I tried to just take this as a compliment

Here are five recipes from around the internet that I’ve been making. Check them out!

1. Simple Asparagus Soup – The two things that I love about this soup are that it is truly simple to make and that the curry paste gives it a gently kick of heat which makes it light but also belly warming. And it’s very simple to make.
2. Rigatoni with Easy Vodka Sauce – We love a saucy rigatoni in vodka sauce, but I had never tried to make it at home before. True to its name, this recipe is easy. It’s also finger licking good. The double concentrated tomato paste is a must.
3. Crispy Shallot Spring Rolls with Seared Tofu – The light, rice paper wrapped rolls are a perfect appetizer or side for a dinner of red curry and rice, which is what we had. The crunch from the crispy shallots makes them that much more delightful.
4. Instant Pot Butter Chickpeas – This easy Indian recipe from one of my favorite Indian Instapot bloggers has been appearing on our dinner table at least once every two weeks. I opt for canned chickpeas instead of dried chickpeas (less planning required) which means you only need to pressure cook for 5 minutes instead of 35 minutes and can reduce the water by about half. I’ve also substituted paneer for the chickpeas and would try potatoes as well.
5. Spinach Lasagna – I made a vegetarian version of this Spinach and Beef Lasagna (I substituted crumbles for the beef). The layering instructions in this recipe result in light, thin layers of cheese, sauce and filling. The butter cubes on the top are a bit decadent but they did give it a really nice golden crusty top.

Plus this stir fried veggie loaded noodles is quick and easy to make, packed with tons of veggies and proteins and belly warming.

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You can easily use other proteins and veggies based on what you have in your fridge. Here are some substitutes to try:

• Tofu, paneer, tempeh or 2 scrambled eggs in lieu of the seitan
• Peanuts for the cashews
• Zucchini, squash, red or green bellpeppers, snow peas, red onions, asparagus and mushrooms. The possibilities are for real endless here.

For the noodles, I used whole wheat linguine but you can also opt for more authentic Chinese noodles, Hakka noodles or soba noodles.

Serve hot and be sure to scrape up the crispy bits from the bottom of the pan.

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Adapted moderately from The Kitchn’s Easiest Chicken Chow Mein.

Indian restaurant paneer makhani is next level comfort food…creamy tomato sauce, mild spice in the background and pillowy cubes of chewy paneer. It’s not surprising that paneer makhani has become Surya’s go to Indian food.

Of course, this means that any paneer makhani that I make at home has very strong competition to measure up to restaurant paneer makhani. Like most 9 year olds (happy birthday to my newly minted 9 yo!), she’s not persuaded by  my rationale argument that my recipe doesn’t call for heavy cream and loads of butter.

But this version of paneer makhani has elicited a “restaurant worthy” response from the family. It uses a cashew sauce for creaminess. My original recipe calls for almond butter or cashew butter plus yogurt to get that creamy consistency. Both are winners but this version is tops in our house for right now.

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Removing the skins from the tomatoes is another key step to achieving a smooth, restaurant style sauce. It also helps to bring out the juices in tomatoes which is great if you have a few less than plump, red tomatoes on hand.

To skin tomatoes, you simply cut an “X” into the bottom of the tomato like shown above. You only need to go an inch or so deep, not all the way through. Drop the tomatoes into boiling water for a few minutes until the skins start to peel. Take them out and place in a colander then run cold water over them. When they are cool enough to handle, the skins slips right off.

You can easily substitute tofu, seitan or chicken for the paneer in this dish. Chickpeas would also work well.

Let’s talk about paneer for a minute because I get a lot of questions on this front.

Do I make my own paneer? I generally do not make my own paneer sheerly out of a lack of time and pre-planning. Also, it take a lot of milk to make not a lot of paneer.

Where can I buy paneer? You can find paneer at any Indian grocery store. I recommend buying it from the refrigerated section rather than frozen section if possible because it is softer when it has not been frozen.

What brand of paneer do you buy? I used to buy Nanak brand paneer, but more recently I have found that Swad brand paneer is softer and tastes fresher. It has a long shelf life so I buy a few packages and keep them in the refrigerator. If the paneer does not feel fresh and soft when I take it out of the package, I cut it then drop it into a pot of boiling water for 3-5 minutes.

Do I have to fry the paneer? I often am asked if the paneer needs to be fried before putting it into the curry. While I do fry it for some curries, I find that it is not needed for this thick, rich tomato sauce. So I cube it up and drop it right into the sauce. See above for my note about putting it into boiling water to soften it up if needed.

