What to Cook?

Deciding what to cook is not only an exercise in frustration at times, but these days, it is a privilege for many. This week's column looks not only at highs and lows of meal planning, but it also asks how all of us can rethink meal planning given the current world food crisis: "I don’t want to sound overly nostalgic, I know that often the “good ole’ days” were also “hard ole’ days” But perhaps the time has come for us to think of meal planning in a different way because if we are not careful, the ability to feed ourselves will have nothing to do with wants and desires as our constraints will be money, health and availability." Click here to read the rest of the column. And for an interesting read, you might like to check out Tea's post: No Words.

This particular dish featured here today is Fried (sauteed Bora & Shrimp) Bora is also know an yard-long beans or snake beans. It is one of my go-to dishes when I'm wondering "what to cook". Click here for the recipe.

My dear friend Zuzana of Zlamushka's Spicy Kitchen is hosting yet another unique event, Tried & Tasted. I was honoured and just a little nervous :) when she asked that Tastes Like Home be the first blog to be Tried & Tasted. I'm excited to see your creations and interpretations. Please do not hesitate to email me for any of the recipes you'd like to try. If you have questions about the ingredients or about substitutions, I'd be more than happy to answer.

This week I'd like to thank Madhavi, Swati & Vege Yum for bestowing the Yummy Blog Award on Tastes Like Home. Thanks to Roopa of Kitchen Treats for creating this award. Now, I'm supposed to pass this award on to 5 blogs but let me tell you, I had a really difficult time picking just 5 blogs so I picked 6. I thought that since I was awarded the award 3 times I could present the award at least once more than stipulated. Truth be told, I want to give it to everyone! However, I know that the blog love will be passed on just as in pay it forward. So here are my picks.

Lori-Lynn of Taste With the Eyes - the name of this blog says it all;
Sig of Live to Eat - whether she's at home cooking, dining out or travelling abroad, she never neglects those of us who are food-porn lovers :);
Peter of Kalofagas - this man can turn some tricks in the kitchen;
Suganya of Tasty Palettes - I've already threatened to invite myself over to her house;
Marie of Proud Italian Cook - this is homemade gourmet cooking at its best
Coffee of The Spice Cafe - this woman could feed me anything and I'd eat it, even if I didn't want to.

And finally, when I saw this Orange-Lemon Cake last week on Patricia's blog, I could not resist. All I could think of was a big cup of tea and a warm slice of this cake. You've got to try it. The recipe can be found here.

An Event-ful Weekend

This is a big weekend in the Caribbean not just because of Easter; it is even bigger in countries like Guyana and Trinidad & Tobago because these are such diverse societies. Thursday was a national holiday as they celebrated Phagwah (Holi)- the Hindu festival that heralds the beginning of spring. The riot of colours, the food, the music, the laughter! Gosh I miss it! Today is Yuhman Nabi, a Muslim holiday celebrating the birth anniversary of the Holy Prophet, Muhammad. And of course, spread throughout the weekend is the most important celebration of the Christian calender, Easter! Wow, what a weekend, I feel so blessed to have grown up in such a society. The appreciation I have cannot be put into words. Here in Barbados, the public holidays are only for Easter, the other two would be celebrated quietly as the Hindu and Mulsim communities here are very small.

Moving on to other event-ful things... I don't generally get the time to take part in blog events because of the myriad of things I have to do, but sometimes I am able to sneak in an entry here and there or someone would tell me that a dish I've made can be submitted to an event :) So, this week, because I got a little break from writing my column because there is no weekend newspaper in Guyana given the long holiday weekend, I thought I'd get a couple of entries in.

First up is CLICK, the theme this month is METAL. A few weeks ago I found these small beautiful karahi pans and fell in love with them immediately. This is my entry to CLICK.

I have been a good girl and dutifully cooked fish yesterday (Good Friday), I made curried fish (gilbaka) and threw in some okras and finger squash.

Speaking of squash, my friend, Charlotte over at Great Big Vegetable Challenge, will, beginning Monday, March 31st, be featuring a variety of recipes using squash so if you have any, be sure to send them along to her.

