Bisibelebhath: A Big Bowl of Comfort

This weekend I decided to tackle a classic Indian regional dish: bisibelebhath. An iconic dish from the Southern Indian state of Karnataka, bisibelebhath (BBB to those who know and love it) is a medley of lentils, rice and vegetables that is designed to nourish body and soul.

Suma of Veggie Platter recently wrote a must-read post describing many nuances of BBB and explaining that this mouthful of a word bisibelebhath literally translates into "hot rice lentil mixture".

Bisibele powder (the spice mix used to make BBB) has been a pantry staple in my kitchen for many years. MTR is a well-known and widely available brand and I have always thought their BBB powder was tasty and authentic. I use this bisibele powder to make a BBB-inspired quick pressure-cooker khichdi, my go-to dinner that is still quicker to make than picking up the phone and asking for take-out.

A few weeks ago, I was the lucky winner of a giveaway at Mysoorean and Vani sent me a bunch of wonderful goodies from the famous Subbamma Stores in Bangalore. Included was a big packet of the most aromatic bisibele powder. Now here was a chance to revisit the making of BBB. My memory is poor on the whole but highly selective- things related to food and recipes I can remember even years after reading them.  That's how I remembered that Nandita of Saffron Trail had mentioned that her favorite BBB recipe was this one from Healthy Home Cooking, a blog that seems to be dormant now.

The recipe breaks down BBB making into a few simple steps. Read the original recipe for the details (and if you want to make the spice mix from scratch); below I have my version of it. Once the spice mix is ready (or you have a store bought one on hand), making BBB is much easier than I had ever imagined.

I doubled the recipe given below to make an enormous pot of BBB. The idea was to share a large portion with some friends. They have given us mountains of their daughter's outgrown clothing and gear for baby Lila and sending them homemade Indian food once in a while is my small way of saying thank you. We ate the rest over two days of lunches and finally yesterday I had a small portion that I had squirreled away for breakfast.

By the way, I have a question for my Kannadiga friends: Do you make anything other than BBB with BBB powder?

BisiBeleBhath 

(Adapted from this recipe)

Step 1: Dal 
Soak 1 cup of toor dal for 30-60 minutes. Rinse several times. In a large pot, combine the rinsed toor dal with 6 cups water, a drizzle of oil, pinch of turmeric, salt. Cook until the dal is barely tender.

Step 2: Rice and Veggies 
To the cooking dal, add 1/2 cup sona masoori rice (rinsed and soaked if possible) and 4-6 cups diced mixed vegetables. Carrots, cauliflower, green beans, bell peppers, peas are all good. Frozen pearl onions and Lima beans (sold in all US supermarkets) are freezer staples in my home and taste great in BBB. Cook the mixture until rice and vegetables are about halfway cooked. Add water if needed to keep the mixture soupy (remember that it will thicken as it cools and you want the final result to be more like a stew than a dense paste).

Step 3: Spices and Seasoning 
In a small bowl, mix 1 tbsp. bisi bele spice powder (or more or less to taste), salt and 2 tsp. tamarind paste with a bit of water to make a paste. Add this to the pot. Bring to a boil and simmer until the rice and vegetables are cooked. Turn off the heat. Taste the BBB and add more salt/tamarind/BBB powder as required.

Step 4: Tempering 
Make a tempering with mustard seeds, asafetida, cashews/peanuts and curry leaves. Pour the sizzling tempering onto the BBB. Stir in plenty of ghee and minced cilantro.

Step 5: Serve 
BBB should be served piping hot (it does reheat beautifully if stored in the fridge). I like it with yogurt or raita and with something crunchy on the side- like papad or potato chips.

* * *

These days, as I go about my daily routine, my thoughts keep turning to a brave little six year old boy named Fred. He is the son of our dear friends Mark and Joanne Drew who lived here in St. Louis when Fred was little. The reason I'm thinking of Fred all the time is because he entered Seattle Children's Hospital yesterday for a life saving bone marrow transplant.

Fred's mother is writing a blog which allow friends and well-wishers to go along with the family on this tough transplant journey. Joanne has a way with words- just listen to her speech at the Make a Wish Foundation gala (Fred is a space travel buff and wannabe astronaut and was granted the wish of watching the last NASA space shuttle launch).

