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.

 

Sorshe Elish - Hilsa in Mustard Gravy

Life is so unpredictable. At one moment you are performing acrobatic stunts and the next moment you are dead. Day before yesterday we went to the Dayton Airshow in which we witnessed live crash of a plane that killed two, one was the famous wing walker Jane Wicker and another was the pilot. It feels so weird to think that we have captured her last moments in our camera and the plane crashed so suddenly in front of our eyes that it took me few moments coming to terms with the accident. I have never witnessed a mishap before and I pray to God I don't see another. It is a saddening experience watching someone hale and hearty dying instantaneously. The memory of the accident is still giving me goose bumps. All our lives we make plans for this and that forgetting that any moment we could be snapped out of life.

I am not in the best of my mind to write anything cheerful today. This recipe was waiting in my draft for last one week. It is one of the very popular Hilsa preparations relished all over the Bengal. This recipe has lot of variants but this one cooked by my mother is my all-time favorite. Hope you will find it delightful.

Rohu Kadhi

Today one of my friends was ruing over the fact that I don't upload recipes that can be made superfast in a jiffy. She said that some recipes should target the segment of working women who after coming back from home don't have enough time and energy to cook a fancy meal. I know not many but there are few recipes I have uploaded which can be made very quickly and they are my saviors in those days when I don't like cooking with any elaborate preparation. Check out the below lists:

Egg Chatpata (10 minutes)

Egg Drop Curry (20 minutes)

Simple Yogurty Alu Dum (20 minutes)

Potato Drumsticks in Yogurt Sauce (20 minutes)

Bengali Aloo Curry Kalo Jeera Diye (20 minutes)

Avocado Pasta (10 minutes)

South Indian Style Potato Curry (15-20 minutes)

There are many recipes out there which don't require a long list of ingredients and can be put together within the same timeframe. The below recipe too is an easy one if you can manage to get the fishes fried somehow (may be with the help of your husband ;)...they are good at this task.) and the rest can be made within 5 minutes.
 

Potato Eggplant Curry with Drumsticks - Sojne Data diye Begun Aloo Torkari

Today I am very happy. I found a long lost friend on FB. I have been searching her on the cyber world for over 4-5 years but her name is so commonly found among Bengalis that every time I keyed in her name in the search engine, hundred others of her namesakes appeared on the screen, making the act of searching a humongous task. When I was about to give up hope of ever finding her, today out of the blue I received a friend request from her, to my utter shock and surprise. It feels so nice to catch up with old buddies. All the memories of precious bygone days come flooding in your mind and you just drift in a wave of memories. The silly things you did together, the puerile dreams, the skirmishes all come streaming in front of your eyes and you realize how many good years have passed in between. College life would be always special in anyone's life and so many memories of mine are linked with her. I feel bad at time for having grown up so soon.

 

Anyway, allow me the opportunity to share the recipe now. It is a simple concoction of potato, eggplant and drumsticks. We call drumsticks in Bengali sojne data and we all grow up knowing how chewing on the drumsticks strengthens our teeth. Strengthening or not, I love chewing sojne data for the juicy flavor that bursts in the mouth as I crush them between teeth.

 

Avocado Pasta

Considered a fruit, avocado because of its leathery hide and pear-like shape is often referred as the Alligator Pear. The tree that bears the avocado fruits stands 65 feet tall and is known as Persea Americana. Avocados are rich source of 20 vital nutrients including monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, fibers, vitamins and potassium. Avocados are eaten raw usually with salad, sandwich and sometimes pasta. So today the recipe I will be sharing is of avocado pasta. It is an ideal meal when you are short on your time for cooking anything fancy and it tastes just awesome. My fondness for avocado has grown after coming to US and I must confess eating avocado is one of the healthy habits I nurture. 

This dish is cooked with spaghetti or linguini pasta but in my photo you might find traces of penne pasta as well. As I was short of spaghetti, I mixed penne pasta with it to increase the quantity to suffice for our dinner.

Prawn Curd Rice

You gotta really worry when your neighbor is a potential psycho. Very recently a new occupant has come in the flat below us and within two weeks of his arrival, he has visited us twice to complain about making sound. Now I really don't how to keep pin drop silence in a wooden house. In last two weeks after coming back from the NY trip we were so tired that we didn't even invite any friend or hold a party at home, but still the man came knocking at our door twice, once at 1 o'clock at night. I was completely freaked out when his knock from a dull monotone went on becoming louder and louder. He at least knocked for 5-6 times loudly on our door, imagine at the dead of night. I was so scared that I didn't let my husband even open the door. The man is a maniac. Our A/c was not working on that night with a temperature hovering around 100F. We were not able to sleep so I stood up on our bed to open the vent of A/c wide not knowing the a/c had blown up. The thudding of my foot on the floor had woken him up from his sleep as it seems and he without any hesitation ran upstairs to complain. My Gawd!!

