Indian Gooseberries (Usirikaya) - Revisiting Childhood

The fruit in the above picture is called a gooseberry (not to be confused with this gooseberry which is mainly used for pickles) and has a unique sour tang to it. The sourness, if i have to describe it to someone who has never eaten it, is somewhat close to that of a raw mango. These were sold in heaps on mobile carts outside my school and were eaten raw with a sprinkle of salt and red chili powder. And i have had my share as a kid. During school days, there was also a tree right next to the building where we lived and there were at least 10 kids around my age (plus or minus two years) living in that area. The whole gang of kids could always be found playing in the vicinity of the gooseberry tree. A vigorous shake of the tree would result in a rain of these green berries and the kids would rush to pick as many as we could hold in out tiny hands. The branches of the tree are quite fragile, i know now because i had a fractured right hand while playing around/ climbing the tree when i was five. It wasn't all bad, all i remember about that accident now is that i got to skip a whole set of exams in my first grade class because my writing hand was hurt and got to munch a whole lot of gooseberries too ;-)

All this revisiting the childhood is now happening because when my parents visited me a couple of weeks ago, they brought these gooseberries along. I hadn't eaten one in almost fifteen years. Turns out a tree miraculously appeared in their backyard and it bore first fruits this year. And how i could i not get a share of these childhood favourites. The black and white photo goes to Susan's Black and White Wednesday event at The Well Seasoned Cook.
So did you have a taste of these gooseberries?

Homemade Eggless Strawberry Ice cream (No Cooking)

My love for sweets not withstanding, i didn't think i could get addicted to ice cream. Not until i made one at home with fresh strawberries in the peak of their season. And i discovered whole new limits to the quantity of ice cream that can be consumed in one sitting. My limits at least. At recent trips to the farmer's market i could see street side vendors selling packs of strawberries at rates much less than in super markets. And when i found that the cost of a pack was coming down with every visit over the last two months, i found myself buying increasing quantities of these red beauties. I ate some as dessert, just the fruits, but wasn't satisfied. And froze some because the rate at which fresh strawberries were coming into the house was more than the rate at which they were being consumed.  (By the way they freeze extremely well, i take a peek at the ones in the freezer once in a while and they look temptingly fresh). So as the year was coming to a close, i decided i was going to welcome the new year with a big bowl of ice cream, an irresistible one.

Pressure cooker in action

This was a picture i clicked in my mom's kitchen, a couple of months ago. The colour photo has very little difference from its black and white counterpart. Its just the wall that has colour, a reddish brown granite. The pressure cooker and the frying pan themselves are made of white aluminium and black plastic. (This was cooking in that frying pan on that day). As far as i know, mom has been using these utensils for everyday cooking for more than two decades. They don't make them like that anymore is what i hear these days with both mom and mother-in-law still using kitchen utensils and appliances from when they got married and first started cooking. Now-a-days, the husband and i expect our kitchen utensils to last about two years and appliances to last some five years. Half of my frying pans have already lost their handles, and its just about two years since purchase.

I have missed Black and White Wednesdays the last few weeks and i am happy to be back.

Carrots prepped for juicer - Black and White Wednesday

I liked this picture from the minute i first downloaded it from my camera. It was clicked in natural light in the morning close to my kitchen door. The light and dark sides are clearly visible and i loved the delicious shade of orange on the carrots, which you will now have to imagine as i chose this for Black and White Wednesday. It looked artistic, even if that thought was only mine. 

I had washed the carrots, scraped the skin, sliced off the heads and tails, and sliced them in half vertically so they could pass through the juicer without too much coaxing. They were all prepped and ready to go into the juicer when the food blogger in me woke up and said, don't you want to photograph this? That's how this photo got its place here.

Pomegranates on Tree - Black and White Wednesday

I am back for another black and white Wednesday. This is another photo from grandma's village. I realized recently that it is an old habit of mine to carry my 'point and shoot' digital camera around ever since i bought my first digital camera about seven years ago. And the village folks are generally amused when they see a young woman walking around the village with a camera in her hand, clicking at everything she sees. It so happened that six years ago when i visited this village i clicked some photos of a mother hen with about a dozen new-born chicks. They were really cute to look at. Apparently the lady who owned them still asks grandma about me and every single time they talk about how i went around those chicken for good photos. Don't know where i lost those old photos now. At least this time around, i have this blog to preserve these memories and to share with you.