I thought to myself- wouldn't it be fun if Fred could get cheerful mail from all over the world to open in the hospital? He's going to be there for several weeks. If you have a few minutes to spare, please consider sending a happy card or postcard to little Fred with your good wishes. If you have kids, maybe they would like to make a little card for him. Here's the address:

Fred Drew
c/o Seattle Children’s Hospital,
4800 Sand Point Way,
Seattle WA 98105

Thank you, dear friends!

Friday Challenge: Clean Those Fridge Door Shelves

As I mentioned in a previous post, I've been trying to organize and declutter my home bit by bit, 15 minutes at a time. Right now, it is the turn of the fridge door; a small space consisting of a few shelves that have become a catch-all for jars and bottles of every description: sauces, condiments and preserves.

Why am I posting a silly thing like this on the blog? Because it is one of those small things that I never get around to, but it makes grit my teeth several times a week when I rummage through the jars. Making this public will motivate me to get the job done. And maybe you'll peek into your own fridge and discover that you want to do this with me. Social support is a powerful help for the big and little things in life.

From now until the evening of Monday, May 14, the mini-challenge is to clean and declutter the shelves in your fridge door.

If you want to take the challenge, it is simple:
1. Leave a comment on this post saying you're in.
2. Go clean your fridge door :)
3. Come back and leave a comment on this post by Monday night saying you did it!

If you want to send me before-after pictures or write a post on your blog, feel free to do so, but really you just need to clean and that's IT.

Don't get distracted and start cleaning the rest of the fridge, or the whole of your kitchen (that just leads to being overwhelmed and frustrated). Just do this small thing and give yourself a pat on the back. Babysteps, as FlyLady says (By the way, that website is a great resource if you feel overwhelmed by clutter).

By Monday evening, I plan to
1. Remove all contents.
2. Wipe down the shelves of the fridge door.
3. Examine everything that I have removed from the shelves of the fridge door.
4. Discard all bottles that won't be used.
5. Group the rest in some fashion- all jams together and all Asian stir fry ingredients together, for instance.

I will also try and come up with some recipe ideas to use up ingredients from the fridge door shelves.

Who's with me? Watch this space for updates.

Saturday, May 12: I'm all done! After putting this off for weeks, this chore took all of 20 minutes max.

Here are the highlights-
Biggest rediscovery: A bottle of the fancy extract fiori di Sicilia which was an impulse purchase several years ago.
Most over-represented: Pickled peppers. I have 4 different kinds (Indian green chilli pickle, pickled jalapenos, pepperoncini, and some bright red ones from Trader Joe's), and will need to think of ways to use them up in chutneys and pestos.
Unlikeliest fridge door resident: A bottle of instant coffee. Neither V nor I drink this stuff. But I remembered that we bought it for my parents last year. I'll have to use it up in some iced coffee drinks.
Sadly wasted: Another impulse purchase- a bottle of Manchurian sauce from the Indian store. It was horrid and I felt guilty about wasting it so there it sat, taking up space. Today it finally was dumped and the bottle recycled.

The shelves are now tidy and there's plenty of free space in there. The fridge door shelves, if well-stocked with sauces and curry pastes and that sort of thing, can be a wonderful resource for quick meals.

As promised, I came up with a recipe to use up some of the jars. I used the remnants of a jar of roasted almond butter with flaxseeds, and the remainder of a bottle of giardiniera (Italian brined vegetables- don't ask me why I collect all this stuff) to make a big and completely delicious noodle salad in a nutty sauce.

Noodle Salad in a Nutty Sauce
1. Cook some noodles. Any kind will do- today I used thin whole-wheat spaghetti.
2. In a glass microwave-safe bowl, mix some almond butter, peanut butter (I used chunky), teriyaki sauce and sambal oelek. Microwave until the nut butters melt and whisk everything together, adding water as required to make a thick yummy sauce.
3. Dice some cucumber and slice yellow/red bell peppers. Today I added some of those Italian pickled vegetables.
4. Toss the vegetables and cooked noodles with the sauce. Garnish with plenty of minced cilantro. 

So simple and so utterly tasty. Cabbage and carrot would be wonderful in this salad too. Mint or green onions would be an excellent garnish. Top with some toasted sesame seeds or crushed nuts for a nice crunch. This noodle salad is perfect for lunch boxes, picnics and potlucks in the summer days that will be here soon.

