A lazy afternoon - and the mother of all lunches!

So we finally got around to visiting SG's new place. The cozy apartment is on the 13th floor of one of the few high-rises in a locality dotted with bungalows and lots of trees, so SG and her husband N get an amazing bird's eye view for miles around. Plus lots of natural light and a scuttly breeze through the day - so much so, that we were comfortable without an AC even at high noon. Though the lovely refreshing peach iced tea that SG kept plying us with might have something to do with this!


N had betaken himself to a friend's for the day - can't say I blame him, the thought of facing a gaggle of gabbing girls can be daunting - so we had the place to ourselves. Which worked out just fine, as after lunch, we made quite a sight as we lolled about on the floor groaning about how we had eaten way too much. :)

And what a lunch it was! Methinks SG had gone out and ransacked all the stores in the neighbourhood the day before - there was such a bounty of food! And almost all of it was light and healthy, appropriate for the heat of the sweltering day. There was a GINORMOUS salad (overflowing with crisp lettuce, cherry tomatoes, carrots, cucumber, onion (white AND red) and boiled shredded chicken)




.........to be dressed with a dressing of your choice - choose from diet mayo, tartare sauce, mushroom-and-tomato herb sauce, teriyaki sauce (yum yum!), mustard - English and French, schezwan sauce, gourmet bottled Italian dressing and French dressing...



Chicken salad!
PLUS there were sandwich fixings - generous loaves of bread (white and whole wheat), to be piled on with butter or cheese (or both!) - need I mention that there was a choice of cheeses? - sliced veggies, chicken patties, eggs (to be made to order - scrambled/boiled/Frech-toasted...) and, for the sweet tooths, 2 kinds of jam...whew! (Never mind that we never got around to making or eating sandwiches)

PLUS there was a dish of mushrooms stir-fried with sundried tomatoes and garlic (delish!)


and my quick and easy pasta(my small contribution to the lunch fiesta)


The other attendees (SP and CG) contributed sweat equity and helped with all the chopping-cutting-dicing-slicing (especially SP, who withdrew to the drawing room with a mountain of veggies and a chopping board, away from the confusion in the kitchen)

Finally, after umpteen trips between the kitchen and the drawing room, to ferry across all the goodies - we were ready to eat!


There is something indescribably amazing about sitting cross legged on the floor, with the breeze ruffling your hair, having a gab session with your closest friends - and munching on some fabulous food, while at it. :)

Equally indescribable was the girls' reaction when they got their first taste of Nutella (incredibly, neither of them had tasted it before) - the second of my contributions to our lunch. (Things were getting almost too healthy - we needed SOME sin!)




The voluptuous chocolate-hazelnut spread has a way of taking you into the stratosphere of bliss. I will not go into the details (strict rotation of the jar, watchful glances of the others when one of us was serving herself (to ensure equal rationing!) - sufficient to say that more than half the jar had disapperead by the time lunch was over. By which time we were too full even for dessert, leave alone the planned-and-prepared for-sandwiches. Sigh.


My plate - before

My plate - after! :P

The wreckage
But an hour or so of lolling about on the comfy outsize cushions and pillows which adorn SG's drawing room, we felt curious about SG's afore-declared "you will all DIE over it, its so awesome!" dessert - individual fruit bowls. SG had painstakingly halved 2 melons, scooped out the flesh, and filled the halves with strawberry jelly mix. She then had stirred in cubes of fresh fruit into the jelly as it set - and served up the wondrous creation with scoops of vanilla ice cream. So what we got was a beautiful orange-pink-white dessert that was cool, light and delicious.





The day was too hot for a rich dessert like chocolate mousse ( though we all are chocaholics!), so this was the perfect end to a gorgeous meal.

Great ambience, awesome food and the best company ever- all boxes checked for a fantastic afternoon. :) Compliments to SG for truly being the hostess with the mostest!

P.S. : This is T&F's 50th post - golden jubilee! Many thanks to all readers - its knowing that there ARE people who like reading my ramblings that has kept me going and reach this milestone. Ahoy for the 100th now!

Kitchen Experiments : Chocolate-drizzled Shankarpale

Serendipity is a wonderful thing. Especially when one encounters it in the kitchen.

All it took was the sight of Dad polishing off last of the shankarpale my Mami had given us (these days Diwali snacks are available OTC around the year!) and the memory of chocolate chips lying unused in the fridge to hit me simultaneously - and 'Ting!' went the lightbulb in my head as it flooded my conscious with dazzlingly simple IDEA!

