Cheese and chutney

  

Sometimes it’s not about gourmet cuisine, but just about combining a few key flavours and making quick, simple but yet delicious food. And this little tidbit is a exactly that. 

Slices of homemade wholewheat and spelt seeded bread. Slivers of butter and a spread of sweet, tart sun-dried fig chutney. Topped with chunks of extra-hot Mexicana cheese. No cooking, no fuss. 

And the best part is that you can switch things around and try different combinations. Go for a different chutney. Use goats cheese or feta. Experiment with the flavours and use what works for you. 

Pea, ham and ginger soup

I love soups, and after consuming many a store-bought litre, we bought a few recipe books and started making our own. Our homemade soups are healthier, fresher and free from hidden ingredients and preservatives. What more could one ask for? The biggest problem with the recipes given in books though, is that they often have ingredients like potato for thickening. We find that we are perfectly happy either with thin or clear soups, or with the consistency got by blending the ingredients together. And after trying a few, we’re now at the stage where we have been improvising and even inventing our own soups.

One of my all-time favourite soups is the classic English pea and ham soup. Which is really surprising because I am not all that find of peas. But I love the simplicity of a good pea soup, with the meaty morsels of ham in every other spoonful. In this particular recipe though, I experimented a bit and added a bit of ginger, which I felt gave the dish a lovely back note of heat.

Sabudana Khichdi (Tapioca pearls with peanuts and potatoes)

Sabudana Khichdi (literally meaning a ‘mishmash’) is a very popular breakfast dish, especially in Maharashtra. Growing up in Mumbai, one sees and consumes this everywhere and even now this is a firm favourite in our household, especially on weekends when one has the opportunity for a more leisurely breakfast.

Sabudana or Tapioca pearls are a processed form of the Tapioca root, and are a common ingredient in Indian kitchens. Sabudana is an accepted food during most religious fasts (vrat) and so it is used extensively on such days to make a variety of foods from breakfast dishes, fried snacks and even desserts.