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Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
Season's best wishes to all of you from our kitchen at Ginger & Garlic! May the new year bring us all peace and happiness and get us closer to achieving our dreams, big and small :) Here is to wishing all of you lots of delicious cooking, eating and love to spread this season... Here is a Christmas fruit tree I prepared many years ago which still continues to be a huge reader's favorite after so many years.. super easy and always gets the oohs and aahs and wows whichever Christmas party it goes... enjoy!

Vegetable Biryani
Biryani is like the ultimate rich comfort yet classy food for us. It is also a dish I feel is made for potlucks and get togethers. It travels well and is made to be cooked ahead. You can make it as simple or as rich as you want with addition of roasted cashews, raisins and deep saffron. When perfectly spiced, biryani can be as warming to the Indian soul as people would say chicken soup is over here :) I have made chicken biryani a few times but we make veggie biryani a lot more often. I like the veggies slightly undercooked, but if you want fully cooked veggies then just increase the veggie cooking time by 5 mins and check for doneness. Every biryani needs a yogurt raita to tango. Our yogurt raita is usually super simple, just beaten non-fat yogurt, grated half a carrot, few mint leaves torn, salt, pepper and pinch of cumin powder. Mix, taste and let rest in refrigerator. If there are two things I feel are crucial to this biryani they are fresh mi…

Pesto Pinwheels
Holiday season is a time for family, friends, lots of chats and laughter and an endless stream of potlucks!  We kickstarted the holiday season with two potlucks. I signed up to bring appetizers for both. I love to bring appetizers because that's a course which gets the first share of hungry tummys. And besides with a side of a good glass of wine and a healthy appetite, anything tastes super great and gushing compliments are over to the cook :) I brought these pinwheels for both potlucks. They are super easy - I mean really can not get any easier and are guaranteed crowd pleasers. I have always had people ask for more beyond what I made and that I consider as a crowd pleasing appetizer! During holidays I always keep a packet of frozen puff pastry dough from Trader Joe's and a couple of pestos - the usual basil pesto, sun dried tomato pesto - and that's all you need for this recipe. The only forward looking prep is to thaw the doug…

Banana Cake
It was my daughter's birthday recently.. I can't believe how fast time has flown! She is also my sous-chef in the kitchen - she is foodie by birth and just like her mom loves cooking and eating and restaurant hunting :) Every year for her birthday I try to make fancier cakes like almond cake or chocolate cake with frosting but this year I thought of making a simple banana cake. She loves banana bread and after many iterations I have a much less fattier version of banana bread which we love eating. So I thought why not try that into a cake?  The result was absolutely delicious! And we devoured the full cake in a matter of 2 days. This is absolutely going to be my go-to kids cake.  I avoid frosting as much as I can on kids cakes, so we skipped frosting and instead dusted the cake with powdered sugar. But by all means frost away! Vanilla buttercream frosting would be divine with this cake! Recipe: derived from this banana bread recipe …

Happy 7th Blogversary to Ginger & Garlic!
This November Ginger & Garlic turned 7 - wow, I can't believe it was 7 years ago that I wrote my very first quinoa salad post . I never thought anyone would read it. And I was ecstatic when someone did read it and comment! It has been a long journey since then. To some extent I think the changes in how I blog reflect my own personal journey over the last 7 years. And this 7 year blogversary is making me sentimental enough to walk down the memory lanes.... Carrots with Saffron & Cardamom This blog started off with a simple enough reason. I rarely set foot in kitchen until I moved to US for grad school. I was trying to be a better cook, reading recipes on internet, on the many blogs popping up in 2008-2009 timeframe and experimenting a lot with various recipes and cooking techniques.  I also wanted to improve my photography -- and most importantly, I love to write, always have! This is probably the primary reason I blog; I love to write.…

Happy Thanksgiving and Let The Holiday Season Begin!
A very happy thanksgiving to everyone who celebrated. Our thanksgiving was a quiet affair spent talking and eating and sipping wine with friends at home lazily over the course of an afternoon!  For me there is so much to be thankful for this year - from family and friends to work to our house to my daughter's wonderful teachers and of-course all of you readers! Thanksgiving is officially a home cook's holiday - a time to celebrate every home cook laboring over the stoves or ovens to put a warm and delicious food on table for their loved ones day after day. Thanksgiving always puts me into the gear for the upcoming holiday season and for emptying that recipe bookmarks I let build over the year. The menu this thanksgiving was a set of simple oven heavy dishes. I love oven only recipes in winter, you avoid the wait and watch and stir phase next to the stove which just means extra time for sipping tea or playing with daughter. Pumpkin Pie …

