A Brownian Walk Through Life...

Javas (or brown flax seeds) chutney is a quint-essential Maharashtrian condiment. Easy to prepare, cheap due to the abundance of flax seeds in the region and super tasty. This chutney is a staple of farm lands, where fresh roti (or bhakri), this chutney with a glob of oil and some sabji can make a flavorful easy to prepare everyday meal. While flaxmeal (ground flax) is more common in supermarkets across US, for this recipe I prefer using whole flax seeds. You can find them at Trader Joe's or buy bulk from Amazon of this Bob's Red Mills brand. The "recipe" is super simple. Roast 1C golden flax seeds and 4-5 large peeled garlic cloves on medium heat stirring frequently until they release a nutty aroma and are starting to turn brownish. Often flax seeds pop while you are heating them, so be careful not to be to close to the stove. Remove from heat and let them cool completely. Once cool, add the roasted flax seeds and roasted garlic cloves to the bl…

When life gives you lemons.... and I mean, a tree loaded with high quality juicy and orangy Meyer lemons.... the kind which sell for $1 each at farmer's markets... you got to be more creative than making lemonades! We use these Meyer lemons in everyday cooking, we freeze the juice in as many ice-boxes as we can, gift them to neighbors and still be leftover with a large bunch to use.  We don't enjoy lemon curd as much and while we devour lemon bars, it seems more butter and sugar than lemons - and predictably guilt ensues :)  So this year I decided to try preserving some lemons and wow, am I glad we tried that! Preserving is very simple. All it takes is 15-20mins of prep time and then a few seconds of work each for next 5-6 days and that's that! You put the container in fridge and enjoy homemade preserved lemons for a few months to come!  My favorite way to use preserved lemons is to rinse them (to get rid of excess salt) and chop them fine…

If you are in a hurry and want a healthy side or a big serving of a side-salad as your main course, this recipe is a great idea!  If you are not familiar with couscous, it's a Moroccan/Middle-Eastern grain made out of semolina which is cooked by streaming. Yeah, just steaming and that too cooks in minutes! Making it an ideal pantry staple for every busy cooks who wants to put something healthy and home-cooked on table or in lunchboxes in minutes!  If you are looking to be a bit carb conscious this year, then  Quinoa , another wonder grain packed with protein is also a great substitute for couscous. Or the good old rice of-course works great. This is also a great lunch box meal. Mint chutney is another staple at our home. I tend to buy 2-3 huge bunches of fresh mint whenever I see them in season. And then I make a big pot of this chutney, really "making" is an overkill, it's all about throwing things in blender :) Use half the chutney …

We love having friends over at our house for simple no-fuss parties. Earlier I never quite understood why my other-friends-with-kids always preferred hosting lunch/dinners at home instead of going to that new and happening restaurant in town, even though it looked kid-friendly - well, that was until I had a kid of my own! It is just so much easy lazily cooking through most of the day chatting with friends over coffee than the fuss of dressing up, getting kids dressed up, making sure they behave at restaurants and guiltily paying the waiter extra tip for a food-throw party that happened around the high-chair. So while we still eat out quite often for a couple with young kid, slowly but surely many of our social gatherings are finally moving towards home settings. Now a days I really enjoy hosting simple no-fuss meals with just one or two main crowd-pleasing dishes. It's less work for you and all the same fun. Some of my favorite such menus include a lunch o…

Past week has been crazy! Work-wise, I mean. Don't you always feel like there are so many things to do and so little time. My library books are waiting patiently for me to pick them up. My 3/4th done knitted summer vest is still on the hooks and summer is so fast approaching (guess I should just add sleeves and make it a winter vest, ha!). My brand new painting stand is waiting for its inauguration AND I am having more and more late evening urges to just order a quick dinner outside. Life just seems to be on fast track sometimes.. and this sure seems like one of those times. I don't know about you but sometimes I wonder how we get so tangled up in the walls made out of our own expectations and lure of luxuries. Every time I read a Jane Austen novel it always makes me feel so nostalgic about the good old days when people had time. Loads of it. Time to pursue their hobbies and passions. They seemed to live their life just wonderfully and perhaps, in a more r…

I had a packet of dried unshelled fava beans lying around in my cupboard for the longest time. I had bought it initially hoping to make Ful Medames but then later I realized that the fava beans used in Ful Medames are Egyptian small brown fava beans and what I had instead was a pack of regular dried fava beans. I put them in the back of my cupboard right next to the fancy cranberry beans and some unknown grains which were also picked up on whim at some such other times. I finally decided I would make a fava bean dip with these dried favas. I soaked the beans Saturday night hoping to have the dip ready by next day afternoon. On Sunday morning, I shelled the soaked beans, mashed them up, added some olive oil, zatar and garlic. The dip tasted so wonderful. Whats even better was that I  just happened to have some whole wheat pitas sitting in my bread basket! Sure a toasted pita chips with fava bean dip was on cards for that lazy Sunday afternoon! I absolutely loved t…

Have you ever smelled an orange blossom in an orange field? If you haven't let me tell you that it is one of the most delicate and refreshing scents ever! I stayed in southern California for a couple of years and our winter weekend gateway there used to be hiking in the nearby hills where due to the elevation it would somehow seem more wintry (well, relatively atleast :D). We used to start early in the morning; hike during the day; grab a cup of coffee and then head back down in the evening. While driving back to the city we would pass through these gigantic orange fields in bloom and oh boy, I would just open up the car windows and let the most refreshing citrusy scent fill up my nose and my mind! Its amazing how our mind associates foods with memories! Last weekend local farmer's market carried such fresh and sweet varieties of navel oranges, satsumas, mandarins, meyer lemons that for a moment unknowing to myself I flashed back to those SoCal winter eve…