Raspberry Linzer Slice

My husband is pretty gadget freak. It's not that he goes to buy every new product launched in the market, his fascination lies elsewhere. He loves exploring the gadgets that he buys by taking the parts out of the system and scrutinizing them. His behavior sort of reminds me of my brother's 7 years old son who equally has a fondness for breaking apart the toy cars brought for him. He likes to open parts of each car and lays them in order for his survey. Of course, the toys die a premature death with most of them becoming totally non-functional after they are dissected so mercilessly. In case of my hubby, not all the gadgets breathe their last in his hands but one or two, mostly those which belong to me, start showing up problems after he experiments on them. My laptop went for a toss recently and became so nonfunctional that I had to buy a new laptop. Anyway, not only he has fascination for conducting close examination of the mechanics of the gadgets, he also cherishes a liking for spilling water or coffee on electronic items, precipitating their demise. Immediately after we got married, he exactly ruined three items (thankfully all of them belonged to him) back to back within a matter of few days either by spilling water or tea - camera, laptop and a brand new phone. The phone was brand new, only two months old but within that short span he managed to drop it from our three-storied apartment once. The phone was lucky to have survived the fall but couldn't survive the tea.

 

Knowing my husband's spilling habit, I made sure to buy him only the cheapest of phones available in the market so that we don't feel the pinch of pain and money after an expensive one went out of form. But upon our coming to USA, he bought the galaxy which recently got soaked in coffee and now it is being repaired at some marooned repair station in Texas. The end result is I am facing a lot of trouble in connecting with hubby when he is away in office or outside. Our life has become so much entwined with phones that in the absence of this device, we just become unworkable. Today is one such day when I am missing to talk to him on phone and I need to wait for him until he shows up during lunch.

 

Few days back I went to a garage sale and there I came across a treasure trove of cooking books being sold at an incredibly low price. I bought few of them randomly and in one such I came across the following recipe which I tweaked a bit according to my own discretion. The output was successful with the raspberry jam exploding into a delightful sweetness inside mouth. Just yummmm!

Egg Shrimp Dry : Egg Shrimp Sukha

This recipe is really interesting because I have made it on my own playing around with ingredients as were available at home that day. Bored with the same egg curry with lots of gravy floating around it, I wanted to try a dry egg preparation which will not be like a conventional egg curry. I had some left over frozen shrimps which I wanted to make use of and nothing could be better than an egg-shrimp or egg-prawn concoction. I think they go well together like house on fire. If you are regular in my blog you might have noticed another of my posts I made earlier using eggs and prawns together in an omelet. Till date everyone I fed that omelet has been vociferous with their praises. So I hope this one too will create the same impression on my guests and readers. Happy eating!!

Aam Diye Dal - Sour Mango Lentil Preparation

 

Aam Diye Dal is a refreshing lentil preparation ideal for summer months. It is monsoon in India and mangoes are out of season there, but summer is young in US and green ripe all kinds of mangoes are aplenty in the market. I bought a big green mango few weeks back and but shoved it into some corner of our refrigerator forgetting all about it until I was reminded with a bit of sarcasm by my husband about some vegetables to be really taken care of before they reached sorry stage. I know I have this nasty habit of putting whatever veggies I get a grab of into the basket but this is a new habit that has grown into me mainly because the nearest Indian grocery store is at least 20-25 minutes driving distance away from home and since in the week days rushing to the Indian store is not possible, I maintain to fill my fridge with all the Indian leaves and veggies not easily available in Wal-Mart or Meyer. What to do…..when you run a kitchen, you ought to keep foresight about future needs.
 

Anyway, as I was saying aam diye tak dal is a refreshing meal for the scorching summer months. With mercury soaring higher every given day, this dal would add a cooling sensation to your lunch. Just grab some green mangoes and get set go.

Tuna Rainbow Pasta

Canned Tuna is the second most eaten seafood in USA with per person eating 2.7 pounds Tuna a year. Recently it has come to light that tuna fishes contain the brain-damaging heavy metal mercury though the level of mercury varies from one species to another. Tunas bigger in size like bigeye tuna and lean Bluefin are high in mercury content whereas yellow fin and fatty Bluefin have lower level of mercury. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has especially warned women who are pregnant, breastfeeding or of childbearing age to stay away from tuna as the heavy metal can damage the brain of infants or fetuses. To know more about tuna, go to the following link:

 

http://www.rodale.com/mercury-tuna

 

Anyway, I love tuna sandwiches and I like to use tuna in pastas. As long as I don't eat tuna daily or regularly, I guess I have nothing to fear. The recipe that I am sharing below is of an exotic preparation cooked with a combination of rainbow pasta and canned tuna.

Chingri Bharta -Shrimp Mash-up

 

Everyone out here is making use of the opportunity of the 4th of July holiday to travel somewhere except us. My hubby is stuck in this weird project which keeps Go-live during the summer time only when you want to travel places and hence he doesn't have any holiday tomorrow and in the next few weeks. It is extremely frustrating really.

 

 

Last week I was really busy between my course work and freelance projects with hardly any time left for cooking and so I cooked this easy Chingri Bharta or Shrimp Mash Up that gets ready within 15 minutes sharp and the taste is just supremely divine. Hope you people will like it.