I put 4-5 ice cubes in the mixture to ensure fast cooling.
• Add more water as necessary, so it has the soupy, rasam consistency. Add the onions and the cilantro. Keep aside.
  

For the tempering or tadka:

Software
---------------

• 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 3-4 Indian green chilis, sliced legthwise in half
  
• 1 broken red chili pieces
  
• 1 tsp jeera seeds
• 1 tsp black mustard seeds
• 1 sprig curry leaves, cut in half
• 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
• 1/2 tsp coriander powder
  

Hardware
---------------

• Small cast-iron skillet or a small saucepan
  

Method
---------------

• Add the oil to the pan. Add the remaining ingredients, in the same order and turn off the heat after the mustard and jeera seeds splutter.
  

Add the above tempering to the pulusu prepared in the previous step. Check for salt and add more if necessary.

Serving Suggestion: This is best served with hot rice. It is also good after it rests for a couple of hours so the flavors get absorbed.

Update: In the above post, I first ask to peel the mangoes then boil them, but if you see the picture, I did not peel the mangoes before I boiled them. I did it the way mom does it back home. After the mangoes are mashed up the skin is extracted out and discarded. Since that seemed like a cumbersome method than first peeling and boiling the mangoes, I wrote up the post that way! I am surprised that no one noticed it and asked me about it :)!

Yu Choy Dal/Pappu

On my way out of the Oriental Store last week my eyes fell on the counter and I saw a bunch beautiful green leafy vegetable stalks that had tiny yellow flowers. I asked the person-in-charge what the green was and she said it was "Yu Choy". I asked her if she knew how the vegetable tasted. She said it tasted like spinach and offered me some to try. I tasted it and I felt like it tasted like spinach too :).

For a green leafy vegetable deprived Indian here in the US, I jumped at the opportunity. I bought half a pound of it. When I came home, I googled the name and found a TON of references to it. I learnt that Yu Choy is edible rape and it is widely used in Chinese cooking. It is used to make soups and also used in stir fries. That is all I needed to know make "Yu Choy Dal" out of it. I basically plucked the leaves from the stalks and roughly chopped them up. I did not have the hearts to throw away the stalks so I just ziplocked them and put them back in the fridge. I am thinking about throwing them into some soup.

Now coming to the dal, I did spice the dal up a bit than I usually do by adding cloves + cinnamon + elaichi powder, a tsp of coriander powder, a tbsp of ginger. When the dal was cooking, it eminated a lot of fragrance than when I cook a regular spinach dal. It was hard for me to figure out if it was because of the additional spices I added or just the Yu Choy itself smelled so good. But whatever was the case, it just made it really hard to wait for it to finish cooking. I had to release the pressure for the cooker manually just so I could get my hands on the dal. And I should mention that this is a very easy recipe to make.

On to the recipe now

Cooking the dal

Software
---------------

• 1 cup toor dal
• 1/2 lb Yu Choy with stalks, leaves plucked and chopped. Roughly 2 cups of packed, chopped Yu Choy leaves
• 1 medium onion, coarsley chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 4-5 Indian green chilis, split in half
• 1 tbsp finely chopped ginger
• 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
• 1 tsp coriander powder (optional)
• 1/2 tsp (cloves + cinnamon + caradamom) powder (optional)
• salt to taste

Hardware
---------------

Pressure cooker

Method
---------------
Put all the above ingredients in a pressure cooker and add about 4 cups of water and pressure cook until 3 whistles.

For tempering/tadka

Software
---------------

• 1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• 1 tsp jeera seeds
• 1 tsp urad dal
• 1 broken red chili pieces
• 1 sprig curry leaves, chopped in half

Hardware
---------------
Small cast iron skillet/tempering pan or smallest sauce pan available

Method
---------------
Put the oil in a pan on medium-high heat, add all the ingredients in the order listed. Take off from heat after the mustard and jeera seeds splutter.

Add the tempering to the dal above, garnish with chopped cilantro.

Serving Suggestion: This goes really well with chapathi or rice.

This is also my entry to Sweetnick's ARF/5-a-day Tuesday this week!