The above picture has two little pomegranates on the tree. There is also a guava tree growing right next to the pomegranate tree and there is one little 'not yet ripe' guava amidst the large guava leaves. Can you spot it?

Happy Dussehra friends :-)

Cooking in an Indian village two generations ago

I have told you that i recently went to visit my parents in Vijayawada. My grandma lives in a small village nearby, so i usually also go visit her whenever i go to Vijayawada. Also because she loves me to bits and asks me when i am coming to visit her again only a week after my latest visit. My aunt's family also live in that village and my aunt usually does the cooking part now that grandma has become quite old. Coming to the picture of discussion today, this was how the rice was cooked that day, that was eaten with fish and chicken curries.

This is similar to the basic three stone cook stove mentioned here (My friends tell me i have an addiction for wikipedia, possibly caused by an obsession for perfection). Bricks are set up on three sides to balance a cooking pot and firewood or dried cow-dung cakes are used as fuel and pushed in from the open side. Food is cooked on the open flame and controlled by the amount of firewood placed under the pot. This was how my grandma always cooked, she had two such cook stoves side by side and managed to cook delicious meals on them during our childhood summers spent in that village. I guess this type of cooking is almost non-existent today, even in villages, because everyone now cooks with LPG or natural gas or electricity.

This Flower is a Chocolate Cake - Black and White Wednesday

I can't believe its Wednesday again, already! Time for another black and white Wednesday and i have not done a single recipe post since the last one. What can i say, i have been busy and time flew. To give you some context - My dad retired from his job last month after having completed almost thirty five years of service. He had a single employer all his life, the state government. Those were the days when private employers weren't big in India and a young man was deemed eligible for marriage only if he had a government job. And so he kept at it for the better part of his life, where colleagues became family friends.

And when he was throwing these friends a farewell party at the end of last month, i couldn't be with him on his big day because i was going to spend it with my in-laws celebrating the festival of Ganesh Chaturthi. I can't even type this without feeling extremely guilty about it. My way of making amends (to myself, mostly) was to visit my parents a week later, and bake my dad some sweet goodies. My dad has a sweet tooth (a huge one) and loves everything sweet. So, i baked him this chocolate cake, another orange chocolate chunk cake, a bunch of peanut butter cookies (that were promptly shared with some of his now ex-colleagues) and a larger bunch of wholewheat oats cookies (the recipe will come soon).

The recipe for this chocolate cake is the same as the one i have posted in June and have referred to in many posts since then, it has become a family favourite. What's new about today's post is that i got myself a new silicone cake pan recently that is the shape of a flower and i have baked all my cakes in it since then, i had to share with you. Today i am traveling back to Hyderabad and once i settle down, hopefully the recipe posts will start coming soon. Oh yes, i have been clicking photos of mom's dishes in the kitchen the last few days - you will have to wait a little more to see them.

This photo goes to Susan's Black and White Wednesday event. An event i now look forward to.

My burger takes many sides - Black and White Wednesday

We had this chicken burger for dinner one night before i started blogging. This was one of the first photos i clicked after having taken a fancy to photographing foods. I was also previously not too keen on presenting foods well, i would just throw whatever i cooked on a plate and hand it over to my husband. Then during one of our usual chit-chat sessions, my mother-in-law told me how much her son liked well presented food. This was news to me, and i was appalled at the way i was serving him lunches and dinners with zero thought to presentation for a whole year. So this photo was from that time when i started giving presentation a little thought and wanted to click a photo to remember my humble beginnings.

 

The burger is made of grilled chicken breast fillet (cooked similar to this) and the sides are grilled pink onion slices, fresh tomato slices, small scoops of avocado, fried fresh green chilies, pickled jalapeno slices, and grilled green bell peppers.

Since i don't have the process pictures for this dish, this never made it to the blog till today. And today this gets to see light because of Susan's Black and White Wednesday event.