OT: Our Favorite Book Series for Kindergarteners

Both my daughter and I eagerly look forward to our reading time. It's a time we spend together cherishing the one thing we both dearly love: reading! I read to her in the morning and at bedtime and we set aside half an hour on weekend evenings as our family's quiet reading time when everyone reads - even the house-guests are invited and encouraged to read at the time! (a beautiful tradition she picked up from a Berenstein Bear book).

I am finding that when it comes to reading, six year old is an interesting age - she is growing out of picture books and is about ready for more complex plots and longer books but her attention span is still limited. The picture books we used to read a year ago, she likes to read them on her own now so I am experimenting with more "big kid books" to read together with her to keep things interesting.

Image Credit: goodreads.com

These are some of the book series we really loved this year - in case they come handy to another parent looking for some good quality books for their kindergartners.

Image Credit: goodreads.com

 My daughter loves the Mercy Watson book series! We have read all 6 multiple times. It is a book about a pig named Mercy, her "parents" Mr. and Mrs. Watson and their neighborhood and the hilarious tales and situations that their beloved Mercy brings their way. We picked up the first one through a recommendation of our librarian. Written beautifully with simple words, comedic plots and beautiful illustrations this series is a major hit with my daughter. 

Image Credit: goodreads.com

Elephant and Piggie series by Mo Willems is another favorite one. My daughter loves to read these books to us. They are simple to read, great starter books for young kids and have hilarious plots. A very caring and brotherly elephant with a tendency to worry and an equally fun loving and relaxed piggie - their mutual friendship is very cute to read. There are many many books in this series. I don't think we have read all but are on our way!

Image Credit: goodreads.com

Other series we really loved reading are the Berenstein Bears series about a family of bears with their everyday problems and the simple family lessons re-enforcing core family values; Angelina Ballerina about a mouseling whose greatest wish is to be a famous ballerina; Froggy series of a forgetful Frog and his family and an Arthur adventure series depicting adventures of Arthur, his sister DW and their friends.

Image Credit: goodreads.com

Image Credit: goodreads.com

Finally, this is a series my daughter stumbled upon all on her own while browsing in the library. She is all about science these days. This Magic School Bus series is a great series for young scientists - lots of age appropriate information - nice big pictures and a fun way of narrating it. We have read many in this series and looking forward to reading many more.

Image Credit: goodreads.com

Reading together is so much fun and makes such a big impact to kids to have spent that quality time with a parent - we are giving them a lifetime love of reading, a gift that hopefully keeps giving!

As a parent I am always looking for good books to add to our virtual library, if you know of any of your favorites please let me know!

Other books we liked:
My favorite baby/toddler books
My favorite books for two/three year olds
My favorite recently read early childhood books

Roasted Chicken Provencal

This recipe is inspired from Sam Sifton's NYTimes recipe. Did I mention how much I love the cooking section of NYT? Both the recipes and the writing is just amazing! I have a stack of about 50+ to try recipes saved in my NYT recipe box - and many others I have successfully added to our daily meals. 

This is one such winner recipe for us. We have made it on countless occasions - from simple comfy family weekday dinners to serving guests at an elaborate sit-down dinners, and every single time this recipe has never failed to please! The pot is always wiped clean to the last bit and no left-overs what so ever :)

Put simply this is roasted chicken pieces seasoned with liberal amounts of herbs de provence (spice blend from Provence region of France) and roasted with lemons, whole garlic cloves, shallots, olives and potatoes until the meat is tender and flavored with all the seasonings. 

The dish is so simple and yet so flavorful! It's a perfect recipe for a new cook to try and wow their guests. There are only two steps: gather everything in a large cast iron oven ready pan and put in the oven. How easy is that!

I made one change to the original recipe: I prefer chicken breast halves instead of thighs or drumsticks and accordingly reduced cooking time to 30minutes @375. I use about one teaspoon of herbs de provence per chicken breast half.

Herbs de provence is a blend of herbs used in the Provence region of France. The one I have has marjoram, thyme, lavender, savory, rosemary and oregano. You can always substitute by mixing these herbs yourselves - but honestly the blend is divine and I highly recommend investing in a jar of this. I add it to meats, roasted potatoes and soups. Trader Joe's carries one for about $4.99 for a large jar - great investment!

Season the chicken piece with salt, pepper and herbs de provence. Dredge in some flour. Arrange them in a large cast iron pan (oven-ready pan) drizzled with olive oil. Add sliced potatoes, shallots, lemon slices and whole cloves of garlic. Tuck some garlic and lemons below the chicken pieces and some in between. 

Add 1/2C of chicken stock or veggie stock or just plain water. Bake at 375 for 30 minutes or until chicken pieces are cooked through - center of the thickest piece should be clear when pierced by knife and the juices should run clear.