Mango Pulihora - Mamidikaya Pulihora

This is my first mango post of the year! YAY. I am so excited. If I was asked to pick one fruit to take with me to live on a deserted island, I would most definitely pick Mango. When I was in India, in the summer months, we practically lived on Mangoes. There used to be days where every dish cooked for lunch/dinner had a hint of mango in it - starting from drinks, to main course to dessert because of the abundance of the mangoes. Sadly, it is not the case here. I bought raw mangoes at over 2 dollars a pound here :( and it does not take a lot of mangoes to put a hole in the pocket.

Indira of Mahanandi has blogged about this recipe before. My recipe is akin to hers except for a few minor changes. Back home in India, this pulihora is made for the first time that particular year on Ugadi day. It so happened way back when that raw mangoes appeared in the markets only a day or prior to Ugadi but in these days, you see them a lot earlier than that. But my mom tries to keep the tradition alive by NOT cooking anything with raw mangoes before Ugadi even though the rest of the family wasn't fair :).

Here goes the recipe..

Software
---------------

• 2 cups cooked rice - with grains seperate (I used sona masuri)
• 1 to 11/2 cups peeled, grated mango
• 5-6 Indian green chilis - slit lengthwise
• 2-3 broken red chili pieces
• 1 tbsp ginger grated/chopped fine
• 1/4 cup broken cashew pieces
• 1/4 cup raw peanuts
• 1 tbsp chana dal soaked in hot water for 5-10 minutes
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• 1 tsp jeera seeds
• 1 tsp turmeric powder
• 1 tsp coriander powder
• 1 sprig curry leaves
• 2-3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil/any other oil you prefer
• one handful chopped cilantro (optional)
• salt to taste

Hardware
---------------
One pan

Method
---------------

• Put the pan on medium heat. Add the oil.
• Add the slit green chilis and the red chilis. After about 30 seconds, add the curry leaves, ginger and the cashews. After about another 30 seconds, add the raw peanuts. Fry this until the cashews and peanuts are slighly golden brown. Add the soaked chana dal. Fry for another 30 seconds.
• Add the mustard seeds and the jeera seeds. After they splutter, add the turmeric powder. Stir well.
• Add salt and coriander powder, stir. Add the grated mango, chopped cilantro and fry by stirring for another 1-2 minutes. Turn off the heat.
• After this mixture cools down until you can handle, mix it with the cooked white rice. Use your hands so the mixture gets incorporated well with the rice (wear food-safe gloves to avoid the yellow color on your hands).
• Serve!

My Take On Asparagus Poriyal/Vepudu (with dal powders)

I have never made poriyal before. Sure, I did saute veggies before and added coconut to it. I am not sure if that is poriyal though. I would love to be enlightened :). Poriyal as far as I know is a Tamil dish and basically a dry saute of veggies without adding any water. I am not sure if the word alone means something. Tamil friends, please enlighten me here :).

I had some asparagus leftover from my sphaghetti squash and asparagus lettuce wraps and decided to cook them up Tamil style. I say "my take" in the title above because I *think* I may have altered the basic poriyal recipe by adding some additional ingredients especially the masala. I had seen one of my Tamil friends do this for a totally different recipe and I felt like adapting it :).

Okay, so here I go!

Making the masala

Software
---------------

• 3 tbsp chana dal/shanaga pappu
• 2 tbsp urad dal/minapa pappu
• 2 tbsp toor dal/kandhi pappu
• 2 tbsp coriander seeds/dhaniyalu
• 8-10 Indian red chilis/mirchi

Hardware
---------------
one small pan

Method
---------------

• Dry roast all the ingredients seperately and cool. Grind everything in a spice grinder. You will only need about 3 tbsp of this masala for the asaparagus. Store the rest in an air tight container for later use.

Making the poriyal

Software
---------------

• About 20 stalks of asparagus
• 1 medium onion, chopped finely
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 inch ginger, minched
• 2 tbsp of freshly grated coconut (or dry if fresh not available)
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 1 sprig curry leaves, cut in half
• 3 tbsp of the above masala powder
• salt to taste
• 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 4 tbsps of chopped coriander leaves

Hardware
---------------
One pan

Method
---------------

• Cut off the woody stems on one end. To easily tell where to cut, Hold one asparagus in your hand and slowly bend it, it naturally breaks into two pieces, about 2-3 inches on one end. Cut the other asaparagus stalks using the same method, using the one broken one as a guide.
• Then cut the aspargus into very small pieces - about 1/2 inch pieces.
• Put the pan on medium heat, add the oil to the pan, add the mustard and cumin seeds. Add the curry leaves after they splutter. Add the onions and fry until they are translucent. Add the garlic and ginger, fry for a minute or so.
• Add the asparagus pieces, stir, cook for a couple of minutes. Add salt.
• Increase the heat to medium-high, cook for about 5-10 minutes until the asparagus is soft. I had to add about 1/3 cup of water to help it cook half way through the process because it was sticking to the pan. But the water eventually evaporated so that wasn't an issue.
• Sprinkle about 3 tbsp of the masala to the asparagus, stir and cook for another couple of minutes. Turn of the heat.
• Sprinkle the cilantro leaves.