Shankarpale are little squares/chips of fried, slightly-sweet dough traditionally made during Diwali as a snack. They are crumbly in texture and yummy with a cup of steaming-hot chai. This piece of GK is for the benefit of my non-Maharashtrian readers - my North Indian colleagues recoiled in horror at the idea of chocolating the already teeth-numbingly-sweet 'shakkarpare' . (The North Indian version of shankarpale is coated in syrup till the sugar starts
crystallizing around the chip)

To come back to the lab..err...kitchen, I rescued the last 10-12 shankarpale from dad's foraging and laid them out on a plate. Melted a tablespoon of chocolate chips (I used dark chocolate) with a splash of milk and 1/2 teaspoon of honey (don't ask me why, just felt the honey would echo the earthy tones of the shankarpale) over a double boiler (chocolate in small bowl kept over a large saucepan filled with boiling water).




Went on adding milk (in stages) till I got a suitable-for-drizzling-over consistency.






Drizzled the chocolate over the arranged shankarpale (with a spoon, nothing fancy) rather generously and dumped them into the fridge.

An hour later, the chocolate had set, and the normally satvik shankarpale had been given a glam makeover. The chocolate complemented the rich buttery biscuit-like shankarpale oh so well!

The only downside was that, to achieve a drizzling consistency, I had added quite a lot of milk to the chocolate, which meant that the chocolate lattice atop the shankarpale was susceptible to melting the moment you took them in yor hand (the temperature of the human body is 37 deg C!) leaving you with messy chocolate-smeared fingers you had to lick clean. (Mmmmmmm...)

A way out of this could be adding very little milk to the chocolate and dipping the shankarpale in the pool of chocolate rather than go for drizzling the melted chocolate on top. My guess is this way, the chcocolate coating/shell atop the shankarpale will be more robust (after all, chocolate chips survive being baked in cookies and cakes in fiery ovens!)

If you don't have access to chocolate chips, a few squares of Cadbury Dairy Milk will do just as well. (Or any other plain chocolate bar, for that matter - chocolate bars dont melt at room temperature either)

So go on, add a little ooomph to your Diwali snacks this year!

N.B. 1: Pardon the foggy pics - the steam rising from the double boiler fogged up the lens quicker than I could wipe it off! :(
N.B. 2: If, like me, you overestimate the amount of chocolate you need and end up with a pool of melted chocolate after the shankarpale receive their chocolate coat, you can do what I did - drop some nuts (I used walnuts - you can use any you like) in the chocolate, coat them all over with chcolate and fish them out with a spoon and arrange them on a tray. Put them in the fridge till the chocolate sets to get yummy choconut morsels. :)

Quick-fix meals : Spicy Corn Mash

This recipe comes with a full disclosure - neither is it my recipe nor did I implement it. The recipe is a traditional one, with a few shortcuts devised by Mom. But its so simple to make and so yummylicious that it deserves a mention here.

Known as 'Kansacha Kees' in Marathi, its a traditional breakfast or elevenses or tea-time dish. But it so resembles a glop of yellow sunshine and is so far removed from the separate strands that a 'kees' should have, that I have taken the liberty to rename it as Spicy Corn Mash.


Ingredients:

2 cups supersweet/American corn kernels
2 green chillies (roughly chopped)
1 cup milk
Salt and sugar to taste
Vegetable oil - 1 tablespoon
Mustard seeds, asafoetida, turmeric and cumin seeds - a pinch or two each, for the 'tadka' (tempering)
Fresh coriander leaves - chopped
Freshly grated coconut - 1 tablespoon

Procedure:
Steam the corn kernels with just a splash of water (say a tablespoonful) till cooked (soft and just a tad squishy) (2 whistles of the pressure cooker)

Grind the corn, chillies and milk together in the mixer/food processor to make a nubbly, chunky puree.

Heat the oil in a wok and make the tadka of mustard seeds, cumin seeds, asafoetida, turmeric. Stir till the spluttering-and-hissing of the tadka stops.

Add the corn puree and stir. Let it steam gently (no need to cover) for 2 minutes. Stir at regular intervals.

Add half the coriander and coconut. Add salt and sugar as per taste. Stir for another minute.

Take off the flame, garnish with the remaining coriander and coconut (an aside - this duo of Co and Co is one of the fundamental garnishes of Maharashtrian cuisine - its both pretty [dark green and white give a visual lift to curries and veggies] and tasty. )

Serve piping hot in a nice big bowl with an optional squeeze of lemon.
Tuck in. :D

N.B. : Since this dish is almost purely carbohydrate, I recommend making it for breakfast, AFTER a good workout. :)