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But if you are like me and ask way too many questions, then you probably already discovered that most Thai curries use fish sauce. And most Thai restaurants use pre-made curry paste which contains fish sauce. On occasion, we’ve found a Thai restaurant that makes their paste from scratch and will omit the fish sauce for us but this is rare and those restaurants seem to have come and gone.

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Although I’m still on a near constant hunt for vegetarian friendly Thai restaurants, I’ve also learned to make a solid red curry paste at home thanks to Bowl by Lukas Volger.

Learning how to make a good curry paste recipe is in the category of “very useful kitchen basics to master.” Once you have a good curry paste recipe and a batch of the paste on hand, cooking the rest of the dish becomes very straightforward.

This red curry paste recipe can turn out very spicy depending on the chiles you use, which is perfectly acceptable in my book because it means I always end up with some curry paste to freeze for later. Translation: leftover curry paste for a second meal makes it worth getting out  the spice grinder and the food processor.

Once you’ve made the red curry paste, you can use it in a lot of different ways from a big vegetable curry served over rice or ramen or soba noodles or add a bit to scrambled eggs, a marinara sauce or soup base to kick it up a bit.

A hearty vegetable curry is my favorite. I generally pair up whatever vegetables I have in the fridge but focusing on combining vegetables which are a mix of colors and textures will help provide a good balance. I also generally limit it to 2-3 vegetables to avoid overwhelming the curry. Some of my favorite combinations are cubes of tofu or seitan with:

• Broccoli, red bell pepper and mushrooms
• Carrots, potatoes and kale 
• Eggplant, broccoli and mushrooms  

Bonus points if you top the bowl off with a slices of a hard boiled egg, diced cherry tomatoes and a handful of toasted peanuts.

We usually buy a high quality seitan as an alternative to tofu as a protein and texture add for curries and stirfry. After making this seitan – or chickwheat shreds – from Avocado and Ales, I’m not sure we’ll go back to the storebought version. The homemade version was softer, more absorbent of the curry sauce and way more cost efficient than buying seitan.

Here’s the recipe for Lukas’ red curry paste from his book, Bowl, which is one of the most used cookbooks in my kitchen right now. The pictures are beautiful and the book is full of fresh, flavorful vegetarian recipes to make ramen, pho, bibimbap, dumplings and other one-dish meals.

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Food is an interesting thing when you lose a loved one. Eating it, thinking about it, writing about it – it all seems trivial compared to the loss. On the other hand, my connection to food is so deeply grounded in my relationship with and memories of my Dad.

Food was my Dad’s language of love.

My Dad learned to cook out of necessity. He spent much of his adolescence as an orphan – my Dad’s mother died when he was a toddler and his dad died when my Dad was in his 20s. He learned over that time to become proficient at South Indian cooking.

My Dad made me after school snacks of buttered lima beans, cheesy broccoli spears and peppery green peas while he and my mom made South Indian meals that we ate each night. As a mom, I see the value in the healthy eating habits he set for me. And I have to hold back when my daughter complains that we’re eating Indian food “again” (my response: WE’RE INDIAN. We eat INDIAN FOOD.).

Family weekend outings were to the international farmers market and Indian grocery store. A farmers market, Asian grocery store or even the international vegetable section of the FreshDirect app still gets me excited in a kid in a candy shop kind of way.

As a college student, my trips home were met with all of my favorite foods. My bags always contained goodies to take back. When Rajat met my Dad, they bonded over Rajat’s love of South Indian food – dosas, idlis, gun powder, rasam (even if he did drink it from a bowl!) and dahi vada. It was the foundation of not only my Dad’s love for Rajat but my mom’s too.

The language of love through food spread to my daughter, Surya. Dad would send me recipes for making kohlrabi, noting that it helped breastfeeding moms produce more milk. He also sent that recipe to my sister and brother who pointed out that while they were thankful for the information, they were not breastfeeding mothers!

Surya quickly learned that visits from her ThaTha (my Dad) and Avva (my Mom) also meant ThaTha okra was on its way and that he would ensure Avva made her crispy potatoes, dosas, lemon rice and magimum (curd rice) with homemade lemon pickles.

My Dad has stopped cooking as much in the last few years. Our pestering about reducing sodium and fried foods took some of the fun out of it for him. But my Mom stepped right in and picked up where he left off making his and our favorites. 

Food is powerful. It not only nourishes our body, but it brings families together, kindles memories of loved ones and allows us to carry on traditions and cultures. It showers love upon family and friends.

