Monday 27 February 2012

Eggless Fresh Mint Ice Cream (Philadelphia style)

When looking up recipes for mint ice cream i gained enlightenment (or just information?) about naming of ice creams. And like i said before, when i learn something new i am compelled to tell you about it. Now if you 've tried making ice cream at home from scratch, you know that you can either make them with or without eggs. Ice creams made with eggs are cooked into a custard base and are supposedly richer and creamier than their egg less counterparts. Now did you know that the richer style of ice cream with eggs is called French style ice cream and the egg less version is called American or Philadelphia style ice cream? There, that's my revelation for today that i 've been bursting to tell you. When i write it down, it doesn't sound that great. I guess my surprise was that Americans are credited for creating a low fat ice cream and the French for the high fat ones but people of the two counties don't seem to bear testimony for that. Or maybe the quantity of ice cream consumed makes all the difference. Or my sample size is too small. I will leave it to you to decide.

Wednesday 22 February 2012

Multi colour pasta in alfredo sauce



I stopped making pizza at home for almost a month now. Not because i was bored, but because the man in the house thought i was making pizza too healthy and the flavour was supposedly turning Indian instead of Italian. (In his defence, for my latest attempt i had replaced half the all purpose flour for the pizza base with whole wheat flour and added an extra teaspoon of ragi flour. I loved the crust that day.) Now shouldn't he have been thanking me for taking care of his cholesterol. Instead he said "Look, why don't we just eat out whenever we feel the craving for pizza". Needless to say i was shocked and mad. Because, he is the health nut in our relationship, but turns out he wants his pizza in the most unhealthy way. Most friends i have talked to preferred pizza making at home so they could control the amount of cheese they put into it. My man prefers (or used to prefer) home-made pizza for the exact same reason, only he wants more cheese than a double cheese pizza at Pizza Hut. What do i do? Simply switch to my other Italian favourite - Pasta.

Monday 20 February 2012

Mashed plantain fry (aratikaya fry)

I remember even when i was very little that i have been interested in new foods. Not as much the cooking as the eating part. And it helped that mom was a fantastic cook willing to experiment. She even had a recipe book where she had jotted down recipes that caught her fancy and there were all sorts of things from curries to snacks to desserts including jams, jellies and sauces. It used to be a good time-pass to go through that book and dream about all sorts of foods. I distinctly remember one such Sunday afternoon when i was twelve or thirteen. I was browsing through the recipes and found one recipe for 'potato latkes' that sounded easy enough to me and volunteered to cook it for the rest of my family. I did make those cutlet type snacks that evening but had undercooked the potatoes. The outside was turning from dark brown to almost sooty black but the potatoes refused to become soft. I was so disappointed. I don't think i ever offered to make a new dish again until many many years later.

Wednesday 8 February 2012

Eggless Potato Chip Cookies

Last week i crashed my computer and then proceeded to do the same to my husband's laptop, all because i was searching for a curry recipe to make lunch that afternoon. One minute i was looking at curries using spinach as gravy and the next minute there were dozens of small boxes filling up the screen asking me to say OK to whatever they were doing. I promptly shut my computer down, wishing that whatever was wrong would go away when i restart. (Isn't that how computers are supposed to work?) I then borrowed the husband's work laptop and continued my search there. A small part of my brain was telling me that one particular blog might have been the culprit, still i shushed the little talk in my head and opened the same virus spitting blog. Immediately little yellow boxes were invading the screen. When i sensed what i had done, i promptly handed over the laptop to my husband and told him to fix it. And when he finished reinstalling everything on his computer, i slowly persuaded him to do the same to mine and to save all my food pictures. He was kind enough to do the re-installing on my computer too. But now that i know he can fix it, i don't have to listen to the little warnings from my brain while browsing anymore, do i?