Now do entertain me with tales of what's hiding in your fridge door shelves.

Nachos with the Works

My bestie Neighbor Girl and I are practically the same age- but I should note that I'm a full 14 days older (and therefore proportionately wiser) than her. We're celebrating our birthdays right around this time of year, and when I say celebrating, I really do mean that we're thrilled about reaching another birthday. None of that moping around about how we're getting older and how we no longer get carded while buying beer at the grocery store. No lying about our age and perpetually saying we're 29. Neighbor Girl and I agree that we're happier with each passing year. We're more comfortable in our own skin and not feeling any pressure to impress anyone. We make it a priority to surround ourselves with kind and loving people. We know for sure that diamonds are not a girl's best friend. Best friends are a girl's best friend.

This weekend we threw each other a birthday bash. A fun little party with cupcakes and a build-your-own-nachos bar in keeping with the post- Cinco Di Mayo mood. Setting up a nachos bar is a good option because depending on how much time you have, you can use all store bought ingredients, or make several of them at home.

There are so many possibilities for a build-your-own-nachos bar:
1. Tortilla chips: 2 to 3 options with different textures, flavors and shapes. You could add soft flour tortillas and hard taco shells for taco options to make it more of a meal.
2. Beans, in the form of chili, cooked beans or refried beans.
3. Vegetable toppings, like minced green onions, cilantro, sliced colorful bell peppers, onions, lettuce, olives, corn kernels, pickled jalapenos, avocados.
4. Dairy toppings, like sour cream and shredded cheese.
5. Salsas: There are endless possibilities for different flavors of salsa. I made a salsa verde with tomatillos and an easy blender salsa with fire roasted tomatoes. I also bought a bottle of good old Tostitos brand salsa con queso. What? Don't look at me like that.

In addition, Neighbor Girl made a giant 7 layer dip. Her motto is "more is more" so it was more of a 17 layer dip, all said. We also had tasty chocolate peanut butter cupcakes. That's a flavor that is utterly predictable but utterly beloved in this home.

Neighbor Girl and I always exchange birthday presents. This year, she's taking me shopping for some summer clothes to celebrate the reappearance of my waist (last year at this time I was too pregnant for my usual summer wardrobe). I was wondering what to get for her when she mentioned that she's looking for a good pancake pan. So I'm putting together a "pancake kit" for her, with a cast iron griddle, pancake spatula, homemade pancake mix, a jar of chocolate almond spread to use as topping for the pancakes, and a crisp red dishcloth folded into the shape of a heart. On my birthday, Neighbor Girl showed up on the doorstep at 6:30 AM with balloons and lilies and a full breakfast- eggs with spinach and mushrooms, mini berry muffins, juice. Now that was the sweetest gift of all.

I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking. If you'd like to know more about the recipes for anything you see here, feel free to ask me in the comments.

On The Bookshelf

I was looking for some lighter reading recently and picked up these two books at the library. Major Pettigrew's Last Stand is the unlikely love story between a retired British army officer and a Pakistani woman, set in an English village. It was delightful in parts and a good read overall but there were some parts that bored me and a few that had me gritting my teeth. 

The Forgotten Affairs of Youth is the latest installment in the Isabel Dalhousie series by one of my favorite authors in the light-yet-meaningful genre, Alexander McCall Smith. Isabel Dalhousie is a philosopher and brings her musings to the mundane ups and downs of everyday life. These books always make me smile quietly. You know, I just noticed that both these books have garments illustrating the cover. 

My friend Cathy told me about this website What Should I Read Next? where you can plug in the name of a favorite book and author and get recommendations for similar titles. I'm hoping to find some more light and uplifting books to read this summer. Have you read anything good lately?

Busy Happy Times

Here I am, at the tail end of April. This post is just to chat and say hello- I don't have a recipe to share but do have some food related tidbits.

Two mini vacations: We went on two trips, baby in tow. Five plane rides in all, and I was worried that Lila would be stressed out by the traveling. Not so. She made friends with the flight attendants and gave a wide gummy grin to fellow passengers. We were asking for a lot from a 7 month old- dining in busy restaurants, living in unfamiliar hotel rooms, being shuttled about all day without a break, but she was a trouper all the way. The first trip was to Georgia and the foodie highlight was my first taste of cheesy grits (with a dash of hot sauce) at Mama's Boy. Our second trip was to Texas and we enjoyed a very fancy meal at Indika- progressive Indian cuisine.

