Exotic Meals

When cooking is a pain, salad is the better option and happy that I like salads because it is just boil and mix.

Last night I went for marketing and brought lots of veggies. When I was back home after shopping, I organized everything immediately, boiled those small potatoes and steamed corn and fresh mung.

In the morning I was ready to make salad for me. Mixed boiled potatoes, steamed mung and steamed corn, added sprouts, tomatoes, cucumber, bell pepper and carrots, added dried herbs, lime juice and salt, mixed little mustard oil and served with millet crackers and dip.

I make small quantity of dip at a time. Normally my friends use hung yogurt. But I just take a normal yogurt, add cream cheese. Next add black pepper, salt and dried herbs and little bit of coriander leaves.

I just had salad and noodles soup. It’s a complete meal and I kinda enjoy it, a day without too much of masalas and no headache of cooking too.

Culinary Chat

Whenever I visit my friends I am surprised by the number of dishes that are served on a dining table, there will be great assortments like Rice, Chappatis, two starter, dhal, two different vegetables, yogurt, aachar and papad. One big Thali!!!!How can we eat so many things? I am always confused if my plate is filled up with so many different delicacies. Should I eat Rice first or should it be Chappati? And Indians feel insulted if you don’t eat what they have so lovingly cooked for you, so you have to stuff yourself and that is not all, after lunch comes a bowl of fruits and then deserts like ice-cream or kulfi and finally Paan…..gosh how do they do it? I am beginning to hate masalas in food that means that I am not enjoying outside food and would like to cook all my meals with as little masalas as possible. That’s the reason I like Chinese…it takes so little time to cook and yet so tasty. Like today I made this shredded chicken, Chinese style. I had marinated chicken in garlic, chicken cube and soya sauce for half an hour. On a very high flame I stir-fried the marinated chicken, added spring onion, green chilies, red/green/yellow capsicum, and the dish was ready in just ten minutes. Had it with rice and the little empty space in my stomach I filled it up with orange juice. See, so easy? It is better than preparing Indian dishes where we keep stirring and stirring till the arms get sore. If it takes just ten minutes to eat the food, why should it take two hours to cook it? We just have to fill stomach, we must eat to live and not live to eat. Feasting on food should be reserved only during festivals when burping is the sign of enjoyment. Right?