 

I am scared of psychos and USA is full of them. When I complained about this activity to our community, the woman sitting behind the desk gave a laugh and told me to ignore the man as much as possible with a warning not to get into any confrontation with him because often this type of recluse turns out to be psychopath.

 

Coming to the recipe below, I collected this one from a cookery show. I think the taste might not suit all although I liked it very much. I have friends averse to curry leaves and hence I think people not fond of curry leaves may find this dish not appetizing enough, but those who have no problem with curry leaves will find the dish flavorsome. I for one enjoyed the simplicity of the flavor and the hassle-free preparation.

Coconut Paratha - Narkel Parota

 

Summer has finally set in in US. Summer here is really beautiful with the sun being up in the horizon till wee hours into the evening. It's one of a kind experience to have your dinner watching the sun set down. Since winter here is mind-bogglingly frustrating forcing one to confinement, summer opens the sought-after gate for all the sinful escapades winter deprives one of. To bask in the moments of summer, we packed our bags and made the first trip of this season to NY again, this time mainly with the purpose catching up with my sister in law who will be getting married very soon. Last few days have been really relaxing with food, hearty conversation and travels to exotic locations occupying our hours, but nothing comes without a hitch. My husband fell sick on the trip which kept me on my toes for one day and we changed our itinerary to reach home safely. For the first time in my life I drove for hours on congested busy highway from NY to Ohio due to my husband not being properly fit for driving because of sickness, though he took charge of the steering wheel once in a while to give my eyes a little respite. Driving for hours is quite strenuous on nerves and eyes I must say, but it honed my driving skill.

 

Anyway, the recipe of this paratha has been waiting in my draft for few weeks...this paratha tastes really good with pickle or curd but please take care not to add too much of water while preparing the coconut stuffing else the paratha might fall apart during the making.

Yogurty Chicken

 

There is a particular cosmetic counter in a mall here where I buy cosmetics of a particular brand. What is very common about the cosmetics stores in India and here is the sales girls at the counter just try to shove products in your hand, so you go there to buy a regular face cream and you come back home buying a host of other things that you didn't have any plan of buying, credits to the marketing ability of the girl behind the counter who with her sweet smile and convincing but pushy marketing skill sell you products that you have no need of. While shopping in the malls in Kolkata many a time I have had experience of a sales woman coming behind me and showing me this and that dress of her choice to convince me how good that would look on me. Now I have been seeing myself on the mirror for years and I have little if not much sense of what I look good in and since in a mall the dresses are all over the place in front your eyes, you really don't need any help in choosing a dress for yourself unless you are very confused and ask someone for help. But it's really annoying when the girls don't leave you alone to pick your choice.

 

 

In US, thank God, you can shop your clothes at your own free will without a sales girl trying to shove a dress in your hand, but can't say the same thing while you go shopping for cosmetics. So as I said in the beginning, I buy cosmetics of a particular brand in a mall here and now every time I go there to buy the face cream, she shoves something or the other in my hand so persuasively that I can't say no. I have this problem of not being able to say no to people from childhood. Though not as bad as I was before in saying no, now I manage to utter the negative word once in a while but in front of someone being so pushy with her sweet smile and warm hospitable behavior, I simply find myself dumb and so out of the feeling that I would disappoint her if I don't buy any of the products she is trying so vehemently to sell, I end up buying cosmetics that I had no plan of buying while entering there.

 

I am sure many are there like me who similar way get influenced by the marketing skill of the sales girls and buy things not needed. I wish I would know how to evade the extra unnecessary purchase without disappointing them.

 

Back to the recipe, this is a very simple yet fantastic preparation of chicken. Make sure to cook it using butter. The buttery flavor boosts up the taste to a great degree.

Shahi Mutton

Last week went pretty turbulently for me. My system went for a toss, thanks to my husband's over enthusiasm. All the hardware devices started malfunctioning including the USB ports, speaker and audio device and then a defect in motherboard was detected repairing which would equal to the price of a new laptop. So I preferred to go for a new laptop instead. It is baby pink Vaio. I just can't take my eyes off it. The earlier Vaio was turquoise blue in color and while buying that 2 years back I was looking for a pink color but due to its immediate unavailability, I settled for the blue. Anyway my dream of owning a pink laptop has finally fulfilled. I have this fetish for pink. I have plenty of pink dresses, tops and I usually go for pink lipsticks and my nickname 'Pinky' also finely fits into fascination with pink. So though I was very sad after the blue Vaio got damaged, I am equally happy now for the new possession.
 

 
Okay, so today I am going to post an awesome recipe of mutton that I have been planning for ages to post but somehow due to time constraint could not make it. Anyway, better late than never. Enjoy the mutton and let me know if you have any query.