Remove from oven, add a juice of half a lemon, cover with an aluminum foil and let rest for few mins. Serve while still hot with a nice crusty bread to mop up any sauces! 

The dish pairs great with any salad - couscous salad, quinoa salad or just some simple greens salad and a glass of bold red wine!

Enjoy!

Making Macarons!

Recently I took a cooking class to make macarons. This was my very first cooking class and to be honest I was a bit skeptical going into it - thinking what could I learn there that I wouldn't by reading blogs and watching Youtube cooking video, but neverthless I had some time and decided to give it a try. And boy was I surprised at how much fun it was and how much I learnt along the way!

I love baking - I find it very relaxing, almost therapeutic, but I'll confess, I am not very good at it. So one of the culinary objectives I have during this small break is to improve my pastry skills and a macaron making class seemed like a good way to kick start that initiative :)

I took the class at our local Sur La Table. The class included lemon macarons with two kinds of fillings: candied lemon w/ white chocolate ganache and second with lavender honey buttercream. The theme of the class was celebrating spring Provencal flavors.

Lemon macarons w/ candied lemon and white chocolate ganache filling and honey lavender buttercream.

It was a morning 9am class and about 7 other wonderful ladies were super excitedly waiting at the door by 8:50. It was a sunny spring morning with a bit of a chill in the air - so the weather set a perfect tone for our provencal spring baking class. 

Our group was a really fun one - and I think the fun, engaging group of bakers is really what made the class so much fun for me. Not to mention our teacher who never gave up bravely marching through the many many small things that went wrong along the way!

The store provided us with tea, coffee and some light snacks being it a 3.5 hour class. We put on our apron; heard a little history of macarons and started off with teacher demonstrating the right way of preparing them.

Then came the fun part - we were paired in groups of 3-4 and tried our hands at making the meringue first, then folding with sifted flours, piping, drying and then baking. 

I learnt so many things about baking - probably basics for an advanced baker, but were very educating for a novice one like me:

1. Importance of sifting flours together - NEVER skip or shorten this step, and how different flour textures demand slightly different sifting techniques/times.
2. Learnt that what I considered a meringue's stiff peak actually needed a minute or two more and was not ready.
3. Learnt that I was doing folding the wrong way this whole time and it made so much difference learning the right way to fold the batter.
4. Learning the science behind every step takes time but *really* helps. Once I knew why I was folding versus beating, my technique improved.
5. How sensitive the meringue is to even tiny ingredient changes. Adding more lemon zest literally ruined it because of the oil released by the zest in the folding process! Again, learning science behind baking really helps.

Macarons were super sensitive to the texture of the batter - a slightly runny batter was enough to ruin a batch.

And so we finally prepared our batter and rolled the meringues learning the right piping techniques along the way.

Next big lesson was the importance of drying time for meringue. The batches which were rushed through even by 10mins, did not raise as well and did not have as pronounced "feet". So, we patiently waited the recommended drying time of 40minutes and spent that time making and tasting delicious fillings!

Fillings were fairly straight forward - a while chocolate ganache and candied meyer lemons and honey lavender buttercream. I never realized how a dish can be upped to the next level just by a simple addition of candied lemon - we have a meyer lemon tree at home so I am definitely going to make lots of candied lemons soon!

Another eye opener for me was the use of lavender in baking - oh my! The flavor was so delicate but yet unmatched. And the whole kitchen filled with the lovely lavender aroma as it was baking. If you have not, highly recommend baking with lavender. We have lavender growing in our garden, not sure why I didn't realize it's many culinary usages before.

Towards the end we assembled the macarons and again learnt different filling and piping techniques. The biggest take-away for me in this step was to really let go of the engineer within, ignore the-correct-way and let your creativity take over during pastry decoration phase. 

It was so much fun and a morning very well spent! But the best part was a large box of macarons I got to bring home to share and brag about - and seeing my daughter's delighted and amazed face that mommy can actually make something that looks like bought from a pastry shop:)  

The Best Arugula Salad!

I love salads for lunch. A big bowl of salad with greens, grains, fruits, nuts and cheese can be just as filling as a big burger or a bowl of pasta - and on plus side a lot healthier for your body and soul. The trick is to add just enough variety - both in terms of texture and flavors.

This is for my "lunch-for-one" salad. I make it on the days I am at home eating alone. Sometimes I skip the grains and keep the salad light as an accompaniment to half a sandwich. Other times I add grains (quinoa or couscous) and/or some rotisserie chicken and make it a full meal - either way it's delicious and I highly recommend you try it!

My favorite way to enjoy this salad is to grab a large bowl full with a side of hot tea, perch myself on the patio with a good book and enjoy the lunch hour!

