UBM Post 2 - The Thakkar Kitchen (Part 3)

Experimentation in the kitchen continues. Mom is here so her expertise comes in handy when I work with new ingredients and try out new recipes.

A new favorite in the house in quinoa. I've made upma, salad and pulao from it. We love the salad the most during summertime. For the salad, I use rainbow quinoa, ripe mangoes, avocado, red cabbage, tomatoes, cilantro, and a homemade dressing of olive oil, lime/lemon juice, cumin powder, black pepper and salt. This dish is so pleasing to the eyes....even the daughter gobbles up more than one portion without any complaint.

This next dish is my mom's signature dish. It's stuffed baby eggplant, baby okra and occasionally, baby potatoes added to it. The stuffing can be either a green one which is used in undhiyu, or a dry one (used in the picture below) which is made of gram flour (besan), oil, salt, coriander-cumin powder (lots of it), kashmiri mirch powder (for more color and less spice), lemon, sugar, garam masala, sesame seeds, coconut (optional). You cook the vegetable on low/medium flame in a open pan. We decided to make this because we chanced upon a batch of very tender (seedless or very small seeds) okra at our local Indian store. It was kept aside in the back room for a special order, but hubby spotted it and requested a small quantity for us.

Next to Indian, our favorite cuisine is mexican. I love love love avocados. It's one of the very few things I miss when I'm back home. So far I have not found them in Ahmedabad. Last week, I made a fantastic grilled vegetable quesadilla on whole wheat organic tortilla. In addition to guacamole, I made a cilantro yogurt chutney (cilantro, peanuts, green chili, salt, lemon juice, yogurt) to go with it and avoided using sour cream. I've made variations of it before but this combo was the best.

And then what's life without desserts :)?

A while ago, I made these yummy eggless butter biscuits - orange zest, cranberries, pinenuts, butter, sugar, flour - what's not to love :)?

And finally, for Father's Day, in lieu of cake, we made Sukhadi. This time, I learnt how to make it step-by-step from mom. The best part of making sukhadi is the smell of it....it fills the entire house. Everyone loved it.

I don't bake much because all the key ingredients - butter, sugar, white flour - are sooper unhealthy. But, the paleo recipes sound very interesting - almond meal, coconut butter/oil, honey or agave, and some kind of vegetable (zucchini) or fruit (bananas) and/or chocolate. I've bookmarked a couple recipes to try out. I'll post the results of my experimentation here :)!