Moving Soon!! Guess what? We're moving to Georgia, y'all! V has an amazing job opportunity there and I'm thrilled for our family to move so he can take the job. The plan is to move in October, so we have 6 months left to enjoy St. Louis and all our friends here. It will be very very hard to leave...

Breakfast with a blogger:  Here's another really fun thing that happened just this weekend. Shilpa of Aayi's Recipes fame dropped in to visit us, along with her family. It was our second meeting. It was fun to have breakfast together and chat away. Yet another instance of how this food blog has led to a valuable "real life" friendship for me.

You must make this! I haven't been trying many new recipes these days- but this weekend I baked a date cake and I have to tell you about it. When I was growing up, my mother entertained often; one of her favorite party desserts was a slice of homemade date and walnut cake served with thick vanilla custard. I'd forgotten all about this cake until I saw eggless date cake posted on two of my favorite blogs- Aayi's Recipes (there she is again) and Bong Mom's Cookbook. Both posts are worth reading- Shilpa talks about the "cake fever" triggered by this cake, and Bong Mom talks about her disbelief at how a cake without eggs or butter can be so light and airy. Both bloggers got the recipe from friends who seem to have gotten it from the same source.

And yes, this cake/quick bread is wonderful. Full of the sweet (and fiber-rich) goodness of dates, I have been lopping off thick slices to take to work every day this week, to enjoy with my 3 PM cup of tea. I reduced the sugar dramatically and increased the amount of nuts (I used pecans), baking the quick bread in a loaf pan. If you are new to baking, this easy and fool proof cake recipe is perfect for you.

Bake Sale! This Saturday, April 28,  is the 2012 Food Blogger Bake Sale. Bake sales will be happening all over the US so check this list to see if there's one in your area. All proceeds will go towards fighting childhood hunger in the US.

If you are in St. Louis, the bake sale is from 10 AM to 2 PM at the Sappington Farmers' Market. If you regularly drool over bakes goods posted on food blogs, here's your chance to taste them for yourself. Many food bloggers and home bakers will be donating goodies to be sold there.

I am baking my two biggest hits from recent months: samosa puffs and jammy thumbprint cookies. Both recipes have been tasted and given two thumbs up by my friends. Head on over this Saturday to critique them for yourself (and support a good cause at the same time).

Savory Samosa Puffs: Crisp flaky pastry enclosing a tasty vegetable filling

"I can't believe these are vegan" Jammy Thumbprint Cookies

Dale's Tales

It has been so long since Dale made an appearance on these pages. Our sweet dog is getting older. He has mostly good days with long walks in the morning and afternoons spent napping in the sun room.  He occasionally has bad days when his old bones seem to creak more than usual and the walk takes three times as long.

In the past 4 months, V has gone on about 8 work-related trips, 3-4 days at a time. It was difficult for me to walk dog and baby together in winter, so Dale was taken to a dog boarding place (they call it a canine enrichment center- no really, you can't make this stuff up) while V was out of town. He likes it there and they are very good to him- they don't crate him at night because he does not like to be confined, he gets to play outside all day, and they let him nap in the office areas. The staff seems to be very fond of him- most people who meet Dale become very fond of him in a particular "poor Dale, such a sweet guy" kind of way.

For our part, we really try not to change Dale's routine except for when V travels. I remember even the morning Lila was born at 4 AM, V left the hospital at 8 AM and went home for a few hours so Dale could get his morning walk on time. Even with a new baby, Dale got his walks, treats, dinners like clockwork.

Baby Lila loves her Dalu dada. She has started calling out to him ("hai hai hai") and reaches out to touch him. Dalu ignores the poor kid completely. When she starts eating regular meals and dropping food on the floor for him to scavenge, they might become friends.

I'll see you in a few days. It looks like life will only get busier in the next few months but I promise to post whenever I get a chance, and whenever I have some "you must cook/bake this" recipe to share with you.

1 Oven, 350 Degrees, 3 Baking Dishes

...and that is how I cooked 2 meals + breakfast for a whole week in a couple of hours.

