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.

Go to any personal finance sites or blogs over the past year, and one of the ‘tips’ you are sure to find ‘brown bag lunches’ as one of the first mentioned in saving some extra dough every year. I figured out that packing lunch at home rather than wasting $5 for insipid cafeteria food was an easy way to leave myself with some extra cash after a few months of graduating – though at that time, I relied on mostly rice and curry to lunch on.

I soon found however that one cannot subsist on the typical Indian lunches alone; you get bored and may get tempted to just eat out for a few days. So I learnt to mix up my lunches, taking a variety of wraps, sandwiches, pastas and leftovers from dinner – it made planning for a week of lunches fun, and made me actually look forward to unpacking my brown bag on most days!

One of the easiest lunches to take are wraps; a wide variety of filling work well when rolled up along with a few greens within a pliable wrap, and for the most part you can pre-assemble them the night before or even a few days before.  If you are lucky and have access to a toaster oven at work, you can warm up your wrap ahead of lunch and snicker at suckers paying top dollar for cold / stale / over-sodiumed wraps at the cafeteria. Our old floor at work had a beat up old oven that worked well enough for me to crisp up hummus wraps or tuna sandwiches. A few months ago we moved in to a brand new floor with  luxurious wooden paneling, fancy paintings, a huge kitchen area, 3 microwaves but alas, no toaster oven! So I had to come up with a filling that would taste great cold or at room-temperature – and nothing fit the bill better than a  spicy, smooth curried chicken salad.

Curried chicken salad for me was an accidental invention (I have since discovered that a lot of the TV chefs have their own version). I started off with a traditional turkey waldorf salad recipe, but found it too bland for me. So the next time I had some roasted chicken at hand, I decided to mix it with curry powder; I used desi golden raisins instead of the dark brown Sunkist ones, and substituted cashew pieces for the walnuts since I had those on hand. I omitted the apples, as the salad had enough sweetness from the raisins, and added some cilantro leaves for garnish. I used low-fat mayo to cut down the richness and let the curry flavor come through.

The chunky salad was excellent between burger buns or as a quick snack by itself. However, when I tried to use it within wraps the chicken pieces kept sliding out and led to pretty messy fingers – not what I was looking for at lunch. The solution was simple – use the food processor to make a thick paste out of the chicken, mayo and curry seasonings, and then mix in the cashews and raisins for added texture. Some fresh spinach leaves added color to the wrap, and the chicken paste ensure a stay-in-place wrap filling. You can pre-assemble the wrap the night before and wrap in foil (I cut the wrap in half after wrapping with foil, so I have two easy–to-eat halves); you can toast the tortilla’s ahead of assembling if you prefer a more toasty flavor.

THE RECIPE:

YOU’LL NEED:

• 1 cooked chicken breast, chopped
• 2 tbslp medium curry powder (spicy/mild can be used depending on your taste preference)
• 1-2 tblsp low-fat mayonnaise
• 1tsp ground cumin
• 1tsp garlic powder
• 2tsp salt
• 1tsp black pepper
• 2tbslp golden raisins
• 2tbslp cashews, chopped and toasted
• Few fresh cilantro leaves (optional)
• Fresh baby spinach leaves
• Whole wheat wraps

THE METHOD:

• Place chicken pieces, mayo, curry powder, cumin, garlic powder, salt and pepper into food processor; process till smooth.
• Empty the chicken paste into a bowl, and mix in cashew pieces and raisins.
• Toast wraps for a few seconds if desired.
• For each wrap, use about 4-5 spinach leaves and 1-2tbslp of the chicken salad (depending on the size, thickness of your wraps).
• Roll up wraps and use toothpicks to secure if needed.
• Cover in foil, and cut into halves.

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.

No recipe for tonight – just a simple ode to one of my favorite home cooked meals of all time – fried chicken and waffles. I have never been ‘down south’, but given my love for most southern dishes, I feel like I’d fit right in down in Savannah! Shrimp and grits, buttermilk biscuits, peach cobblers, and ofcourse fried chicken with waffles  – as the song goes, these are a few of my faaavotire things!