The squash I am most familiar with is the bottle-gourd squash. When we cook it, it is generally, steamed, sauteed, stewed or curried. Here, I sauteed mine with lots of herbs. I find it to be a bland ingredient and so you have to aggressively flavour and season it, but is a healthy and delicious vegetable.

I am therefore submitting this dish as my contribution to the Great Big Vegetable Challenge.

Given that we also eat a lot of veggies for breakfast with roti, I am submitting this dish also to dear Mansi of Fun & Food who is this month hosting Weekend Breakfast Blogging with the theme balanced breakfast.

Finally, my fellow crabby-chick, is letting off some steam over at Forgive Me My Nonsense... about some blog readers and their rude comments. Be sure to go over and weigh in.

Thanks for all the kind emails and comments, I am feeling much better :)

Enjoy the Easter, Holi & Birthday celebrations everyone!

Inspiration & Good News!

As I mentioned in my post at Forgive Me My Nonsense... last week, your muse is where you find it. Well I found mine for this week's column after reading Mark Bittman's conversion to sun-dried tomatoes. Click here to read the column.

I made two types of dried tomatoes, one set, I dried naturally in the sun and I found that they retained a bright red colour.

The other set I dried in the oven and I noticed that they got a deeper shade of red.

So what is a gal to do with all this dried tomatoes? Turn to her blogger friends of course, scour their blogs looking for recipes and how they have used this ingredient. First up is Nora's Two-cheese and sundried biscotti. This was my first attempt at making a biscotti and I loved the fact that it was savoury as I opt for more savoury than sweet stuff. Thanks Nora! This is soooooo good! Check for the recipe here.

Next up was Nicisme, I only discovered her blog last week and browsing, I found this: Sun-dried tomatoes, parmesan & basil whirls. Well I've dubbed them Sun-dried tomatoes, parmesan and basil swirls (lol). Make these for a get-together and they'll be gone in no time. The recipe is here. This is also my entry for the Click event.

Sun-dried tomatoes, Parmesan & Basil Swirls (CLICK)

I had some of the dried tomatoes left back and I packed them in oil with sliced garlic and large fresh basil leaves. They are currently chilling in my refrigerator.

Okay, okay, finally the good news :) This week, I signed a book deal! It was in the works since late-December but I wanted to wait until all the legal stuff was sorted out and I had put my signature on the contract. The book should hopefully be coming out mid-year, granted I can finish everything by the end of soon. A lot of work on it has been completed but there's still more to be done. Wish me luck. Bee, you are a gem and I thank you for you tributary post at Forgive Me My Nonsense... this week. It reminds of this post you made back in December. Thank you my dear friend!

Edit: the book is part food memoir, part cookbook.

The Neglected Guest

Spicy Eggplant & Chickpeas

Sometimes, those of us who are not vegetarians are guilty of not paying enough attention to the food we prepare for our vegetarian guests. Perhaps its that we spend so much time and effort on the meat, poultry or seafood dishes that by the time we get done, we are too tired to think of creative vegetarian dishes. So we hurriedly put something together and, more often than not, it's a side dish and only one side dish at that. This week's column looks at The Neglected Guest - the vegetarian, and suggests some of the ways that we meat eaters can pay more attention to the veggie fare we prepare for our friends and guests.

I'll let the column speak for itself.

October 1st was World Vegetarian Day and the entire month of October is Vegetarian Awareness Month and so this post is a dedication to the month. My friend, Margot of Coffee & Vanilla is hosting one of the events this year. I know that many of you have eligible entries so why not click here and participate.

Know your vegetarian so you're guided by what you can and cannot make for them:

• Ovo-lacto vegetarian
• Lacto vegetarian
• Ovo vegetarian
• Vegan

I've been flexing my vegetarian-cooking muscles and I'd like all of us to make a bigger effort in our vegetarian offerings, particularly when we have vegetarian guests.