I don't generally do bulk cooking on the weekends, preferring to make a quick dinner every night and packing leftovers for lunch the next day. But we're going through a busy phase and the idea of having a couple of meals in the fridge is so appealing, to be reheated and eaten during the work week as required. Bulk cooking would mean spending most of a Sunday in the kitchen, and as much as I love to cook, that just sounds exhausting.

While I was mulling over this, I saw a couple of mentions of a cookbook called Not Your Mother's Casseroles by Faith Durand (she blogs on The Kitchn) and requested it from the library, thinking perhaps I could try to make an extra casserole or two on the weekend.

Well, this cookbook, a simple publication with no photos apart from the cover, turned out to be incredibly inspiring. These casseroles recipes are designed with fresh ingredients and don't call for gummy "cream of XYZ" soups. I loved the chapters on vegetable casseroles and breakfast casseroles. From the book, I tried to decide on one recipe to try that weekend (this was a couple of weeks ago). The broccoli-stuffed pasta shells looked very good, and so did the baked oatmeal- which should I try first?

A minute later I realized that both these recipes were baked at the same temperature- 350 degrees F- and I could easily bake both at the same time. In fact, given that my kitchen range has the kind of spacious oven that is the norm in US homes, I could fit in a third baking dish in there. Which was a happy realization, because I had just bought a lovely big bunch of kale, and had bookmarked a simple recipe to use it in. A recipe that, conveniently enough, is also baked at 350F.

You see where I am going with this? My multi-baking (yes, it is a real word and you heard it here first) session was a success. I spent about an hour prepping and preheated the oven towards the end of that time. Then three baking dishes- a pie plate, a 9 x13 casserole dish and an 8 x 8 baking dish- went into the oven and I quickly cleaned the kitchen and relaxed. The dishes came out one by one and I had a good amount of delicious food ready for the days ahead.

Cooking multiple dishes in the oven simultaneously is a nice way to save yourself some time, and to lower your utility bills and carbon footprint while you are at it. It turns out that a great proportion of recipes are baked at 350 degrees F. There's not much mystery there- 350F is a moderate "Goldilocks" baking temperature, not too high and not too low.

I've compiled a list of 12 recipe categories- most of the recipes I've seen for these call for a 350F oven temperature. If you would like ideas for specific recipes for any of these, ask me in the comments and I'll gladly help. Imagine choosing 2 or 3 or 4 of these and baking them all at once. One could get a chunk of cooking done in a couple of hours.

1. Breakfast egg casseroles & quiches: Savory combinations of eggs, vegetables, cheese, and sometimes grains and flours.
2. Pasta casseroles: Macaroni and cheese and lasagna may be the best known but there are endless possibilities with pasta, vegetables, sauce and cheese.
3. Other main dishes: Enchiladas, biryani, vegetarian shepherd's pie to name just a few.
4. Baked oatmeal: Oats cooked in milk (dairy or non-dairy) with fruits and nuts.
5. Granola: Another breakfast option with oats, seeds, dry fruits and nuts.
6. Tofu: Baked tofu is a great snack or appetizer on its own, and can be tossed with fried rice and noodles or stirred into soup. 
7. Bread: Several recipes for yeasted breads bake at 350F.
8. Quick breads & muffins: E.g. banana bread, zucchini bread, and all sorts of muffins. These are nice to have on hand for tea-time snacking and for lunch boxes. 
9. Whole vegetables: Winter squash, baking potatoes and sweet potatoes can be baked whole and then cut open with ease for use in various dishes.
10. Vegetable bakes: For instance, gratins, stuffed vegetables and simple trays of cubed vegetables.
11. Roasted nuts & snack mixes: Glazed nut mixtures are a wonderful snack and make for nice hostess or holiday gifts.
12. Cakes & Cupcakes: If you have a celebration coming up in the next few days, make a quick cake or batch of cupcakes while cooking other meals. 

Coming back to the three dishes I baked together that weekend, here are the recipes. One was this quinoa and kale crustless quiche. I followed the recipe closely. My only addition was some cubed cooked sweet potato. Lila has started eating "people food" (in addition to her usual diet of food that comes from people) that week and her first food was sweet potato. I had some left over and added it here. It added another layer of sweetness to the dish, contrasting beautifully with the mildly bitter greens. This is a great dish to have on hand for picnics and lunch boxes, because it is tasty at room temperature. I enjoyed it with Sriracha sauce!

