Learn with recipes

I made this spicy mushrooms recipe today for our dinner and it was delicious.

You can eat this recipe on its own or with bread or as an accompaniment to another dish, we ate ours with sweet potato chips.

I use lots of healthy ingredients in this mushroom masala recipe.

Ingredients for Mushroom Masala Recipe
Olive Oil
2 Large Handfuls Small Mushrooms
2 Small Onions (finely chopped)
Small Chunk Ginger
1 Large Garlic Clove
approx 1/2 Cup Creamed Tomatoes
1 Green Pepper/Capsicum
1/2 Tin Chick Peas
1 tsp Turmeric
1+ 1/2 tsp Ground Cumin
2 tsp Garam Massala

1 tsp Coriander

1/2 - 1 tsp Chilli Powder (optional)

Note...You can add as little or as much chilli to suite your taste.

How to make Spicy Mushroom Masala Recipe

Add mushrooms.

Pour in a little water to loosen the sauce.

Cook on a medium heat for a few minutes.

Drain and rinse your chickpeas add them to the pan.

Simmer on a low heat for 5 minutes, if it needs thickening up add a little tomato puree and mix well.

2 chicken breast

whipped cream cheese

butter

crescent rolls

bread crumbs

green onions (optional)


Cut up chicken, add cream cheese, green onions and mix well. Roll chicken into rolls. ( i usually grab 2 crescent rolls and make a rectangle out of them instead of one to put the chicken into) Than dab the rolls into butter. and top with bread crumbs.

Bake at 350 for 10- 12 min

To pick a pear recipe for AFAM Pears, I tried food blog search, Epicurious, the USA pears website and finally settled on Food Networks simple salad recipe from Giadas treasure of recipes. As much as I was tempted on making a coffee cake, or muffins or pears poached in wine and served with ice cream, keeping in mind the summer attack in Bombay, an easy salad (easy on the waist) and that tastes good cold, was very much top of mind, which is what made me choose this.

I have written several times about my love for fruits in a salad. The give a sweetness and a change in texture that makes a salad even more satisfying. So heres another vegetable-fruit combo salad with an interesting vinaigrette. Curry powder in a vinaigrette? The French may turn their pretty noses at this one, but the taste is completely new and wonderful. If the world loves our curry, they will surely love this unusual flavour in a dressing!

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Shaved carrot and pear salad in curry vinaigrette
Time taken - Under 10 minutes
Serves 2
Adapted from Giada Laurentiss recipe.

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Ingredients and Directions

1 Red anjou pear, halved and sliced very thin (use any pears you have on hand)
2 large carrots, shaved with a vegetable peeler into ribbons
2 tbsp fresh parsley or 1 tbsp dried parsley
2 tbsp pine nuts or walnuts or sunflower seeds

For dressing - whisk together

2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp lime juice
1 tbsp honey
1/2 tsp ground pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp curry powder (sambhar powder in my case)
1 tbsp olive oil

Place the shaved carrots, sliced pears and parsley in a large bowl. Pour dressing over salad, add nuts, toss and serve chilled


Other salads from the summer of 2007

Chilled mango salad
Yellow lentil and raw mango salad
Herby tomato salad with pine nuts and cheese
Fattoush
Cucumber sesame salad
Indian carrot peanut salad

And while humming I will survive I am sending this off to my dear friend Raaga who is hosting the event A Fruit a Month, started off by Maheshwari

• Eat meat. Eat tons of meat. 
• Also, eat veggies. Lots and lots of veggies. Avoid white potatoes and corn, where possible, but just eat lots of veggies.
• Have a little fruit. One apple and a handful of berries a day at most. Its sweet because it has sugar in it. So dont eat too much of it.
• Enjoy seeds and nuts, but not too many because theyre high in calories and if you eat too much you might shit your pants.
• PLEASE use healthy, natural fats like olive oil or coconut oil. 

