I made this yesterday for Diwali. This makes enough for 2-3 people.

You need: 1/2 cup semiya, 1/2 cup sugar (or 3/4, if you like it really sweet), 2.5 cups milk, 1 pinch saffron, 1 tbsp ghee

How to:

1. Heat the ghee in a saucepan on medium heat. Add the semiya and stir. Roast until golden-brown, stirring constantly.
2. Warm a little milk and mix the saffron in it.
3. Add just enough water to cover the semiya and let it cook. When the semiya is half-done, add the milk, sugar, and saffron. Stir well.
4. Bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
5. Eat hot or cold.

A very happy Deepavali to all my readers. I wish I were home! Well, on second thoughts, I don’t exactly, because I hate the crackers and patakas and the noise and the smoke in the air. Let me rephrase that. I wish my parents were here!

Best wishes to all of you for the year to come, and don’t eat yourself sick, even if it is Diwali!

We had a bumper crop of habaneros. We were thinking about making some cooking wine, but we decided to dehydrate them. Then we will powder them, and make a wonderful spice for our food. We are also dehydrating cayennes, tomatoes, sundry herbs, and jalapenos. Right now, though, our house smells like warm habaneros, and it is a lovely, lovely smell! It’s getting colder here, and when I come in from outside, the house smells incredible – warm and rich!

Happy Dussehra, everyone!  Have a wonderful festival season. I have some plans for this Diwali, and, should these recipes work out, I will post them here.

Momos. Dimsums. Potstickers. I’ve heard all these terms used, and I don’t know what the difference is. Where I come from, they’re called momos, and the best kind were the ones you could get at the Yashwant Place market near Chanakya cinema in Delhi.

Heads up: I’m still figuring out my dough recipe, so I used store-bought wonton wrappers which were splendid.

For the filling: 1 carrot; 1 medium-sized red onion; 5 small green onions; 2 sticks celery; 1 small bell pepper; 2 small bok choy; 1/4 cup low sodium soy sauce; 2 tbsp oil

How to: Julienne all the vegetables (cut them into very small, thin pieces). Heat the oil in a large wok or kadhai. Throw in the red onion and cook for a few minutes. Then add the carrots and peppers and cook some more. After a couple of minutes, add the celery and green onions. Stir and cook 2-3 more minutes. Add the soy sauce and let it simmer for 5-7 minutes.

Follow the instructions on the wonton wrapper package to fill and cook the momos. If you boil the momos, add a little oil to the water. It might help with the sticking. I did not pan-fry mine after dunking them in hot water.

For the red chili paste: 3-4 dried red chilies, 3-4 tbsp cider vinegar, 2 tbsp garlic.

How to: put it all in a food processor and blend it into a coarse paste.

Put a wee bit of the red chili paste on a momo, dip in soy sauce, and enjoy!

A very simple salad, and very healthy.

You need: 1.5 cups cooked chickpeas, or 1 can, washed and drained; 2 medium-sized tomatoes; 1 small onion; 1/2 cup diced cucumber; salt and red chili powder (cayenne) to taste; 1 tsp lemon juice; 1 tsp olive or canola oil.

How to:

1. Dice the tomatoes and onion.
2. Mix the chickpeas and vegetables in a bowl.
3. Add the rest of the ingredients.
4. Mix well.
5. Eat chilled.

I love vegetable stock. I especially love to heat it and drink it as is. The store-bought stocks tend to be very high sodium, even the low-sodium ones, so I prefer to make my own. It’s very easy, and if you have a slow cooker (e.g. Crock Pot), you can leave it to cook while you do other things, like work. There are a number of vegetables you can put into your stock, and people often use odd ends and trimmings of vegetables, but I don’t use anything I would ordinarily feed to my worms (yes, we have a worm bin in our kitchen).

You need:

1 leek, 1 bulb fennel, 3-4 sticks celery, 1 large onion, 1-2 chili peppers of  your choice, 2 bay leaves, 5-6 leaves basil

How to:

1. Prepare the vegetables and chop them into large pieces. (Click HERE for how to prepare various vegetables)
2. Add them to your slow cooker.
3. Add enough water to cover the vegetables.
4. Add the herbs and chili peppers.
5. Cover and turn on high for 5-6 hours.
6. Pour broth into a container.
7. Place the vegetables in a food processor and blend well.
8. Pour into the container through a fine mesh strainer. Use a spoon to rub it in to get it all.
9. Refrigerate immediately and use within 3-4 days.

