As the temperature is firmly in the 80s around here, comes the realization the summer is well and truly upon us. And what better way to celebrate summer sunday’s that with those old-fashioned childhood treats of icecream sundae’s (get it?). While ice cream tastes great during any season, sundaes work best during summer, when the ice cream melts quickly but the addition of a few other select accouterments go a long way towards dragging out the dessert into a delicious meal-ender.

For my first sundae of the season, I chose to keep it simple – because, like with most things in life, sundaes are best when kept simple. Throw on too many ingredients and you lose the essence of this wonderful melding of flavors. So start with your favorite ice cream flavor (or 3, if you really must), add some textured toppings, and a sauce of some sort to bring it all in together – and voila, a perfect sundae. Here, I used vanilla icecream which really is the best base for all kinds of sundae toppings – and complemented it with some of my homemade ganache and some toasted walnuts. Done.

The ganache adds a silky, smooth, warm touch to the cold, classic flavors of the vanilla, while the toasted walnuts (simply heated in the toaster over for a couple of mins) add a crunchiness that works wonders with the softness of the overall dessert. Walnuts also have a subtle, nutty flavor which I really like with chocolate – it adds a bottom note to the sauce without overpowering it like pecans would, for example.

Enjoy the summer, enjoy the ice cream, and there will be other ice cream sunday’s to follow, I am sure!

Watermelon is a terrific fruit to keep in the fridge as we head in to the warmer months. The fruit is loaded with enough water (duh!) to act as a wonderful hydrant, while providing you with enough fiber and other fruity goodness. The fruit is pretty sweet all through the year – you just have to pick a dark red fruit which feels heavy for its size.

Watermelon is also wonderful as a stand-alone dessert, since its subtle sweetness stands up well to a variety of add-ins and seasonings. The wifey loves her watermelons sprinkled with some salt and pepper; if the fruit is not as sweet as you like, you can always add in some sugar. My favorite add-ins are some freshly grated ginger and some lemon juice. The watermelon cubes can be stored in the fridge for up to a week this way, and are delicious eaten straight out as a cold treat.

There is really no recipe needed for this – it is as simple as cubing up some watermelon, grating some fresh ginger over it and squeezing in some lemon or lime juice over it. Mix it all up, add in some sugar for sweetness if you want and you’re all set. At times, I throw this in to the blender with some ice for a wonderfully refreshing drink also.

I love pizza, but I have become something of a pizza snob recently – I’ve tried most of the home delivery options available and they are, to put it kindly, eatable maybe once an year. There is definitely some good pizza to be had in little restaurants and pizza places all over New York, ofcourse – but for days when we are just looking to stay home I and have a pizza nothing but my own home-made pie will do.

For days when I don’t have a ball of pizza dough waiting for me in the freezer, I’ve come up with a way to get the same thin-crust crunch and cheesy goodness that a pizza provides – Pizzettes (or tartlettes, or flat mini pizzas, or whatever you want to call them) made from good old Puff Pastry sheets! We always have some sheets lying around in the freezer – and these little pizzette are so easy to put together individually that they can be customized to whatever toppings we are in the mood for.

Last night, we had frozen corn and broccoli on hand -  the wife just wanted corn whereas I went in for more texture and nutrition and piled on the broccoli. We just thawed the veggies in the microwave, used some regular tomato ketchup as a pizza sauce, roughly cut the mozzarella and baked these individually in the toaster over. Talk about an easy-going dinner – no fuss, no hassle and ready in a few mins with minimal clean up - wonderfully easy for a Thursday night!

THE RECIPE: PUFF PASTRY PIZZETTES with Broccoli and Corn

YOU’LL NEED:

• A few sheets of Puff Pastry – thawed per instructions on the package, makes 4 pizzettes if you use the regular Pepperidge farm versions
• 1/2 cup of frozen corn and broccoli, thawed in the microwave
• 4 tblsp tomato ketchup
• Fresh Mozzarella cheese, sliced or shredded

THE METHOD:

