Oats Pongal!

In a pensive mood after a considerably long and refreshing vacation at a few of the East Coast spotlights, I have not been spending much time in the kitchen this past week. One would expect to be in brighter spirits after a trip of that sorts, but the darned tasks that I had blissfully abandoned before I left, have been daunting me ever since the flight touched down in San Francisco last week. As soon as the pilot announced - "The South West crew would like to welcome you to San Francisco and at this time, we request you to remain in your seats until the seat belt sign is turned off", I closed my eyes and tried not to think of the doom that lied in wait for me. On the car ride back home, we stopped for dinner at Saravanaa's (a South Indian restaurant which is a branch of Saravana Bhavan in India) along with Ashwin who had come to get us. The food was comforting as always and I stuck to eating Rava Idlis with a few mouthfuls of their excellent curd rice. At the end of a trip, I find myself almost always craving for simple home food. Hot rasam with rice followed by curd rice with oil-free pickles like the tiny mangoes' one (maavadu) or the dried lemon one (naarthanga) continue to top the lists. (The chennai-ite in me is still alive and kicking, I note!) In a futile attempt to delay the demise of our trip, we tried to prolong the dinner by punctuating it with a lot of forced conversation. But the parents were tired and I caught them furtively (and longingly) looking towards the exit more than once. Out of pity for them and poor Ashwin as well, who had kindly driven all the way to the airport right out of work, we finally signaled to the waiter to bring us the check. At thirty past nine in the night, we reached home. Scanning through my mental Outlook Calendar, I figured I had to do at least a teeny bit of unpacking, xxx, xxxxwww and yyyzzz but instead, all I managed was to sit around dumbly staring at some TBS show before taking an extra-long hot shower. A few minutes later, I was curled up in bed reading A Thousand Splendid Suns. (Was I in reverse-denial?) I slept fitfully that night and woke up to the sounds of the countless chores buzzing around in my head. I started running around trying to complete all of them at once and here I am, a week later still an avid participant in the mad rat-race!
In the same context, here is something that I read on one of my favorite blogs - a true masterpiece, this post is! With reference to the same post, I am still waiting for the un-invited Sunday evening guy to leave. May be this weekend, he'll pack his bags and bid farewell...I hope so...I would so love that!

Since I have been harried with all those unfavorable thoughts all week, eating healthful and quick-to-make dishes has gained a lot of priority. One such dish which has not disappointed me so far is Oats Pongal - guilt-free and wholesome, it tastes just fine without any dipping! If I were to describe pongal in a single sentence I would say - it is a first cousin of moong dal ki kichdi. I made it this crazy week too when I had no interest whatsoever in cooking! It's been a regular in the basil household since the past year or so after I came up with the idea (of dressing up oatmeal the gratifying pongal way) in my quest for a healthy but delicious dish. Now, it also serves as my pretext to sneak oats into Vee's diet as he cannot stand a steaming bowl of plain oatmeal with milk and fruit. This is off to Suganya's JFI - Whole grains.

Oats Pongal - oatmeal with lentils.

Without further ado, here is the recipe -

Ingredients -

1) Steel-cut Oats - 3/4th cup

2) Green gram dal (moong dal) - 1/3rd cup

3) Ginger - 1" piece

4) Cumin seeds - 1.5 tspns

5) Black peppercorns - 1 tspn

6) Curry leaves - few

7) Oil - 1.5 tspns

8) Ghee - 1 tspn

9) Asafetida - a generous heap

10) Salt - to taste

11) Cashew nuts - 1 tbspn (broken)

Method -

1) Rinse the dal and dunk it in a pressure cooker along with the oats. Add about 3.5 cups of water.

2) Grate the ginger and stir in half of it in the pressure cooker. Also add in 1/2 a teaspoon of cumin seeds along with salt (to taste) and pressure cook for 12-15 minutes or 4-5 whistles. (The cooking time can vary with the cooker. If not done properly, add about 1/2 a cup of water and pressure cook again until done well.)

3) Take the remaining cumin seeds and peppercorns and give them a quick run in the blender. I generally prefer a very coarse powder in my pongal. However, this step could be modified to suit your palate by making it into a fine powder or omitting the grinding altogether.