Yam & Spinach ball

Avocado & red chili salt

Cherry tomatoes rolled in green chili salt

Spinach dhal (Dhals make for a great soup)

Herb roasted potatoes & carrots

Pigeon peas-spiced pilau

Vegetable fried rice

Okras in onion & tomato sauce

Sauteed mushrooms with garlic & green onions

Sauteed bitter gourd

Spicy long beans & soya chunks

As I wondered through some blogs last evening, I came upon some veggie dishes that I think you might like to try also.

Here's Sia's foray into Thai curry pastes
Pearl's Vegetable Pizza
Kevin's Eggplant croquettes
Dhivya's Zucchini patties
Anh's vegetarian appetizer

There were and are so many others out there, unfortunately, I cannot list them all. I have some friends here, that you can check out their blogs for some fantastic, downright tasty vegetarian food.

Don't forget that you can read this week's column here. And please, email me if you need the recipe(s) for any of the dishes above.

An Undefined Relationship

This past week, I’ve seen some of my blogger friends, here and here, singing the praises of the eggplant. Words such as elegant, royal and yes, sexy were used to describe this (fruit) vegetable.

As for me, my relationship with eggplants has been fraught with feelings of hatred, frustration and, and, wait for it – moments of selective loving! All this has led to the title of this week’s column and this post: An Undefined Relationship. And so the column begins: “If I said to you that I don’t like something and that I can only eat it cooked 3 ways and yet I purchase it every week at the market, you’d have to conclude that I really do like it wouldn’t you? If you know the answer, tell me because I’m not sure.” You can click here to read the column in its entirety.

To date, there are only 3 ways I’d eat eggplants, also known to us as bolangers, bigan and aubergines. First as a choka: stuffed with slivers of garlic throughout, fire roasted and mashed. To this mixture is added, fire roasted tomatoes and seasoned with green onions, hot chilies, salt and a drizzle of oil. Some of you may recognize this dish by another name and with perhaps a few added ingredients as bigan bharta.

Second, I like to have eggplants as a dry curry, an inspiration I got from here and adapted to suit my taste.

And finally, I eat eggplants as biganee – thinly sliced eggplants coasted in a spicy split-pea mixture and fried. The biganee is traditionally served with a green mango sour, chutney or achar.

You may ask why only these 3 ways. In the first 2 instances, it is all about the flavour the fire roasting imparts and the almost pureed texture. In the case of the biganee, the slices are then and the split-peas batter and along with the sour, chutney or achar, masks the notion that eggplants are involved :)

Last week, I saw this recipe for Eggplant Croquettes on Chris of Mele Cotte. I made them and in no time they disappeared from the table. Delicious. Instead of baking the eggplants in the oven, you guessed it, I fire-roasted them. As delicious as this is, it is still a little too much eggplant for me so I can’t have more than one at a time but let me tell you, people who love eggplants – this is a must-have, must-try dish. I served mine with a green mango chutney.

Lots of Okras & Awards

Okras, lady's finger, bhindi, and gumbo are just some of the more familiar names used for this vegetable which I love very much; It is also the subject of this week's column. Okras are very important to us in the Caribbean and we use it widely in many dishes, including some national dishes.

Like bitter gourd and cilantro (and I'm sure with many other things), okra has its lovers and haters. A large part of the issue I feel is that many people do not understand how to prepare the vegetable in a way that would significantly reduce the silkiness that's too often described by that not so pleasant word - slimy :)

I hope that after reading this week's column that we can turn some haters, if not into lovers, then at least into triers (yeah, I made up the word) (LOL) Click here to go to the column.

Cut okras into rounds or lengthways as above

Place in the sun to dry

Dried okra

Fried okras also called Southern Popcorn

Here is the recipe. I adjusted the salt, using less.

Vegetable Rice-Okra

Sauteed okras with saltfish

Here is a list of my previous posts with dishes in which okras were used so that you can experiment.

Dhals
Saltfish & Okras
Mettagee
Caribbean Meal
Cou cou
Vegetable Rice
Fish Curry

Since you're fed and relaxed now, it's time for the awards ceremony. I have been honoured by a number of my fellow bloggers multiple times with various awards, which I now wear with pride and honour on my humble, little blog. I want to thank each and everyone of you for taking time out of your busy lives and hectic schedules to stop by my blog whether to comment, read or just have a look around - it is all sincerely appreciated.