Strawberry Muffins
Really, is being foodie a gene we pass around from mother to child? Last week I reached home from work and I got an excited call from my four year old who has just been picked up from her preschool by her dad. "Mommy, I have a great idea - let's bake something today! Let's bake cherry pie!" she said in her most excited voice.  It was a school night and I had plans for dinner and then had some office work lined up -- so I tried to derail her from the plan "but we don't have pie crust at home honey, so let's bake on the weekend, okay?" I say.  Being a true foodie, to that she says "but we can make it, right? you can ask Google how to make crust! Google knows everything"  hmmm.. "well yes, I can do that but how about we go to park instead or (reluctantly) may be I'll let you watch a Daniel Tiger instead!"... "no, let's bake something please" she says. Wow, if today baki…

Baked Kale Chips
I am a hand-me-down owner of a large vegetable patch dedicated to many varieties of kale at our home. One of the many things the previous owner had loved and cared for when they were here. And even with my minimal care which is mostly trial and error based, the kale is flourishing! Now the only problem is I have to find more ways to use up the kale and fast! :)  I make kale daal, going to try kale paratha, have a favorite quinoa and kale mediterranean salad with almonds (recipe coming soon!) but the one tried and trusted kale recipe we have come to love is this baked kale chips! These chips are nice and crunchy and you can play with seasonings a bit to what you like. Believe me you can't eat just one! But unlike other chips, in this case it's guiltless grazing, cool, right? :) These are super easy to prepare and are very nutritious and healthy snack. I make two baked tray full of kale chips over the weekend and keep a bowl full of chips …

Chard Parathas
Staring at leftover of a large bunch of chard leaves from farmer's market, I tried thinking of some creative ways to use it for a Friday night dinner. Nothing popped up so finally settled on making just the regular usual parathas but for the first time with chard instead of the usual paratha greens of methi or spinach. It turned out great and I thought it was a nice way of adding chard to our meals. Empowered by this experiement, I'll be trying kale parathas next and will of-course let you know how that goes :) Otherwise the recipe is the usual paratha recipe: make a dough of 2.5C whole wheat flour, add finely chopped 5-6 chard leaves, 4-5 cloves of grated garlic, 1 Tbsp vegetable oil, 1/2tsp turmeric powder, 1tsp cumin powder, 1/2tsp garam masala and salt. Add enough water to make a pliable dough (chard releases some water, so add less than what you would otherwise add for 2.5C of water - I usually aim at 1C water). Then let the dough rest fo…

Semi-homemade Falafel Pita Pockets
These falafel pita pockets are the best for warm weather lunches or picnics! They are my go-to Saturday lunch after we have done our Saturday morning ritual of farmer's market and Trader Joe's and there is just not enough time to devote to lunch.  It literally takes 15 minutes to put this together to put lunch on table and that's because it's semi-homemade :) You know how Trader Joe's has this little sampler foods you can try; one day they gave out samples for these frozen falafels and I thought it was great quality particularly for frozen. The cooking instructions accordingly were super simple 3min in microwave or 10-15mins in oven. I usually go for microwave. Each pocket has 12 small sized falafels which is perfect portion for 3 of us.    I always have a packet of whole wheat pitas in the fridge, also from Trader Joe's. We have a great hummus lady at the farmer's market - I regularly buy a packet of her baba ganou…

Mini Blueberry Muffins for Kids Lunchboxes
My daughter, who is now 4+, and I love baking together! Often she is the baking initiator  between the two of us. She mixes the dry ingredients, preps the baking tray, licks the spoon and of-course does the perfect job of anxiously waiting and jumping around to see when the baked goodies would be done :)  Recently we bought a large box of blueberries from Trader Joe's which turned out not as sweet as usual so they ended up waiting to be used up. And when that coincided with my daughter's "let's bake something, Mommy", blueberry muffins it was! I have got to say I love my new mini muffin tray. I always felt the size of a regular muffin too large for one portion and really who has the will power to split the muffin in two and only eat one half? Definitely not a 4 year old or mom of a 4 year old! So when I saw the mini-muffin tray at Target, I quickly put one in the cart along-with a mini-muffin liner set. The recipe is a deriva…

