General stuff and junky dinners

OK, my two dear friends know how I attended my family wedding in Chennai sitting in Mumbai yesterday morning...but I still haven't gotten over the thrill of it, so had to share it with my larger audience out here. So that's where technology in India is taking us.

Last week we managed to catch one of those rare Tamizh movie releases in Bombay - Vellithirai, in one of those multiplexes we don't usually visit. When I was booking our tickets online, I was pleasantly surprised to notice that I can book my large caramel popcorn, coffee and samosa online too with my tickets and they will be delivered to my seat number whenever I'd like them to....now that's what I call spoiling the customers! Another example how technology is transforming our lives. I don't mean to say I want to be waited on hand and foot when I'm watching a movie, but I like to be given the choice :)

The last few days I've been on a junk food spree. Last week we were in the Tamizhland of Bombay, Matunga on the way back from town. We had a quick weekday lunch at the Madras Cafe, which is a functional eatery that Matunga masses of the last few decades swear by. I love their Raagi- Masala dosa and filter kaapi. They also serve stuff that very few eateries in Bombay would serve, stuff like Ragi Sevai, Rasam Vadai, Neer Masala dosa, and though we are made to share tables with total strangers because of the lack of space, when the food is so good, I don't really care if we are made to sit on a table for four where there is one stranger already slurping his sambar. Post-lunch we stopped by Venkateshwara stores close to the flower-market, picked up a big bag of Nendram Varuval (quartered plantain chips), some traditional 'mixture', a pack of thattai and a block of Tirunelveli Halwa. While I am not too interested in mixture, the plantain chips are quite irresistible and while the hubby is at work, i have been slowly working towards finishing off the contents, albeit a little at a time, with my afternoon tea.

Veggie Crescents ( I like to call them pillows)

Since the husband has been extremely busy at work this whole week and having a working dinner for most of the past few days, I have been making extremely junky choices for my dinners...well, except for one day when I gathered a lot of inspiration to shrug off my increasing laziness at cooking dinner for one, and made these Vegetable Crescents. The combination of stuffing was very finely chopped red cabbage, spring onion greens, onion, cauliflower, capsicum, paneer and cheese, and somehow these vegetable flavours mingled brilliantly together, giving a super end result. The dough asked for milk, but the lazy me had none at home, and used water instead.

Inside a pillow

The original was blogged by Sunita and then tried by Arundati, who made sure she kept egging me about this delicious thing she kept making every other day, or so it seemed. I must say it was such a treat. The hubby managed to taste one despite coming home late, and I used the yeasty dough and stuffing for making parathas the next day for lunch. With so many vegetables used, the stuffing mix was still left over, and today was promptly mixed into idli-batter to make lovely pink uthapams.

Yesterday's junky dinner was jhaal mudi, a Bengali style bhel, where mustard oil adds a whole new zing. And today I just ordered some Pairi aam-ras (mango puree) from the shop across the road, mixed a part of this with a part of milk to get some delicious mango milk shake, the last few drops of which I have just cleared off with my fingers. This was today's dinner.

Green bean-tomato salad

Talking about junky dinners, I must admit I made salad for dinner one of these days, a first experience with using green beans in salads which is quite common in American and European cuisine. For me green beans means Paruppu Usili or Pulaos. I used a salad recipe from a blog, Smitten Kitchen that I found on food blog search while searching for 'green bean salad'. Here it is, I just substituted cherry tomatoes with quartered regular tomatoes and red wine vinegar with balsamic vinegar. I wasn't too excited with the flavours, the tomatoes and vinegar combining to give quite a sour taste that I'm not fond of. May be next time I'll omit the tomatoes altogether. This is my entry for Raaga's MBP - Soups and Salads.