Next up, a pasta dish of jumbo shells stuffed with broccoli. This was my first time making jumbo shells.   They make for a lovely presentation, although this is a thick pasta (it has to be, to hold the filling) and I prefer a more delicate pasta in general. It is a slightly labor intensive dish but we enjoyed the results very much. I had some jarred marinara that I needed to use up so I included it in this casserole and I thought it was a wonderful addition.

Broccoli-Stuffed Shells(Adapted from Not Your Mother's Casseroles by Faith Durand)
1. PASTA: Cook a box of jumbo shells. Drain the shells and set them on a clean dish towel. Choose the best 15-20 shells for the recipe and save the rest of the pasta for later use.
2. Preheat the oven to 350F and grease a 9 x 13 metal baking dish.
3. FILLING: Roughly chop 2 large heads of broccoli and cook them until barely tender (I used the microwave oven). Pulse the cooked broccoli a few times in the food processor to yield finely chopped broccoli.
4. In a bowl, mix together the broccoli, 1 tbsp. minced garlic, 1 cup ricotta cheese, 1 tbsp. lemon juice, salt, red pepper flakes and pepper to taste. Set this filling aside. If you like, you can add a beaten egg to this mixture too.
5. WHITE SAUCE: Heat 1/4 cup of butter in a saucepan. Add 1/4 cup flour and cook it for a few minutes. Stir in 2 cups milk and cook, whisking often, until the sauce is thick. Stir in salt and pepper to taste.
6. ASSEMBLY: Ladle half a cup of white sauce and spread it around in the bottom of the baking dish. Fill pasta shells with broccoli mixture and arrange them in the dish in a single layer. Pour a cup of marinara sauce over the shells. Top with the rest of the white sauce and a sprinkling of parmesan cheese. Bake for an hour or so until the top is browned and the sauce is bubbling. 

The baked oatmeal recipe is a very simple one. In fact, it is the same thing you would make on a stove top but instead you cook it in a baking dish. This is a basic recipe that one could modify with different fresh and dry fruits, and nuts and spices.

Baked Oatmeal (Adapted from Not Your Mother's Casseroles by Faith Durand)
1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Lightly grease an 8 or 9 inch square baking dish.
3. In a bowl, stir together

• 2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats 

• 1 cup milk 

• 1.5 cups almond milk 

• 1/4 cup maple syrup 

• 1 or 2 chopped apples 

• 1/2 cup toasted walnuts 

• 1 tsp. cinnamon 

• 1/2 tsp. salt 

4. Pour the oat mixture into baking dish and bake for 30 minutes or until liquid is fully absorbed.

On The Bookshelf

Here's the next parenting book I read: Brain Rules for Baby by John Medina. The author has a good synopsis of these rules on his website so I won't list them all here.

Here are two interesting points I took away from this book: 

1. The author talks about the empathy reflex. If the other person has a strong emotion (anger, frustration, fear), your first reaction should be to demonstrate empathy by doing these 2 simple steps:

(a) Describe the emotion you think you see in the other person.
(b) Make a guess about where the emotion is coming from.
This is just so simple and powerful, for responding not just to children and spouses but with other people too.

2. The author describes the Harvard Study of Adult Development, a landmark longitudinal study of mental and physical well-being. Decades of research has led to this conclusion "The only thing that really matters in life are your relationships to other people".

And with that we say good-bye to March and hello to April. The first half of April looks like a very busy one for my family, so I'll be on a short blogging break. See you in the latter half of April!

Half the Birthday, All the Fun

The little Miss turned 6 months old and we celebrated her half-birthday this weekend. What is a half-birthday? Is this even a thing? Or is it simply an excuse for me to bake a cake? Yes and yes. I got to bake something sweet and we had a small party with a couple of our friends who have young ones.

