Bombay Foodie

Once we get past the piping hot teas and hot chocolates of January and before the cool summer drinks kick in, my mother makes kanji. Spring is the time when purple carrots, the color of beets, come into season. Between February and March, a clay pot (called a ghada back home) is filled with kanji, the drink constantly replenished with a fresh batch as the previous one runs out. We drink it whenever we pass through the kitchen, even though the tangy kanji gives us a sore throat. It's that delicious! I'm going to give you my mother's recipe, but please tweak it if it doesn't work for you. Mom never measures anything and these are simply best estimates. First, find yourself a clay or ceramic pot with at least a 3 liter capacity. A glass jar will do in a pinch. Peel half a kilo of purple carrots and cut them into one inch long batons. Drop these into your jar with 2 liter water. Coarsely grind 2 tbsp of brown mustard seeds and add them to the mix alongwith 2 tbsp sal...

You have lasagna sheets at home but you don't want anything drenched in sauce and drowning in cheese. Instead, you are craving cannelloni in butter sauce. So here's what you do. You pick three lasagna sheets and set them to boil in plenty of water. In the 10-12 minutes they will take to boil (follow your package directions here), you make your spinach and ricotta filling. Heat a tbsp of olive oil in a pan. Add 1/2 cup finely chopped spinach and 1/4 cup finely chopped spring onions (just the green bits). Cook, stirring constantly until all the moisture your spinach exuded evaporates. Add salt and black pepper, turn off the heat and mix in 2 tbsp crumbled paneer or ricotta cheese. Now drain your lasagna sheets and cut them all in half to get even squares. Place a tablespoon of your filling along the side of one of the squares and roll to form a tube. Just repeat the process for the other five and that's your cannelloni. I was in a no-sauce mood so I then heated 2 tbsp of ...

This isn't the best cake there is. But when you get that craving for chocolate cake in the middle of the night, or you want to eat cake in the next five minutes, a microwave is the way to go. With microwave cakes, the texture tends to be denser than a regular cake, more like a pudding. But Stefani, of cupcake project fame, added some extra zing with her chocolate spice cupcakes . Designed to make just two cupcakes, this is a recipe perfect for those sudden cravings. It's also got cinnamon and ginger and allspice to give your chocolate a kick. Stefani dressed her cupcakes with whipped cream but since I'm not likely to have any around, I dipped mine in some melted chocolate and topped them with silver balls. Remember that this is not tempered chocolate so you should dip your cupcakes just before you are ready to eat them. But then, that's why you'd make these in the first place, right!

My first brush with risotto of any kind was a red pepper risotto. That was many years ago; my boss took me and a colleague out for lunch. Can't quite remember what the occasion was, but it must have been a big deal because we didn't go to fancy places that often back in time. I'd read about risottos, had no idea what they looked like, so of course that's what I ordered. Except what showed up was rice in tomato sauce with tons of chili. It was so spicy that no one could have eaten it. But I put a brave face on and kept on nibbling at it. I now wonder why (I was a big one for keeping up appearances back then). That was until a fellow diner asked to taste it and pronounced it inedible. Soon thereafter, I discovered the creamy, mushroom and cheese laden risottos and the tomato version dropped off the radar. It resurfaced some 3 years back in Goa, when I ordered tomato and garlic risotto as my comfort meal after a day spent at the beaches and an evening at Goa's popu...

You folks know Harini, right? She blogs at Sunshinemom and was one of the first bloggers I met in person. Some time back, Harini and I decided to have a foodies day out - she came over to my place and we had fun talking and eating all day. Harini's post on the day just came out so you might want to head over and read all about it.

Bombay Foodie completes three years today. In true Oscar style, we celebrate three years of blogging by dishing out some awards of our own. Reader's Choice Award (Most viewed and commented post) Pineapple Pastry Ms. Photogenic (Most Popular on Flickr) Pasta Al Bakunin The Prima Donna (The Scariest Thing I Cooked) Tiramisu for the Daring Bakers Critic's Award (My Favorite Dish) Macadamia Praline Cupcakes Lifetime Achievement Award (Most Popular on Bombay Foodie...ever!) Spinach Cheese Sandwich