Nothing like afternoon tea and some beauty treatments to relax on a manic Monday. On Monday's Chigh Tea Pop-Up event, we served traditional Indian masala chai, savory snacks like the haandvo from our feature in Eating Well magazine this month, Indian-inspired tea sandwiches, cardamom shortbread cookies and more! The setting for our tea party? Pieces Austin's charming studio on Kerbey Lane. Their impeccably curated vintage tableware collection will make you want to drop everything and throw a dinner party. Seriously- take a look at their gallery. Their studio provided ... read more
Chai Spiced Pumpkin Seeds
The moment October 1st comes around, my kitchen instantly switches from late summer tomatoes and oven-less cooking to roasting autumn squashes and getting ready for holiday season. For us that means Indian holidays like Diwali and Navratri, but also one of our family favorites: Halloween! We carve our pumpkins a week before Halloween at our annual pumpkin-carving block party, after which we are left with handfuls of raw white pumpkin seeds. I hate to discard them every year; pumpkin seeds are nutritious! The creamy white seeds are the unhulled pumpkin seed and the olive green kernel inside ... read more
Lunchbox Blues?
This post was originally published September of 2011; this one has a few updates and larger better photos. :) Got the lunchbox blues? We're a month into school here and many parents are suffering from an emptiness that is growing inside them. I'm not talking about hunger pains or missing our youngster during that long school day. I'm referring to the frustrations of having NO idea what to pack for lunch other than the same old turkey cheese sandwich or peanut butter jelly sandwich. Read on for tips in this department. Kids coming home with a half-eaten lunch? Don't fret. Kids love ... read more
The New Movie Snack: Fried Chickpeas
We LOVE watching movies in our house, especially on weekends and especially as part of our Family Fun Nights, nights we do regularly with the 4 of us to spend time together where we rotate the theme. Movie nights are for when we've had particularly busy or rough weeks. My kids are pretty tired by Friday night from a long week of school, activities and playdates. Some downtime is fit in here and there but the weekends are definitely for that kind of time: unwinding, slowing down, taking it in, and even getting bored; kids these days probably don't get enough right? Although we love Alton ... read more
Bombay Sliders
OK folks. So if you follow me on Instagram or on Facebook, you know that I have been gone from my food life, other than the annoying number of food shots over a 3 week period in India during December and January that I just had to share on all social media accounts, naturally. I have an ungodly number of stories to tell and recipes to work on and spices to play with. I took 6 different food-related notebooks/journals there. I'm so weird, I know. And you all know by now, that these stories and recipes will take me some TIME before I get them on here. And then life will distract me and I'll move ... read more
Ramped Up Fettuccine Alfredo!
I won't be having this dish any other way again. Actually, the last time I had it/made it was a year ago, last Spring, when we had a couple of weeks we could find ramps in Texas. No, i wasn't foraging around for them; I found them at my neighborhood SUPERmarket Central Market. Expensive but sold by weight, I spent 8 bucks on ramps, enough for a pound of fettucine. Not bad, I say. Ramps, those flimsy pungent spring-onion like greens. Wild baby leeks are what they are (seems I get that question a lot). They are exquisite partly because they are available for such a short time, but mostly ... read more
Panther Bars
Back To School: Lunchbox Kits and Snackable Homemade Energy Bars We are only one week into school. And I'm obsessed with nutrition and a well-balanced diet again. I should probably relax a little, but it's a hobby. I'm compelled to fix and arrange food--nutritious, calorie-dense, vegetarian food into my vegetarian school kid's lunchbox. We use Planet Box as our lunch system. Isn't it crazy how many lunch kits there are nowadays? Gone are the days of cartoon-inscribed metal boxes and crinkly brown paper sacks and even just plastic no-name branded lidded containers that fit like a jigsaw ... read more
The Impossible Meal Plan: Week 2 of 4
Last week I posted about my family's Impossible Meal Plan Challenge. A compromise, if you will, between a Paleo diet and a vegetarian diet. And intermixed is a sudden intention of mine to purchase 100% locally grown produce. Let me tell you first how I managed last week and then I'll give you this week's meal plan. By the way, the meal plan from that post was actually from the week before. We ended up taking a week off (already! I know!) last week for Thanksgiving and our houseguests. Meatless Monday's enchiladas went very well. Tuesday's meal of fish, quinoa, and veggies worked well ... read more
Lunchbox Blues, Part 2
I'm BACK! This is the 2nd part in a series on lunchbox ideas and tips. If anyone had challenges while trying any of the first post's tips, please let readers know and we can all help each other out! Also, look at one of my very first posts here, where sandwich idea number 1 was very popular with readers. Here are my next 5 tips, again not in any order: 6) Use the lunchbox as a way to introduce an ethnic food. Put it in a smaller compartment of the lunchbox, as a side dish, an experiment. Indian food (of course I would list this first!): i.e. leftover chicken ... read more
Theplaa (Metthi Parathas)
I always grew up knowing these flatbreads as theplaa, though some do call them methi parathas. I put 2 “a”s in them because that’s how you pronounce them: THHEP-LAA. It’s one of those Gujarati words which when you mention to your other Indian teenage friends, or others that you meet for the first time, you get ridiculed for being “Guju”. It’s just one of those words that make you sound as if you are not in fact an ABCD (American-Born Confused Desi) even though you’re clearly American and Confused and Desi (Indian). I’m still an ABCD, well into my thirties. I’m sure I’ll never have it ... read more