Fried chicken with waffles is just one of those perfectly balanced food pairings that offer such a delightful contrasts of tastes and textures- sweet and savory, crispy and soft, tender and with a bite. The dark golden skin of the chicken pairs with the light brown waffle to present some form of a foodie yin and yang – yes, my friends, the first time I savored these two items together in one place, at a now defunct hole-in-the-wall in St.Mark’s Place, the experience was nothing short of religious.

This is also the perfect home-cooked meal to provide some much needed comfort during the long cold winter days; I usually make this for Sunday brunch before I curl up on the couch for an 8 hour football marathon. I’ll post the recipes individually for these somewhere along the line, but just know that nothing is easier that throwing in some chicken pieces to fry while you whip up a batch of whichever waffles you want – I like something hearty with this like my Wheatgerm Waffles.

Making this at home lets you control the greasiness of the chicken, and ensure your waffles are healthy enough to make this sinful Southern Treat almost good for you! You can make the chicken however you want – the traditional buttermilk-fried variety, or my favorite – spicy cajun style. Drizzle on some warm maple syrup onto the waffles, allow some of the syrup to coat the chicken, grab a bottle (or three) of your favorite brew and settle down for some crispy, crunchy, sweet and delicious taste nirvana….you might love the dish so much you may just start talking with a twang!

As promised, here is the recipe for using the NewZealand Cheddar I wrote about yesterday in a quick sandwich. To be honest, the sandwich is so quick and easy to put together that it hardly qualifies as a recipe – but then again, that is what sandwiches are intended to be, aren’t they? A quick and easy meal to put together, especially for lunch on a weekend when you’ve already had a heavy breakfast and need just a small snack to hold you over till dinner.

I am also a firm believer that if you use good quality ingredients, you don’t need a whole lot more to gussy up your meals, especially something that involves no cooking and just merely assembling the ingredients, like sandwiches. For this sandwich, I used organic ciabatta bread from Whole Foods, turkey pastrami from my local deli, and the cheddar – that’s it. A few slices of the pastrami, topped with a couple of slivers of the cheese , thrown into the toaster over for a few mins to warm up and melt the cheese, and viola, my light lunch was ready! The fresh bread crisped up beautifully, and as you can see from the picture, the slices were nice and airy enough to ensure the base didn’t overwhelm the fillings. The cheese added a nice tangy undertaste to the meaty pastrami while allowing the smokiness of the turkey meat to shine through.

If you have your ciabatta sliced thin like I did, you can use this to serve up some nice open-faced sandwiches for a crowd; with football playoff season upon us, this can be your take on home-made panini to serve up! The turkey pastrami offers a nice change from the traditional red meats, and you can throw in a few veggies (I like cucumber slices) to hearten up the sandwiches.

THE RECIPE: TURKEY PASTRAMI ON CIABATTA

YOU’LL NEED:

• 2 slices of Ciabatta bread
• 4 slices (or more to be generous) turkey pastrami
• 2 slices mild cheddar

THE METHOD:

• On one slice of the bread, place the pastrami and then top with cheddar
• Put both slices in the toaster oven, and toast to medium till cheese is melted (you can broil if you prefer).

Growing up in a typical South Indian Telugu household, most of the day-to-day foods we ate were mostly the bread-and-butter pappu’s (lentils) and southern curries. North Indian preparations, like their excellent Chicken curries, were reserved for special occasions when my mom wanted to try something new, or for when we went out to eat. I looked forward to those meals and always promised myself that when I grew up and became an adult myself, I would have such food every day.

As an adult, however, I quickly realized that it was wasn’t healthy for either my body or my wallet to eat restaurant-made North Indian curries very often, and the best way to meet my cravings for these curries was to prepare them at home. However, given the complexity involved in cooking some of these items, we usually resort to pre-made (the horror!) masala mixes to whip up a quick curry whenever we want to.

Now, while this may seem like blasphemy to the usual Indian canon of healthy cooking from scratch, I distinctly remember that even my mom sometimes resorted to using spice mixes just to avoid having to put together and grind each of the dozen or so spices that give each curry a distinctive flavor. Modern mix packets just take this step a bit further by also included oil and salt in the mix; advanced science allowing for vaccum-packing of such mixes without using much, if any, preservatives or additional junk. The preparation just calls for adding the mix, along with some water or milk, along with the meat or vegetables of your choice to a saucepan, heating for the recommended time and getting a piping hot curry onto the table within 15-20 mins. Quickie Cooking at its finest!