• Pre-heat the toaster oven to 450 deg F
• Roll out the puff pastry sheets into a rectangle, and divide into four mini-rectangles
• Roll out each mini pizzette into the desired thinness – you want to leave them slightly thick if you want more toppings on them
• Fold each edge about an inch thick for each of the pizzettes, and seal the edges by using the tines of a fork and press the corners down into the dough.
• spread about a tbslp of the ketchup on each pizzette, taking care to stay within the folded edges.
• Spread with the thawed veggies and cover with shards of the cheese.
• Toast individually (or two per cycle if you have the space) in the toaster over at 450 for 10 mins or so till the cheese bubbles

As anyone who has grown up in India over the past few decades will tell you, Maggi noodles are one of the most craved breakfast items on weekends. The promise of ’2-minute’ cooking was a boon to the Indian mom’s who had to feed hungry tots in a hurry; I truly believe these instant-cook noodles were the initiator of the fast food industry to desi households. And the genius behind the noodles was the flavor packets included with each – with flavors well suited to the Indian palate. Plus, the marketing campaign to include stamps in the packets for an year was brilliant – like with me, I’m sure philately was introduced as a hobby to many Indian kids as a result of this promotion.

Masala was the ubiquitous flavor as I was growing up, but there were various other flavors introduced along the way. The green capsicum was my personal favorite (didn’t hurt that I found some ‘rare’ bird stamps in those packets!), but chicken was always around, and I think Shrimp was introduced at some point also (and pulled back in a couple of years, apparently the instant craze didnt extend to seafood). I remember getting up on Sundays excited to get started watching the Jungle Book and other Sunday cartoons, while my mom got a steaming hot bowl of Maggi ready for me – what a treat!

My first few years in the US, back in the early 2000s, we had a few of the regular Maggi flavors available – and my early cooking experiments began with adding vegetables, spices and soy sauce to regular Maggi. Lately, there have been so many new flavors of Maggi available that the wifey and I have been finding  a new monthly favorite! Our fave for the past month? Machurian Maggi – a perfect combination of the desi-Chinese flavor and the quick cooking Maggi magic.

I just add a few freshly chopped scallions (green onions) and we are set to enjoy a delicious weekend breakfast!

I am a big fan of having eggs for breakfast – they are easy to eat, fill you up with a nice dose of protein, and are damn tasty in whatever form you choose to have them – half-boiled with a pinch of salt, omelets, or heuvos rancheros if u’re feeling frisky. An egg salad, however, often gets treated as a lunch – but lately I’ve been making a simple version of it that really hits the spot for breakfast and almost makes me wake up a few mins early just to enjoy it in peace.

Using celery adds a nice crunch to the salad, and I add a nice dollop of dijon mustard to punch up the flavor. Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper round out the flavorings -  eggs and mayo being the building blocks that make up this really easy to put-together recipe. Eat it by itself for breakfast (great cold out of the fridge), or if you really want you can make a lunch of it by bringing it to room temp and sticking it between some deli flats.

THE RECIPE:

YOU’LL NEED:

• 4 hard-boiled eggs, chopped
• 1 rib of celery, chopped
• 1 tbsp Dijon Mustard
• 2 tbsp low-fat mayonnaise
• fresh cracked sea salt and black pepper, to taste

THE METHOD:

• Mix all ingredients together and store in a container in the fridge. That’s it, that simple!

This was an easy appetizer we made towards the end of the summer, when delicious, ripe heirloom tomatoes were still available at our local farmers market. Why am I posting this now, when there are still snow showers in the air? Well, because I am tired of this dark and gloomy weather – it is March already, shouldn’t we be looking forward to some brightness?! This eatlovecook take on the classic Italian combination of tomatoes and mozzarella is sure to brighten up your mood and your palate instantly.

This is such a quick snack to make, and it’s one of those dishes where the taste comes purely from the ingredients, so make sure you have the best ones available. Thick slices of the sweet, succulent tomatoes get covered with a slab of fresh, soft mozzarella (buffalo would be best) and gets broiled in the toaster oven. A little salt, pepper and a quick drizzle of olive oil is all the additional flavor you’ll need – we also like a tiny piece of red pepper for texture and color on top. That’s it – throw it in the oven for a couple of mins – no fuss, no effort – just what a lazy summer day calls for!

