Tilapia Milanese

Tilapia Milanese with Cilantro-Lime Sour Cream

It was my first time cooking Tilapia so I chose a recipe from the Food Network's extensive online collection of recipes. Summer here is probably not a great time to heat up the stoves and the oven but this dish was so worth the effort. It took a mere 8 minutes to bake and the process was a little scary for a novice like me but worth every little harried moment.

Don't you agree? We paired this meal with a Chardonnay and I made a Lime-Cilantro Sour Cream sauce - very easy - to go with the fish instead of heavy tartar sauce. In the recipe, they just made a side of simple arugula salad and lemon wedges but my love of sour cream inspired me to try out this combination. It was great!

The dinner concluded with a summery desert - a bowl of chopped strawberries and bananas drizzled with honey and topped with whipped cream. A great ending to the weekend and a positive beginning for the new week that was to follow.

Go here for the recipes:

Tilapia Milanese

Cilantro-Lime Sour Cream Sauce

Small Plates, Smaller Portions

                                    

I had a cousin come over to stay for the last few days of spring break. It was lovely to take him around and indulge in margaritas, bar snacks and a juicy, custom-made chicken burger with a real ol-fashioned (drink) on the side. We even went to watch 'The Artist'. All of these things happened in intervals while I was cooking up a storm of comfort food, yellow dal, a spicy potato dish, lots of rice and a very spicy and rich Thai chicken curry. Needless to say, the binging took its toll this morning and I'm reducing my portions.

Last night, I cooked a dish of elbow macaroni and pesto with fried eggs and a few sticks of pork sausages (ripping off the tough skins). I ate the leftover 'mini' portion for lunch sprawled on the sofa with a new Claire Berlinski novel from the library and a glass of orange juice. I never thought I'd be the person eating mini portions. My body however seems to crave it. I'm also craving the juicy grapes I'd chomped on throughout the weekend.

I could really munch on some frozen grapes for dessert. What do you recover on after a night (or a few nights) of binging?

Cooking for One Instead of Table for One

When I'm not drooling over the food pics in Eric Gower's cookbook, I'm reading Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant - an anthology of one-person cooking articles from really creative people (writers, filmmakers, teachers, foodies) in diverse fields. I'm not too surprised to find comfort food - in different forms - ranging from recipes with canned black beans to poached eggs over asparagus, scrambled eggs on toast topped with truffle oil, polenta to a layered salmon, shallots and lentils dish. It's not just an amazing recipe book, it's a great comfort read - something to read in bed with a bowl of ice cream.

My comfort food was the Macaroni stir fry recipe - even if it happens that I'm missing a few ingredients, eggs, onions and pasta are always available along with my spice rack. In fact, eggs are very personal to me and my first choice when cooking a meal for myself. They're super easy and fun to eat, try scrambling them with rice or pasta or just over toast, they're very comforting and uncomplicated. I've even eaten boiled egg sandwiches with mustard and thousand island dressing for dinner alone, which prompted my husband to look in the fridge to see if everything in there rotted beyond recognition.

I love that these writers are all emphasizing on the simple things that are very self-indulgent, you'd make them because you want to pig out and not share. They're just as pampering if not more than the meals we make for dinner parties or for special weekends alone with your sweetie. I love that this book exists to take away the depressive air around 'Meals for One'.

Book: Alone In The Kitchen With An Eggplant - Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone

Edited by Jenni Ferrari-Adler

Written by a lot of talented, creative people who love themselves 

Reading Cookbooks....

I've grown up loving to read cookbooks and always find it relaxing to just pore through recipes like I'm reading a novel. It's not an activity I can do for hours but its always a good break for me as I try to mentally match the ingredients to the ones I have in the fridge.

This is a great match for me:



The Breakaway Cook - Eric Gower


I can read this for hours and the recipes aren't that long. In fact, he has already done and excelled at what I'm just attempting to do. If I can bring the same passion to what I cook everyday perhaps Indian cuisine can get there instead of being more intimidating to people who don't necessarily want to or love to cook. Indian curries and spices are a little daunting to the people around here, so much that I ensure that my home isn't greasy-smelling or feel like just too many spices died here. I cannot tolerate too spicy or food that tries to disguise its original, natural flavour by being overly preserved. The minute I bit into carrots and beans that had been tossed in just garlic and olive oil, I nearly cried for not having figured it out years earlier when olive oil had started to become fashionable in India.

Ok, now after a big ol' diversion into me, let's get back to the book. There's a website too:
http://www.breakawaycook.com/

There are words which really arouse my interest: umeboshi (or Japanese pickled 'plums' - he explains that they're actually apricots), maccha salt, ume vinegar, a lot of Japanese words. Then there are the absolutely interest-sparking recipes, for example, a Habanero fried rice with mangoes, pasta with a sauce of peas and onions, lamb chops sprinkled with lavender, and a recipe that made me borrow the book - Clay-Pot Ginger Pork with Figs and Pickled Fennel - just the pic of it makes me feel all cozy and wonderful inside as if it's a wondrous comfort food that I grew up eating. I would love to go to a mom and pop's restaurant and order that with a side of rice. Looking at the image fills me with all these feelings.

Do check his website to get a feel. It first felt like he was secretly cheffing away in this cookbook while giving the impression these things are easy when they're not, but I started reading the recipes before I even checked it out. They're well within my reach and I am glad that someone wanted to do that. We get more time to actually pay attention to the compliments that follow and the awed looks one gets when one tells them the truth - that it took no time at all to make!

Book: The Breakaway Cook

Author: Eric Gower

It's really awesome!

McDonald's Recipe: Orange Fanta with Coke (Diet)

I saw it on the Travel channel - the German McDonald's outlets serve orange soda mixed with Coke. I tried it out with the diet version. Not bad! The colour's not great, which is why I didn't upload the snap of it up here but I did like it: it wasn't as bad as I'd thought it could be.

It's a tad sweeter even when I used regular Tropicana juice maybe coz of the Coke. But it was a more refreshing drink than just Diet Coke.

Here's a link for the drink - Mezzo Mix: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mezzo-Mix-Coke-Orange-Fanta/47083844930

Any other interesting combinations you can think about? Do try them and send me a link.