So seek out these packets as your local Indian grocer; Parampara and Sanjeev Kapoor make some of the best tasting mixes which don’t contain too much unneccessary filling. Given the simplicity involved in putting these curries together, I decided to put in a tiny bit of extra effort and upping the health-quotient of these dishes by adding in some fresh or frozen vegetables – this helps counter any extra sodium in the mix, while also adding some texture and freshness to the curry. This week we tried the Chicken Kolhapur – a Maharashtrian dish with a spicy, dark sauce.

These packets are a god-send for young cooks just learning to make Indian food - whether you are a new bride trying to impress your H1B-husband, a young bachelor surviving on Indian take-out, or a busy working mom trying to serve something new, but quick, for your brood, you can pick up a bunch of these and try out a different curry every week. As you progress, you will quickly find out which combination of vegetables you like with each curry, and which other little steps you can take to make the curry more home-made – a dash of cream at the end, some fresh coriander leaves cut up for garnish, pre-marinating the chicken in some yogurt to soften ahead of time – the possibilities are endless!

The Kolhapur curry, given the spiciness and pungent sauce, called out for a mixture of green beans, carrots and peas to lessen the heat a bit. We added in a little cream to thicken the sauce, so the wifey could eat the thick curry with rotis while I mixed it in with my yogurt rice. Since there is no hint of tomato in this curry, the rich, deep spiciness permeated through the meat and really made the tongue tingle. I believe this dish ranks as one of the 10 most popular Maharashtrian dishes – although I am sure they cook it a lot more spicier, and with a lot more gravy, than we even would!

You can follow the recipe given on the back of the packet, or use the one we customized for a lower-fat, more fresh version below:

THE RECIPE: QUICKIE COOKING CHICKEN KOLHAPURI

YOU’LL NEED:

• 1 packet Parampara Ready to Cook Chicken Kolhapur mix
• 1lb boneless, skinless chicken, cut into 2-inch cubes
• 1 big yellow onion, sliced
• 1/4lb frozen mixed vegetables (we liked a mix of green beans, carrots and peas)
• 1/2 cup plain yogurt
• 1 cup water
• 2 tbslp vegetable oil

THE METHOD:

• In a large saucepan, add the oil and saute the onions on medium-high heat till tender, about 5 mins.
• Add the chicken pieces and saute for about 5 mins till the chicken pieces turn brown.
• In a separate bowl, whisk together the contents of the spice mix packet, the water and the yogurt until smooth. Add this mixture to the saucepan and bring to a boil. You can add a little more water if the sauce it too thick for your liking, or add some cream to thicken if needed.
• Once it reaches a boil, add in the frozen vegetables and simmer on medium-low for 5-10 mins till the vegetables are tender and the chicken is cooked enough to your liking.
• Serve hot with roti’s or white rice.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:

• To up the flavor of the dish (and forgetting the health factor a bit), saute the onions in butter instead of the oil.
• You can use chicken with bones for this dish also, you will get a deeper, meatier flavor. Remember that such chicken takes a little longer to cook that the boneless version.
• For a richer taste, add a tbsp of cream once you bring the curry down to a simmer.

The $1.50 packet of goodness

After a couple of years of turning to the ubiquitous boxed pasta’s whenever we wanted a quick and cheap Italian meal, lately the wife and I have begun experimenting with some fresh pasta. It all started when I spotted some fresh tagliatelle on sale at the local grocers; once we tasted the true deliciousness of the fresh pasta, it became near impossible to go back to the regular old Barillas! There is something homey and old-worldey about a bowl of fresh pasta tossed in a quick home-made sauce (what, you think we do Ragu?!) and mixed in with some veggies and meats to make it a full meal.

We try to pick up whatever fresh pasta’s are available every few weeks at C-Town or Whole Foods, and yes we shop at both ends of the supermarket spectrum! Last week wifey spotted a packet of potato gnocchi and there was no going back – pasta and potatoes being two of her favorite foods. We made a quick cream sauce, tossed in some onions and fresh red bell peppers, topped it off with some bacon (only on my bowl, ofcourse) and had ourselves a nice hot bowl of pillowy little potato balls.

