1. Shop Early
I like to plan my meals ahead for about 5 days at a time so that I only have to shop once or maybe twice during the week. This saves me a tremendous amount of time. If you’re unsure what your significant other or kids might have going on during one of the days, simply keep that dinner open, keeping a simple backup (sandwiches and a tossed salad, for example) in mind. Worried about your bread going stale if you shop in advance? Here are some tips on that: http://www.snopes.com/food/prepare/breadtag.asp

2. Cut Ahead
If you have a dish on your weekly menu that you know will require a lot of cutting, save that dish for a Monday or Friday. I prefer Mondays because I’ll simply do my cutting on Sunday evening or afternoon, store the veggies or meats in the fridge, and toss them in a pot or pan the next day. Fridays work as well, though you might be a bit tired or burned out from the week.

3. Freeze Your Herbs
I like to eliminate or reduce the need for fats and oils in my dishes by flavoring them with fresh herbs. But, what to do with those huge piles of thyme and rosemary sprigs? I tend to freeze my leftover herbs. Some say they lose some flavor that way, but I hardly ever notice this and save a ton of money by not throwing out leftover herbs. We used to grow fresh basil by the window sill, which is even more economical. The basil plant died after a while, but we still have a curry leaf plant growing in our kitchen. Hugely popular in Indian cooking!

4. Microwave Your Garlic
This may sound weird, but if you’ve got a recipe with a lot of garlic in it, you can greatly reduce the time you spend peeling the garlic by microwaving the individual garlic cloves on a small plate for about 8-10 seconds. If you microwave them for longer than that, they will start to cook, but if you stick to the 8-10 seconds, the skins will peel off very easily. Voila!

5. Repeat
Need to use up a whole eggplant, but know you won’t be able to use it all up in one dish? Create two! Since buying in bulk is often more economical, I’ll often by more of a veggie or meat and will either freeze or use up the product (if it’s not freezer friendly) by creating two completely different dishes. This way, we don’t get tired of eating the same thing. For example, I’ve made Asian style spicy garlic eggplant and eggplant fajitas (recipe coming soon!) in the same week before. Works out great. And yes, you can still be ambitious and plan to make lamb bourguignon one day. Just plan it for a weekend, holiday, or some time when you really do want to spend time in the kitchen.

2 puff pastry sheets (found in the freezer section of your grocery store)
2 medium organic Russet potatoes
half a bunch of organic kale
1 teaspoon of garam masala
1 teaspoon of turmeric powder
1 teaspoon of whole cumin seeds
2 teaspoons of coriander powder
2 teaspoons of red chili powder
2 teaspoons of ginger-garlic paste
2 tablespoons of olive oil (more as needed)
salt to taste

Directions

1. Take the puff pastry sheets out of the freezer to allow them to defrost. Boil potatoes (you can leave the skin on) and lightly mash them so they form small bite-size chunks. Wash and cut the kale into bite-size pieces as well.

2. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet or frying pan and saute the kale for about 10 minutes, or until soft.

3. Take the kale out and set aside. In the same oil, add the cumin seeds and fry for about 3 – 4 minutes. Add the ginger-garlic paste and the rest of the seasonings. Stir and add in the kale and boiled potatoes. Add salt last and saute for about 10 more minutes to allow all flavors to blend.

4. Turn off the heat and move the skillet to allow the filling to cool. Cut the puff pastry sheets into 8 triangles, as shown in the picture below. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

5. Make cone out of each triangle and spoon enough filling in so that the samosa will close without breaking. You can add a tiny bit of water to the edges of the triangles so that edges will stick more easily.

6. Place each samosa on a parchment lined backing sheet and bake at 400 degrees for about 15 to 20 minutes. Serve warm with your favorite chutney!

Prep is easy – just pile grape tomatoes, whole-milk mozzarella balls, and fresh basil onto a skewer and insert into a flower bouquet base. You could even use a piece of cabbage, covered with aluminum foil, if your skewers are strong enough. Give it a try and let me know what other creative variations you come up with!