I particularly want to thank my blog friends who thought me and my blog worthy of these awards. Thank you dear Pilar of La cocina de Lechuza for the Thinking Blogger Award. Thanks to Elly of Elly Says Opa! Carolyn of Mountain Meadows, and Jenn of The Left Over Queen for the Rockin Girl Blogger award. Thanks Caffeinated Cowgirl of Just This Side of Normal and Amanda of Little Foodies for the Thoughtful Blogger and Power of Scmooze award.

Just as in one of my favourite movies, Pay It Forward, I'd like to award some of my following bloggers. It is not possible for me to list all your worthy names here but I am sure that the awardees will in turn, if they choose to, award fellow bloggers. That way, the love is shared all around.

Asha, I noticed that you were already awarded but I want to say thank you for always being there...

Okay, enough talking let's get down to distributing the awards. In no particular order:

Thinking Blogger Award

Bee & Jai of Jugalbandi
Shn of Mishmash!
Carolyn of Mountain Meadows
Mathy of Virundhu
Caffienated Cowgirl of Just this side of normal

Thoughtful Blogger Award

Pelicano of Elaichi Et cetera
Anita of A Mad Tea Party
Coffee of The Spice Cafe
Nora B of Life's Smorgasbord
Melting Wok of Melting Wok

Rockin Girl Blogger Award

Sra of When my soup came alive
Manisha of Indian Food Rocks
Sunita of Sunita's World
Viji of V Cuisine
Susan of The Well Seasoned Cook
Sharmi of Neivedyam

The Power of Schmooze Award

Sia Spice Corner
Helen of Tartlette
Sig of Live to eat
Jaden of Steamy Kitchen
Pamela of Mi blog de cocina
Sylvia of La vida en Buenos Aries y afines

Don't forget that you can click here for the column.

Green Tomatoes

Last weekend when I went to the market, there were not many ripe tomatoes but lots of green tomatoes and many that were now turning ripe, you know, when they are at that orange-coloured stage. As I gazed at the green tomatoes, my thoughts turned to Kathy Bates and her great performance in the movie, Fried Green Tomatoes. I've often been curious as to what they taste like so I bought some, headed home and started looking for a recipe. I like this guy and thought I'd use his recipe, afterall, he is from the South.

Then I had about 3 small tomatoes remaining, so I diced them up, dressed them with some kosher salt, hot red chilies, a pinch of sugar and cilantro. Mixed it all together and I had a sort of pickle.

Want to know more about this beautiful icon that is so appropriate for this post because it is about tomatoes? Then click here and let Alanna of A Veggie Venture tell you more about it.

Flowers, A Recipe & A Memory

Happy Mothers day to all the strong, beautiful phenomenal women I know, including those, who like my sister, will be mothers this time next year. I salute each and everyone of you for your tireless, selfless and loving devotion to your children - even those of us who are grown adults. In your eyes we will always be babies, your little ones :)

I want to salute the Dads who are mothers in their own rights too. The world often forgets, but I want us to all remember, that there are many fathers out there who are raising their children, independent of a mother in the household.

My column this week pays tribute, not only to my mom, but to all moms. I'm sure when you read it, you'll find many things that you can identify with. Please read and come back and share a favourite food-memory of your mother.

I'll start the ball rolling.

As children, every afternoon when my brother, sister and I got home from school, we would be hot, tired and hungry but mostly we would be thirsty.

One fine hot, sunny afternoon, we arrived home and mom had made us a treat - Strawberry Nesquik! It was our favourite drink. What made it special this particular day was the way in which she served it. Instead of pouring it into glasses as she usually would, she had poured the drink into ice-cube trays and frozen it! So we each had a cup full of Strawberry Nesquick flutees!



I remember sitting on the steps and sucking and biting my flutees and licking my fingers, they were so good. I was in heaven. So in honour of this memory, for the first time since all those years ago, I've made Nesquik flutees and for a moment as I sucked on them, I was a kid again.