Get Them Before They Go - Asparagus
(Get Them Before They Go: In this series we feature a seasonal produce or fruit our family is thoroughly enjoying these days. Infact we are enjoying it so much that we think it deserves you opening another tab of your browser right now and finding out your nearest farmer's market to visit (or a local CSA or a seasonal grocer)!  We at G&G believe in simple & quick recipes with local and seasonal produce made with care for family dinner tables. Not only you will be enjoying fresh bounties of the nature without the preservatives and 1000s of food miles, you will also be helping the local farmer's ecosystem and sustainable growing. And seasonal vegetables picked hours before just taste so much better - you got to try it to believe! So.. get them before they go) Spring is the season for Asparagus. Last weekend I saw first asparagus shop sprouted up in our farmer's market and bought my first bunch of asparagus for the season. While you can f…

Citrus Blossoms!
Have you ever smelled an orange blossom? If not, I urge you to visit any of the orange farms or the many home grown citrus trees which are blossoming with the heavely smelling white flowers all around California, and perhaps other parts of the country, at this time!  Blood Orange Blossom To me, it's the most refreshing, invigorating and pure smell that has even been invented! Better than any flowers, way better than any artificial fragrances! My earliest memories of citrus blossom are returning home from a fun day at mountains in San Diego. The winding road takes you through many citrus farms.. just roll down the car windows and the enjoy the blossoms, so peaceful! Lemon Blossom Now I am fortunate to live in a house with various citrus trees in our backyard - a bloooming meyer lemon tree, a bustling kumquats (the tiny orange like fruits where the peel is sweeter than the flesh and supposed to be eaten whole) and many variety of oranges which a…

Lo Mein Noodles with Lots of Vegetables
We love our noodle fix at our house! Noodles make a weeknight dinner appearance atleast once every other week for us.  I load them up with lots of vegetables for a heart healthy dinner and they cook so fast - what's not there to love about this weeknight dinner! This is another one of my busy working mom's 20minutes or less dinners. The trick, as always, is a well stocked fridge and pantry. Can't emphasize this enough. Spend that hour on Saturday to make it a priority to visit farmer's markets (if in your area) or any fresh local grocer/CSA and your tummy will thank you for it for the whole week to come! My two favorite noodles to cook with are Soba and Lo Mein. I love them both. Soba tends get slightly stickier if you overcook them even for a minute -- Lo Mein have the advantage of being more unforgiving when it comes to texture. I buy them at Whole Foods but they are available at any asian grocery stores. I have this trick to…

Rustic Apple Tart
This rustic apple tart is perfect for those crazy days when you have friends or family coming over for dinner but have no time left for a home-made dessert - just use a store bought pie crust. Or it's even perfect for those days when you are in the mood for making a pie crust from scratch and have a couple of apples waiting to be used in the fridge.  Either way, whether you use store bought crust or make one home at home, no-one needs to know as a wam slice of this tart with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream is perfection in every bite irrespective! And psst.. another thing no-one need know: when you call something rustic, by definition you make room for imperfections. Imperfections even add to the rustic-ness of the pie, you could say :). So don't let the fear of not being able to roll a perfect round pie crust stop you from a delectable home-made deessert! Rustic Apple Tart Recipe: Rustic Apple Tart Serves 4 large slices Ingredients: 1 9…

5 Foodie Things For the Rainy Days..
It has been raining a lot this winter. Rain is good. Particularly for California this year. One such rainy morning I was sitting next to a window overlooking the early spring flowers and leaves getting a nice good soaking while listening to the steady pounding of rain on our windows, and I found myself deliciously reminiscing of my favorite foodies things for rainy days over the years. And that's how this compilation was born :) I hope the next time rainy gloomy weather strikes, you can add just a bit of sunshine and spice to your days with these rain friendly yet healthy foods! (notice no deep frying or sugar laden recipes below) 1) A steaming hot cup of your favorite beverage with spice! First things first, one thing rain de-facto needs is a steaming hot cup of your favorite beverage just a little spiced. For us it is spiced mulled apple cider and spiced coffee or spiced chai . Both are really simple. For spiced apple cider, I warm regular…