The poriyal was surprisingly good. I could not believe how easy it was and how wonderful it tasted. I think I took the poriyal off the heat before it was all the way cooked so it still had the crunch to it and I loved it. So it is up to you, you can either cook it until it is totally soft or leave a little crunch to it. Asparagus is going to make it to my shopping list more often now!

Serving Suggestion: I ate this with both chapathis and rice with some rasam and it tasted heavenly both ways.

PS: Two of my three entries (spinach chutney w/ chapathi chips and panini - desi style) submitted for VKN's cooking competetion have been selected for voting. If you like my entries, please show your support by voting for my entries. Thank you!

Spinach Chutney with Chapathi Chips - VKN's Cooking Competetion Entry III

We Indians are known to make chutney out of everything - fish, eggs, chicken, lamb, all vegetables, fruits etc :). My mom made this chutney with all green leafy veggies so we would eat the greens. I love all types of greens in this chutney form. This is a very simple recipe with lots of flavor and health :).

This chutney paired with some chapathi chips is my submission to VKN's cooking competetion and Sweetnick's ARF/5-a-day Tuesday.

My other entries to VKN's cooking competetion are:

• Panini - Desi Style

• Lettuce Wraps with Spaghetti Squash and Asparagus

Spinach Chutney

Software
---------------

• 9 oz package pre-washed spinach leaves
• 1 tbsp chana dal
• 1 tbsp urad dal
• 1 tbsp coriander seeds
• 6-7 methi seeds
• 1 tsp jeera
• 4-5 dried red chilis (add more or less to your taste)
• 1-2 Indian green chilis
• 3 cloves garlic
• gooseberry sized tamarind, soaked in very little hot water
• 1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
• salt to taste

For the tempering/tadka
--------------------------

• 1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 1 tsp black mustard seeds
• 1 sprig curry leaves, chopped in half

Hardware
---------------

• One large vessel that holds the spinach leaves
• One small castiron skillet or small fry pan for the tempering or the tadka

Method
---------------

• Put 1 tsp of the oil in the big skillet/vessel on medium heat, add the slit green chilis, 3 cloves of garlic and the spinach leaves. Cover and cook for 4-5 minutes until the spinach is completely wilted and reduced in volume. Take the spinach out and leave aside to cool.
• In the same pan, without washing it, add the chana dal and the urad dal, fry until golden brown, set aside to cool.
• Add the coriander seeds, methi seeds, jeera and dry roast them until the aroma of the spices fills your kitchen and makes you hungry :). Remove keep aside to cool.
• Dry roast the red chilis, do NOT stick your nose anywhere near the stove while this is happening and make sure you open up some windows. Don't tell me I didn't warn you before :). Remove, set aside to cool.
• Put all the above dry roasted ingredients and put them in a blender/food processor, grind it to a fine powder. Again, do not breathe in the fumes :).
• Add the wilted spinach leaves in the blender with the ground spices, add salt, the tamarind juice (extract from the tamarind soaked) and grind it until the spinach is smooth. Check for salt, add more if needed. Remove to a serving dish.

For the tempering/tadka
--------------------------

• Add the 1 tsp of oil in a small skillet on medium heat, add the mustard seeds, garlic clove, curry leaves and fry until the mustard seeds pop or the garlic turns light brown.
• Add the tempering to the chutney.
  

Making Chapathi Chips

Software
---------------

• 3/4 cup chapathi flour
• pinch of salt
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1 tsp salt
• Milk to mix the dough

Hardware
---------------

• Cookie sheet

Method
---------------

• Add pinch of salt to chapathi flour, mix.
• Using the milk make a chapathi dough out of the flour.
• Roll the chapathi on a floured surface into 1/8 inch thick circle.
• Brush both sides with some olive oil and sprinkle paprika and salt on both sides.
• Using a round cookie cutter, cut the chapathi into 3 inch diameter circles.
• Place the chapathi chips into 500 degree oven, bake it for 5 minutes turning half way in between, until they are brown and crispy.
• Serve with the spinach chutney.

