I started the Garam Masala Tuesdays series in April of 2011, and finally after 2 years, I am posting a recipe for homemade Garam Masala! If I wasn’t embarrassed enough, I would be laughing at the irony of it. But in all fairness when I started the series I did mention that I hardly ever use garam masala in my cooking. So why the name Garam Masala tuesdays? You can read about that here.
If I hardly use garam masala, why the recipe then. Well, ever since I have started making my own garam masala, I do use it more than I previously did, because it just adds that touch of flavor which makes my dishes come together perfectly.
Garam Masala literally translates to warm/hot spice mix. Garam In Hindi means Hot, and Masala means blended spices.
But when I say hot it doesn’t mean that the spices are spicy hot. It means that the spices raise the heat of the body by raising the metabolism and hence the name garam masala. And that is why you should always use garam masala sparingly in your cooking. Too much of it and your stomach will bear the brunt of it.
If you love chicken tikka, and you love pizza- this is totally your kind of Pizza.
I made it last week for V and me, using some leftover pizza dough I had and both of us really devoured it!
Now, V is not a pizza person. He is mostly a dal roti person, but for this pizza he changed his mind. He actually was sad when it got over and even though he knew there was no more pizza left he was talking about how he felt like having this pizza the next day. He still talks about it. And while writing this post, I wish I had some pizza dough so that I could make this again now.
I know, I have been making a trend of doing belated GMTs. But it’s been crazy busy with me and when its not been busy, sitting on the computer has been last on the things I feel like doing. I have been cooking and photographing- just not getting enough time or will to pen (or in this case type) it down.
The reason why I could not blog yesterday for GMT (again) is that Tuesdays have become busier than other days. I have joined Art Class, giving me no time in the evening. And since I am getting up at 5 am everyday to exercise, most afternoons I try getting a quick snooze in. I still thought I would be able to do a quick post yesterday, but my cold (which thankfully is better today) and a visit from my friend threw those plans out of the window.
Another reason, besides my triathlon (which FYI is this Saturday) training, my posts have been so sporadic is that due to a recent easy recipe plugin update, all the recipes that had the print it option were missing text and photographs. The easy recipe plugin guys have come out with an update that claims to take care of the problems with the previous update, but not before I manually fixed the recipes myself. That took some time and thus I had to take some time off blogging new recipes.
I promise next week onwards, I will be more regular and you will have a GMT that is posted on a Tuesday and not a Wednesday!
But for now, to compensate for my absence, I am sharing two old recipes that I posted around the beginning of my blogging days. If you remember I mentioned that I will be revisiting old recipes- one, to check whether they are spot on in terms of instructions and ingredients and two, to shoot better photographs and give them the exposure they deserve.
It’s the only thing that V has cooked for me (besides Maggi), and even though V doesn’t cook often or at all, this dal of his is my all time favorite dish. My friend B has also made this dal and every time she makes it she asks me to thank V for the recipe. Yes, this is THAT good. And since its made in the crockpot, it’s the easiest thing to put together. Click on the picture or here for the recipe.
The other recipe I am sharing today is my mom’s quick channa masala. Going with the theme today, this too is an easy recipe to put together. Somebody who tried the recipe, commented that “it was the best chole i have ever made. the perfect punju taste that i always attempted to get”.
I love this recipe not only because it tastes great, but because its really easy to put together. You can find the recipe here or click on the picture to take you to the post.
The day I made the chhole, I had a few ready to fry channa dal samosas in the freezer. So I decided to make a favorite Indian street food- Samosa Chaat. I have made it before with a different recipe for the chickpea dish and homemade samosas. This time I used my mom’s quick channa masala recipe and ready made samosas. The end result was pretty good. You can find the original recipe here.
the perfect punju taste that i always attempted to get”.