Also my gift to all the busy parents out there on this special day is a simple, healthy, tasty and satisfying dish that can be cooked in less than 30 minutes.

Vegetable Rice - Pumpkin

Vegetable Rice - Okra (Bhindi)

Recipe - Vegetable Rice

Notes:
You can substitute the water with chicken or vegetable broth
Most vegetables can be used in this dish.
You can choose to use one vegetable or a combination of vegetables
Use whatever rice you have available and use the liquid to rice ratio according to the package instructions.You can add shrimp or cubed firm fish to this dish

It's a great way to sneak vegetables into your children's food.

Ingredients

2 cups Basmati rice
2 cups of vegetables cut into chunks
3 cups boiling water
1 onion, diced
3 sprigs thyme
2 tbsp oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Method

In a pot, heat oil
Sauté onions and thyme (1 – 2 minutes)
Add vegetables and sauté for 2 minutes
Season with salt and pepper
Add rice and continue to sauté for another minute
Pour in boiling water and stir
Check for seasoning (salt and pepper). Add if desired
Cover pot and let boil for about 3 minutes or until you begin to see the rice surface
Turn down stove to simmer, cover pot and let cook for 20 minutes or until all the liquid is dried out
Stir and serve as you please.

Vegetable Fried Rice

Vegetable fried rice

Ingredients clockwise: diced carrots, garlic, diced sweet peppers, ginger, diced long string beans, green onions

A regular reader of my column wrote asking me what I put in my fried rice when I make it so I thought that I'd share that information with the rest of you also. There are various types of fried rice and that is indicative of what you put in it - eggs, chicken, pork etc. I usually make a vegetable fried rice and serve it with some baked or roasted meat or poultry.

Please let me set the record straight that I am no expert at making fried rice. This is my interpretation of the dish.

Fried Rice

2 cups long grain white rice, steamed
1 cup of finely chopped long beans (bora) or sweet greens peas
1 cup finely diced carrots
1/2 cup of diced sweet peppers (optional)
1 tbsp grated ginger (use more if you like)
1 tsp minced garlic
1 1/2 tbsp vegetable oil
Dark soy sauce
5-spice powder
Green onions, finely chopped
Salt and pepper to taste

Method

1. Once the rice is cooked, it needs to be cooled completely. Spread it out on a large baking sheet to cool.
2. Cooking fried rice is a very fast activity so ensure that all the ingredients are minced, diced, chopped at the ready.
3. In a karahi or wok, heat the oil until it's hot but not smoking.
4. Throw in the aromatics - ginger and garlic followed by the carrots and beans (or peas) stir fry for 1 - 2 mins
5. Lightly season with soy sauce, black pepper and a sprinkle of five-spice powder
6. Add sweet peppers, rice, soy sauce to season and colour the rice, and a few dashes (shakes) of the five spice powder and mix the ingredients together.
7. Taste the dish for seasoning, you may need to add some salt and more black pepper.
8. Once the rice and vegetables are well mixed, the dish is done.
9. Serve garnished with chopped green onions (scallions, eshallots) sprinkled on top.

Kalounjie

A regular reader of my column, Zally, who lives in the USA, asked me a few weeks ago how to make stuffed karaila - kalounjie, and that gave brith to the idea for this week's subject. This vegetable is called many things - bitter squash, bitter melon, bitter gourd. In Guyana we call it karaila and in Trinidad and Tobago it is called, caraili.

Read the column to learn about my love-hate relationship, with this vegetable, as a child and how much I love it now. Email me for the recipe.


Karaila, bitter gourd, bitter melon, bitter squash, caraili





Sauteed baby shrimp that I used to stuff the karaila. You can vary the stuffing, some people use minced meat, chicken or vegetables.



Karaila stuffed with shrimp








Stuffed karaila tied with kitchen string to keep in the stuffing during the cooking process. Tooth-picks can also be used.




Saute karaila, turning and browning all around.






This is the finished dish after it has simmered in a flavourful, spicy sauce. Use coconut milk or water, which ever you prefer.
I ate my kalounjie with rice but you can eat it with roti as well,