Earlier this week, I was missing my Dad. I made a simple tomato garlic rasam, a daily staple that that my Dad would make in a minute. He relished it for the rich tangy, spicy garlicky taste. He would prescribe a peppery version for a cold, a lemony version to soothe a sour tummy and a soar throat and so on.

Later that night, over a bowl of garlic rasam and crispy potatoes, Surya, Rajat and I remembered my Dad fondly and laughed together over my his love of those foods and the times we shared them together. Funny enough but we have done that a lot since my Dad passed away.

#FoodstoRemember

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In loving memory of my Dad, Gopalakrishnan Balasubramanian (September 11, 1940 – July 21, 2018).

The space over at 101 Cookbooks has been one of my favorite food blogs for years. The photos are beautiful, the writing light and whimsical and the recipes wholesome and delicious. Given Heidi’s more Martha Stewart than Semi-Homemade with Sandra Lee. So it was a surprise (albeit a pleasant one) when she got in on the Instapot action with this dedicated Instapot section on 101 Cookbooks. Heidi’s turmeric spiced congee had been on my list to try for a few weeks.

Congee is a savory Asian rice porridge dish. The mixture of brown rice (I used brown basmati) and quinoa created a creamy, toothy base topped with crunchy peanuts, fresh microgreens, sautéed bok choy and crispy tofu plus a healthy drizzle of toasted sesame oil and Japanese 5 spice.

A breakfast – or lunch – of champions. I loosely followed Heidi’s recipe which you can find here.

It sounds a little over the top but when you really think about it, it’s very practical. The number of times I’ve found myself thinking, “If only I had another Instapot, right now I could start the…” But it would probably take relocating to the suburbs to gain enough storage space so we’re a one Instapot only household.

I’ve really been loving 101 Cookbook’s Instapot recipes. While I was making her Brown Rice Turmeric Congee, I prepped all of the ingredients for My Heart Beet’s Indian Onion Masala.

I went a little over the top and also made these spicy green beans from Dakshin Vegetarian Cuisine from South India. The title is pretty self-explanatory. It took me about a year since my dad gave it to me for me to get over my fear of cooking South Indian food. More to come on that front.

Onion-ginger-garlic-tomato masala forms the base of many North Indian curries. A few weeks ago, I made a vat of it in my Instapot and froze it in a silicone muffin tray.

I’ve used it to make Paneer Makhani, Yellow Split Pea Lentils (Toor Daal) and Spinach with Chickpeas. It reduces cooking time to under 20 minutes.

Not all Indian cooking takes forever. In fact, most Indian cooking doesn’t take forever. But this paneer bhurji is particularly fast and satisfying weeknight Indian main dish. It calls for ingredients you most likely have on hand – peas, a tomato, onions and a dash of milk – plus basic Indian spices of garam masala, cumin powder, coriander powder, chili powder and turmeric. And of course, paneer.

I must admit that I used fresh paneer which I made over the weekend prior. Don’t hate me for that. I’ve not gone Martha Stewart. It’s just that t’s actually super easy. But I’ve also made it with store bought Amul paneer and it’s really good with that too.

If you decide that you want to make your own paneer, here are the basic steps:  bring about a half gallon of whole milk to a high simmer around 200 degrees (the milk will look foamy although I use this infrared thermometer) then add 1/4 cup lemon juice. Let it sit for 10 minutes so the curds separate. Then strain it through a cheese cloth collecting the liquid – or whey – in a pot. Squeeze the curds in the cheesecloth to remove any extra whey. Pat the curds into the shape of a block then wrap the cheesecloth around the block. Put it between two plates and place in fridge with a heavy object on top of it.

This is the curds separating after I added the lemon juice…

And this is the fresh paneer after the whey was strained out…

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Whey has a buttery, milky golden taste to it. Imagine drinking the remnants of a can of condensed milk, sneaking the last bit of heavy whipping cream, licking up the browned left behind bits of browning butter….all things I’ve never (ever) done but (imagine) would be delicious. I used all of my whey in this soup which means we enjoyed every last bit of paneer making quite a few times.

This is an oldy but goody from May 2011. The last time I made these, we dunked them in a zaatar sumac spiked yogurt dip. This time around, they disappeared so quickly from the counter that there was no time or need for a sauce.

You can find the recipe and original post here.

Here are some of my favorite recipes that might warm you up on during the blizzard:

Coconut Cashew Potatoes

Red Lentil and Smashed Garlic Soup

Stone Soup

Spinach and Chickpeas Made Easy

Eggplant Parmesan

Puff Pastry Samosas