To Cook or Not to Cook during Durga Pujo

It is fun making menus when you don't have to cook them.

Of course it is more fun when you also get to eat them. And at times it is also fun to cook them.

But today when I decided to draw up menus for the three days of Pujo, it was with a feeling of liberation and lightheartedness, the kind that comes with "thinking of doing fanciful things" without actually doing any. Of course there are people who get no such feeling from "thinking and not doing" but fortunately I don't belong there. I am the one who "thinks-fancy-worries-a-lot-and-does-nothing". That gives me peace. Amen.

You, my dear friend, are very welcome to cook any or multiple of these to make the three days of Durga Pujo isspecial.You can also choose to not cook and have an eat out session instead. Makes it as special.

Saptami
******
Start the morning with some Kolkata Egg Roll from book

Lunch with
Rice
Cholar Dal (another version in book)
Oven baked Begun Bhaja
Doi Dharosh
Chicken in Mint, Coriander, Coconut gravy
Rui Maacher Dumpukht
Cranberry Relish

Snack with Chicken Keemar Chop

Dinner eat out

Ashtami
*******

Start with Hing er Kochuri and Alur Tarkari

Lunch with
Bhoger Khichuri
Niramish Aloor Dom
Paneer Korma
Anarosher Chaatni
Homemade Sondesh

Snack with some Bhejetebil Chop or Beguni from book

Dinner at Pujo Bari

Nabami
*******

Start the day with Keema stuffed Tomatoes

Lunch with
Rice
Bengali Fish Fry
Chingri Dhan Dhana Dhan
Halka Mangshor Jhol or Railway Mutton Curry
Tomato Khejur Chaatni from book
Narkel Naru


Dinner == Eno

দূর্গা পুজোর শুভেচ্ছা

Wish you all joy, peace and happiness of the season and don't forget the giveaway in my last post.

Devapriya Roy; famous author, Keo-karpin girl, scholar and lovely lovely person is also doing a giveaway of two of my books on her Heat and Dust project page. Statistically your chance of winning now is more.

Weekly Menu -- Week of May 17th

Ok so I finally baked a cake succesfully. My baking attempts have always been a flop show even with the simplest of the cakes. So I always stick with a Betty Crocker mix or a Bisquik and try to end the story there.

I guess I am not good at sticking to instructions and my mind wanders off just where the recipe says sift flour and baking soda together. Improvising where baking is concerned is a strict no-no and I have learned it the hard way.

This time I was determined to make it work though and I chose a simple recipe from Sunita. Something that did not ask for any new fangled ingredients hitherto unknown to me, something that could be achieved with what I had at home and something that did not ask me to beat eggs and such for 5 whole minutes.

So Pear-Walnut Cake it was made with atta.

But trust to me goof up even with the simplest of all recipes. After following all her instructions I preheated the oven to 180, did you read it right,1 - 8- 0. Isn't that way too less, I told myself, maybe I should increase the temp. But then I had decided to stick, blindly stick with the recipe so with all my doubts I heated the oven to 180. And then I followed what the recipe said exactly. When the timer went "Ping" all excited I took out the bake tray to see nothing had turned "golden brown" and the batter was the same gooyey mess it was half an hour earlier.

And then my brain which had hit the dead end, 'coz it was 12:00 at night by then did a jolt and it struck me that Sunita was in the UK and so her recipe said 180 C, see the C, not F but C in capitals. I was in goddamn North America where they didn't believe in C (Celsius) and had F (Fahrenheit) !!! So after all the math conversions we finally raised the oven temp to 350 F and the cake turned golden brown and delicious after a glorious 17 minutes.

This week I tried to go carb-less on some days of the week and it was easier as we did a lot of grilling outside. This was the menu

Potato Capsicum Curry -- This was based on this dish, not exactly but kind of

Pepper Mushroom -- All time favorite from Cham and my recipe

Uchche Begun -- Bitter Gourd with brinjals. Shall post soon

Cabbage Fry -- This was M Didi (baby A's nanny) contribution. I finally asked her to cook one or two dishes for me each week.

