Posts from December 2011

I don't like bananas. They are not really high on my fruits from heaven list (topped by papaya, btw).

But the minute bananas are looking sad, black, almost ready to mould, I develop an inordinate amount of love for them because they make the MOST amazing banana bread aroma when I bake them. Even if the bread itself turns out a mild disaster (it mostly does since I cut out everything remotely luxurious, including butter), the ripe baking banana aroma is quite enough for me to love any bread... however poorly it might have turned out.

So if you are about to toss some black bananas, you know who wants them.

ME.
Signed,
The black spotty over-ripe banana bread experimenter supreme.

---
NB: today's experiment
2 black over-ripe bananas
1 cup plain low-fat yogurt
1¾ cup Whole Wheat Bread flour
¼ cup Wheat bran
Nutmeg
Fig Butter
½ cup Applesauce
Splash of vanilla essence
One BIG thumbs-sized (your thumbs, not mine) fresh ginger chopped.
Some ground black pepper
A tsp and a ½ of salt.

When there is no chocolate on walgreens shelves. Well... there is chocolate but not MY favourite chocolate.

I realize I eat chocolate like it were popcorn or something but still... they are out of *my favourite* chocolate today. They say it will be re-stocked soon. But I want it now, dammit.

Ominous plus plus

There are two top-chef attested methods for cooking greens.

Common step: Wash them thoroughly

Method one: Blanch away

1. Don't chop the greens
2. Bring a HUGE pot of water to a boil with a VERY generous dusting of salt. ("Shockingly salty": that's how one of the chefs whose name I forgot, describes the level of salt in the blanching water).
3. Dunk the unchopped greens into the boiling water for a brief span of time till the greens reach the peak of their green colour.
4. Fish them out as fast as you can and wash them in cold water.

That's it. They are ready for further brief methods of cooking.

Method two: Toss 'em and forget 'em.

1. Chop the greens very roughly
2. Heat a pan on high
3. Drop in some oil and swirl around (add some seasoning to the oil if you want too)
4. Drop in the chopped greens.
5. toss till covered in oil. Splash in some water or soy sauce.
6. Cover with a sturdy lid till the greens are intensely green. They are steamed to crisp-tender at the top and slightly charred/caramelized where they come in contact with the pan.
7. Take the lid off the pan after around 2 minutes.
8. Take off heat - don't let the greens sit around in the pan and season with with spices/sauces. Serve hot.

I haven't yet tried either methods. I usually keep stir-frying because I don't want to char them, and I don't blanch them because it seems like such a waste of micronutrients that inevitably leach out in the water.

Maybe this weekend, I will try both.. I am curious about the differences in taste with both methods.

All the features I keep looking for in Android are usually found by a...

longpress.

I need to remember this when I go hunting all over the web looking for a solution to some commonplace difficulty on Android.

Longpress Longpress Longpress. Guess that "intuition" that people keep talking about doesn't come that easily to me or maybe I am just not hardwired for a mobile device.

US doesn't follow SI or metric units but yet, MS Word and other US spell checkers insist that I spell metres as meters.

A meter is usually a suffix for an instrument that measures something.. like a thermometer, an odometer etc. The SI units of distance is always spelled metre.

Enforcing a blatant misspelling of units you don't even use borders on the ridiculous.

by not wasting food, but we definitely can make small positive individual contributions to bringing down the staggering proportion of food that is wasted in America, in particular.

I stumbled upon this site: (wastedfood.com) and the statistics are shocking... till you think back to the time you wasted food. It was probably waste that was entirely avoidable by a few wise measures such as:

1. not buying more food than you can eat or store properly.
2. realizing the practical limitations of storage in your kitchen and fridge
3. following a simple weekly schedule and fridge/pantry accounting plan to finish the older food before you go and get a newer version of the same food.
4. having a good idea of what is in your fridge and on your kitchen and pantry shelves so you are not always in doubt at the grocery store. If it helps, take a weekly picture of your fridge shelves and kitchen shelves before you go grocery shopping. (Oh yeah, don't forget to replace these pictures with new ones every week.)
5. (if memory is still fickle, maybe use small post it notes ON the fridge with days and dates by which specific food must be consumed.)
6. checking all stored (even supposedly non-perishables) for infestation and mold every fortnight.
7. storing nuts, grains, beans and lentils in PLAIN sight or in airtight containers in the freezer
8. researching proper storage techniques for all kinds of food and religiously sticking to best practices of storage for various kinds of food,
9. giving away the food you know you are going to waste to people who will eat them!
10. and again, making a pledge to not buy more than you will use in a practical span of time,

More nifty tips about how not to waste food are here at this and this

It breaks my heart every time I have to throw out something because I have forgotten to follow even just one of these guidelines.

for that one woman in the corner, don't you think?

Christmas should be called Consumermas.

I still can't get over the weirdness of people demanding random things from other people in their lives for the birthday of some random bloke from waaaay back that most of them don't emulate in real life and worse, don't even identify with.

When did shameless extortion get associated with a religious icon's birthday? Why not just call it what it is and not candy coat the entire extortion cycle in some pretentious gift-wrap of religion (that most are actually leery about)?

What I find even more laughable is people who place seemingly "reasonable" things on their extortion list. As if it is okay to extort "gifts" if it is some "reasonable" thing.

I am an outside observer but I find the whole culture of extortion and consumerism surrounding one's own birthday and the birthday of some centuries old hippie as extremely weird and venal.

Super easy sprouts sauté.


The toughest part is perhaps waiting for the mung beans to sprout. This is 2 days growth.

Heat a pan on high medium.
Drop in a tbsp of olive oil and swirl it around.
Add chopped ginger, red hot chillies and jalapenõs.
Add cumin seeds
Sauté for 20-30 seconds
Add sprouts.
Sauté for 2-3 mins or so.
Add chopped green and red bell peppers.
Sauté till crisp tender.
Add salt and chopped coriander leaves (cilantro) halfway through.

Garnish with finely chopped raw red onions, lemon juice and Haldiram Bhujia! Serve hot.