THE RECIPE: Heirloom Tomatoes with Mozzarella

YOU’LL NEED:

• Few thick slices of fresh heirloom tomatoes of different colors (or regular beefsteak tomatoes if making in winter)
• 2×2 inch slice of fresh buffalo mozzarella (or whatever mozzarella you have on hand)
• drizzle of extra virgin olive oil
• few small pieces of red pepper to top, if desired
• salt and pepper to season

THE METHOD:

• Top each slice of tomato with the mozzarella slice and pepper piece
• sprinkle salt and pepper on each slice, and place slices on the toaster oven pan
• drizzle the oil on top of the slices, and broil till cheese melts

Just a slab of Mozza will do ya!

One of the tastiest and easiest ways to get a quick side of veggies prepared is to roast them, as I’ve written about before. This is especially true for vegetables that have a nice, sweet flavor of their own, like the ubiquitous butternut squash, which has lately been bandied about in food magazines and TV shows as the perfect winter vegetable. Roasted butternut squash, which you can thrown in to the oven without much of a fuss as you go about your other baking, added a perfectly light side of vegetables to my Thursday dinner; I can also see it being a good complement to heavier meat dishes like tandoori chicken or a roast loin of pork. Plus, this is a veggie that is chockful of vitamins and minerals that will help you brave the chill.

The butternut squash has a subtle flavor reminiscent of pumpkin (and from what I read, it treated interchangeably with a pumpkin Down Under), which gets concentrated through a nice long roast in the oven. To intensify the sweetness and to get a nice caramelized exterior, I tossed the cut cubes with some olive oil (side-stepping the melted butter a lot of the recipes called for) and brown sugar – this resulted in a lovely golden brown char on a few pieces and infused the vegetables with a gentle, warm sweetness.

Don’t be intimidated by this bulbous vegetable with tough skin; with a sharp knife and a sturdy cutting board, it is quite easy to cube into pieces. A strong vegetable peeler is needed to remove the tough skin (I cut the squash into flat quarters first, scoop out the insides, peel the skin and then cube them); however, the long roasting time ensures that you can leave the skin on if you like – I couldn’t tell the difference between pieces I left the skin on and the ones I removed it for after the roasting was done. Or, you could just bypass all this and pick up a bag of pre-cut cubes of the squash that are increasingly available at a wide range of grocers!

THE RECIPE:

YOU’LL NEED:

• 1 butternut squash, cubed into 1-inch pieces
• 2 tbslp extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tbslp brown sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper (optional, if you want some heat)

THE RECIPE:

• Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees F
• Toss squash cubes with salt, olive oil and brown sugar (and pepper if using), ensuring the pieces are evening coated with all ingredients
• Use a large-enough baking dish to ensure all pieces are spread in one layer; line with foil and put in the squash mixture.
• Bake for 40 mins and serve warm.

The end of Superbowl Sunday marks the beginning of a couple of dreary, cold, dark winter months – February and March continue to be cold in Jersey, with no sports to look forward to till the April NFL draft and no warm weather to look forward to till spring. So to cheer myself up, I’ve started treating myself to a weekend soda-pop treat – orange creamsicle sodas. The bright orange color and fizziness of the drinks offer a wonderfully zesty alternative to the snow and cold outside, and they are a cinch to make so you can enjoy them on a moments notice.

Get yourself some orange-flavored soda (I prefer Fanta, but Crush is easier to find around here), some heave cream, and a tall glass – that’s all you’ll need. The creaminess of the drink is balanced by the sweet, orangey fizz of the soda – and the white foam that forms magically on top is a thing of beauty to look at, and also offers a nice head comparable to some of the best draughts. Sit back, sip your creamiscle soda and wait for the warmer days of spring (and add a peg or two of vodka if you need a little more cheer!)

THE RECIPE: ORANGE CREAMSICLE SODA:

YOU’LL NEED:

• Store-bought Orange Soda, chilled
• Heave Cream

THE METHOD:

• In the bottom of a tall glass, put in 1/8 cup of cream (adjust according to taste)
• top glass with cold orange soda
• Mix gently with spoon without disturbing the foam head.

Sometimes you want the taste of pizza without going through all the effort of getting a pizza crust ready, crank up the oven, load up the pies and wait for the piping hot pizzas. And sometimes, you have some left-over pizza sauce you need to use up, some veggies about to go bad, and some cooked chicken that you’ll too lazy to make chicken salad from. On those days, using deli-flats and the toaster oven to pull all these ingredients together into mini pizza-type ‘pizzettes’ is the perfect answer to getting a quick pie fix.