Masoor Dal & Toor Dal with Dill -- Regular masoor dal. The toor dal with dill was a new flavor. Haven't tried dill too much and this was the first time had it in a dal. Reminded me of one of the paying guest Aunty in B'lore, this was the unknown taste I always found in her dals.

Grilled Chicken

Baked Tilapia

Grilled brocolli, carrots and long green peppers

Weekly Menu -- Week of April 5th

This week I didn't cook much. First it was going to be a short week and we were going away Friday so we didn't do that much grocery. Then Sunday I spent loitering around a open air outlet mall buying stuff for the girls. Monday morning while I was about to leave home, the nanny complained that her eyes were swollen and itching. It looked like allergy, so I asked her to go see her doctor and took a sick day. It was raining and I was really glad to get some unexpected time home with the little one which I spent mostly palying with her than cooking

Mid week we went to wish two little guys Happy BirthDay and their gorgeous Mom made a truly delicious Yellow Pualo(the bengali sweet pulao) and Mutton Curry(Patha'r Mangsho) accompanied with alu'r dom and strawberries 'n' cream as the dessert

Before I go on to the menu, I would like to thank some truly wonderful fellow bloggers Priya, Meenal and Indrani for the awards they passed on. Priya who blogs at Priya in Suburbia is a mom and blogger after my own heart. Her thoughts and life sometimes resemble mine and I love what she writes.
Meenal of Meenal's Kitchen is a foodie blogger par excellence. She is back after a long time, do check her out for some her lovely new series
Indrani's blog Appayan I came across recently. She has wonderful food there for you to try out

I am deviating from norm and passing these awards on to everyone reading here.

Now to the week's menu

Chilli Tofu -- This was a disaster. It was so bad that D insisted this was what gave nanny the red eyes(though she hadn't even tasted it). Next time should try frying the tofu well, tried a healthy baking option this time. Had to convert it to a tofu burji later

Sambar -- Sambar with brussel sprouts and some drumsticks.

Bandha Kopi'r Ghonto -- the dry cabbage side dish

Baked filet of fresh Tilapia -- the fish was smeared with a little onion+ginger+garlic paste, a paste which I make and freeze and then baked with a drizzle of olive oil. Was lovely. Should do more of this

Mutton Curry -- a goat meat curry which D cooked for one dinner. It was awesome but too little

Thupka -- Inspired by Asha's version I made a similar noodle soup. Mine had chilli-garlic sauce though and instead of cooking the noodles separate I added it to the same pot. The easiest and tastiest one pot meal ever. Got to do more of this

We are away on a short break tomorrow and will back only next week in time for the Bengali New Year. I am turning off comments on this post as there is no recipe or anything here. If you have any questions/opinions please post them in the earlier post

Weekly Menu -- Week of March 29th

I started the weekly menu series and promptly forgot about it. However each week when I have to think what to cook or do grocery for I feel it would be nice to have a menu to resort back to. So I am initiating this series again for my own good. This series will loosely have the dishes cooked for or during the week starting Monday and ending Thursday night and will be updated Friday evening.

I know it will not be updated every week but even once in a while will help me in future to plan a work week menu

Bengali style Mixed Vegetable -- a mixed veggie dish with pumpkin, green beans, some radish and a little potato. Simple, spiced with panchphoron and cooked in Mustard oil

Mushroom Olu -- With a box of mushroom and potatoes this was enough for two meals. Was best with the tortilla that we pack for lunch

Beans with besan -- This was from Delhibelle and brought a nice change to my regular bean sabzi. Added a little potato and was enough for two packed lunches

Masoor Dal -- you cannot go wrong with this. This time around I tempered with Kalonji and not PanchPhoron

Lightly fried bitter gourd -- simple fried bitter gourd.