A Foodbloggers Meme Around the World

YAY! My first meme. Three lovely ladies have tagged me - Priya of "Priya's Kitchen", Saffron Hut, Santhi of "Me and My Kitchen" have all tagged me for this meme. It is short and sweet and here I go straight to my answers!

Do check out the paninis - desi style, my other post from today!

1. Please list three recipes you have recently bookmarked from foodblogs to try:

• Sailu's Palakayalu recipe - they seem so much easier to make than all the other Andhra savory snacks and look so yummy!
• Indira's Home Made Soy Milk - I love cooking from scratch and I think with the amount of soymilk I drink, this could be a huge money saver :)
  
• TasteCorner's Drumstick Sambhar - the sambhar looks so yummy and I wasn't familiar with Hemant Trivedi before so I want to give that a shot!

2. A food blog in your vicinity:

• Hmm..this was a difficult question to answer. Even though, Sumi of Sumi's Kitchen is not very close to me, she seems to be the one.
  

3. A foodblog (or more) located far from you:

• Sailu of Sailu's Food and Anthony of Anthony's Kitchen both located in India
• Puspha's Pusiva's Culinary Studio in Switzerland
• Vaishali's Happy Burp from Germany

4. A foodblog (or several) you have discovered recently (where did you find it?):

• Vaishali's Happy Burp - I do not remember how I found Vaishali. Probably from someone's comment pages.
• Jeff's It just adds flavor - I found Jeff's blog because he had left a comment on one of my recipes
• Genevieve's Bribe me with a Muffin - I found her on someone's comment page a couple of days ago
  

5. Any people or bloggers you want to tag with this meme?

Since I am entering this meme late, everyone is already tagged. So I decided to tag the bloggers I recently discovered :). I am tagging

• Jeff from It just adds flavor
• Genevieve from Bribe me with a Muffin

Panini - Desi Style!

This is my entry to Anthony's curry mela this weekend!

I had some extra cooked extra mashed potatoes leftover from another meal and was trying to use them up. I was also thinking of something creative to make and I started looking around and found a loaf of french bread that I had bought for some soup. Never got to make the soup (most of the times, I have something in mind when I go buy groceries and then I come home and make something totally different with the ingredients I had bought).

So, I decided to make a desi style panini! A lot of people say that panini is just a fancy name for a fancy grilled cheese sandwich. I feel it is partly true myself. Usually very thin meat and cheese is put as a sandwich between some crusty Italian bread and the sandwich is then put in a panini maker for the panini. A lot of food network chefs do not use the panini maker and make the paninis in their own innovative ways. Although, I am a sucker for kitchen gadgets, there are a few things that I would never - the panini makers and quesadilla makers top the list :). I know a lot of you may disagree with me ;-).

Here's how you jazz up the coarsly mashed potatoes, desi style!

Software
---------------

• 1 cup coarsely mashed potatoes
• 1 small shallot, finely minced
• 1 small tomato, finely chopped
• 1 garlic clove, finely minced
• 1 1/4" inch ginger, finely minced
• 1 tsp coriander powder
• 1 tsp chat masala (I used MDH)
• 2 tbsp chopped cilantro
• 1 tbsp chopped mint
• 1 tsp extra virgin olive oil

Hardware
---------------

• One small saucepan for the potatoes

Method
---------------

• Put a small saucepan on medium-high heat. Add the oil.
• Add the shallots, garlic and ginger, fry until translucent.
• Add the chopped tomatoes, cook until they are slightly soft.
• Add the mashed potatoes, the coriander powder, chat masala, salt. Stir until everything is blended and mixed together and heated through. Turn off the heat.
• Add the cilantro and the mint. Mix.

Preparing the paninis

Software
---------------

• 5-6 baby spinach leaves
• 1 cup of shredded cheese or small chese slices (I used what I had on hand - a mix of montery jack and pepper jack)

Hardware
---------------

• One large skillet/grill pan
• One small skillet
• One heavy object (read the method below)

Method
---------------

• Cut the french bread into about about 1/2" thick slices. The french bread I used was not crusty so I toasted it on both sides on a grill pan so it became a little crunchy and lost the "softness".
• Build a sandwich - take one french bread slice put some cheese, a couple of baby spinach leaves, some of the potato mixture and cheese in that order. Top the slice with another french bread slice.

