Panfusine

This weeks post was supposed to deal with a dessert made with Toddy palm Jaggery, but Murphy's Law  kind of kicked in, the one that goes on the lines of .. If you're desperately looking for something, You'll rarely find it, never mind if it stares at you in the face at all other times' . Yep.. spent an annoyingly frustrating afternoon turning the kitchen & the pantry upside down, only to discover that sometime during the past couple of months, the big bag had somehow been stuffed in the freezer, right next to the Flax oil.. so that will be a post of the next week.

At some point of time in everyone's life there comes a day when 4 different members of the family want five different things for a meal & taking into account Murphy's law, its usually on days when a.) the weather outside is frightful and b.) the kitchen pantry is running with a bright orange neon equivalent of a 'low fuel' light, On one such occasion I was stuck in the middle of making (or rather making do with ) Masoor dal when my 5 year old declares that he wanted Pizza. The good news was that I did have a pack of frozen Pizza dough, but the bad news.. just enough cheese & Pasta Sauce for one 6 inch roti sized pizza.  Once thawed, it only makes practical sense to use it up ASAP & out of this necessity came this culinary invention. Crostatas are basically just  rustic free form tarts. One of the best descriptions i read about the dish were from this blog http://joycooks.blogspot.com/2009/06/crostata-di-marmellata.html The take h...

Chanced upon the movie Mississippi Masala on Cable & started watching it out of sheer boredom... Denzel Washington was a definite eye candy redeeming feature, but what tugged at me was the scene where the Tape recorder starts playing that all time RK classic 'Mera Jootha hai Japani' it kind of seemed to add sense to my fledgling food endeavor,      ( Yeh dishes  hai Japani, mere styling englistani, naamein hai French aur Roosi, phir bhi food  hai Hindustani ), Ahh, the hallucinations that occur when you have no clue how to spend a snowed in afternoon!! About Galumpkis , this is a traditional East European dish made with cabbage. Leaves are wilted in salted water, stuffed (or should I say rolled ) with rice, meat (usually pork) and seasonings & baked or steamed till the flavors have blended. This is  a staple dish in a lot of Slavic countries like Croatia. Swiss Chard makes for a fabulous substitute for spinach in all...