Instant Green Chili Pickle

I love a homemade green chili pickle with Indian food. Really I like anything “pickled” at any time. I used to drink the pickle juice from the pickle jar as a kid. When Rajat’s parents were visiting in the summer, they brought back a Gujrati snack from the Indian store that came with a simple green chili pickle. I don’t remember the name of the snack and it was nothing special in my opinion, but the pickle. WOW. THE PICKLE. It was so good. I had my husband searching high and low for this pickle in the store, but we couldn’t find anything similar sold in larger quantities. We bough the Gujrati snack a few more times and wasted most of the snack but ate all of the pickles quickly. Fast forward to New Year’s, and Rajat’s cousin’s wife had a very similar home made pickle at her house. She gave some basic directions and Rajat found a video online and the rest is mirch achaar (chili pickle) history.

Lentil Salad

This salad is adapted from the French Lentil Salad in David Lebowitz’s My Paris Kitchen. I like the salad as is from his book, but I also like to change it up a bit. I love just making a large batch of these lentils, draining the liquid and storing that separately (it makes the best veggie broth to add to soup), and then just throwing these lentils into whatever during the week. You can make this salad quickly with the lentils already made or you can throw them into your pasta sauce or mix them with some yogurt and greens and eat on toast (a riff on an Ottolenghi recipe) or you can just eat them plain. They keep so well and are my new go-to thing to make on Sundays to have on hand for the week.

Egg Curry

I don’t know why, but egg curry sounded gross to me at first. But as usual, I was wrong. I had it at my SIL’s house a  little while back and loved it. I had to try it, and it was pretty simple and super tasty. Definitely something I will be making many more times. I am slightly addicted to a crispy fried hard boiled egg now.

Cheese Naan

This recipe is from David Lebowitz’s cook book My Paris Kitchen. This past year for birthdays we did not go out to eat. Rather, my husband and I each requested the other person to make a full three meals of our choosing. I requested Indian egg omelet, kuttu (buckwheat flour) pakoras with chai, and sambar idlis with coconut chutney. My husband requested sabudana kichdi, crab cakes, and these cheese naans with matar paneer. I made the cheese naans once about a year before and we both loved them. In fact, we loved them so much we ate way too much of them and then didn’t want them again for a while. They were forgotten and then remembered for Rajat’s birthday. They really a pretty good.

Lentil and Tortellini Soup

I had my husband pick up some tortellini from the store with the intent of making this recipe, but then we kept making other items, going out to eat, or going to someone’s house for dinner. Eventually, my husband was wanting just tortellini with marinara..which is a reasonable request. But I wanted to be sure I tried this lentil soup recipe first before we used up all the tortellini in a normal pasta dish. It worked out. I made the dish. We have tortellini left for some other normal pasta creation on a different day.

3 Bean Vegetarian Chili

This is another recipe I wanted to try as vegetarian. I have had lots of vegetarian “chili”, but they never hit the spot for me. The meat versions were always better in terms of consistency and the spices that were used. I knew it wasn’t the meat that was making the chili that much better, and I just needed to try a vegetarian chili myself. I made this chili exactly like I make my meat chili but without the meat. And it turned out amazing. The flavor and consistency was perfect. I honestly would not guess that this didn’t have meat in it if someone served it to me. 

Potato Soup

Over the holidays, Roshan was sick, Rajat had a bad cold….and we had limited groceries. I wanted to make potato soup, but the last time I made my mom’s version of this for my husband, he wasn’t a big fan. He didn’t like the large pieces of potato or the consistency. I decided I’d try it once more and tweak it some. Sorry mom, but it really was a wonderful update on her classic recipe! Husband, baby, and I all loved this. We happily at the leftovers for the next two days.

Lentil Bolognese

I’m normally not a big new year resolutions kinda girl. I mean, I am forever trying to lose weight so that’s nothing new. However this year, I decided I would go vegetarian for 2018. I’m not going to be incredibly strict- like I will have eggs and would still have a dish that had fish sauce added, but I will not be eating any flesh from animals. It’s not too big of a change for me since I already eat meat very infrequently. However, with this new resolution, I am looking for some vegetarian recipes to satisfy my occasional meat cravings. One meat dish that I sometimes crave is pasta with meat sauce. I decided to try inventing my own lentil-bolognese to substitute for meat sauce.

Vietnamese Summer Rolls

I have been on a bit of Heidi Swanson kick lately. It’s a real love-hate relationship though. I feel as though her life is one large Anthropologie ad. In her cook book Near and Far, she has a section with recipes for “en route” (IDK if that’s what she actually calls it, but I’m calling it that..) Basically it is recipes she makes to take with her on the plane when she travels. One of those recipes was Summer Rolls. (I also call these fresh rolls…not sure what the correct name is.) I will likely never in my life make summer rolls to take on an airplane and instead eat a shitty pizza in the airport (I am too good for plane food but definitely not above airport fast food). Although these will never be an “en route” recipe for me, these were definitely a fun dinner at home recipe.

Paneer Tikka Masala

I don’t have a whole lot to say about this except for, you should make this. I should make this again and again. It’s a bit of prep work and probably more of a weekend or company is coming over type of meal, but it is super tasty in my opinion. The grill always seems like so much work, so I loved that I was able to get these nice charred pieces of veg and paneer with just the oven. Without the grill you of course miss that taste of fire and charcoal, but this is a pretty good second if you don’t have time for grilling, it’s not the right weather, or you don’t have a grill.