While this salad may taste just as well with other greens like lettuce or kale, for me arugula in this salad is unswappable :) I love the tender bittery crunchy taste which complements the fruit in the salad perfectly! Another unswappable ingredient for me is the meyer lemon in the dressing.. meyer lemon has a mild lemony tasty with a hint or orange which I find heavenly in dressings - while a regular lemon or vinegar may work as well, I would try to find meyer lemon as much as I can.

Go ahead and try to vary the ingredients - make it your own! That's the best part of the big salad bowl for one :)

Recipe:

Ingredients: (not exact measurements, vary to your taste!)

Dressing:

2Tbsp olive oil (the best quality you have at hand)

2Tbsp meyer lemon juice

himalayan pink salt (or the best salad salt you have at hand)

crushed black pepper

Add all the ingredients together. Stir vigorously with a spoon or fork until emulsified. Taste, adjust as needed.

Salad:

Few handfuls of arugula

Fruit: couple chopped strawberries, chopped orange, sliced persimmon or sliced figs

Nuts: slivered almonds

Grain: 1/2 C cooked quinoa or couscous

Cheese: handful of goat cheese

Veggies: sliced onion, sliced tomato, sliced red pepper or sliced avocado

Mix all salad ingredients. Drizzle dressing on top. Mix well. Serve asap. Enjoy!

Cooking With Lotus Roots

While on a recent trip to the Asian market to buy ingredients for sushi (my current obsession - more on that later in another post!), my husband spotted a packet of lotus stems or lotus roots. 

Lotus roots in Indian style yogurt soup (kadhi) is a childhood dish we grew up eating. The roots looked just as I remembered them and my curiosity peaked enough to grab a packet in my shopping cart.

Stir-fried lotus roots

It turns out that the terms lotus roots and lotus stems are used quite interchangeably - but they are the same thing, circular inner parts of lotus under water adorned with beautiful pattern as only what nature can make! 

They can be boiled, sauteed, stir-fried - very versatile. They are also super rich in anti-oxidants. They are very mild in taste - which make them an ideal blank canvas to add any flavorings in.

I decided to cook it two ways. First the traditional Marathi way of boiling it with Kadhi and serving with rice. The second was a stir-fry. It just felt like they were made for stir-fry with that super beautiful shape and crunchy texture! My personal favorite was the stir-fry; next time I'll cook them with spring peas, mushrooms and some greens and season with soy sauce & vinegar.

Recipe:

Lotus roots stir fry:

Prepare lotus roots by boiling them in water for 5mins. Drain and set aside. Heat oil in a wok or non-stick pan, when hot, add lotus roots, seasoning of choice (I added few pinches of my go-to everyday seasoning which is a blend of many common spices), salt & pepper. Cook on high heat for a minute or two. Transfer to a plate. Add lemon juice, serve with rice, add to salads or just munch on their own!

Kadhi with lotus roots:

Prepare lotus roots by boiling them in water for 5mins. Drain and set aside. 

Meanwhile, mix 4C yogurt with 2 Tbsp besan, mix well. Then add enough water for desired kadhi consistency. Set aside.

In a big pot, heat 1tsp oil. Add 1tsp cumin seeds, pinch of asafoetida powder, few curry leaves, 1Tbsp freshly grated ginger and saute for one minute. Then add 1/2tsp turmeric powder, followed by yogurt mixture, salt to taste and let cook on low flame until kadhi starts gently boiling. Add cooked lotus stems and boil for a few more mins.

Serve with rice and ghee! 

 

Lotus Roots Kadhi (Indian Yogurt Soup)

Picnic food: Pita Pockets w/ Lentil Stuffing

Impromptu picnics are so much fun. All you need is good weather, a yummy picnic basket, a nearby park and you can look forward to a sunny afternoon filled with good food and company of the people you love!

There are a bunch of very nice parks near our place, some boasting of lakes and boating, others with tennis courts and huge play structures for kids and yet others with cool redwood coves - so any given weekend morning when the picnic fever sets in, we pack our lunches, grab some toys for the little ones and a cozy book for the older ones and head out the door with our rusty picnic mat.

I have a couple of go-to picnic recipes which rely on ingredients that are always in my pantry or fridge. And these pita pockets with lentil stuffings are one of the family favorite ones. It needs a bit of prep time but it's very filling and the variations of "make-your-own-pita-pocket" always keeps the fun going for the kids and grown-ups alike.

The basic recipe is borrowed from this Mark Bittman classic. Idea is simple: you cook lentils, prepare (or buy) your favorite yogurt dipping sauce and then provide a range of vegetable fillings like sliced avocados, cucumbers, arugula leaves or even some store bought falafels would be great. Then top it all up with your favorite hot-sauce and there you have it! Easy to pack, easy to assemble this is a very good picnic basket stuffer.