• Now carefully put that sandwich on a greased skillet/grill pan (I used a grill pan), put a smaller skillet over on top of the sandwich, and put a heavy object on the smaller skillet so it weighs the sandwich down completely - recommendations are foil covered brick, a huge flour/sugar sack, some canned food etc. I used a big flour container I had.
• Cook for about 1-2 minutes then turn the sandwich on its other side and repeat!

Enjoy them as is or cut the sandwich into 4 pieces so they were bite sized. I did the latter.

After I typed the entire entry, I thought this would make a good entry to V.K.N's cooking competetion. But I haven't decided yet if I am going to submit this or not. It all depends on whatelse I am going to cook up with over the weekend!

Sri Rama Navami

Happy Sri Rama Navami to everyone!

Sri Ramanavami is a very famous Hindu festival that is celebrated to celebrate the birth of Lord Rama. This festival occurs in the either the month of March or April according to the regular calendar. Navami means nine. This festival is celebrated on the ninth day after the new moon.

When I was growing up I remember helping my mom make the "vadapappu" and "panakam" that was made as "prasadam" (offering) to Lord Rama. I also remember watching the "Sree Seetha Rama Kalyanam" live on T.V being broadcasted from Bhadrachalam.

Lovely Santhi of "Me and My Kitchen" has blogged about Sri Rama Navami and also included recipes to Vadapappu and Panakam. Do check them out!

Sorakaya/Anapakaya/Bottle Gourd Curry with Milk (Paluposina Koora)

One lonely bottle gourd had been awaiting its turn in my refrigerator since about a week. I finally got my hands on it tonight! This is my second Sorakaya/Anapakaya/Lauki preperation. The first one was a dish called dappalam I had posted earlier. For dessert tonight, it was bananas foster. I made the bananas foster in the same way I made the mango-bananas foster. Instead of the mango, I added one more banana. I also added about 4 tbsp of cream (milk can be subsituted) toward the end of the bananas foster cooking to make it a little more creamy and it was just delicious!

The sorakaya curry is very easy to prepare as you can see below!

Software
---------------

• 1 medium sized sorakaya/bottle gourd, peeled and cut into cubes
• 1 small-medium onion, diced
  
• 3-4 Indian green chilis/pachi mirapakaylu, sliced fine
  
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped fine
• 1/2 inch piece of ginger, chopped fine
• 1/2 tsp turmeric powder/pasupu/haldi
  
• 1 tsp coriander powder
  
• 2 tsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tsp black mustard seeds/aavalu/rai
• 1 tsp cumin seeds/jeelakarra/jeera
• 1 sprig curry leaves, chopped
• 1/3 cup milk
  
• salt, to taste
• cilantro to garnish

Hardware
---------------

• One pressure cooker

Method
---------------

• Put the pressure cooker on medium-high heat, add the oil, add the mustard and the jeera seeds.
  
• After they pop add the curry leaves, green chilis, onion, garlic and ginger and fry until onions are translucent. Add the turmeric powder and stir.
  
• Add the bottle gourd pieces and saute for about 1-2 minutes.
  
• Add little water just to cover the bottle gourd pieces and cover the pressure cooker. Pressure cook for 1-2 whistles. Alternatively, you could cook covered in a regular saute pan until the bottle gourd pieces are soft.
• After the pressure dies down, open the pressure, add the coriander powder and the milk and cook until the milk heats through.
  
• Garnish with the cilantro leaves.

Serving Suggestion: This goes really well with plain white rice and chapathis.

Discovering New Things - Spaghetti Squash - Lettuce Wraps with Spaghetti Squash and Asparagus

This is going to be a two birds with one shot kind of deal - my first ever entry to Kalyn's Weekend Herb blogging (Spaghetti Squash) and also a contest entry to VKN's cooking competetion.

I have always wanted to submit an entry to the Weekend Herb Blogging but never had the opportunity to do so. I am glad I am starting it this weekend!

I also wanted to submit an entry to My Dhaba's Virtual Cooking Competetion (theme: Appetizers) contest that was previously due March 31. For the longest time, I couldn't think of anything interesting to make and I did not have a lot of thinking time either. I thought "okay, there is always another time".

