For the month of February, Christianna of the Burwell General Store chose a wild rice dressing as the recipe to be swapped.
The rules of the swap are simple. Each month Christianna sends us a recipe from a vintage cookbook, to which we have to give our own twist by changing at least three things either in the recipe’s ingredients, or technique or both.
I try to be inventive in the kitchen but more often than not it is always a miss.
Like the time I tried to make salsa pasta. I know! What was I thinking, right?!
Well, I thought it would be the best of both worlds but it turned out to be the worst.
I actually blame it on the salsa (not the salsa recipe but that particular salsa batch).
I added more cilantro to the salsa than called for and in the hope of rescuing the salsa batch, I decided to mix it with some pasta thinking it might reduce the cilantro flavor and in the process I would come up with a new dish in the kitchen that would be truly my creation (while writing this post I did google salsa pasta and apparently there are versions of it floating around in cyber space).
…and a lesson in knowing your “Moong” dal.
When I was in India this time, somebody asked me, why is your blog called the “Novice” Housewife? Going on further to explain that from the pictures and the food I make, it didn’t look like I was a novice.
At that time I took it as a compliment and smiled (reminding myself that when someone pays you a compliment you should always accept it and never protest).
In my mind though, I was saying- of course I am a novice, there is so much I do not know.
This post is a reflection of just that.
How little I know. And how much I need to learn.
(I know this doesn’t sound like a strong case for me giving my “expert” advice on Indian food at GMT! Yikes! Anywho….)
The other day, I downloaded a food recipe app- a Nita Mehta iPhone app.
Nita Mehta is like the Ina Garten of Indian food, if I could say so, without offending fans of either of the mentioned parties. Her recipes are quick and mostly great. Like Ina’s.
So anyway, I downloaded the app- its a breakfast recipes app. And looked good. I decided to try her version of Rajasthani Chilla.
