Easy Breezy Dessert

Back from vacation but more about it later, first let me get the dessert out of the system

This was a dessert I learned early on after coming to this country. Those days my unending quest of befriending Bong people had got me a few friends (remember this) and a larger number of acquaintances. Now as is the custom among Bong people staying in far away land, a meeting as in getting together is synonymous with eating and that too in good measures. There was so much good eating and too many acquaintances that my very shallow foodie hubby would even weed out acquaintances based on their culinary skills.

So after months of eating excellent meals at several homes, I realized it was time that I did my part before people started gossiping about “How a you-know-who girl never invited us back and blah, blah, blah…”

I did not have very many culinary skills at that point and even fewer cookware so cooking a meal for about 18-20 odd people was a challenge. In fact even now with more cookware and somewhat better skills, cooking for that many people still plays havoc on my nerves. I always look around for good recipes that can be made in large quantity with ease and not too much preparation.

This is when I came across this easy breezy Fruity Mango Dessert recipe, posted by some Bengali on a Bengali website. It is quick, easy and definitely delicious (considering all the yummy things that go into it). Many thanks to the first person who created it and also to the person, whose name I don't remeber, who posted it.
I have made this several times and have moved the ingredients around. Here I will give my version and also specify the original recipe.


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Mango Dessert

What You Need


Serves about 16-18 people if paired with ice cream or cake

Mango Pulp (available in Indian Grocery stores) ~ 1 can
Plain Yogurt ~ 12 oz (Recipe said 32oz)
Sour cream ~ 8 oz (Recipe said 16 oz)
Fruit Cocktail Can ~ drain the syrup and get the fruits from a can or use fresh cut bite size pieces of fruit
Raisins & Nuts ~ for garnish (optional)
Condensed Milk ~ 3/4th of a 14 oz can (Recipe used sugar)

How I Did It

In a blender whip together mango pulp, sour cream and yogurt to a smooth consistency.
Add condensed milk and whip again.
Drain all the juices from the fruit cocktail and add to the whipped dessert
Garnish with raisins and nuts.
Put it in the refrigerator to cool. Serve chilled.

Serving Suggestion

Though it tastes absolutely great if had on its own, I often serve it with Plain Vanilla ice cream if it is summer. Else I also serve with some home baked cake as seen in the pic.




Today is my 3 and ½ year old daughter's first day at Pre-K, it is not official school yet, it is still a pre-school. But I find it an important date in my calendar, as it is the start of a new class with new teacher and new faces for her. Thanks to her PreSchool-1 teachers, Miss A and another Miss A. We will miss you. But we also look forward to the new beginnings, the slightly more responsibility, more independence in the new class and of course loads of fun.

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OnlineCookingSchools.net offers professional catering courses that can teach you how to cook in big batches and still maintain the quality of food.

Brown Rice Khichuri for JFI

It was a Friday.

Friday the 13th, no not the 13th actually the 10th, Friday the 10th

The rains were lashing the mountains, the wind howled around the cliffs, the ominous dark clouds hung around low, a precursor of the unknown future.

As the evening drew closer, mists rose from the sea and engulfed the land. Across the sea sounded a shrill whistle and then…


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...Nothing happened except for Brown Rice Khichdi in my pressure cooker.

The Khichdi man of the house aka D was in charge of the kitchen.

So when he said he wanted to make “Khichuri”(there is a recipe of khichuri down in that post) I thought why not, could send this on to JFI. To add a twist to the tale, I asked him to use brown rice and of course he flatly refused, declaring that Brown Rice does not a Khichuri make and some such fundae.

After much cajoling I asked him to browse the blogs for inspiration.

Some amount of time pass and Googling later, he finally declared he DID have a brown rice khichdi recipe, blogged by some Punju Scientist girl. Of course I knew it was none other than our dear Musical and her Khichdi.