4) In a small pan, heat the oil and ghee together. Put the cumin and peppercorn mixture and after that turns crisp, toss the ginger, curry leaves, asafetida and cashew nuts. Everything should fry well but take care so it doesn't get charred .

5) Pour over the cooked oats and dal mixture and mix well.

6) Serve piping hot with nothing or coconut chutney!

Festive Sweetmeats & Savories!

I can understand God looking forward to us folks celebrating his birthday (pun unintended ;)). After all who could resist it if millions were busy making merry on your annual special day! But what beats me is why in this wide world would HE prefer the pure ghee (clarified butter) drenched sweets and oil-fried crunchy snacks? The only sane answer I can think of in his defense is, HE being the immortal deity, doesn't really have to dread the almost imminent side-effects of cholesterol or fat that afflict us mortals. That is just the tip of the iceberg though. It is common belief that if you ate the offerings that were presented to him, you are blessed and hence no harm (read as gaining a pound or two) will befall you. As you and I know, that is just a cock-and-bull story. I am a huge fan of the numerous exceptionally riveting mythological stories from the good old Indian epics. Though I haven't really laid my hands on an unabridged version yet, the retold English Amar Chitra Katha versions are good for me for a lifetime. Back home in India, on a dusty bookshelf in my now-not-so-used study, there sits an enormous collection of them. Amidst those very books, in some corner lies buried, my childhood. Some day, may be my kids or grandkids would inherit the treasure and I am hoping they will get as starry-eyed as I have always. A month ago, it was Lord Krishna's birthday and I being the new daughter-in-law, dutifully followed the customs and rituals that my new-found family has practised over the generations. I like to think that I had a great time doing whatever I was doing but it stirred up a lot of thoughts lying dormant. Over the centuries, man's interpretation of festivals and GOD has become pretty skewed, don't you think? I dislike sounding judgmental but IMHO the focus should be more on the lines of -

• remembering HIM for a few insightful moments (and may be the wondrous epics his life has been portrayed by),
• listening to some carnatic melodies sung by M.S. (Ah! Paradise!),
• being good all day by thinking fine thoughts,
• sharing life's joys with friends and family,
• spreading love and then doing something divine like helping a person in need,
• and last but not the least having quality F-U-N.

(FYI - I came up with this list after ransacking my brain for quite some time.)

In all the hustle surrounding festivals, people get so caught up coddling the Lord by performing austere ceremonies that the true spirit of the day lies around completely forgotten and shunned by everyone. When we overdo the petty things, the bigger more important tasks get thrown out of our heads. One could argue that that is exactly what preserving culture is all about. My philosophy is - preserve and pass on the culture to the next generation but do it in a way it will truly remain indelible.

Now that those thoughts that have been swimming around in my head have found their vent, I'd like to proudly present the goodies Amma, Vee and I made for Krishna Jayanti a.k.a Janmaashtami/Gokulaashtami. Though I am an advocate of health-eating, I couldn't help but gobble up indecent amounts of everything we made. Gosh! What a shame! As a repercussion, I am now constantly high strung, planning the extra hours I should be sweating out at the gym. Not fun at all! While walking around, I seem to be pouncing over my reflection on any shaggy bit of reflective surface to see if all that deadly gluttony has made me go pudgy. That kind of paranoia is gross indeed!

Mullu Murukku, Cashew Burfi, Rice Flakes Payasam, Rice Flour puffs (Uppu Seedai) - A collage! (Missing in picture - Appam and Jaggery Seedai)

Mullu Murukku

In this post, I am sharing only the lentil-flour thorny fritters' (mullu murukku) recipe. The other recipes will be posted subsequently as updates to this post.

Ingredients -
1) Deshusked Green gram dal flour (Moong Dal flour) - 1 cup
2) Rice Flour - 3 cups
3) Salt - 3tspns
4) White sesame seeds - 2 tspns
5) Asafetida - 1/2 a tspn
6) Hot Oil - 1 tbsp
7) Water - 1/2 - 3/4 cup (or as need arises!)
8) Oil - for deep frying

Paraphernalia needed-
1) Murukku Mold (or squeezer) with the star-shaped holes' plate! (Picture is at the very end of this post.)
2) Slotted spoon (I like to call it a hole-riddled ladle.)