Deli-flats (we get the Whole Grain Pepperidge Farm version at our local mart) are 100-calorie flat breads cut in rounds – you can use them for putting together some healthy sandwiches, or use each half of the flats as a base for these pizzettes. The recipe is customizable to whatever odds and ends you have left in your fridge, and any cheese you throw on there will work – just make sure you broil them enough to melt the cheese fully to get a nice pizza taste. They make a great dinner along with some soup, or for a weekend lunch.

THE RECIPE: DELI-FLAT PIZZETTES

YOU’LL NEED:

• A packet of Deli flats (thin rolls)
• Some pizza-sauce (homemade or store bought)
• Few sliced or chopped vegetables (I like green pepper and onions)
• A bit of cooked chicken breast (roasted will do just fine)
• Mozzarella cheese to top – sliced or shredded (Cheddar or other quick melting will work too)

THE METHOD:

• Turn toaster oven to broil.
• On each half of the deli flats, spread about a tblsp of pizza sauce
• Layer on a few chopped veggies and chicken; do not overload the toppings, this is after all a mini-pie
• Top with cheese (if using both cheddar and mozzarella, sprinkle cheddar under mozzarella)
• Working in batches (depending on the size of your toaster oven), put in each pizzette in the toaster oven and broil till cheese is melted and bubbling.

To avoid getting bored on Veggie Thursday’s, the one day in the week where I eat no meat (and to be honest, crave for on occasion), I’ve taken to experimenting with new vegetables and techniques. My endeavor for tonight was to finally use up the container of baby-corns the wifey and I had picked up on a whim a week or so ago, but had been too lazy make a Chinese dish out of as we’d originally intended. I was still not feeling like putting too much effort in to preparing them, so the answer simply was to go a little more East and prepare an easy, simple, Japanese-style tempura batter and deep fry them.

Ok, so this was a bit of an easy way out -  who doesn’t enjoy vegetables battered (the good kind involving flour and water) and deep-fried into an appetizers? But tempura-style deep frying involves no fussy seasonings and a very thin crust of batter, allowing the natural flavors of the vegetables to take the foreground. Deep frying them at a high temperature for very little time ensures a crispy exterior while keeping the amount of absorbed oil to a minimum. Just a few cracks of sea salt over the hot tempura is all the additional flavoring you need – like I said, not very fussy at all, and perfectly easy and appetizing for a tiring Thursday evening!

Babycorn has such a delicate flavor and an amazing texture – biting into the tempura add a little crunch to the rough and chewy vegetable. Corn is also a healthy, light vegetable which is available pretty much all year round around where I live, and now that I know an easy way to use up any babycorn we forget to use, it may just become a new staple around our house!

THE RECIPE: BABYCORN TEMPURA

YOU’LL NEED:

• 1 small container of Babycorns
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup ice-cold water
• salt to taste (preferably sea salt)
• Vegetable oil to fry

THE RECIPE:

• Pre-heat oil to 375degress
• Whisk together the water and flour to make a light batter
• Do NOT overmix; it is ok to leave some lumps in the batter
• Toss in babycorn pieces and mix to coat each piece fully with the batter
• Working in batches, immerse the babycorn into the oil and fry for 2-3 mins; remove when crispy and light brown
• Check the first batch in about 2mins; you don’t want the tempura to become dark brown

ADDITIONAL NOTES:

• Ensure the water is really ice-cold. I leave a few ice cubes in the batter to ensure it remains cold through the various batches; cold batter = crispy tempura.
• It bears repeating – do not overmix the batter. It is ok, in fact preferable if you want to be really authentic, to have some lumps in the batter. These lumps will lead to air-pockets that will blow up into nice crunchy holes in your tempura.
• This recipe works well for carrots and green peppers also. I usually throw in whatever other veggies I have on hand to the remaining batter – might as well use them up when the oil is hot!
• I first started using this batter to make Shrimp Tempura, one of my favorite dishes of all time, and will post a step-by-step of it at some point. Just be careful when using raw seafood – you may want to cook it a bit longer than the veggies.