To prepare lentil, I usually saute chopped onion, garlic and tomatoes (one by one) in few Tbsp olive oil, then add lentils (1C dried is more than enough for 4-6 people), water, a seasoning like some chopped or dried thyme, salt & pepper and cook per the lentil package direction. Super simple.

Yogurt dipping is mostly yogurt + chopped mint + salt & pepper + dash of red wine vinegar to taste + pinch of chilli flakes. Mix, keep cold.

Then when you are ready to assemble, warm up the pita on a grill if you want, or room temp is fine too. Cut the pita in two half-circles. Gently slide your fingers to tear the two pita halves apart from the diameter side. Take care to not tear the circular side apart. Using a knife spread yogurt sauce, add lentils, veggie stuffing like sliced avocados, top it off with some hot sauce. 

Goes great with a chilled beer and lunch is served!  

Steamed Broccolini w/ Garlic & Reading Charlotte's Web

Spring is a great time to enjoy broccolini. For last few weeks I have been seeing large bunches of super fresh broccolini at our farmer's markets in California for $1/bunch. Since it's grown in abundance in spring, it's also super cheap in spring.

Contrary to perception (and what I believed for many years), broccolini is not baby broccoli. Though they are so much alike in looks and taste! It is a spring vegetable similar to broccoli but with long thin stem and a slightly stronger taste. Wikipedia calls it a hybrid between broccoli and gai lan.

We love broccolini at our house and always devour it in spring for as many weeks as it's on market. While you can steam it, saute it or roast it, my favorite cooking method is to steam it and then saute lightly with garlic oil. 

We bought an instant pot mini duo a few months ago and it's great for quick steaming tasks. I used the steam setting with 0 minute cook time; and released the pressure manually right when it built up. Broccolini are very delicate and over cooking is about the worst thing that could happen to them.

Meanwhile saute a few chugs of olive oil and add chopped garlic (2 cloves); once the garlic has infused the oil, add steamed broccolini and sprinkle some salt & pepper. A minute in pan and it's done!

Since this is a very simple preparation, good quality ingredients go a long way. I always go for the best quality ingredients I have at hand - which means a good extra virgin olive oil and a fancy salt (we use pink Himalayan salt from Trader Joe's for all of our drizzling salt needs). 

It's a great side for any soups, pastas or noodle dishes. I hope you get a chance to enjoy broccolini while the season lasts!

Last few weeks I have been having a really cool time reading Charlotte's Web with my daughter! As she is growing up, she is in that middle age of overgrown the toddler section books but not yet ready for the big kid books either. I thought it might be a great time to introduce her to some of the classics that I could read to her and we can enjoy spending that time together. 

Now I myself haven't read any of the American children's classics, so picking a book meant a lot of Amazon searching. Finally we landed on Charlotte's Web and it seemed like a great story with animal characters she still loves but a complex and long plot.

Image Credit: goodreads.com

We read a few chapters a day and took about 2-3 weeks to finish the book. It was very engrossing, even for me :) And we quickly felt the characters like Wilbur, Charlotte and Templeton come alive. It's a lovely story about love and friendship and is sure to keep children guessing. It also provides a lot of opportunities for discussions particularly about topics like being kind to others, helping a friend in need, feeling sad and helpless etc.

The only unfortunate bit was the sad ending, which I had to run-time edit slightly. But all in all, it's a great read and I am so happy we chose it for our first big book!   

Hello Again... (after a hiatus)

It has been a very long time, blog, but I have missed posting here a lot. I guess life happened, things got crazy at work and at home with a new kindergartner in tow this year! 

I am also not cooking as much these days, but I am hoping to change it now that I have a bit of a breather for next few months. 

Last year we started on an Indian Tiffin service plan for the weekdays (one of the perks of bay area!) so I rarely cooked on weekdays for the past 6 months. It was hard to let go of food for me, but that was a practical option for our family and so we embraced it. I try to make up for it by going a bit overboard over the weekends :)

One of the new entrees making a round at our dinner table these days is this veggie General Tsao's stir fry. It is a very versatile recipe - and becoming my go-to Friday evening dinner. 

The thing that really pulls this together for me is this general Tsao's stir-fry sauce I ordered from Amazon. It's not fishy or spicy and is a very nice blend with umami! We are almost through our first box of 6-pack and I have ordered for more!

Simply stir-fry any combination of chopped veggies (bok-choy, asparagus, arugula, mushroom, spinach, carrots - anything lurking in the fridge by end of the week) in hot sesame oil one by one. You can also add protein (tofu or chicken), stir-fry sauce, salt & pepper and finish it up with garnish of roasted peanuts and chopped green onions. 

Serve with steamed jasmine rice with a side of some sautéed greens and meal is ready in as long as it takes for rice to be ready!

General Tsao's stir fry served over steamed Jasmine rice with a side of sautéed garlic chrysanthemum leaves