Method-
1) In a large mixing bowl, mix well all the dry ingredients listed in 1 through 5 and make a well for pouring in the liquids.
2) Heat the oil and pour it in the well. Mix it in the flour after it is not too hot for your fingers.
3) The flour will still be dry at this stage but with a glaze to it.
4) The dough has to made in small batches, where each batch is not bigger than a lemon-sized ball. The stress here is on the size because you make enough dough for just one murukku. If you end up kneading all the flour, then it would dry up significantly and the murukkus would not come out good, I am assured by Amma.
5) In a deep pan, heat enough oil for deep frying.
6) Take a smaller bowl and add about a handful of the flour mixture into it.
7) Sprinkle water and knead it into a ball. It should be soft but not sticky. Sprinkle more water if required.
8) Press the lemon-sized dough ball into the squeezer after removing the piston part (bottom one).
9) To test the oil to see if the heat is enough to transform the sticky dough into some very crunchy fritters, drop a small bead of dough into it and check to see if it bobs right up to the surface.
9) Replace the piston into the squeezer. Hold it directly over the oil and press such that the dough that escapes out of the star shaped holes at the bottom falls into the oil. While doing so, remember to continually make circular motions with your hands in a very random fashion as though you are creating some kind of a squiggly solid.
10) After about a minute, the murukku can be turned over using the hole-riddled ladle if it has firmed enough.
11) Remove onto a paper napkin after the murukku gets a glowing brown color. (Ours turned out to have a greenish tinge because we used the green gram dal flour which was not dehusked!)
12) Wait for it to cool and the excess oil to get absorbed by the paper before storing away in an air-tight storage dish.
13) Repeat the process for the remaining dough and enjoy these mullu murukkus which are guaranteed to become a raging favorite of all in the family!

The Murukku maker with the star-shaped squeeze pattern

Eggless Birthday Cake!

Just the other day I was accused of rambling on and on in the post on baking and not posting any useful baked delight recipe. My rejoinder sounded lame but true - I blog here to treat both my passions - writing and cooking. They are my passions all right but I have a long and arduous way to go in both before I reach a milestone where I can take a rest break may be. Anyway it feels like some kind of festive event at home since the past two days. I have been on my toes in the kitchen so much that it elicited a remark from Appa, "Is Diwali coming in early this time around?" Well! It is Vee's first birthday after our wedding and this is the first birthday he gets to spend with his parents after 7 years. Predictably, we are excited! Try as much as I can, it never is possible to keep a surprise from Vee. Call me sloppy and or may be he is just too evil! He HAS to find out what I vainly plan as a mighty surprise. To him, it is some kind of a silly game to fumble all my covert plans. At the stroke of midnight, we had a small candles-blowing and cake-cutting sort of a family affair not-a-surprise-anymore-party. For the cake to soak up the flavors well, I had to bake it in the morning and I let it sit on the kitchen counter for about 11 hours. My insides were all queasy because this is the first time I baked this one the eggless way. When we did sit down to grab a bite in the middle of the night, the verdict was favorable. Vee, Appa and Amma - found it irresistible. I found it a tad too sweet but the texture was light and flaky which I loved. After slicing and storing the cake and licking away the dregs left behind in the pan, Vee and I comfortably settled in on the couch and watched two episodes of "Heroes" one after the other! :) (It was enjoyable and addictive that night but it sure did lead to me having to sacrifice my spin class in the morning and a lingering dull headache all through work the next day!) x-(

Here is the recipe which is now my version after scouring dozens on the internet.

Gooey Caramel Pineapple Upside-down Cake

Ingredients -

For the upside-down topping-
1) Dark Brown Sugar - 1 cup (tightly packed)
2) Pineapple slices - 8 oz. can
3) Maraschino cherries - 1 small can
4) Butter - 1/4 cup (No melting or softening required here.)

For the cake -

1) AP Flour - 3 cups

2) Baking Powder - 5 tspns

3) Softened Butter - 1/2 cup

4) Sugar - 1.5 cups (Can reduce this a bit.)