Lentil Avocado Pita Pockets with Yogurt Mint Sauce
Ever since I saw  this  Mark Bittman's sloppy joe pita recipe in Cooking Light I have been itching to try it out. Honestly, what's not there to love when you have warm toasted pitas stuffed with spicy lentil stuffing, some cool mint yogurt sauce and crunchy fresh cucumber! This is a perfect early spring meal. Seems very California too :) Have I told you that a well stocked pantry and fridge is the most well kept secret of eating more healthy meals at home? It really is. I always have a pack of Trader Joe's whole wheat pitas at hand and some dried or cooked lentils ready to go at a moment's notice. One of these weekends we came home late from morning chores. The weather is unseasonably warm and turning spring, so I was craving lighter meals like salads, soups and sandwiches. Quickly chopped some onions, tomatoes and garlic and put the lentils to cook (hardly 10min prep time). The lentil cooking time of around half an hour was largely unattend…

Chocolate Swiss Roll Cake
I wanted to bake something special to bring to a new year's party we were invited to. Baking for a large gathering is always fun, because you can confidently add the sugar and the butter without worrying about the horrific outcome of you finishing all of it alone! (been there, done that, repented by hours on trademill :) )  So I was looking for something more elaborate and this chocolate swiss roll cake recipe which appeared on PW blog recently seemed perfect. I skipped the chocolate ganache because I realized last minute I didn't have enough chocolate in the fridge but the cake was great even without it (though presentation would have been much better with ganache, going to try that next time!) There were two mistakes I made while making this and both ended up with the same root cause of not whipping the batter long enough. Egg and sugar batter had not come to the ribbon stage, though likely a few more minutes would have done it. And the cre…

Tilapia Fish Curry - Bengali Style (v2)
Some recipes never seem to grow old no matter how many times you make them. They only age better with time and their v2, v3 and v4s are born. This is one such recipe for me - I have tried endless tweaks on this fish curry and tried perfecting it a little more every single time. Original version called for various spices, this time I substituted all the spices with curry powder instead. Result was equally delicious! The trick is to find a good quality curry powder if you don't make one at home. I generally use Trader Joe's curry powder and I am quite satisfied with it; it's a very mild version heat-wise but packs a lot of punch. Home-made has it's benefits but using a good quality store bought one is a very useful time saving arsenal of a busy mom. Another good one I like is Maharaja curry powder from Penzy's spices. I own a small bottle of mustard oil and all my Bengali recipes now start with mustard oil instead which I feel is great way …

Fajita Fridays
We love Mexican food at our home and fajita Fridays are one of our favorites! The fajitas below look like a spread but once you make them a couple of times and get the hang of recipe, there are lots of opportunities for process improvement and parallelizing making this a very convenient Friday or any weeeknight 30minute dinner too. When we lived in San Diego there was this place in Old Town called Cafe Coyote which we used to visit every Friday. They have a roadside stall where they serve fresh off the stove tortialla with butter and salsa just 50c each -- which was a steal for my student days! Most Fridays we ate roadside tortiallas but on special occasions we went inside for a more sit down dinner and that was always their fajitas for me.. After years of hopelessly searching for a Cafe Coyote alternative in south bay I started making fajitas at home instead and that's how our fajita fridays were born. I have a set of Mexican spice blends I …

OT: My Favorite Recently Read Early Childhood books
Once a month or so we, the mother daughter pair, visit our local library and borrow like 20-25 young kids books. So many that recently I started carrying a grocery bag to library - no kidding! She makes me read atleast 4 books a day and sometimes 8 on weekends. And 20-25 are just enough to provide variety for the month. I love public library of our new town. It's large, has a varied selection and all books are in great condition and has a lovely decorated children's section that even adults would want to stay and read in. And a big bonus for me is the small coffee nook --- makes for the perfect book reading experience! Image Credit: goodreads.com We borrow varied subjects and authors but once in a while few books just strike a cord! This is a snapshot of some such - not just to list out for readers but also as a memory for me for future.. We love all the Lucy Cousin books - Maisy goes to Hospital, Maisy goes to Movies, Maisy'…