Chicken -- My neighbor Aunty has just started catering in small amount. When I heard this I promptly ordered some chicken and she sent so much that it sufficed for 4 meals

Doi Dim -- Eggs in Yogurt sauce for one week night dinner

And some paneer for S, stir fried with whatever veggie.

Broiled Salmon with Spicy Mushroom Sauce

Sibling Love, what is it, how would you define it ? What is that sibling mush that you would love to share ? Me, I have no siblings and so no first hand knowledge of the whole thing. I desperately wanted some or at least one of my own when I was growing but my parents didn't comply, and my many requests to at least adopt one, sibling that is, fell on their deaf ears.

My lofty idea of sibling bonding was that if I happen to be a very callous Mom and my two kids were separated in some Mela (fair), I could go about life peacefully trusting their sibling bond would bring them together in middle age and we could then live happily ever after. Also if I was successful enough to pit them against each other, at least one of them would say "Mere pas Ma hain", as if I was nothing but a jar of Complan.

Armed with this glamorous knowledge I took the plunge, my fast approaching middle age and my ever aching limbs (as in back, joints, knee) not taken into consideration. That my very good friend said that she and her sis fought all life and found sibling love only after marriage( to separate male entities) didn't dither me, the deed had been done.

So here I am seeing the love that siblings share in full technicolor home production and it indeed is precious. Big Sis S simply loves Baby A. She reads to her, plays with her and entertains her all the time. Every day she draws a card for Baby Sis A in school. She conjures new games of Peek-a-Boo and makes Baby A laugh and cackle. Baby A in turn saves her best gummy smiles for her Didi. She seems to be enamored by Big Sis S and follows her every move and laughs at every stunt that Didi pulls.

Of course everything is not as rosy as I make it sound. Big Sis S takes out her frustration on being the Big Sis, on us. So there are days when there is a lot of drama and melodrama, there is she crying for no reason at all -->me bearing with clenched teeth and finally losing it and yelling -->she declaring that I am not a good Mom --> me feeling guilt now but continue with sterness-->she quietens --> finally peace and hug ensues but never and not even once does she take it out on her little sister. That strikes me, as I look back on yesterday evening and I am so proud of her, for being so good to her little sister. Maybe I will try to keep my cool next time and have that much more patience, I am no SuperMom but at least I can try being a better one... (and read this when things are bad)

Weekday cooking needs to be quick and easy and as I was broiling salmon, I saw all the mushroom in my freezer and googled for a "mushroom sauce". I loved this but didn't want all that cream so found a lighter version here. I knew I needed to spice it up so here goes my version of Broiled Salmon with a Spicy and Low Fat Mushroom Sauce. This goes on to glam blogger Meeta's Monthly Mingle -- Healthy Family Dinners hosted this time by Michelle of Whats Cooking Blog

Broiled Salmon with Spicy Mushroom Sauce

How I Did It

For Salmon: Rub the salmon pieces with fresh lime, little salt, red chilli powder or black pepper, ginger paste and garlic paste. Let it sit for 15-20 minutes and then brush olive oil and broil it with skin side down for 20 minutes. I have my salmon skinned and my small toaster oven settings are Broil --> Temp at 400 --> for 20 minutes and then about 5 minutes on the other side

For Mushroom Sauce:

Heat Olive Oil in a frying pan

Add 2 cloves of minced garlic, 2 finely chopped green chillies and saute for a couple of seconds

Add 1/4 cup of chopped red onion and saute till the onion is translucent

Add 2 cups of thinly sliced mushroom and saute till they are browned and release liquid

Add 1/2 cup of vegetable broth, 1 tsp of curry powder, about 1/4 tsp of chilli powder and let it come to a boil

Stir in 1/2 tbsp of flour, 1/2 tbsp of flax seed powder, 1/2 cup of 2% or fat-free milk and let the sauce thicken to the right consistency. If the sauce seems to be too thick add little more of the Vegetable stock.