5) Vanilla extract - 1 tspn

6) Cinnamon Powder - 1/4th tspn

7) Milk - 1/2 cup

8) Pineapple juice (from the sliced pineapple can) - 1/2 cup

9) Crushed pineapple - 3/4th cup

10) Salt - 1/2 tspn

For the egg substitute -

1) Flax seeds - 2 tbspns

2) Water - 6 tbspns

Method -

Making the egg substitute-

1) Grind the flax seeds to a fine powder.

2) Mix the powder with the water without forming any lumps.

3) Simmer on a medium flame for 5 minutes - stirring often.

4) Let it cool down completely before using.

The topping -

1) Cut up the butter and sprinkle the bits around evenly on a 9X13" rectangular pan.

2) Preheat the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit and place the pan in the oven for 5 minutes.

3) Remove and spread the now liquid butter and grease the sides of the pan too.

4) There will be a lot more butter than required for greasing though but that will be used for our topping. Stir in the brown sugar and spread evenly.

5) Return the pan to the oven for 5 more minutes.

6) Retrieve pan. The sugar must now be a semi-liquid caramel sort of consistency.

7) Arrange neatly the pineapple slices and cherries.

8) Important - Do not let the topping cool for too long before pouring in the cake batter. Adjust and plan the sequence of steps accordingly.

Baking the cake -

1) Mix the AP flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl and keep aside.

2) Cream together the melted butter along with the sugar until light and fluffy. (A couple minutes of pulsing using a hand blender at this stage would be sufficient.)

3) Stir in the flax seed mixture a little at a time, while continuing to beat the mixture. Add the cinnamon powder and vanilla extract too. (This should be done within a couple more minutes of pulsing.)

4) The dry flour, the liquids (milk and pineapple juice) and crushed pineapple can be added in an alternating fashion.

5) Beat until everything is all mixed up well. (At the most, 3 more minutes of whirring the blender.)

6) Pour over the topping and pat to evenly spread the batter.

7) Place the pan in the pre-heated oven and bake for 40-50 minutes at 350 degrees F.

8) After the knife-test has been cleared, remove from oven and let it cool in pan for 15 minutes. (Take care not to leave in pan for long because there is the danger of the topping getting stuck to the pan.)

9) Turn over on a cookie sheet and let it sit for a few hours before devouring it!

Up close

Poha and Grad School Life

Green, yellow, brown, pink, red - this dish has them all! A great way to incorporate all the colors on your platter. Recent studies suggest we need to try and fill our plates with all the colors in the spectrum - VIBGYOR as a rule of thumb. Each colored vegetable has a different vital nutrient and since this is a nifty way to remember, the diet bulletins really canvass for the rainbow diet. A good method to make any dish healthy is to reduce the oil as much as you can, and replace the little oil added with extra-virgin olive oil. Rice flakes seem to be a raging favorite of many but this was not a staple at home in India for me. I got hooked when my good friend Chetna made it for us at Rolla during our grad school life together.

A little divagation here (as always) - IMHO, Indian graduate students in the U.S. simply have a ball of a time! Of course there is this constant worry of monetary troubles nibbling away at the back of your mind along with the more pressing problems of homework deadlines, project submissions, term papers, EXAMS, T.A. class preps and last but not the least, research papers to submit to journals or conferences ominously looming over your head. Phew! We had this week before the finals week called "dead" week in our school. No way I am kidding...even the professors used it. When I first heard it during my first sem at grad school, I didn't need an explanation from anyone because I knew I was going to be so dead that week any way. If you managed to catch at least 3 hours of shut-eye every day of dead week on an average, then you must be a super whiz kid or something to that equivalent. The place used to be filled with sleep-deprived, unshaven, disheveled, worried-looking, red-eyed zombies and just like in the movies, you could find them everywhere - in the labs, lounges, library, T.A rooms, vacant classrooms and restrooms too. Some cult that was! You survive dead week, only to find yourself hurled into the finals week. All those sleepless nights that lead to the next make your whining mind tell you no more of scurrying along is going to get you that A. Yet, you fight and suddenly you are all done! You can't believe it at first. OMG! What am I going to do with all this free time on my hands, you catch yourself lamenting to yourself at least once. After may be a week of partying and sleeping-like-a-log days, it dawns on you that life couldn't have been better. The glorious holidays are finally here and research at last gets the amount of respect it always deserved. And yeah, you get to make up for all those missed episodes of House and Everybody Loves Raymond too!

