Menu for Hope Winners Announced!

This year, Menu for Hope raised $91,188.00. It's a 50% increase from the total of last year. That's just mind-blowing, isn't it?

Our campaign couldn't exist at all without the help of my food blogging friends from around the world. This community has what made the campaign what it is today. Thank you so much everyone, you deserve a big round of applause!

says Pim

A Big Huge Round of Applause, please! Thanks to all of you who donated, contributed in kind, spread the word and cheered the effort. None of this would have been possible without any of you. Thank you!



And, deep bow of recognition to all the regional hosts, especially Kalyn, who was the regional host for the US Central region.

UC12 - Grains, Greens, and Grated Coconuts, Recipes and Remembrances of a Vegetarian Legacy by Ammini Ramachandran from Indian Food Rocks

And the winner is...CL Boileau! Congratulations!

UC13 - Handmade bead necklace and matching earrings from Indian Food Rocks

And the winner is...Gayathri Venkitachalam! Congratulations!

The winners will receive an e-mail from Pim shortly to confirm this.

Please write to me at polarmate at gmail dot com with your mailing address so that I can make arrangements to mail your prizes to you at the earliest.

Winners of prizes offered by bloggers from the US Central region are available at Kalyn's Kitchen.

A complete list of winners is available at Chez Pim.




I was thrilled when Meeta invited me to write for The Daily Tiffin a couple of months ago. I will be writing a monthly column on a topic close to my heart, Parenting. My articles will focus on parenting an immigrant child, resources for gifted children, resources for parents of gifted children, girl cliques and a bunch of other stuff that is based on on my experience as an immigrant parent in the US.

I posted my first column for the month of January today: Girls Are Mean. So drop by and let me know what you think!

Tunisian Lamb Stew

I have raved about my sister's refrigerator before. She's a maniac in the kitchen. Otherwise, too. Just like my other sister. Our husbands seem to think that it's a trait that runs in the family. It's amazing how corny and tired that conversation is but they never fail to rewind and replay every time they talk. Each has a story that they are sure will win them the award of having married the craziest of the lot - like it's some sort of competition or something! - and that tells me who is totally off his rocker. But after I tell you this story, you might agree that it is my eldest sister who is truly nuts.

She got a call from her podiatrist insisting that she come in to show them the toenail she hurt while playing tennis. They said they would squeeze her in. She shuffled her own patients and went for her appointment. While she waited, she says she started salivating as she read a recipe for a spicy stew, a Tunisian lamb stew. She read and re-read the recipe. 15 minutes passed. She went back to it and read it again. More time went by. She closed her eyes and started testing herself on the ingredient list and method. Soon, she could recite the recipe backwards. After 45 minutes, she couldn't wait any longer as she had patients of her own to see; so she left without seeing the podiatrist, but with a recipe imprinted on her brain. To this day, she insists that she was called to the podiatrist's office just for that recipe.

If you are like me, you might be thinking: why didn't she ask for a pen and paper and copy it down? But she's not like me or you, so she memorized it. It's a skill that works well for her patients, too, because she remembers obscure information that helps her make a pre-diagnosis that the specialists only confirm.

She also left the podiatrist's office in a very calm frame of mind. Again, not like me or you.

The last time we visited her, she had made this Tunisian lamb stew specially for me. I recreated it over six months later and it's vying with marag for the spot of the ultimate comfort food. It's that good!

Tunisia is in North Africa with a coast along the Mediterranean Sea. Tunisia has a rich cultural heritage as well as history, having been conquered by the Romans, the Arabs, the French, and the Turks until the country finally won its independence from the Ottoman Empire. Its people are known for their hospitality and they also have a deep regard and love for spice. Tabil is a popular Tunisian spice mix of onions and garlic dried in the sun. I am still looking for the original recipe as a project for the summer of 2008.

