Kovakkai (Gherkins) Curry

          I haven't had this vegetable that much before marriage, and afterwards also, didn't cook it much. Only after coming here, and when the choice of Indian vegetables became less, I started buying these mini cucumbers ( yep, that's how they describe them, but definitely I can't eat them raw). Even now, I make only a couple of dishes with these gherkins ( they are also known as tindora), this fry being one of them..

Decorated Cupcakes

          For the third session in the cake decorating course we had to take cupcakes and were taught some techniques to decorate them. I took some plain vanilla cupcakes with strawberry filling. As usual, I didn't have time to finish them in class, I completed only at home. My cupcakes were very big, so with the decoration they looked even bigger but I thought that they were decent enough to share here..

Stuffed Eggplants

          Eggplants or brinjals or aubergines (some of the names that I know), there are so many varieties of them, the huge ones, the chinese eggplants, the Italian eggplants, the small, smaller and smallest brinjals, and also of different colors, white, purple and green. For today's stuffed eggplants we use the small purple brinjals, not too puny, but smaller ones, we have to slit and stuff the brinjals. And again, there are so many stuffings, each one tastes equally good, today's is adapted from Madhur Jaffrey's book. It calls for sesame seeds and coconut along with other spices to stuff the brinjals, the dish goes very well both with rice and rotis..

Spinach And Kidney Beans (Rajma) Briyani

          Since I got my first taste of rajma (kidney beans) I am a big fan of it. Rajma with some plain rice and curd, that's comfort food to me, I simply love these beans. For today's dish I made a briyani (rice preparation) with these super healthy beans and spinach. It turned out to be a hearty, wholesome meal, a very healthy one pot dish, a good lunch box recipe..