Chetna makes yummy poha and I for one, like her way of making it, the best. She used to whip it up in a jiffy on those memorable grad school days which were bound to turn into all-nighters. The key to making delicious poha is to keep the spice as less as possible. The grain itself is very light in texture and easily catches on to the flavoring. The first time I made it on my own after painstakingly jotting down the recipe from her, I ended up with a sticky dough-like pulpy fiasco. I was disgusted. A transcript of the phone call that followed after the niceties were exchanged-

me - Hey! I followed your recipe verbatim but I ended up with a less-than-desirable product. What the hell did I do wrong?

she - Aww! May be you soaked it for too long in too much water.

me - Whaaaattt? Weren't you the one that said the longer it soaked, the better it would fluff up?

she - That is true but you did soak it in a colander, didn't you?

me - What do you mean by "soaking in a colander"?? A colander obviously lets all the water run out, correct? That is not soaking by any means. How come you missed telling me this?

she - Arrrrey! You cook all these complicated dishes...I assumed you would know rey!

me (too petulant to reply) - (growl) You..you...(grunt)

she - LOL!

me (now embarrassed) - I had no clue, Chetna.

Here's her classic recipe (which I have been successfully making for the past 3 or so years now) -

Colorful Poha

Ingredients -
1) Rice Flakes (thick) - 1.5 cups
2) Mustard Seeds - 1 tspn
3) Cumin Seeds - 1/2 a tspn
4) Asafetida - a pinch
5) Roasted peanuts - 2 tbspns
6) Curry leaves - few, washed and squeezed
7) Green Chili - one (slit)
8) Onion - 1 finely cut
9) Tomatoes - 2 small or 1 large (chopped)
10) Frozen peas - 1/2 cup (thawed)
11) Frozen corn - 1/2 cup (thawed) (Substitute both frozen goodies with fresh if desired.)
12) Cilantro - few sprigs
13) Oil - 2 tspns
14) Red Chili Powder - 1/2 tspn (Increase if you like it spicy.)
15) Salt - to taste

Method -
1) Wash the rice flakes in a colander in running water. Shake it around so that all the flakes get wet. Hold under water for a minute.
2) Place the colander in a bigger vessel lest a particularly wet kitchen counter digs you. Cover and leave in the colander for 20 minutes.
3) Meanwhile, heat oil in a pan, add ingredients 2-7, one at a time after each turns crisp.
4) Throw in the onions and saute till the translucent stage is reached.
5) Tomatoes next! After they start losing shape, add the frozen veggies, salt and red chili powder too. Continue frying till most of the moisture is gone.
6) Reduce heat to a simmer and fluff up the "soaked-well-in-a-colander" rice flakes with a fork. Add the flakes slowly, stirring with a light hand the entire time.
7) Cover and leave on a low flame for 5 minutes until the marriage of the tastes happens.
8) Remove from flame and garnish with chopped cilantro.
9) Serve hot without any condiment.

Variation - You can subsitute corn with boiled, cooled, peeled and cut potatoes.

10-minute Coconut Rice Noodles and a summer chiller!

When you are having one of those lazy Saturdays when you are not up for cooking something elaborate for "brunch" but would rather like to keep it low-key and quick, this is exactly the dish for you. On weekends, I'm a person that begs to differ; differ from what I feed myself over the week for breakfast. Our Saturdays in the basil household, begin a little late with a rigorous circuit and core strengthening workout class at the gym. The class itself lasts for an hour and a half but its unrelenting effects last for a day and a half, absolutely in the literal sense. Sunday is a no-workout day or in other words a "rest" day in my exercise schedule but I always intend to do some yoga at home. Though that's never seemed to materialize simply because Saturday kind of exhausts me and there's always the abyss-like pit of "to-dos" that I end up falling into. Rice noodles come in two varieties broadly - Thai variety and the Indian variety. This savory flavoring works well for both but I enjoy the Indian version better because the gooey-ness is absent here. If you were to ask a "maami" (auntie) from Chennai, she would very well launch into a lengthy discourse on how the noodle (sevai) is to be made. In South India, they actually make the rice noodle from rice flour using a noodle-maker (achu). Evolution is necessary if you want to stay afloat in turbid seas filled with the tantalizing, blood-thirsty jaws of to-do lists. x-(

Here's the 10-minute version with the instant rice noodles. We lapped it up in a jiffy and I made a healthy watermelon-grape chiller to wash it down with!

