Posts

Grab them before they go - oranges are in season (citrus salad and orange marmalade)!
(Starting off a new series on G&G - "Grab them before they go". In this series we feature a seasonal produce or fruit our family is enjoying thoroughly these days. Infact it's so good that we think it deserves you opening another tab on your browser right now and finding out your nearest farmer's market to visit!  We at G&G strongly believe in simple & quick recipes with local and seasonal produce and fruits; not only you will be enjoying fresh bounties of the nature without the preservatives and 100s of food miles, you will also be helping the local farmer's ecosystem and sustainable growing) It's that time of the year again when citruses are everywhere in California. Farmer's markets are filled with rows and rows of navel oranges, satsumas & mandarins (peelable oranges), cara-cara oranges (rose color flesh), blood oranges, grapefruits and pamelos and meyer lemons too! I have a detailed post here going o…

Easy Breezy Chicken Tandoori (v2)
This tandoori chicken recipe is a favorite one at our home! The reason it's named v2 is because I already have one tandoori chicken post on this blog - however I have been recently feeling that there is scope of improvement there. In particular chicken could be more moist while keeping the skin still crunchy. The v1 was made when our oven did not have a broil function but now that we have a working broiler I thought I would give it a few tries and tada, there comes v2 - better and improved but still the same easy breezy! After many attempts, this is the recipe I narrowed down on. The skin will be crispy with a slightly burnt taste (which I love so much!) while the inside is still very moist and juicy. I have had success with this recipe 3 times in a row, so I feel pretty confident calling this a blog-worthy recipe now :) Do you enjoy Tandoori chicken at restaurants? Have you tried making tandoori chicken at home? If not but if you enjoy eating it ou…

Soba Noodles with Stir-fried Vegetables
Do you cook with soba noodles? If not, I definitely recommend giving them a try! You won't be disappointed. Soba noodles are native Japanese noodles. They are made of buckwheat flour and are about as thick as spaghetti. Buckwheat is an ancient and a very healthy grain - but more importantly for me it just tastes awesome and cooks in 4 minutes! You can't beat that on a busy weeknight! These noodles when properly cooked have a really good bite to it and can withstand sharper flavors of soya, chili-garlic paste etc with commendable integrity :) Buckwheat noodles can be served cold or hot - this preparation I am sharing with you today is best eaten while the noodles are hot. This dish rotates almost every week at our home. The little one loves noodles and tofu and is always happy to munch along picking noodles one by one :) We try many ingredient variation from tofu, broccoli, carrots, yellow papers, mushrooms, babycorns, water chestnuts to chicken. I…

Mystery ingredient's mystery solved: Amaranth leaves sambhar!
I have this most weird habit of picking up a new vegetable or a new grain without any slightest idea of what I am going to do with it or how to use it. If I see something new, it peeks my interest and draws me like a magnet and the next thing I know its somehow sitting in my grocery cart!  It was one level of craziness picking up things that are new but this time I crossed a line: I actually picked up something without even knowing its name. Okay, now I am not this crazy person who would feed anything to my family; I mean, the leaves were sitting next to the spinach, anything that sits next to spinach has to be eatable and tasty too, I bet! So I picked up these most unique looking green leaves (size of small spinach leaves) with red veins running into them. I had no idea what they were, the store did not have a name-tag next to it. I called the store people and asked them what it was, they said they had no idea. I picked them up anyway, thinking I would g…

Tilapia Fish Curry - Bengali Style
This is one of my favorite fish curry recipe. I have tried it before with Salmon and posted here . I have been meaning to try it with tilapia. Tilapia is a more delicate fish so I was worried whether it would stand up to the pan frying and then steaming with the curry gravy and also whether the kalonji and curry flavors of the recipe would overpower the delicate light fish. I am happy to report however that the fish curry was just the same tasty with tilapia as with salmon. I also managed to take step by step photos this time and made the recipe slightly simple. Original version called for various spices, this time I substituted all the spices with curry powder instead. Result was equally delicious! The trick is to find a good quality curry powder if you don't make one at home. I generally use Trader Joe's curry powder and I am quite satisfied with it; it's a very mild version heat-wise but packs a lot of punch. Home-made has it's benefits but…