Pavlova is basically a large meringue cookie, made with egg whites and sugar. Its pretty easy to make, but it looks real fancy-like, guaranteeing to impress anyone you serve it to.
To make it more "paleo-friendly", I swapped the white and brown sugars for honey. Then I whipped it with the egg whites until it formed stiff peaks.
This is a stiff peak. Thats what she said.
After adding the [unsweetened] cocoa powder to the mixture, I then spread it out onto a parchment lined baking sheet.
After it bakes for a while, you can top it with yummy things like...
...whipped coconut cream...
...and dark-chocolate-covered raspberries (sorry, no link...that recipe should be pretty self-explanatory)...
...and a few dark chocolate shavings.
Ya know, for effect.
The end result is this rich combination of a chocolate souffle and a gooey brownie.
You want a piece of it right now, dont you?
Paleo-Friendly Chocolate Pavlova
Makes about 8 slices

• 4 large egg whites, room temperature
• 3/4 cup honey (Kyle thought it was a bit sweet, so try experimenting with 1/2 cup)
• pinch of salt
• 2 TBSP good unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 pint raspberries
• 4 oz. high quality dark chocolate (at least 70%)

You will need

In my head, Im a towering 510", like Cindy Crawford. Im also as thin, rich, and beautiful as her. Oh wait, thats in life, too.

Truth is, Im a shrimpy 54", so I tend to prefer my footwear be tall enough to compensate for my genetics. Even on the weekends, Ill throw on my Jeffrey Campbell Tick wedges, cus ya know, theyre my comfortable heels. But on a walk around DC last weekend with Kyle, wearing my Ralph Lauren brown riding boots, I realized I didnt have a closed-toe flat shoe that I felt accurately represented my style. You have my full permission to smack me straight across the face if you ever see me wearing a sneaker and not coming from or going to a gym. FULL.PERMISSION.

With sneakers out of the running (ha HA, pun intended), I realized this would be a hard shoe to fill ("how DOES she do it?"). Like some message from the heavens though, I stumbled upon Neiman Marcus TOMS shoe collection. 

Pause for an editorial interlude: TOMS shoes are the UGG of slip on flats. Theyre not all that attractive, but theyre comfortable, trendy with young, pretty girls everywhere, and spell their name in all caps. Whats also cool about TOMS is that for every pair you buy, they give a pair to a child in need, and with most pairs under $50, theyre affordable too. That said, you know I would never be satisfied with a plain canvas shoe.

Fast forward to my online shopping escapade and Im now the proud owner of these bad boys:

Okay, sure, theyre a little elfin looking, but just look at that sparkle??!! Im like a bird: I get distracted by shiny things, and in this case, Im distracted enough from the Genie in a Bottle feel that these will make for a perfectly suitable pair of comfortable AND stylish walking shoes.

Well I did some experimenting with a spaghetti squash this week, and although it all came out reasonably edible, it wasnt fabulous. The problem - and Ive had this problem before with spaghetti squash - is that it was just incurably soggy. I thought I would try it as a "Pad Thai" first of all, and although I was pretty happy with the sauce - 2-3 tablespoons fish sauce, 4 tablespoons apple butter, 1 teaspoon chile-garlic sauce and the juice of 1 lemon - the dish was just mushy, even when I used half barely-soaked rice noodles instead of all spaghetti squash. It would go well with just noodles, and cabbage, bean sprouts, mushrooms, onion and carrots for the vegetable portion. I guess thats what Ill try next. I dont think this would have worked even with a squash that was drier in texture, as some of them are (and should be). I had a particularly damp one for some reason this time.


This dish was even more homely, but it worked better. It was still rather moist, but somehow as a casserole it was more acceptable. It would be worth doing again, especially with a somewhat better specimen of squash. Ill write out what I did here:

4 servings
1 hour 15 minutes - 30 minutes prep time not including baking the squash

4 cups cooked spaghetti squash (about 1/2 large)
100 grams whole rice vermicelli, soaked in cold water until barely pliable
450 grams (1 pound) bulk sausage
1 large onion, peeled and chopped
1 medium carrot, peeled and grated
2 cups chopped cabbage
2 cups quartered button mushrooms
a little oil
3 cups tomato sauce

Cook the squash and let cool enough to handle. Discard the seeds and gunk from the centre, and pull out the strands with a fork. Spread out to dry a bit on a tray while you prepare the rest.

Soak the vermicelli until just pliable, drain it well and snip it into manageable sections. Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Peel and grate the carrot, chop the cabbage and clean and quarter the mushrooms. Heat the oil in a large skillet, and cook the onions and carrot until soft in a bit of oil. Put them in a 9" x 11" casserole (lasagne pan). Repeat with the cabbage and mushrooms. Then, cook the sausage, breaking it up into lumps. Add it to the casserole, with the squash, vermicelli and tomato sauce, and mix well. Bake for 45 minutes, until very hot through.




Last year at this time I made Beefy Winter Borsch and Blood Orange Tapioca Pudding.