Cooking a new dish everyday

It is my very first blogging and am excited to start. There are many who have inspired me to blog. The one that has inspired me the most to blog about cooking is Julie Powell who blogged about her french cooking written by Julia Child (Credit goes to the movie Julie/Julia) .

I have always felt a joy of cooking for family and friends - in fact when I am alone, I tend to make do with leftovers and cereal. After living a servant-less life in US for 14 years, and being the mother of two, I have grown to be very independent when it came to household chores. However after moving to India in 2011, there was a lot of pressure to use servants for you name it all chores. My neighbor downstairs has 4-5 servants, one to clean the floors and wash dishes, one to tidy up and wash clothes, one to cook, and one to take care of her kids. I think her full time job is to take care of her servants.

Well, under all this peer pressure, I still stand strong in saying NO to a servant for cooking just because I believe in me being the sole food provider at home.. and definitely don't want somebody to steal the joy of cooking from me..

So, to keep me motivated, I decided to use the numerous cook books I have collected over the years and have fun blogging about my servantless cooking. I intend to share recipes and experiences of servantless vegetarian cooking for all inexperienced cooks out there who have the passion to cook.

Yesterday, I made recipes from the book "The Vegetarian Little Big Book" and today morning tried a snack that my mom-in-law makes.

Rice with Yellow Lentils - Page 377
Carrot and Sesame Stir Fry - Page 532
Khara bread - Bangalore recipe from mom in law.

Rice with yellow Lentils was made with Sauteed onions with cumin, clove, cinnamon in a rice + mung dal (green gram/yellow lentil) combination.

I add my own variation in Carrot and Sesame Stir Fry by adding Snake Gourd along with sauteed mustard seeds and turmeric as in South Indian cooking. Also, did not have any white sesame seeds at home so used black sesame seeds.. turned out "ok" as per my husband which actually means "Good"

Khara Bread is a simple snack you can make for breakfast. You sautee finely cut onions, green chilli, tomatoes, grated carrots, with cumin and mustard seeds and salt until all vegetables are cooked. You then garnish with cilantro (coriander leaves) and lemon juice and serve it on toasted bread.

Yum....