We almost always eat dinner together. Rajat and I have done that since we first got married. Even if one of us is working late, we wait for the other. Eating together as a family became even more of a priority after Surya started eating real food. It gives us a chance to sit down with her. To tune everything else out. To turn everything else off (literally). We ask her how her day was and what did she did – even if she doesn’t always answer on point.

Life and work get in the way and sometimes, we just need a dinner without food flying and reminders to use your fork – so we don’t always eat with Surya but we try to do it at least a few times a week.

The biggest challenge to sitting down to dinner of course is no surprise. It’s the dinner part! The food itself. Unless it’s “one of those weeks”, we don’t order in dinner except for a Wednesday night hump-day treat. This is in large part because our Brooklyn neighborhood – Dumbo – has few restaurants which deliver. Narrow that to those which deliver with vegetarian options, and we are left with two choices.

I tried persuading Seamless Web to expand it’s reach, but that failed and so we eat home cooked meals. Not so bad a result – most days. Some days, it’s a real challenge fueled by:

A – Whether there are leftovers in the fridge

B – Whether there are groceries in the fridge

C – How far in advance of dinner each of us gets home

I just found two new things that I suspect will make weeknight meals easier. The first is Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian iPhone app. I love Bittman, but I was a little skeptical about this book because he’s not vegetarian. I am automatically suspicious of omnivores who claim to know how to cook everything vegetarian. I’m also suspicious of anyone who claims to do everything. I haven’t used a lot of his recipes, but I really like how the app is organized with basic techniques for ingredients that you can use to build recipe ideas and variations for recipes. It also works underground which means I can read it on my subway ride to/from work for ideas. This means that as soon as I get home, I have a game plan for dinner.

The second is Baked Tofu (which I looked up on Bittman’s app on my way home from work Friday evening). Baked tofu is versatile – you can use it in curry, stir fry, pasta, salad or sandwich. The downside is that it takes about an hour to bake. But once you put it in the oven, you don’t have to babysit it. And since I knew that baked tofu was my plan, I put it in the oven as soon as I got home. Even better – I baked two cubes and refrigerated one to use in a few days.

I’ve confessed that I cheat a little right? You’ve realized I’m not Martha right? We’re clear on this right? We’ve reached that point in our relationship where we discard with niceties right? Ok. It’s settled. Either you already figured it out or I’m telling you now. I like shortcuts. I love traditional Indian cooking. But I like shortcuts too. I need shortcuts. It’s how I get by.

Dosa is not generally the “easy, go-to” dish. But over the last year, we’ve been enjoying easy dosas made from mixes of nutty and savoury flours laced with spice temperings of smoky mustard seeds, hot green chilis and curry leaves. And when too busy for even that, I just sprinkle in a little salt and cayenne pepper.

These make for a perfect toddler meal too. I tear the dosa up into bite size pieces, and Surya happily dips them into a little yogurt. I also dice up a few pieces of Bedakar’s Mango Pickle for her (what can I say – the kid is about as desi as they come). It’s still a bit too spicy for her young palate so I rinse the pickle in water before cutting and serving.

If you want to see how to pour the dosa, check out this video from the Vah Chef.

Too many wasted meals of grilled vegetable plates for the vegetarian diner at restaurants had left me a little cynical. That changed this summer as we experimented with grilling.  There was lots of grilled corn, grilled stuffed tomatoes, grilled potato kebabs and this grilled cauliflower with a spicy tomato sauce.

I tried to cut the cauliflower into “steaks”. Does that sound hard? It is. I salvaged two “steaks” from one head of cauliflower and then tried to cut the rest into about 1 inch thick large pieces. Then I drizzled them with olive oil and a generous shower of sea salt. Onto the grill they went. Grilled cauliflower has a crunchier bite than sauted, and it gets a nice char that’s unobnoxiously smokey and gives it this great, deep balance to the fresh cauliflower-ness.

The spicy tomato sauce was the best Indo-Italian fusion I’ve experienced since this Roasted Tomato Vindaloo Sauce.

In case you’re wondering, we had this with Paneer Makhani and Crunchy Whole Spiced Potatoes.