Season with salt

Serve immediately with the broiled salmon

Now to last weeks menu. This was the weekly menu for last week

Cabbage-Carrot Stir fry
Vegetable Jalfrezi -- Inspired by this and this. I didn't bake it and I used brocolli instead of cauliflower and added paneer cubes
Dal -- my favorite Masoor dal
Chicken with Methi leaves -- I need to re-create this and then write the recipe
Salmon, salmon and salmon -- on two weekdays

Trivia: Pacific salmon die after their first spawning (the reproducing process); the Atlantic salmon does not, and returns year after year to its breeding place to spawn again

Bleakly Weekly Menu

This is how the backyard view was in summer.....

And this what I see now...

I desperately needed a warm splash of color to fix the chilling cold outside and my Friday evening tea just set the mood...

A quick recap of what I cooked last weekend for this week. This time it was better and I didn't have to cook anything until Thursday except for the odd pasta, Big Sis S's school lunch and some scrambled eggs.

With two girls, one of whom craves attention like Jennifer Aniston and other who voices protests akin to Mamta (banerjee) if left alone for two minutes, I don't really want to spend weekday evenings cooking and neither do I want to eat outside evrytime. I find the cook ahead pretty convenient and have also shifted my grocery day to mid week. This way Baby A's nanny chops all my veggies before she leaves on Friday and then cooking become pretty easy actually.

D has been delegated with the duty of feeding us either outsourced or self implemented food for Friday nights and Saturday, so it has been pretty interesting so far. On cold winter Friday nights, a new avtaar of Campbell tomato soup (a different avtaar every time he has served it so far, two to be precise) spiced up with green chillies and such graces our table with garlic bread. I am really looking forward to see what comes up tomorrow.

Aloo Gobi -- A dry potatoes and cauliflower preparation that I picked up from Sailaja's Blog. The taste was different from what we are used to but we liked it, actually I liked it more with white rice than with the tortilla I pack for lunch

Aloo Methi -- This is an all time favorite and goes well both with roti and rice, better with roti I think

Aloo Bhindi -- This is a potato okra stir fry done the Bengali way. The oil is tempered with Paanch Phoron and Dry Red Chillies and okra and potatoes are fried with a pinch of turmeric and salt.

Toor Dal with Methi -- I deviated from my favorite Masoor Dal to Toor for this week inspired by Indira. Pressure cooked about 1 and 1/2 cup of Toor Dal with one biggish red onion, one chopped tomato, 1 cup of fresh methi leaves, a pinch of turmeric and water. Tempered the Dal with Cumin seeds, Dry Red Chillies and 1 fat clove of garlic roughly sliced. Wanted to add some cranberries but wasn't convinced...yet.

Pepper Chicken Curry -- This is one more of my favorite chicken curry from Sailaja's blog. Chicken doesn't taste good if cooked ahead so this just survived Sunday evening and Monday.

Looking back it seems like we had a lot of potatoes last week, this week I am going to cut down on it. Also hope to revisit this menu again as all the dishes were pretty good.

I am typing this as I glance at Sex and the City re-runs. We don't have HBO and I had not watched it before. Some Fridays if I am still awake I force myself to wtach it because I really want to understand why people liked it so much. The more I watch it the crappier it seems !!!

Looking forward to TUESDAY

Paneer Khichuri

Well it has been almost ten days into the New Year and I have no plans or Resolutions. I have stopped making plans, because it seems my life has a definite mind of its own and leads its own oblivious of the plan I have laid out for it. There are lucky people who make plans and their life stick to it, but alas my life is a free spirit. So I have decided to gather all my faith from every crevice of my being and just put the burden on the All Mighty, let him/her lead me through the path that has been already set out for me.