Being a new parent can be a bit lonely, especially when you are caught in the Sisyphean tasks of feeds and diaper changes. Having social support makes all the difference by giving you someone to share the everyday joys and pains. When I was newly pregnant last year, we signed up a plot in the community garden near us. From that garden plot, we harvested a few pounds of okra...and one new friend, a fellow gardener. This neighbor and new friend was also pregnant with her first child. It was wonderful to have a friend living practically next door going through the same things I was. We waddled through the neighborhood on long walks. She had her son Nico a week before I gave birth to Lila. Since the babies were a few days old, we've been meeting up every few days, bringing each other food and advice and reassurance. The littles babble to each other on the play mat. We go on long walks through the neighborhood just like we did earlier, but with babies now strapped on the outside. To anyone who is about to be a new parent, I have this to say: instead of spending hours researching strollers online, go out and find yourself a community of friends.

To celebrate Lila and Nico's half-birthday, I made half-birthday cakes, of course. I made one cake, cut it in half and frosted each half separately. Then I used chocolate chips to make a "N" on one half-cake for Nico and an "L" on the other half-cake for Lila.

The cake recipe is from Ina Garten and I found it in this post from Alpineberry. This is the kind of easy, easy cake recipe that really makes me wish that more people left the boxed cake mix right there in the box where it belongs and try making cakes from scratch.

• Dry ingredients in one bowl
• Wet ingredients in another bowl
• Mix the two
• Add hot coffee
• Pour the batter into prepared pans

You definitely don't need a stand mixer to make this recipe- a simple wooden spoon and mixing bowl does the trick. If you have a silicone spatula, it helps to scrape every last bit of the batter from the bowl. Note that this batter is pourable and thin and you need to butter and line the pans properly. But you will be rewarded with a beautifully moist cake.

Here is what I did differently from the recipe:

• Using canola oil instead of vegetable oil because it is what I had on hand.
• Using large eggs instead of extra large eggs because large is the only size I ever buy (I did not notice that the smaller quantity of eggs I used made any difference).
• Making faux buttermilk at home: take 1 tbsp. white vinegar in a measuring cup and add milk to the 1 cup mark. Let it sit for 5 minutes and give it a stir- viola! buttermilk!
• Reducing the quantity of sugar to 1.5 cups.
• Instead of freshly brewed coffee, I added 2 tsp. instant espresso  powder to 1 cup hot water.
• Using natural cocoa instead of Dutch processed. With natural cocoa, it almost looks like a red velvet cake with a rich mahogany color.

To fill and frost the cake, I used the peanut butter mousse from this recipe. The combination of chocolate and peanut butter is a particular favorite around here. My frosting skills are painfully lacking but there is something sweet and homely about a homemade cake so I never beat myself up about it. The cake made 12 generous servings.

To go with the cake, I made three finger foods:

Puffs with peas and sweet potato

Black eyed peas salsa served with tortilla chips

Paneer tikka with peppers and onions

Today is the Spring Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere- and I wish you all a season of glorious weather and long walks in the park. Today is also the start of my own personal Spring Cleaning Challenge. Starting this evening I will devote a little time- anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes- working on one small portion of my home. We've had very little time to clean and organize in this past year and I'm looking forward to clearing out some clutter and feeling rejuvenated inside and out.

Idli, Dosa, Chutney: Brunch Perfection

V and I enjoy having friends over for casual gatherings on the weekends. Typically, people tend to meet for dinner on the weekends, but dinner-time is not at all my favorite time for entertaining. I'm an early bird who is up and about at 5 AM (yes, even on the weekends; especially on the weekends when there are so many fun things to look forward to). By 6 in the evening, I am pretty tired and crabby and not much fun to be around.

Brunch or lunch is my preferred social hour. You do your cooking in the morning, enjoy your friends and still have many more hours left in the day to relax or do something else.

A couple of weekends ago we had just such a gathering scheduled and I made my favorite brunch trio of idli, sambar and chutney. Our friends offered to bring along a dish. I always say yes to this gracious offer- potluck style equals less work for any one person. And I never worry too much about what-goes-with-what. We might end up eating some strange combinations of dishes but everything is always delicious. This time our pals brought over sweet french toast with maple syrup and juicy strawberries.

The camera candidly captured the table laid out with brunch- idlis, chutney and sambar. And a platter of cookies in the background for dunking into tea.

Pillowy challah french toast with sliced strawberries- brought over by our friends.

Idli, sambar and chutney is a trio that I have made so many times before (and posted so many times I've lost count), but never the same way twice! I keep tweaking the idli recipe to make them fluffier, fiddling with the sambar recipe to make it more like the kind from Udipi restaurants and varying the chutneys because there are so many to choose from.