So brown rice Mothaan di Khichdi was transformed to the Bengali Khichuri with Brown rice and also loads of other veggies like cauliflower, potatoes, tomatoes and what not. D followed Musicals' recipe (he says) but used green Moong and Red Masoor instead of Moth, he added veggies which is usually added to a bengali style khichuri, also he tempered it the bengali way. It was delicious to say the least.

There was no recipe though as Bong, non-scientist, guys do not note down measures while making Khichuri, such things are the domain of only Punju scientist girls

Next time he makes it, I will surely try to scribble and update this post for my own good.

This is my contribution for JFI-Rice hosted by my dear friend Sharmi of Neivedyam and of course created by Indira of Mahanadi

And now again Ta da...the Awards that have been raining like Poori-Bhaji in the blogosphere

Two of my dearest friends, Indosungod of Daily Musings and Sia of Spice Corner has sent two lovely awards my way. Thanks to both of you, you are the greatest. Thanks to Bharathy , I just saw she passed on one too. There is a downpour now it seems.

I would really like to pass this on to everyone who takes time to visit my blog, leave their comments, encourage me, discourage me and make me feel so much at home. But then most of you have already been awarded this for the wonderful bloggers that you are.

The Thoughtful Blogger Award is for “those who answer blog comments, emails, and make their visitors feel at home on their blogs. For the people who take others’ feelings into consideration before speaking out and who are kind and courteous. Also for those bloggers who spend so much of their time helping other bloggers design, improve, and fix their sites. This award is for those generous bloggers who think of others.”


I would like to pass this on to (names are in a random order)

Sups of Spice Corner
Shn of KitchenMishmash
Coffee of The Spice Cafe
Sra of When my Soup Came Alive
Trupti of The Spice Who Loved Me
Mallika of Quick Indian Cooking
Prema of PremasCookBook
Sharmi of Neivedyam
Pilgrim of The Shadowy Waters
Sunita of Sunita's World
Sig of LiveToEat

I would like to pass on this to these awesome bloggers who left behind a friendly trail but have been busy lately. This is a gentle nudge for them

Shilpa of Flog&Rosbif
Hema of VegConcoctions
Maheshwari of Beyond The Usual
Chandrika of Akshyapatra
Shivapriya of MyCookBook
Lera of Myriad Tastes

Now an award for bloggers who inspire, who make you cook when you don't want to, who force your hubbies to cook weird stuff, the Motivational Blogger award for Coffee and Musical (on the aside, I am doing this under duress). I would also pass this on to Jugalbandi because they really inspired me to blow up an egg in the MW today, I am doing it for sure.

Update: While I am online searching for good lobster places up North before I have even started the journey,and what do I do, but check Blogs.And so I see one more award comes my way from lovely Mandira whose blog was one of the few that inspired me into blogging last year.


Thanks Mandira and yes I do Think a lot, as in "Think what I am going to eat next"
I pass this on to bloggers who I think, think too if not about what they will eat but what others will eat

Asha of Foodies Hope
IndoSungod of Daily Musings
Nandita of SaffronTrail
Indira of Mahanadi
Roopa of My ChowChow Bhath


Since these awards are only for bloggers alone I am not able to pass them on to many non-blogger readers of my blog, whose comments really encourage me, it makes me happy if I have touched their lives in some way and I would really like to say a warm Thank You. I am no great cook, but I find happiness in food and through my blog I try to present a snippet of a life, memories, hopes intermingled with cooking. I want my daughter to have a childhood embroidered with smell of home cooked food so that she can have memories like this when she is alone out there in the world. And so I Thank all of you who take precious time to come and visit and let me continue weaving memories fragrant with the smell of food.

This is for all of you who cook and find joy in it (don't kiss me, kiss all cooks ;-))

Going away up North for a few days, see you once I am back with a easy breezy recipe for a dessert, and no it's not a custard

Trivia: Macrobiotics, meaning literally "big life," is a spiritual, nutritional, and therapeutic system that focuses on the interrelationship of mind, body, spirit, and society. Whole foods, such as brown rice, are central to a macrobiotic diet, and many of the first customers and owners of the alternative food stores were students of macrobiotics. Macrobiotic principles are Pan-Asian in origin, dating back several centuries

Party with Luchi-Alu Charchari

Luchi-AlurDom pic from my previous post

Luchi-Alu Charchari from today

I never thought I will make Luchi again and that too in such rapid succession. But with all the deep-frying going on in Blogosphere I was really very hungry. Still, I restrained myself until Coffee came and commented (on my last post) that she thought the Puri I was talking about was Poori.