Coconut Sevai

Ingredients -

1) Instant rice noodles - 2-3 cups cooked and drained as per instructions on package.

2) Mustard - 1 tspn

3) Red Chilies - 2

4) Bengal gram dal - 1 tbspns

5) Black gram dal - 1 tspn

6) Curry leaves - a few (washed)

7) Asafetida - 3 pinches

8) Coconut - 3 tbspns (grated)

9) Oil - 2 tspns

10) Salt - to taste

Method -

1) Let the rice noodles cool well. Fluff with a fork.

2) In a pan, heat oil and add the seasonings from 2-7 in that order making sure each is crisp but not charred before tossing in the next one.

3) Stir in the coconut and add salt. Continue sauteing for a minute.

4) Dunk the cooled noodles and mix together on a low flame for 5 minutes until the salt and the flavors have all blended together.

5) Serve as is or with whatever accompaniment you'd like - sambar, tomato chutney - anything pairs up well!

Watermelon-Grape Punch -

No fuss here! Blend together, some watermelon chunks and red seedless grapes. Strain to get a clear juice or go the healthy way and drink it up with the pulp like we did! A mint leaf on the top makes a cute picture and a nice excuse to nibble on it. :)

Game Nite Rasmalai!

We had this Game Nite last weekend and since it was a post-dinner affair, I was left with no choice but to make some dessert. I sound like I am cribbing because I am supposed to be on a diet for heaven's sakes! As a consolation, the other dish I served the guests was a healthy one - mildly spiced popcorn. The rasmalai itself turned out pretty good I thought, given that I was only making it for the second time. This happens to be a dessert I learnt from one of my friends in grad school - Smitha. The first time I made it, it took ages since I was a novice to baking and kind of overestimated the amount I'd need for a party. The result was almost two huge pans of leftover rasmalai....not that my roommates complained though. ;) This time around, I was careful about the quantity so as not to compromise the quality. We served this when everyone was in the midst of an action-packed round of Pictionary and they were quite nonplussed to be served home-made rasmalai and cube-shaped ones at that. I was fine with their bewilderment as long as there was none who screamed sacrilege! Next day, the poor rasmalai managed to pass the ultimate acid test and that too with an A+. How? Well! Appa remarked that it tasted better than the conventional way in which it was made 'coz he felt the malai part never really has a lot of flavor while this modified way seemed to produce malai's which were bursting with taste. The only sad part of this whole affair is the fact that since the past three days, the leftover rasmalai has been sitting in our refrigerator and it feels like an anathema by all means. Vee and I are on a crash 7-day diet plan, you see...

Chilled Rasmalai

Ingredients -

1) Ricotta Cheese - 1 lb tub

2) Sugar - 1.5 cups or lesser

3) Cardamom - 1/2 a tspn (powdered)

4) Whole Milk - 5-6 cups

5) Almonds - a handful (sliced or pounded)

6) Pistachio nuts - a handful (pounded)

7) Saffron - a few strands soaked in a few tspns of milk.

8) Rose Water - a few drops

Method -

1) In a bowl, whisk together the ricotta cheese, half of the 1.5 cups of sugar and a generous pinch of cardamom powder. You can use a hand blender to get a silky consistency. (If you don't have one, the good old fork will do the trick too.) The sugar can be adjusted according to taste, but remember the milk in which the malai will be dunked into, will be sweet too. You don't want to end up making it cloyingly sweet!

2) Grease a baking pan and pre-heat the oven to 300 degrees F.

3) Pour the sweet cheese mixture into the pan (or pans) and spread it out evenly. The amount you pour, should not be more than 1-1.5 inches thicker. This simple check ensures the cheese doesn't take too long to bake. Reach for a second smaller pan if you think the mixture is already laid out thick in the first one.

4) Bake at 300 degrees F for about an hour and leave on broil for 5-6 minutes until the top gets some hazel colored specks. Wait until the knife test yields a neat pass and the cheese springs back from the pan. Importantly, do not expect the cheese to solidify to a hard cake. It will feel slightly soft but when you leave it to cool down, it firms up quite a bit.