1. The Idlis

For several years, I made idlis using recipes that call for idli rava. But there is such a difference between a good idli and a fantastic one- once you have eaten the latter you get spoiled for life. In my hands (meaning, there are surely ways to make the perfect idli with idli rava but I don't know what they are), the fluffiest idlis come about when you use a special variety of rice sold as idli rice- this rice is parboiled. My idli "aha" moment came last summer when V's aunt visited and I watched her make idlis with parboiled rice. Busy with baby and all, it was only now that I got to try my hand at it. If you have an electric stone grinder and if you have access to parboiled rice, you need to read these two posts from the The Yum Blog. I followed their proportion 1 (adding a fistful of poha for better fermentation), and followed all their excellent tips for grinding the batter. Even on that cold weekend, the batter rose gratifying well and the resulting buttery, fluffy idlis made me weep with joy. No exaggeration.

Update on March 18, 2012: In a comment on this post, Arch suggested that I try Vani's soft idlis. This weekend, I did and yes, this is an incredible recipe! The only difference is that I soaked the parboiled rice, ural dal and poha all together and ground them all together too. The idlis turned out soft and wonderful. So all in all, I think parboiled rice and poha make for successful idlis in my hands.

Idli stand- with molds to make 16 idlis at a time

2. Udipi Sambar

This time around I tried the Udipi Sambar recipe from Peppermill. A recipe from sweet beloved Miri; she is no longer with us but continues to be part of my life. Read her post for a lovely description of why this sweetish, coconut-laced version of sambar is beloved among those of us who ate at Udipi restaurants in Bombay. Here is my adaptation of Miri's recipe.

Udipi Sambar

1. Pressure cook 1/2 cup toor dal. Mash it well and set aside.
2. Heat a little oil in small pan. Add the following ingredients in this order and fry them, then cool and grind to a thick paste (in my case it was more like a wet powder).

• 1/2 tsp. fenugreek seeds
• 2 tsp. urad dal
• 2 tbsp. coriander seeds
• Few curry leaves
• 1/4 cup fresh/frozen coconut

3. You're ready to make sambar. In a large pan, heat 2 tsp. oil. Temper it with

• 1 tsp. mustard seeds 
• 1 tsp. urad dal
• Pinch of asafetida
• Sprig of curry leaves

4. Add vegetables- I used chunks of red onion this time. Batons of drumsticks, carrot, baby onions, cubes of eggplant, pumpkin all work well. Stir fry for a few minutes. Add salt, red chili powder, turmeric, tamarind paste and jaggery to taste. Add a cup of water, cover and cook for a few minutes.
5. Now stir in the masala paste and toor dal from step 1 and 2. Simmer for 5 minutes. Taste and adjust the flavors and consistency before serving.

3. A fresh verdant chutney

I use a coffee grinder as my "mixie" and it works for the most part but the coconut chutney made with fresh frozen coconut never seems to be quite as silky smooth as I would like. The idea for using coconut milk instead of fresh/frozen shredded coconut came from Vaishali's post from many years ago. This recipe will give you beautifully smooth chutney in any old blender.

Cilantro Coconut Chutney
1. Blend together and scrape into a serving bowl:

• 1 bunch cilantro, washed and roughly chopped (about 2 cups)
• 1 chopped hot green chili (or green chili paste to taste)
• 1/2 cup dalia or roasted chana dal (phutane in Marathi)
• 1 mini can coconut milk (5.6 oz. or 2/3 cup)

2. Make a tadka or "tempering" with:

• 2 tsp. oil
• 2 tsp. mustard seeds
• 1 tsp. urad dal
• 1 tsp. chana dal
• Pinch of asafetida
• Sprig of curry leaves

3. Stir in:

• Salt to taste
• Fresh lemon juice

Anyway, this brunch was a labor of love and so utterly rewarding. Our friends had never tasted idli before and looked quizzically at these snow-white steamed cakes but a few bites later, I heard things like, "Why can't I stop eating these?".

That weekend was special for another reason. It was the first time Lila rolled over, leaving us speechless with delight. So that makes it two milestones- Lila taking the first step towards mobility and me making idlis that I am proud to share. That Monday, when co-workers asked the perfunctory question, "How was your weekend?", I could say with absolute sincerity that my weekend had been just perfect.