Now, a word about the Alfredo sauce. It wasn’t a true alfredo in the classical sense of the term – the legend being that the sauce invented by Alfredo di Lelio at his Roma restaurant contained only butter and Parmesan cheese. Instead of the butter, we softened up the veggies in olive oil and added in cream along with the cheese to get that rich velvety texture.

The cream may have overpowered the delicate gnocchi a bit, but it was still a comforting meal on a cold December night. We may stick to a pure butter/cheese sauce next time to get at the heart of the gnocchi flavor a little more when we try this next. The red peppers, soften just lightly so as to leave a little crisp on them, contrasted with the chewy gnocchi perfectly, and brightened up the dish both in taste and in color. I couldn’t resist mixing in a little crumbled bacon for a salty kick also – it wasn’t pancetta, but we weren’t in Rome, after all!

THE RECIPE: GNOCCHI ALFREDO WITH RED PEPPERS

YOU’LL NEED

• 1lb fresh gnocchi
• 1 red bell pepper, sliced medium
• 1 large white onion, sliced medium
• 1/2 pint heavy cream
• 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese (the good stuff, not Kraft!) for the suace + 1/4 cup to sprinkle over pasta, if desired
• 2 tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 2 slices bacon (if desired)
• 1tsp Salt, 1 tsp pepper, and more as per taste + 2tbsp salt for pasta water

THE METHOD:

• In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, heat the oil till shimmering.
• Add in onions and cook on medium-low heat for 3 mins
• Add in red pepper and salt, and continue cooking for another 5 mins till pepper is soft but not fully tender
• Meanwhile, bring water to boiling in your pasta pot as instructed on the pasta packet, usually 4 quarts water for 1lb.
• Once boiling, add in the 2tbsp salt to season the water, and add in pasta. Cook 2-3 mins per packet instructions.
• Add in cream and 1cup cheese to the saucepan with vegetables, and bring to boil.
• Immediately turn heat to low, and simmer for 3 mins till sauce thickens to your liking. Remove from heat
• Drain pasta when done cooking, add immediately to the saucepan with the sauce and mix; you can mix in a separate bowl if more convenient.
• If using bacon, microwave for 2 mins between paper towel sheets, and crumble onto the pasta and mix.
• Sprinkle pasta with leftover 1/4cup cheese and enjoy!

Pillowy potato balls!

Life is a series of coincidences. I’m sure a lot of you can look back upon your lives and some of the coincidences you might have brushed off in the past, but which you can now saw helped shaped your path in one way or the other. I’ve had a few of those myself, and one that relates directly to this blog happened in the most unexpected of all places – a Container Store.

A week or so after I got my own studio and decided that I loved interior decorating and want a clean, modern bachelor pad (!), I went down to the Container Store on 58th street to check for some cool organizational items. At the checkout counter, I spied an eye-catching magazine cover with fresh fruits and vegetables – the Fall 2006 Food issue of Real Simple. For someone who firmly believes in subscribing to magazines and never paying the outrageous book-store prices for a single copy, I just couldn’t resist buying this one.

And what an investment it turned out to be! For a young guy just learning to cook for himself, this one single issue contained all sorts of wonderful advice – from what to stock your freezer with, to how to avoid messy cleanup, to how to put together a menu for a dinner party, and most importantly – easy, simple-to-follow recipes that lead to delicious meals and forever got me hooked on the benefits of cooking at home.

One such recipe, which I’ve since adapted to my own tastes is one that will ease your fears of cooking seafood and serve as a fun little dish to spice up weekday nights – Shrimps Fajitas.  Cumin and chili powder give the shrimp filling a deep flavor; pick up some whole wheat wraps, slap some mayo in it if you are so inclined, add in the shrimp filling and you’re in seafood fajita land.

The flavors may not be authentically Mexican, but you certainly get enough of a South-of-the-Border feeling to make you skip your weekly Taco Bell run! Wifey is not a seafood fan but still asks for a little taste of the onion/pepper curry – the aroma is so tempting.