Tunisian Lamb Stew

• 2lbs lamb meat, trimmed and cut into 1-inch chunks
• Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 tbsp grated fresh ginger
• 2 tsp cumin powder
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp dried red chilli flakes
• 3 tbsp tomato paste
• 6-8 cups chicken broth
• 1 bunch spinach, chopped
• 1 cup bulghur (cracked wheat)

1. In a large bowl, season the lamb with salt and very liberally with fresh coarsely ground black pepper. The more black pepper you add at this stage, the better it tastes. But don't add more than you can handle, of course!
2. Dust the lamb with flour so that it is well-coated.
   
3. Heat olive oil in a large kadhai at medium-high heat.
4. Add the lamb, shaking off excess flour.
5. Cook the lamb, turning occasionally, until the meat is brown on all sides. This takes between 10-15 minutes depending on how tender your lamb is.
6. Transfer the lamb to a large platter or bowl. What you will be left with in the kadhai is a thick dark brown roux.
7. Reduce the heat to medium-low and add chopped onion, minced garlic, grated ginger, cumin powder, coriander powder, and red chilli flakes.
8. Cook for 5-10 minutes to toast the spices and soften the onions.
9. Add the tomato paste and 2 cups of the chicken broth and stir well.
10. Return the lamb to the pot, increase the heat to medium, cover, and cook until the lamb is fork-tender. It took about half hour for me.
11. While the lamb is cooking, cook 1 cup of bulghur in 2 cups of chicken broth. Adding more broth, if required.
12. Also, clean, chop and steam the spinach and set aside.
    
13. Add the remaining 2 cups broth (4 cups, if you want a real stew, one that is not dry) and bring to a boil.
    
14. Turn off the heat, add the spinach and bulghur and stir well.
    
15. Cover and let stand for 15 minutes.
16. Taste and adjust the seasoning.
    
17. Serve with warm whole wheat pita bread.

Notes:

• It helps to do your prep work in advance and have everything ready for use. Mise en place, if you want to get all French and fancy.
• I used low sodium organic chicken broth, sold in tetrapaks. Usually there are about 4 cups in each tetrapak. Using 6 cups of broth would have left me with 2 cups of chicken broth languishing in the refrigerator, so I decided to use it. It was a great move because the stew thickens and the bulghur also absorbs a lot of the liquid as it expands further after adding it to the stew.
• I roasted 1 tsp of whole coriander seeds and 1 dried red chilli (byadgi), allowed it to cool and then pounded it coarsely in my mortar-pestle. Don't do this if you prefer coriander powder to coarsely ground coriander.
• I added 1 tsp of red chilli powder in addition to the red chilli flakes.
• I followed Anita's recipe for whole wheat pita, except that I did not use any all-purpose flour (maida). I used 2 cups of King Arthur's whole wheat flour and 2 cups of King Arthur's bread flour. That bread flour is so smooth and silky, it's unbelievable! I needed more than 2 cups of water to knead the dough. I used my convection oven at 475F and the pitas puffed up every time like a charm! These are the best whole wheat pitas I have ever had! I am going to be making them over and over again! Not only are they easy to make, the clean up is a snap. Nothing compared to the mess that goes with making rotis, even though the pitas have to be rolled out.
• I wondered whether we really needed the whole wheat pita when there was bulghur in the stew. I tried eating it without pita and you have to believe me when I tell you that there is something very wholesome to dipping a piece of warm pita in that stew, and carrying it to your mouth. It makes the dish complete on some levels that I cannot describe or explain.

I found the original recipe and I am not surprised at what a great job my sister did at memorizing it. After all, you have to be a muggoo to get into med school in the first place. More so in India...

Happy New Year!

It's 2008!

I like to light a diya for the New Year but this year, I thought I'd bring it in with a splash and raise a toast to all of you, my readers!

A tsunami in a martini glass - caption by Nupur

May this New Year be filled with journeys that take you to new levels of excitement and fulfillment.


And I hope you enjoy the abundant sunshine along the way.

Happy New Year!

I would like to send in one of these images to the Click: Liquid event. But I am not sure which one to send in. My personal favorite is the third one which heavily post-processed but I am not sure it will fly with the audience for Click. And with at least one of the judges, for sure! So...what to do? What to do? Let me know what you think!

Update: Pic #1 is going to Click: Liquid. Thank you all so much for your response! I am really overwhelmed!