November 14 cooking

Read more here about the Madhur Jaffrey project - one of my 2010 goals. For an index of recipes, click here.

Biscuit woke me up at the unearthly hour of 8 on Saturday morning*, so I dragged myself into the kitchen, and got to work. I cooked chickpeas for use through the week, and I also cooked 3 kinds of Indonesian sambal.

Now, I have many Life Theories. One of them is that while we might eat in a multi-ethnic manner, for breakfast, we need food similar to the food we grew up eating.

(This is true for me. Your mileage may vary.)

I'm not a big breakfast eater, but I grew up eating savory stuff for breakfast, not sweet. Which is why, I will happily eat cereal for dinner, but cannot abide it for breakfast. I prefer scrambled eggs to pancakes, and I normally eat toast and hash browns at a diner.

Which might explain my very peculiar breakfast. All savory, all delicious.

Breakfast - November 12. From top left to bottom right - Spicy peanut sambal, Sambal tomat (Hot tomato sambal) and Chili sambal, from the book. served with pan-fried tofu and steamed broccoli.



I went out to grab drinks with friends in the evening, and came back home at 2.00am. As is typical for me, I needed a post-drink snack.

My best post-drinking snacks are always potatoes, fried with red chili powder. However, that had the potential to set off the fire-alarm (it was post-drinking, after all) and therefore, I settled for quickly making a yogurt, potato and chickpea snack. Potatoes cooked in the microwave for 12 minutes while I got the rest of the ingredients together.

Post-drinking snack - Yogurt with potatoes and chickpeas in the Delhi style



While it didn't hit the spot quite the same way as fried potatoes, it was nonetheless tasty. My potatoes were a bit rubbery though, and I wonder if that's because of the microwave.

Post-script.

If you are reading this and thinking - this is all great and everything, Reethi, but where the heck is the sewing? - no fear, I'm sewing. I'm currently making an October BWOF dress in a grey fabric for work. (I desperately need chic winter-appropriate, work wear.) I followed Ann's excellent advice, and proceeded to spend a few hours yesterday morning sewing the lining. I love the way the lining fits, (Yay!) and can now proceed to cutting my main fabric and sewing the actual dress.

Here's Biscuit supervising the sewing.



*Although tempting, I did not strangle Biscuit for waking me up at 8. She remains unharmed, and continues to run my life.