Indian Whole Eggs in Spicy Tomato Sauce (Ande ki Kari)

This recipe is from "Classic Indian Cooking" by Julie Sahni

If you are eating this over multiple days, it is better to cook up new hard boiled eggs each time you serve this, rather then cooking them all at once and leaving them in the sauce, because the eggs take on an unappealing brown-yellow color when the marinate in the sauce overnight.

Homemade Pesto

I finally got around to trying to make my own homemade pesto. I've never attempted it before because I don't have a food processor, but I finally decided to try making it using my blender.

1/4 lb basil
4 to 6 cloves garlic
4 to 6 Tbsp Pine nuts
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
pinch of salt (1 tsp)

Chop pine nuts (I used a spice grinder for this). Chop garlic (I used a mortar and pestle for this).

Add olive oil to blender. Slowly add the basil, a few handfuls at a time to the blender, and puree using the "stir" and "chop" functions of the blender. Keep a coarse texture.

Combine pine nuts, garlic, olive oil and basil mixture, and cheese in a large bowl.

For a creamy pesto, you can add yogurt, cream, or sour cream to whatever amount of pesto you would like to use.

Avocados and Mustard Seeds (Indian Guacamole)

This is another recipe from "Super Natural Every Day" by Heidi Swanson. The recipe is available as a pdf download here from Heidi Swanson's website. She says in the comments that this was Inspired by a recipe in Julie Sahni's "Classic Indian Vegetarian and Grain Cooking"

Millet Muffins

There was a multigrain bread with seeds and millet made by Whole Foods that I used buy when I lived in New Mexico. I used to love this bread. Oddly, I've never seen it in any of their other stores, even though it was made by the Whole Foods store. My favorite thing about this bread was the crunchy little kernels of millet. Actually I didn't even know what the name of the grain was for years until I saw a package of dried millet in the grocery store last week. At the beginning of this weekend, I stumbled upon this recipe for millet muffins, and I knew I had to try them!

These are a little bit lemony, a little bit sweet, and a little bit savory similar to corn muffins. They are from "Super Natural Every Day" by Heidi Swanson. The recipe is available as a pdf download here from Heidi Swanson's website.

I bought a silicon coated muffin pan. This was much easier to deal with then the regular ones; the muffins slipped right out!

Next time I make this, I'd like to try only using half the suggested amount of butter.

Zucchini Fritters

I followed this recipe from Smitten Kitchen for Zucchini Fritters. It was super fast and easy, and tasty! You should grate the zucchini lengthwise, so that the strands are long. I also modified the recipe. I used 3 zucchini, and only 1/3 cup flour, and I added some crushed red chilis since I like spicy. I also cooked with ghee since I like my zucchini cooked with butter-based fats, since I find that it gives it a fuller more luscious flavor.

An interesting aspect of this recipe is that she points out that a little bit of baking powder can help keep fritters or potato pancakes fluffier.

Quinoa Patties

For this, I used Heidi Swanson's "Super Natural Every Day" recipe for "Little Quinoa Patties" as inspiration, but I ended up changing the recipe significantly. That's okay because this recipe is very flexible, and it was pretty fun to make. As Swanson mentions, it would also be a good way to use up left over cooked quinoa. This is good as is, but I also imagine it being dressed up as a veggie burger. Swanson also says that the uncooked batter can be kept in the fridge up to 4 days, so that fresh patties can be cooked as needed.

Here they are with melted cheese, a fried egg, chives, chipotle powder and hot sauce on top.


340g quinoa (1 box), cooked
4 large eggs
1/2 tsp sea salt
seasonings of your choice
1/3 cup grated cheese
1 cup bread crumbs
olive oil
water if needed

For spiced I ended up using smoked paprika, crushed pepper, chipotle pepper, and cayenne pepper (I'm going through a spicy phase). I also added minced chives, dried Italian herbs, and smoked Gruyere cheese. My bread crumbs were a mix of ground red corn flour, and tempura batter mix (I meant to buy bread crumbs, but not mix, but bought the wrong thing). I also added dried early girl tomatoes to the quinoa when it was cooking, but I think that these tomatoes aren't really noticeable in the final cakes. For comparison, Swanson's recipe suggested gruyere or parmesan cheese, garlic, chives and a chopped onion.

Mix all spices, salt, cooked quinoa, 4 eggs, cheese, bread crumbs. Err on the wet side, otherwise the patties will be overly dry. If necessary you can add some water to the mixture. Spoon patties on to a skillet and pan fry flipping once until brown on both sides. Sprinkle with sea salt.