THE RECIPE

YOU’LL NEED:

• 1 packet whole wheat wraps
• 1 large white Spanish onion, or 2 medium regular yellow onions – thinly sliced.
• 1 medium red pepper – thinly sliced.
• 2 tbslp good extra virgin olive oil
• 1 1lb bag of frozen uncooked shrimp (thawed) OR 1lb fresh shrimp, heads and tails removed.
• 1/2 tsp red chili powder
• 1/4 tsp ground cumin
• salt to taste, start with a teaspoon and add more later if needed
• Handful of chopped cilantro to garnish (optional)

THE METHOD:

• Heat the 2tbsp of olive oil in a saucepan, and add onions. Cook over medium heat for a couple of mins.
• Add red pepper strips and cook till onions and peppers turn tender.
• Add in shrimp, salt, cumin and chili powder, and cook till the shrimp turn pink.
• Add in the chopped cilantro for garnish.
• Heat the whole wheat wrap in a toaster oven or on a frying pan; I like them very crispy, you might want them just warmed up.
• Spread some mayo on one side of the wrap, add in the shrimp filling, and bite in to the delicious shrimp.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:

• You can use Old Bay seafood seasoning if you want some classic flavors
• Parsley can stand in for the cilantro in a pinch, and cayenne pepper for the chili powder
• The filling works great between deli flats or eaten simply with hot white rice also

I don’t meat on  Thursday’s, just a gentle way to practice some restraint in my eating habits I suppose. Which poses a problem while structuring my meals for the day; veggies just lack the protein, and let’s be honest, the sheer deliciousness of a slab of meat! So I have to ensure the meals I prepare for Thursday are creative and tasty enough for me to look forward to eating them without getting tempted to slip in a chicken nugget or two.

Cheese pizza is the ultimate fall-back meal for vegetarians everywhere, my lovely wife included. She will gladly pick up a greasy/oily slice at 3am after a party night – that is the lure of the ubiquitous slice. But given my intense dislike for foods that have been sitting under a heat lamp, and the sheer impracticality of rolling out my own dough every Thursday, I decided to take a healthy shortcut – Whole Wheat Pita Pizza’s! Piled high with fresh veggies and really mozzarella cheese, these beauty’s are a cinch to make, re-heat perfectly in the toaster over, and taste good enough to not even tempt me to throw some pre-cooked chicken on them!

As with many of the other foods I cook often, the pita pizza’s are ridiculously simple to make and versatile enough to keep varying the flavors while sticking with the same basic steps. The cheese (real cheese from the supermarket, none of that processed, packaged stuff, thank you) packs in the protein, while the veggies and the whole wheat base ensure a nutritional punch. Using  a package of 6 store-bought pitas usually leaves us with a couple to throw into the fridge and use as a quick snack over the weekend or to pack for lunch on weekdays.

'Shrooms and Green Bell Pepper - one of my favorite pizza toppings

THE RECIPE:

YOU’LL NEED:

1. 1 package of store-bought whole wheat pita bread (6 pieces)
2. 1 cup of pizza sauce (store-bought, or make your own – recipe to follow soon)
3. 16oz Whole-milk Mozzarella, shredded (save some dough – buy the blocks and shred yourself)
4. 2 cups of fresh chopped veggies of your choice  (I usually use a mixture of onions, mushrooms and bell peppers of all colors)

METHOD:

• Pre-heat Oven to 350 degrees.
• Use 2 baking sheets; place 3 pita breads on each sheet.
• Spread 2 tablespoons of sauce on each of the breads
• Divide the veggies evenly amongst the 6 pizzas, spreading them evenly on top of the sauce.
• Sprinkle the cheese on top of the veggies, dividing again equally amongst all (very democratic of you!)
• Bake in the oven for about 10-12 mins, till the cheese gets bubbly. Keep an eye on them starting at 8 mins, you don’t want the crusts to burn.
• You’re done! Remove from oven, let rest for a couple of mins, slice into quarters and forget that greasy corner pizza stand forever!

The pizza's awaiting the warmth of the oven

ADDITIONAL TIPS:

• If you have cheddar cheese on hand, substitute for some of the Mozza; the mixture of these two gives that classic pizzeria color to your pita’s.
• You can always throw on some pre-cooked shredded chicken along with, or instead of, the veggies.
• Fancy it up by tearing some fresh basil leaves and garnishing the pizza’s with it; just remember to put the basil on AFTER you remove them from the over – burnt basil aint so pretty.