Mango Froyo

The day temperature is starting to soar. Soon it will be mango season. As it starts to hot up the mind naturally turn to thoughts of mango. All winter the containers of mango pulp from homegrown Amrapali mangoes just sit forgotten in the freezer.

I was on quite a roll last year. I’d made two kinds of ice creams with the bought cream but still had half the whole milk. which I turned into creamy yogurt. Don’t you love the malai on top of whole milk dahi? The following day as I reached for dahi to make the morning mango-smoothie/lassi, I thought the creamy dahi would be even better in frozen yogurt. The dahi had been cut and about a fourth of it already eaten. I tilted the dahi pot to drain as much whey as I could. As I set about grabbing the blender and other things, I took more dahi (made with regular 3% fat toned milk, the one that does not come in plastic bags!) in my big metal strainer lined with muslin. This dripped for not more than 15-20 minutes. You can skip this step if you are pressed for time; I don’t always do it.

Thick Mango Lassi

I blended everything with a stick blender and chilled the mix in the fridge as the container of the ice cream maker chilled overnight in the freezer. Next morning I churned it for a mere 15 minutes and transferred it to the freezer to chill for a few hours. Remember to remove the frozen yogurt an hour or more before it’s time to serve. That brings it to just the right temperature and level of thaw to taste the flavours better and also makes it easy to scoop.

Black Sesame Gelato

Well, I got me just the toy to make summer better – an ice cream maker! And, boy, have I been using it since! I’ve had it for a little over a week and have already covered my bases on frozen desserts – ice cream, sorbet, frozen yogurt, and granita. It has just brought out the creative cook in me like nothing else in a long time.

Every time we are in the vicinity of Connaught Place, we make sure to pick up a tub or two of Tender Coconut ice cream from Natural’s, our favorite flavour. When I finally agreed to add another gadget to my kitchen tools, this flavour was going to be the litmus test. If I could re-create reasonably good tender coconut ice cream at home, then giving over some kitchen retail to the new gadget could be deemed to be well worth it.

Before I could even make a list of the ingredients I needed, The Husband, as he drove off, called to say he was sending the coconut vendor my way. I answered the bell, hesitated briefly, and asked for two coconuts. I handed over two bowls to the vendor, one to hold the tender coconut water and the other for the coconut flesh. When I went to check he was scraping out the flesh from what looked like a pretty mature coconut. He had assumed I would prefer it for making chutney. I requested a really tender coconut, one with malai.

Ragi Laddoo for Diwali

What better reason to post after a long gap than Diwali! It’s a low-key Diwali at home this year; Baba, my father-in-law, left us recently, and the son is also studying far away. But marking Diwali with some frenzied activity in the kitchen still feels natural and so I made these quick laddoos last night after a regular day at work. I shared a few pictures in my Instagram stories which had many asking for the recipe and I thought why not “revive” the blog with a quick recipe that anyone with half an hour to spare can make.

All you need is ragi (finger millet) flour, jaggery (unrefined cane sugar), ghee, almonds, and cardamom – all healthy, minimally processed ingredients. I stocked up on the first two ingredients at the just-concluded Women of India Festival 2017 at Dilli Haat showcasing organic products manufactured by women. These laddoos are a great way to include millets in our diet. I will need to make more to share since we’ve already polished off half the lot and it’s not 24 hours since I made these!

Ragi Laddoo
Makes 18 small laddos

The Perfect Flan: In the Kitchen with Manisha

At the Garden of the Gods

[Continued from the previous post]
The next morning Andrea graciously offered to drive us through the Garden of the Gods before dropping us off at Jim’s office downtown. Kristin was driving up from Denver to pick us up. She, her husband Paul, Jim, and I, had been classmates at KSU and later Paul and I ended up working together in Denver. Today they own a successful design firm that is doing impressive work in and around Denver. It was so good to note that not only were all of us make a living out of what we had trained to do but also that we loved doing it!

Paying homage to Michael Graves at the DPL

1125 1/2 Corona, where I spent a year!

The Clock Tower

Margaritas at Benny’s

In Denver, Paul and Kristin took us down memory lane, literally. Together we drove to some of the once-familiar places including the little garage-unit at Corona and 11th (it had it’s own fractional address: 1125 1/2!) that had been my home, and the office at Cherokee and 11th. By the time we were through it was too late for a Japanese country-style lunch at Domo’s, which had been a favourite with the office bunch. So we went to Benny’s for Mexican instead – chimichangas and margaritas it was. Later we hung out at the City Center Cultural Complex with quick visits to the Denver Public Library, the Capitol Plaza, and the Denver Art Museum before catching the bus to Louisville from the all-new Union Station.