Archive for July, 2008

I want to preface this post by first saying I know there's no way to fully cover this topic in any single blog post. I simply mean this as an introduction and nothing more. I think it would be fair to guess most people know you can find tofu in both firm and soft varieties, but what's the meaning behind these differences? What's the difference between these products and why ...

An interesting concoction for bean curd lovers at least, this bastardised form of nigari tofu came to me after a discussion with someone about Vietnamese food. Vietnam is the only Southeast Asian country that uses dill (in fact, the Vietnamese use more fresh herbs than any of the others), and this is due to the past French influences (they are also the ...

It's hard to fail with pasta I popped into my favourite Asian shop in town bought approximately 15,000 tonnes of fresh herbs last weekend and with some mint still to use up, I decided a pasta and pea combination was in order. I did not, however, wish to have the mint completely ...

Quite a few people ask me how I make tofu and my usual response is "it's just like making paneer!" The response is a lot of puzzled looks. Apparently there are quite a few people who don't know what paneer is, let alone how to make it. But these questions made me ask myself if, since the processes are similar, a mix of tofu and paneer could ...

And a side of carrots! Hmm, that doesn't sound very exciting, does it? Here's the thing: I got a mandolin slicer, I had a huge bag of carrots, and I wanted to play. Enough said. To make the pretty design in the carrots, just score down 4 sides of each carrot and cut a small sliver out. If you don't have ...

Spinach is my BFF I crave it, sometimes irrationally, and I cannot rest until I've had my fill of this luscious green. I am convinced people who say they hate spinach have simply been served the frozen variety during their childhood, and frozen spinach really is enough to scar a person for life. I think a palak or saag is the perfect way to convince a person that spinach ...

Who can resist the cuteness that is a kitten? My mother is currently fostering 5 kittens for a volunteer feral cat charity and it's a real trip to watch them [ try to ] eat. If the pictures about to follow don't make you smile then maybe you need to stick your head back in the clouds for awhile. After viewing their eating ...

After nearly a month of being out of town, I'm back home and ready to cook. I return prepared, with a varied selection of new and wonderful cook books. These many new volumes of recipes will hopefully see me stationed often in the kitchen, creating what I hope will be dozens of mouthwatering recipes! I'm excited about my finds, some of them planned ...