What Blasphemy!!!

Here I was being all devotional and reminiscing Jagannatha Puri and here comes this Gujju girl and mixes up not only Lord Jagannatha but a big chunk of geographical land called Puri for a flat deep fried 4 inch diameter bread called Poori

This got on my nerves and I thought I better join the gang and chant “Jai Poori-Bhaji” than chant “Jai Jagannatha” before I am relegated to the dungeons or to Blog Hell or something like that

The fact that a 3 year old would be thrilled by my decision helped.

So I made Luchi again, this time with Alu Charchari.

Here's my Luchi-Alu Charchari joining the Independence Day party at Anita’s.

Luchi with Maple Syrup for little S

Though the Luchi with Alu-Charchari was absolutely yum and the 3 year old had hers with some Maple Syrup too (instead of khejur gur ?), I tell you I am not going to do this again in the near future (which means next month and hope D doesn't read this). Not because it’s going to clog my arteries (What Rubbish!!!) nor for the deep frying smell (which I love) but simply because it’s too much work for me. Really it is.

There is no limit to the number of Luchis I make, they simply disappear as soon as I take them out of the oil. So I go on making them endlessly all the time eyeing them hungrily hoping to get this task over and hog on them, this wait totally stresses me out.
Also the Luchi dough has a considerable amount of shortening so rolling out the luchi is not a very easy thing for me. Next, rolling out the luchi and then frying them at the same time calls for a certain amount of finesse which I woefully lack. So I roll some and then heat the oil and due to my lack of patience half of my luchis don’t puff up well.

Though I am all in favor of making Poori/Luchi the national and even international dish, by if not making it every week at least by voting for it million times.

Here is some Luchi Guide I have come up with which might help the future generation.

Luchi should always be a joint venture. Get someone to fry while you roll or vice versa. Else try to achieve the pinnacle of luchi making and do it all by yourself

For 3 cups of flour 3 tbsp of oil is suggested as mayan or shortening. 2 tbsp works fine though. However if the mayan or shortening is very less the luchi is not soft as it is supposed to be.

The Luchi dough needs to be worked well, this is called “thasha” in Bengali. You need to knead the dough for sometime till you get the smooth end result. The best time to knead the dough is when you are very very angry, kneading vents your anger, therapeutic I tell you.

After making the dough, cover with a lightly dampened cloth or kitchen tissue and let it sit. After half an hour or so proceed to make the balls. (If I refrigerate the dough, after taking out from the refrigerator I just knead it once more with a light sprinkle of flour) Rolling out luchis now is easier.

Use oil and NOT flour to roll out luchis.

The heat of the oil is very essential in the luchi puffing up. Dip a corner of the rolled out dough in the oil, if you see a major bubbly reaction, you know the oil is ready for the luchi

Don't forget to press the luchi with the back of your slotted spatula/chalni. It helps in the luchi puffing up

Eat it hot, don't ever have a cold luchi. Ok you can, when it is part of Pujor Bhog or leftover from your friend's wedding party or leftover from any party if you are a grad student.

The Alu-Charchari is the quickest, tastiest aloo ever, it is very very simple.
All you have to do is this,

Heat the Oil. You can use Olive Oil since there's not much frying but since I was sending this to Anita's I didn't,

Temper with Kalonji/Nigella Seeds and freshly grated ginger.

Add potatoes and sauté, You are not going to fry the potatoes so sprinkle a little water as necessary and cover and cook. Remember to stir in between
Add the green chillies when you are half way and continue, cover, stir, cook routine till potatoes are done.
When done add salt and pepper powder