If you want to store the stock, cool it in the fridge for a couple of hours, then pour into ice trays. When it is frozen, put the broth ice cubes into a Ziploc bag and return to the freezer. Use within 3-4 months.

I got the idea of combining beets and potatoes from one of Tarla Dalal’s recipes. She uses them to make koftas for curry. But I’m not a big fan of the koftas, and the idea of cutlets sounded real good to me. So here’s my version, which was super tasty.

You need: 1 cup grated beets (beetroot); 1 cup boiled and mashed potatoes; 1 cup breadcrumbs; 1 tsp ginger-garlic paste; 1/2 tsp red chili powder (cayenne); 1/2 tsp garam masala; 1 Hungarian hot wax pepper or other mild pepper (optional); salt to taste (about 3/4 of a tsp is what I would do); 1/2 cup yogurt or sour cream; 1 tbsp chopped dill.

How to:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F.
2. Mix all the ingredients except the breadcrumbs in a bowl.
3. Add enough breadcrumbs to give it enough texture that you can form it into patties (cutlets). You might have to add a little bit at a time, mix it all together, and try to form a cutlet.
4. How to make a cutlet: pull up a little of the mixture in your hands. Say, about the size of a table-tennis ball. Roll it into a ball. Flatten it gently with your hands until it is about 1/2″ to 3/4″ thick.
5. If you cannot do this, follow these instructions: If the mash is too sticky, add a little more breadcrumbs and try again. If the mash is too dry (the cutlets have cracks) add some water, a very little bit at a time, and try again. You could also just use a burger press, if you have one.
6. Once you make your cutlets, place them on a greased oven-proof cookie sheet or in an oven-proof baking dish, and bake for 20 minutes, or until the outside of the cutlets forms a firm crust. Flip them over halfway through (at about 10 minutes).
7. Mix the dill with the yogurt or sour cream and top the cutlets with it.

We froze these in ziploc bags for about a couple of weeks, and they were fine.

We have four massive tomatillo plants in our garden, and they are mass producing tomatillos. So we made some green salsa the other day. Now, there are various ways to make green salsa, many of them quite elaborate, but this one is quick and quite tasty.

You need: 3-4 tomatillos; 1-2 green tomatoes (a green variety, like green zebra, not unripe tomatoes. This ingredient is optional); 1 small white onion; 4-5 cloves garlic; 2-3 jalapenos; 1/2 cup chopped cilantro (dhania); salt to taste

How to:

1. Remove the husk on the tomatillos. Wash them well to take off the sticky residue. I sometimes use dish soap to wash them, but if you do, rinse them very well afterward.

2. Dice the onion  and tomatillos (and tomatoes, if you are using them) roughly.

3. Peel the garlic.

4. Deseed the jalapenos.

5. Put all ingredients into a food processor and blend. If you like it chunky, pulse it a couple of times. If you like it smooth, blend well.

Eat with chips.

We’ve had a huge number of tomatoes from our Early Girl plant, and we’ve been trying to figure out what to do with them. Curry vegetables can always use tomatoes, so that was our first idea. We also had quite a bit of chard from our garden, and wanted to use it before the rabbits got to it. And we also had harvested a couple of cayenne peppers. Traditionally, potatoes are cooked with spinach, but I thought chard would be fun. The stems on chard are so crunchy, and rainbow chard is so pretty! So we cooked the potatoes with chard instead.

You need: 4-5 medium potatoes; 4-5 medium tomatoes; 1 big bunch chard (10-15 leaves); 1 medium red onion; 1-2 hot peppers such as cayenne, or other green chilies to taste; 1/2 tsp garam masala; 1 tsp jeera (cumin seeds); 2 tbsp oil; salt to taste. Oh, and a rather large pot to cook it in.

How to:

1. Cut the potatoes, onions, and tomatoes (separately) into 1/2″ pieces.

2.Slice open the peppers and discard the seeds.

3. Heat the oil. Add the cumin and chili peppers.

4. Add the onions and stir.

5. After about 1-2 minutes, add the potatoes. Stir and cover.

6. Stir occasionally. If it sticks to the bottom, add 1/4 cup water.

7. Wash the chard. Cut the stems into 1/2″ pieces and the leaves into long ribbons. Keep them separate and set aside.

8. Add the tomatoes, salt, garam masala, and chard stems to the potatoes. Stir well and cover.

9. When the potatoes are almost done (softened but not mushy), and the tomatoes are mushy, add the chard leaves. Like so: add a handful, stir in, let them wilt, add another handful, and so on until you’ve used them all up.

10. Cover and cook until the potatoes are done.

Eat hot over rice, bread, or with roti or naan.