But all that changed as soon as I saw on the night of March 31st on VKN's site that the deadline had been extended to April 10th. But then again, I couldn't think of anything to make. Then early this morning (Saturday) I made my usual trip to the grocery store. The store was practically empty with maybe be 5-6 people in the entire store. I love to grocery shop at such times. I feel that I can get in and out fast and also "notice" a lot of different things I usually wouldn't have seen. For instance, I did not know the store had "spaghetti squash". As soon as I saw the squash, I had to put it in my basket. It was only 98 cents a pound and almost all the squashes were about 2-3 pounds each. I had no idea how to use it. I had seen Rachael Ray use it one time in one of her "carb friendly" meals she has been doing lately. She used it instead of regular spaghetti. I remember she had "cheesed" it up at the end in typical Rachael Ray style :-). I moved on all the while thinking how I could use the spaghetti squash and then an idea came to mind and I went back to the fresh veggies aisle to gather some other ingredients - Boston lettuce and Asparagus.

When I came back home, the first thing I did was look up the spaghetti squash. I discovered a lot of things about the squash -

• it is a native American squash
• 4 ounces of spaghetti squash only has 37 calories
• the longer the squash, the sweeter it is
• it will keep at room temperature for 2 months
• can be cooked and frozen
  
• can be baked, steamed, boiled or microwaved to cook

I got the information above from the following websites.

Wholehealthmd
Wikipedia

The reason I chose the lettuce wraps because they seem to be the fad in Asian cusine these days. This is my first time making them and since there is lettuce involved it made me feel not so guilty. These wraps are also a great alternative to those who are watching their carbs. The reason I associated spaghetti squash to the lettuce wraps is because of the whole rice noodles in the lettuce wrap deal. Now to the recipe...

Preparing the Spaghetti Squash

click on the images to enlarge

After reading instructions on the squash and online, I decided to go the "microwave" method, since that seemed easier and fast.

• Cut the squash in half leghth-wise in half.
• Scoop out all the seeds using your hands. Discard the seeds.
  
• I only used one half of the squash. Take a microwave safe bowl large enough to fit the squash, put about 1/3 cup of water.
  
• Take the half of the squash, put the squash cut side down in the bowl with water.
  
• Microwave on high about 7-8 minutes. Start checking for doneness after about 6 min do 1 min increments there after. When checking for doneness, over turn the squash carefully with some tongs, and pierce using a fork, if the flesh is tender the squash is done.

• Leave it aside for about 5 minutes until it cools off. Then carefully, the squash is still hot, put the squash on the counter, preferably on a towel to keep the squash from slipping on the counter. Also have another towel handy so you can sort of hold the squash to keep it from moving and using a fork, scrape off the flesh into a bowl. What you will see are marvellous strands of spaghetti. I was so amazed and excited about making nature's very own spaghetti :).

Making the filling for the lettuce wraps (makes about 4-5 wraps)

Software
---------------

• 2 cups spaghetti squash "spaghetti"
• 9 asparagus, sliced at an angle into very small slices
  
• 1 green onion, sliced at an angle
• 1/2 scallion, finely minced
• 1 head boston lettuce
  
• 2 garlic cloves, finely minced
• 1 inch ginger, finely minced
  
• 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
• 4-5 tbsp plum sauce
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp sesame seed oil
• wasabi, as spicy as you want it to be (omit if you are not a huge fan of the wasabi)
  
• salt, to taste
• mint and cilantro leaves to garnish
  

Hardware
---------------
one skillet

Method
---------------

• Seperate the lettuce leaves from lettuce head, discard the outer leaves if they are bruised, rinse in water and dry them on paper towels.
• Put the skillet on medium-high, add the sesame seed oil, add the garlic, minced scallion, half of the green onion, saute till translucent. Add the ginger. Saute for a minute.
• Add the diced asparagus, cook until asparagus is tender.
• Add the soy sauce, plum sauce, red pepper flakes, salt and stir. Add the spaghetti squash and coat so the sauce is coated to the spaghetti. Turn of the stove.
• Add the wasabi and stir. Do not breathe in the fumes :-).
• When ready to serve, spoon the cooked filling into the lettuce leaves, fold the leaf over to close, garnish with mint, cilantro leaves and green onions.

Serving Suggestion: These will make perfect appetizers, a side for an Asian style brunch or even a light lunch!