Indian Classics - Kesar Badam Milk (Indian Almond Milk With Saffron)

Growing up in Catholic Mangalore, the one festival that we didn't really celebrate was the intensely riotous festival of colours, Holi. In India, Holi signifies the arrival of spring and is celebrated by throwing powdered colours at people, as well as buckets full of coloured water.

But that changed when I headed to university in Delhi, and for two crazy years, I celebrated Holi with a passion that belied all my Holi-less days growing up. Our university turned into a rainbow as everyone was doused in every shade of colour known to humankind.

Holi is also about bhang... click on that word at your own peril :) Bhang is an intoxicating drink made with the leaves and buds of the female marijuana plant, and for one day is pretty much legal all over India. At university, we used to be served 'bhang thandai' (a chilled milk based bhang drink) in our residence mess halls. Obviously, you could choose if you wanted to drink it or not, but to be honest, what self respecting university student, away from home, wouldn't indulge? So we started off with bhang first thing in the morning, steadily getting more and more intoxicated as the day wore on and we all were wearing a plethora of colour. We danced out in the streets with wild abandon, and even the most uptight of people let go of their inhibitions, as everyone embraced the beginning of spring and the bounty it brings. Technically we still had classes, but seeing as most of the lecturers were down with the students, I can only assume not much teaching or learning happened. 

And once the day was done, we all scraped ourselves off the ground, and oozed our way back to our rooms, where we spent hours trying to wash all the colours out of our hair and skin, usually to the chorus of 'why are you hogging the bathroom, get out and let others shower too' 'knock, knock, are you ever getting out of there?' 'other people need to shower too'... (these are Indian student halls, about four bathrooms shared between twenty odd girls led to a fair bit of possessiveness and yelling and screaming and threatening and accompanying hilarity :))

Sadly, as I am not so much in with the East Indian population here in Edmonton, I didn't manage to find an, ahem! bhang party to attend this year... to be honest, I would imagine most people celebrated quietly indoors anyway, owing to the freezing temperatures :) So this year, my Holi has been spent vicariously enjoying all the pictures that my friends in India, and some abroad, have been posting on their Facebook timelines! And missing the bhang warmth and colours of India.

Read More

Mango Ginger Crumble

 

I've always said that you can take a girl out of the tropics, but you can't take the tropics out of the girl. Yes, and that would describe me to a tee. As I always bemoan on this site, I miss the tropics. I am not saying that I don't love living in Edmonton, but to be honest, when its the end of March and we have over a foot of snow... well, it gets old very fast. This is the time when I am so heartily sick of winter and the cabin fever sets in. I get really tired of having to put on a million (erm... maybe a slight exaggeration, but close, nevertheless) layers of clothes, and hats and mittens and giant snowboots... its so wrong. Especially when then cat's bounding along with spring fever and shedding everywhere, and on occasion, you can hear a lonely bird or two tweedling their lonesome song... 

Yes, these are the days the sunshine girl in me longs to shed all those layers and the only hat I want to wear is a sunhat. Preferably a pink one. With pink flipflops to match... its not that much of an ask, is it?

Read More

Recipe. Dragon. Giveaway. 'Cookin' Greens' Rapini with Coconut and Spices

Well, piqued yet?

I was recently approached by my absolute favourite brand of frozen greens, 'Cookin' Greens' who threw down an intriguing challenge to me. Cookin' Greens may already be familiar to my readers. Last year, I made my Palak Paneer with their Flash Frozen Chopped Spinach, and to date, its one of the most popular recipes on The Tiffin Box.

This time round, the challenge was a different one. I was very excited to hear that Cookin' Greens were going to be on CBC's Dragon's Den and to celebrate this, they contacted their favourite food bloggers (ahem!) and gave them a rather fiery task... we were to create a recipe for a Dragon, using a Cookin' Greens product.

My pet dragon turned out to be internet mogul Bruce Croxon and I had to make him 'dinner' using Cookin' Greens Chopped Rapini. Yipes! Bruce turned out to be a pretty formidable challenge for this poor food blogger, but I went with my sword erm... knife, flying, and my pans all girded up.

Read More

Indian Street Food (and Drinks) - Sugarcane Juice

I'll start off on a weird note. Have you heard of the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon? Despite its complicated sounding name, its a simple thing, really. It a phenomenon when you hear, see, or find something unusual, and then suddenly you hear it repeated within a very short period of time. For example, I was reading this book, and one of the key aspects of it was a tuna melt (yeah, I know, I know!! Humour me, OK). The next day I went with Kay to the Blue Plate Diner here in Edmonton, and, lo! a tuna melt was staring at me from the menu. 

At this point, you're probably wondering where on earth this waffle of mine is going, right? Well, its going somewhere... I promise. And it all started with a piece of sugarcane grass. Kathryn and I were shopping at Fruiticana, a local Indian grocery store for our Cook Indian Vegetarian class, and what should be staring at me, but piles of sugarcanes, all beautiful in their green and gold finery! I almost did a little dance right there with excitement (Kathryn and Aditi must have thought I was completely nuts!) as I convinced Kathryn that we should buy one straightaway. The plan was to use them in our South East Asian class, but that never really came about, and the sugarcane was duly stolen appropriated by the chief leftover scrounger, aka, me.

So I get home with this cane, and my Kay just looks at me and goes, is that sugarcane?? Really? And I go, well, yeah. What's wrong? And he tells me that on the very same day, one of the students in his office, a lovely young Zimbabwean chap called Chaka was bemoaning the fact that he couldn't find sugarcane anywhere in Edmonton... talk about Baader-Meinhof phenomenon overload or what!! So Kay happily took a piece of the sugarcane to Chaka, who was impressed and pleased and excited too, and my good deed for the day was done :) And to make things even weirder, just the day before, Michael, another one of Kay's students had just told him about the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. As Jughead would say, 'weird, weird'.

Read More