But however much I don’t plan at the macro level, when it comes to the micro level as in “what to eat for lunch, dinner etc. etc. this week” I need to have some kind of a plan thing in place. More of a TBD I would say, than a plan. This has been the first week after the parents left, after both me & D got back to work, after Big Sis S went back to school and the Nanny is at home taking care of Baby A. I was pretty tense about this week as you might well imagine. Other than major guilt pangs of “Ohhh, I am leaving the little baby girl in mercy of a ruthless nanny, I am a bad bad Mom” there was also the fact that I needed to cook ahead to tide us through most of the week.

So I made a plan, ahem…but a “micro” plan.

This was what I cooked last weekend for this week:

1. Masoor Dal with Brussel Sprouts -- almost the same way I did this except here I used chopped brusel sprouts
2. Baingan Bharta
3. A Mixed Veggie Dish that had carrots, celery, broccoli, brussel sprouts and potatoes – pretty scary all that veggies with the “healthy” label
4. A Thai Veggie Soup – this was delicious and am going to post sometime
5. A simple paneer dish for Big Sis S alone who following on her dad’s credentials refuses to eat fish since the last few months, and following her own pretty much everything else. Kids turn weird as they grow older until they become Moms like me.
6. Fish Curry for Monday

I would make a quick Non-Veg something on Wednesday to survive Wed & Thur I thought.

Come Tuesday evening and I knew my plan was failing. There was very little of what I cooked left. Between us 3 adults (me, D and the Nanny) we had managed to finish major portion of what I had cooked. This weekend I am thinking up better plans, only on the “micro” level of being though !!!

While I was cooking last weekend for the week, I couldn’t possibly let anyone in the family eat that food over the weekend and make my life more miserable. Eating out on cold weekends with the baby is difficult and takeouts is not an option for every meal on weekends. I wanted to make something quick, simple, one pot and I came across Paneer Khichuri in my growing collection of that Bong Mag Sananda.

We liked it served with my Ma's delicious Tamarind Achaar/Chutney, I of course because it was simple and made my life easy, D because he didn’t want to ruffle my already ruffled feathers. Big Sis S proclaimed she didn’t like it that much. She is in a stage or phase where she likes home cooked food only if the home is NOT her own.
But really it was pretty decent if you like Khichuri or Khichdi


This quick Medley of rice and lentils aka Khichuri takes on a new dimension with the Paneer and Raisins.It made the mundane Khchuri special and we liked it, try it out for a quick simple meal

Paneer Khichuri

How I Did It

Prep: Lightly fry till golden about 1/2 cup of Paneer cut in small cubes. If your paneer tends to get tough on frying dunk the lightly fried pieces in salted warm water.
Wash 1 cup of Rice and 1/3cup Yellow Moong Dal (Yellow Lentils), 1/3 cup Red Masoor Dal (Red lentils), 1/3 cup of whole Black Urad (or any other dal of your choice) . To learn more about Lentils or Dals go here.

Strat Cook:

Heat Oil in a Frying Pan.

Temper with 2 Bay Leaves/TejPata, 1/2" of Cinnamon stick and 1 tsp of Cumin Seeds/Jeera.

Add 1/4 cup of finely chopped onions (not in original recipe). Saute till the onions are soft and translucent.

Add 1/4 cup of finely chopped tomatoes(not in original recipe and can be skipped) and fry till the tomatoes are well done.

Add 1 cup of rice, and the Dals, 1/3 cup each.

Add salt, little sugar, 3-4 chopped green chillies, 2 tsp of fresh ginger paste and saute the rice and dal. Add water in proportion, I added about 4-5 cups of water. Depending on how you like your khchuri to be in respect to the consistency adjust water.

Mix well and let cook. When the rice and dal are cooked, add raisins and the paneer cubes. Stir and cook for couple more minutes.

Add 1 tsp of Ghee if you wish

Sprinkle Garam masala and grated paneer and serve.

Tips: Substitute paneer with Tofu for a healthier version. Instead of grated paneer you can add scrambled eggs before serving