5) Remove from the oven and let it cool in the pan. After it has cooled for three quarters of an hour, cut it up in diamonds or squares.

6) As and when the baking happens, you can set the milk boiling in a heavy-bottomed dish.

7) Once it reaches boiling point, add the remaining sugar and simmer. Be sure to stir often so that it doesn't spill over. The cardamom powder, saffron stands, rose water and all the pounded nuts also go in at this stage.

8) Continue simmering until the milk syrup has reduced in quantity but is not too thick like a basundi by any means. Too thick is not good because the malai cubes will refuse to soak well.

9) Remove from heat and cool for 10 minutes before adding the cut up sweet cheese cubes. Assembling in a wide mouthed basin helps in avoiding traffic among the pretty cubes.

10) Cover and refrigerate for 4-5 hours before serving. And...let the party begin!

Low-fat Caulifower Soup

I return from work to find that I am late yet again. The rain drops I battled with my windshield wipers lash around unobtrusively on my window sill. It has been cool and wet all day long and now in the late evening, nature seems to be doing its garish little dance with rain and clouds. Folks at home are in a drowsy mood and I start thinking of something that would fire up the atmosphere. Natural choice is hot bhajjis as I am so used to fantasizing from my Chennai days. No, I tell myself....find something healthy! Weighing a lot of options, I tactfully start making trade-offs between taste and time. Choices range from masala bhel, spicy popcorn, ragi roti to hot soups. And the winner is - S-O-U-P. I start ravaging my veggie-tray in the refrigerator and find this small cauliflower hiding in a corner - it is your turn tonight, sweetie - I say to its forlorn looking face! Within minutes, I have it washed and scrubbed clean. There are at least 3 different ways in which I make this soup and I decide which one of those to use. This one takes about a half hour to make from the time you pick the veggie to spooning the soup into bowls. Thirty minutes later, I lay out the table and start summoning everyone for dinner. "Whatz for dinner, honey?", asks Vee without looking away from his laptop. I refrain from replying so that he would be forced to check for himself. After deliberating for a little bit, he finally hops over to the table and what he sees, brightens his face. The guy loves soup of any kind. Amma and Appa prefer soups any day to the mundane salads that I so often serve them for dinner. The soup is still piping hot and as everyone savors it one spoonful at a time, all the sleepiness is driven away. They are as pepped up as they could ever get!

Here's the recipe which is my own adaptation from Mrs. Mallika's "100 Refreshing Soups and Stews" cookbook.

Steaming bowl of cauliflower soup

Ingredients -

1) Cauliflower - 1 (quickly separated into large florets)

2) Garlic - 2 small cloves (If you'd rather prefer ginger, go with a 1" piece of it!)

3) Onion - 1 small (roughly chopped up)

4) Green Chilies - 2

5) Milk - 1.5 cups (I used 1%-low fat.)

6) Whole Wheat Flour - 1 tbspn

7) Oil - 1 tspn (I use Extra Virgin Olive Oil.)

8) Softened butter or ghee - two drops

9) Salt - to taste

10) Black Pepper - a few corns

Method -

1) Heat the oil and butter in a pressure cooker or pan and saute the garlic cloves and green chilies until the raw smell of garlic is all gone.

2) Throw in the onions and continue sauteing for a few minutes until they turn translucent.

3) Next go in, the cauliflower florets. Fry some more.

4) After about 5 minutes, sprinkle the wheat flour and stir around till everything is well coated.

5) Add 1 cup of milk and about 1/2 a cup of water and salt to taste.

6) Pressure cook in a low flame for 10 minutes or until one whistle sounds.

7) Wait till all the pressure is released and leave the cooker open for some time for the contents to cool thoroughly.

8) Take all the solid particles you can find (in the cooker) in a blender and pulse a few times to get a paste-like consistency. It is important to not pour in all the contents with the liquid into the blender as that will result in a not-so-smooth texture.

9) Transfer the soup paste into the cooker again and mix with the liquid portion. Add in the remaining milk and stir well.

10) Simmer until the soup starts boiling and if the soup is too thick for your taste, you can pour a cup of water and wait till it boils through.

11) Spoon into bowls and pulverize some peppercorns over them. Garnish with a sprig of cilantro!