Vegetable Rava Uttapam – easy and quick uttapams made with rava or sooji or semolina.
When I was in college in Delhi and staying in the AFWWA hostel, every Tuesday for breakfast we would get Uttapam. I generally never had time to eat breakfast; I was always running late. I would get the Uttapams packed and take it to college to eat later in the day, grabbing my fruit and eating that as breakfast. Even on days when I did have time to eat breakfast, I would make it a point to pack 2 or 3 since my friends had gotten used to them and looked forward to Tuesday Uttapams. I miss college days!
I don’t cook much south indian fare at home, even though I love dosa, idli, sambhar. I am more comfortable with cooking north indian cuisine and stick to that. My idlis are generally made from a packet or are the quick rava idlis I have posted before. The only time I have cooked dosas from a scratch batter is when my friend was kind enough to loan me some of hers. Once I did try fermenting my own batter but it was a huge fail. This was when I had just started cooking about 6 years back, and ever since I have just stuck to eating dosas outside or counting on my south indian friends to make them for me.
If you are following my instagram, I mentioned about Dallas Box Co and how I would save my review for later since I had a not so good first time experience. I got my second box today and thought of sharing my thoughts.
Dallas Box Co. is a curated box of local Dallas businesses at your door step. Each month they send “exclusive goods, offers, and passes inside each box, as well as invitations to subscriber only events like happy hours and pub crawls” that are all local to Dallas.
I had some issues with my first box- super late delivery, unsealed box, my first email being overlooked (though later I got prompt responses for all my other mails), and non-delivery of certain products which they stated will come free with the box but did not (till date they have not addressed the points I raised regarding the screw up). Putting the last issue aside, I do like the concept of Dallas Box Co. and being new to Dallas, it is a nice way to get to know Dallas and local Dallas vendors. I loved all the products included in my first April Box.
Besides local food fare they send coupons to gym memberships, local restaurants and events, though some of the coupons, if I am being honest, feel like a bait. Its still a good deal but some of the coupons do require purchases for you to redeem them.
Having said that, if you want to try out new things each month and don’t mind spending a little extra to make the best use of your box, I would suggest trying out Dallas Box Co. Coupons and passes are a great incentive to visit a place and try their stuff out.
Overall, I think its an excellent idea and I see them getting better with each box. And you do get more than what you pay for. The boxes are priced at $29.95 and the total value of the contents in May’s box is $140 plus. This month’s contents include the following :
Two tickets to Nasher Sculpture Centre ($20 value),
Single Weekend Pass to Bulladora Music Experience ($99 value)
Assorted Macarons Box from Savor Patisserie ($12 value)
If you are interested in trying Dallas Box Co, they have a promotion going on which give you $5 off your first box by using the code DBCINSTA. You can subscribe here.
Since this is my weekly post about all things Dallas (here’s a link to last week’s Eating Dallas post)- Have you made weekend plans yet? Is Taste Addison one of them? There is also the 26th Annual Asian Festivalat Fair Park on Saturday, May 14th, in case that’s something you might be interested in. If you want to make the drive to Canton, tomorrow is the second and final day of the Annual Balloon Festival.
We are still unsure which way we are heading, and its going to be a tough decision. If you don’t have any of these on your list, but are looking for places to brunch or eat, here is my round up of some of the places we visited the days that went by (in case you are wondering, the list is not restricted to just last weekend’s food adventures!)
Cheesecake sandwiched between two layers of red velvet cake topped with cream cheese frosting. Hell Yesss!!
I made this for the first time almost a year back. As an experiment. I had a small 6 inch red velvet cake left from an order, and while thinking of ways to use it for our personal use, I wondered how a cheesecake layer sandwiched in between two red velvet cakes would taste. Turns out, after a quick google search, I had already been beaten to the idea. Thank You Cheesecake Factory! But that didn’t bother me- because I was going to make AND EAT a red velvet cheesecake cake! Who cares who thought of it first!
If you love cheesecake and if you love red velvet, you in all likelihood would love this red velvet cheesecake cake. We loved it. My parents and I enjoyed every bite of it. (I need to come up with a better, shorter name though- any suggestions?)
I had baked a New York cheesecake only once before and that was a while back. I could not find the recipe I used, but after going through several recipes I found this one and I knew I would not be disappointed. I was not.
For the red velvet cake I used a recipe I developed after several trials of a recipe I was already using. Red velvet was one of my most popular flavors when I was running TPC and this recipe was made almost every day. I love the moistness that oil gives to a cake, but I also love the taste that butter brings with it. A combination of the two worked well for me and my customers and thats what I use in this recipe.