The price isn’t much different from what you would find at local grocery stores, so in terms of costs, you’re not saving much (if anything). However, services like these connect families to their communities, allow them to be healthier, and introduce products that they might not have normally tried. As many of you know, I love a challenge in the kitchen and the Produce Box has given me that by including items such as beets, rutabagas, and turnips that I normally don’t cook a whole lot with. With a handful of boxes to pick from each week, and an organic box, this service is right up our alley! If you want to eat local and fresh, teach the kids about where their food comes from, and help the environment while you’re at it, check out http://www.localharvest.org/organic-farms/ to find local farm programs near you. Over the last few years, I’ve created Indian, Mexican, Hispanic, Italian, American, Indonesian, Chinese, and many other types of dishes with a single produce box. There’s much more that you can do with the veggies than just building salads. But, just in case you’re interested in those, I included two pictures that show off my favorite Produce Box salads. Enjoy and feel free to reach out to me if you want to learn more about how to get involved with a local farms program!

This is another FoodNetwork.com recipe that I thought was worth sharing. I tried making this just this morning and not only did it make the house smell amazing, it was really easy to prepare and turns out to be a wonderful dish for entertaining. You can find the recipe for the dish here, but read through some tips on how I made this a bit different:

• I found that you actually need much more bread than the recipe calls for. No matter what kind of bread you choose, use twice the amount, so six slices instead or the recipe will turn out too mushy.
• If you want the recipe to be more like a bread pudding, use the amount of milk recommended, otherwise, if you want this to be a little less mushy, use 2.5 cups of milk instead of 3. I used 1% milk instead of whole milk and this worked just fine.
• I changed this into an organic recipe since I normally buy all the ingredients organic. This obviously won’t affect the taste much, if at all, and you certainly don’t have to buy organic,but I find that blueberries, butter, and milk are good candidates to buy organic because of the amount of pesticides and hormones normally found in them. Besides, you won’t just improve your health, you’ll be helping out organic farmers and the earth as well!

With Father’s day coming up, this isn’t a bad recipe to surprise dad with. Goes great with a freshly brewed cup of coffee. I bet you the kids will love it, too.

If you’re looking for something new to do with sweet potatoes, I highly recommend trying this recipe because it’s simple, healthy, and makes an excellent side dish, anytime of the year. You can find the recipe here, but take a look at how I changed things up:

• I used about half the amount of onion and added 2 cloves of finely chopped garlic.
• I sautéed the spinach with the chopped garlic for just about 2 minutes before adding the sweet potatoes to it. This is because the first time that I made this recipe, the spinach didn’t wilt very easily.
• I used orange blossom honey since I think the orange undertones in the honey work really well with both veggies.
• I added a pinch of grated nutmeg. Nutmeg and spinach are just made for each other.

Give this a try, I am sure you’ll love it!

• Instead of using plums, I used quartered nectarines and blue berries to make this tart more colorful.
• I used an 11 inch tart pan instead of a 9 inch one. If you do this, you will need to multiply the amounts by 1.5.
• Don’t worry if your crust mixture is more of a paste instead of crumbs. Just tightly press the mixture into the pan and separate out out small lumps of the mixture to top the fruit.
• Ripe fruits work best here. You can certainly substitute other fruits, but blueberries give almost all other types of fruits a nice touch and sweet, mellow flavor. They melt nicely as well.
• You can leave out the egg yolk if you’re cooking for vegetarians who don’t eat eggs. If you’re using an 11 inch tart pan, I would still only use 1 egg yolk, since it’s hard to separate out 1.5 egg yolks.
• Serve this for breakfast with some coffee and croissants. Alternatively, you can serve this, slight warm, for dessert with some caramel drizzled on top and a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream.



]]> http://varshachawla.com/2009/10/18/fruit-tart/feed/ 0 http://varshachawla.com/2009/05/10/cool-as-a-cucumber-sauce/ http://varshachawla.com/2009/05/10/cool-as-a-cucumber-sauce/#comments Sun, 10 May 2009 19:49:45 +0000 Varsha http://www.varshachawla.com/?p=175 This cucumber sauce can be used on grilled meats, inside pita sandwiches, or on top of meat or veggie kabobs. The mint in this sauce adds a nice, refreshing touch.



Ingredients

1.5 cups of plain yogurt
1/2 medium cucumber, chopped into bite-size pieces
2 tablespoons of sour cream
1 tablespoon of powdered mint leaves
1 teaspoon of black pepper
1 teaspoon of salt
A few sprigs of cilantro, finely chopped

Directions

Chop the cucumber and cilantro and add all ingredients together. Mix well.

We usually make our own yogurt, which comes out thicker and
richer than store-bought yogurt. I’ll be sure to post the recipe for this sometime soon!



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