16 posts tagged “food photography”
Remember the mangosteen?
*slaps forehead*
I must be really busy.
The queen of fruits. I'd never seen one, until today, at the International store. It was quite expensive, as befitting a member of the royal family, but I couldn't resist bringing one home.
Having partaken of one, all I can say is that the hype is well-deserved.
The fruit is a symphony of color and flavor. The rich red-purple coat when removed reveals plump white arils. Pop one in your mouth and it explodes on the tongue, belying its pure whiteness with a rainbow of flavors- mango, pineapple, lychee- I stopped counting and let myself go.
Excuse me while I go breathe into a paper bag. If you find a mangosteen on the way, grab it!
p.s. This has got to go to Click- bi-colour.
Date and pistachio stuffed semolina cookies, flavored with rose water. Familiar to the Indian palate, yet very different.
For my parents.
Are you parent to an aspiring cook? Do you silently watch as your child wreaks havoc on your precious cookware? Do you swallow undercooked pasta with a brave smile and a word of encouragement?
In another twenty or so years, you shall be rewarded.
With cookies.
Hang in there.
p.s. I'd like to send one of these pics to Jugalbandi Click for May- theme cookies. Which picture do you like best?
Things keep happening in the real world, keeping me from Voxing as usual.
On Friday, I tried to get my credentials verified for when I go out into the adult world. Its a nerve wracking process, and will probably take a few months to complete. After which the even more nerve-wracking visa-job-moving process will begin. Let the fun begin.
Received Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads in the mail. Did not receive Freud's New Lectures. Made a transitional rye hearth bread. Did not make slides for case conference on Thursday.
Had our first American car-wash experience. Tis fun! I can't wait to go back.
Took some shots with the new 55-200mm lens, which we found at Circuit City closing sale at half the price. (Made me feel a bit like a grave robber.)
You knew the pics were coming, didn't you? :)
We paired the bread with a hearty vegetable-quinoa-bean soup. The soup is basically a mish-mash of several web-recipes, but it is really good.
Soup recipe
A baking sheet full of roasted veggies. I used one red onion, two zucchini, a carrot, and one orange pepper, tossed with 1 tbsp of olive oil, salt and pepper, and roasted in a 400 degree post-bread-baking oven for 30 minutes.
1/2 cup pinto beans, soaked for a few hours in warm water
1/4 cup quinoa, washed well in warm water (removes the bitterness)
1 tbsp Better than Buillion veggie base (or one buillion cube)
1 cup packed washed baby spinach leaves
1 tsp garam masala
1 cup diced canned tomatoes
1/4 cup fresh herbs (I used sage and oregano)
1 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
Heat the oil in a presure cooker/heavy pot. Add the quinoa and stir around for a couple of minutes, until toasted. Then add the roasted veggies, beans, tomatoes, veggie base, salt and pepper, and about 6 cups of water. Bring the whole mess to a boil and then simmer, covered, until the beans are tender. (In a pressure cooker this will take about twenty minutes, or two whistles.)
During the last few minutes, add the baby spinach, garam masala and fresh herbs. Serve with warm bread and maybe some cheese. Enjoy.
I'd like to send one of the pictures above to this month's Click over at Jugalbandi, themed Wood (includes paper, cane). Which one do you like best?
*Edited to add: I'm sending the first picture to Click-wood. Thanks! Not very happy with it, but too lazy to try more.
The category for this month's Click, the photo event over at Jugalbandi, which gets my competitive juices flowing much like the weekly Psych Jeopardy.
The first thing I thought of was paneer. Home made cottage cheese. An old favorite is cumin-cilantro-black peppercorn studded cheese, sold by the guy in the spotless kurta-pajama at Delhi's farmer's market. We usually make the plain version, but the spices and herbs add that special something.
The inspiration for the next pic came from Iron Chef on Food network, where the challenger made simple Parmesan wafers. I thought, 'Tuiles!'
I wasn't quite happy with the way the tuiles photographed, but oh well. Tell me which one you like best, and I will send it to Click.
For this month's CLICK photo event over at Jugalbandi. Which one do you like best?
In a completely unrelated story, I have been experimenting with sourdough. A lady at work gave me some of her 25-year old sourdough starter. I brought the valve-top bottle home, left it on the counter and fell asleep. Well, the bottle exploded sometime during the night and now there is fermented potato starch all over the floor, walls, windows, the fridge..splatters as far as the living room sofa.
The bread better be worth it.
Edited to add:
Responses from neighbors and friends on Vox and Twitter have been curiously mixed. The second pic goes to CLICK. Thanks for all the comments, people.
Born of an illicit affair between a randy tomatillo and a particularly wild berry. Each glowing voluptuous body sheathed in a gossamer cape, begging to be unwrapped and devoured.
Um. Okay. I'll just post the pictures.
Hangaku Gozen has tagged me to write about 7 weird things about myself. What can I say..I'm the kind of girl who yells when she finds cape gooseberries in the grocery store, and scares little kids buying candied ginger in the next aisle.
Is that not weird enough? You need six more?
2. I don't like drip coffee.
3. I think plants have feelings. I say a quick sorry when I have to uproot a plant.
4. I don't get sarcasm. Like, not at all. Not even elementary school level sarcasm.
5. My longest online friendship is now 10 years old.
6. I eat snow. And hailstones. I also drink rainwater sometimes.
7. Can't think of one. My online-friend of ten years can't think of one either. Neither can my husband. I'll leave this one for my neighbors, then. Tell me what's weird about me. Then tag yourself.
This month's theme at my fave food blog is crusts. I made Focaccia from Rose Levy Berenbaum's Bread Bible. Just a piece of advice- do not attempt to make high hydration dough mixer recipes by hand. Our hands are not powered by electricity, as I realized a bit too late.
My arm is still aching, but the bread was delightfully crusty.
If you would like to make focaccia and you don't have a dough mixer, just use this recipe. If you do have a mixer, Rose's recipe is a sure shot winner.
American coffee was the biggest culture shock we had on our first visit to the US. I almost gagged at my first sip of the Starbucks Roast. This was not coffee. Where was the milk? The sugar? The sweet stickiness that was supposed to coat the back of your throat?
Several packets of Equal and half-n-half later, we ended up discarding the coffee.
These days, I drink several cups of black hospital coffee to get through the day. But at home, the old cravings tend to come back.
Indian style whipped coffee
- 2 1/2 tbsp instant coffee (yes, I know)
- a few tbsp water
- 3 cups milk (or an equal mixture of milk and water)
- A sprinkling of drinking chocolate
- In a small glass or metal bowl, mix together the sugar and coffee.
- Now with a spoon, add a few drops of water at a time, until you have a paste of toothpaste consistency. Tilting the bowl, start beating this paste with the spoon. It will change color as you beat it, becoming lighter and increasing in volume. When it starts feeling tight, add another few drops of water.
- After ten minutes of wrist and elbow exercise, you'll end with the whipped cream seen above. (If you've ever beaten butter and sugar for a cake, you know what I'm talking about.)
- Boil the milk. Add a generous tbsp(or more) of the cream into a mug, and pour the boiling milk from a distance into the mug. Gently stir with your spoon until the cream is dissolved. A fine foam will rise to the top. Sprinkle with drinking chocolate if you like. Share with loved ones.
The picture above goes to CLICK July 2008. This month's theme is Coffee and Tea. I'm super-excited because they asked me to be one of the judges for this month's event...makes me feel all grown-up and important. :)
