Breakfast Torte

Have you ever noticed that when you're getting ready for work that it's hard to find the motivation to make breakfast? Maybe it's just me, but in the morning, I just want to get as much a sleep as possible, and get out to the door and get to work. Why you ask? The earlier I get in, the earlier I can leave! 

This week I thought I would make myself a hearty breakfast torte that I could cook today, cut up and just take to work. Simple, easy and healthy. Check out my recipe for my breakfast torte below. 

Breakfast Torte

Ingredients 

• 9 eggs 
• 5 whole eggs 
• 4 whites 
• 1/4 cup broccoli chopped 
• 1/4 cup spinach chopped
• 1 medium onion, diced 
• 6 spears of asparagus, cut into bite size pieces 
• 2 tbs. ricotta cheese 
• 1/4 cup light cream cheese 
• Salt to taste 
• 1/2 tbs. smoke paprika 
• 2 tbs. Herbs de Provance 
• 1 tbs. dried dill
• 1 tbs olive oil 
• 1/2 tbs butter  
• Butter to grease the pan 
• Splash of milk 

Directions 

1. In a bowl, using an electric whisk or Kitchen Aid, blend the ricotta cheese and cream cheese. 

2. Once it is a uniform mixture, add the smoked paprika, 1 tbs of Herbs de provance, the dill and a pinch of salt. Add the milk and whisk until it's a uniform mixture. 

3. Then add the whole eggs and egg whites. Whisk until it is light and frothy. 

4. In a pan, heat oil and 1/2 tbs. of butter. Once the butter is melted, add the onions and slowly caramelize. 

5. Once they are caramelized, add the broccoli, spinach and asparagus. Season with a pinch of salt and cook until the vegetables are tender.

6. In a 9x9 pan, grease with some butter. Then add the vegetables and 1/2 tbs of herbs de provance. Then pour the egg mixture on top and mix. 

7. Set your oven to 350F, and place in the oven. Half way through cooking, about 15 minutes, remove from the over and use a spatula to pull the edges away from the pan. Then stick back in the oven until the center is set. 

*Notes* 

* You can use all egg whites to make this healthier 

* You can use any vegetable you want, you can even add meat or cheese. The possibilities are endless

Ease: The prep for this should take you about 15 minutes. Cook time is probably around 40 minutes. 

Ayurvedic Friendly: Actually this is 

Yummy: Delicious 

Tomato Dal with Potato Hash

I know, I know, I'm bad at this. Just because I moved away doesn't mean I need to stop blogging delicious recipes that "always make you hungry". By the way, thank you to all of my friends who read my blog, and my apologies for making you so hungry. Generally that is not my intent. My intent is to get you to comment so my blog can look like it's popular. 

Now some of you may not know this, but I recently started contributing to the wonderful online magazine, Brown Girl Magazine. It's a wonderful online medium that touches on numerous topics that affect us brown girls and girls alike. My first recipe was posted a few days ago, and I was really excited to see that people were digging it. In fact, one person actually made my recipe and told me how it turned out. I really hope/demand more of you do this so I can feel like my blog is being read! 

I want to share with you this recipe that I sent to Brown Girl because it's one of my favorite dishes. Before my sister became deathly allergic to lentils, she would love to devour the tomato dal. You can read the article, but here is the recipe below! 

Tomato Dal/Pappu:

Ingredients

·      2 tomatoes, diced

·      4 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped

·      ½ cup toor dal, cooked

·      Salt to taste                                                                                       

·      Pinch of turmeric powder

·      Red chili powder (to your taste & spice level)

·      ¼ tsp. amchur powder (or splash of lemon juice)

·      Thadka (all done in 1/2 tbs.)

o   ½ ts. Hing powder

o   Mustard seeds

o   Chana dal

o   Udad dal

o   Cumin seeds

o   2 dry red chilies, broken in half

Directions

Cooking Toor Dal

1. If you have a pressure cooker this is ideal, but if you don’t then there is nothing to worry about! If you’re cooking it in a pot, add the toor dal and then cover it with water. Place it on the stove and turn it onto medium high. The dal needs to cook until it is soft and mushy this can take about 20-30 minutes. Mix periodically and watch for it spilling over.

See, cooking doesn't have to be clean! 

Cooking the Tomato Dal

1. In a pot and heat the oil on medium heat. The oil must be very hot (but don’t burn it please). Hold you flat palm above the oil to test how hot it feels. Once the oil is hot, add the hing powder and listen to it sizzle.

2. Then add a mustard seed to test and see how hot the oil is. You want to see the seed sizzle and then pop. Once it pops add a heavy pinch of the mustard seeds. Once many of them start to dance and pop, add a heavy pinch of the remaining thadka ingredients. Cook for 30 seconds.

3. Then add the garlic. Mix constantly and cook for another 30 seconds. 

3. Then add the tomatoes and cook them down until they form almost a sauce. This can take about 5-10 minutes.

4. Once the tomatoes are cooked, add the cooked toor dal. Then season with: salt, turmeric, red chili powder and amchur. Mix and let it simmer for 20 minutes, making sure to stir periodically.  

Potato Hash/ Aloo Kura

Ingredients:

• ·      1 lb of small potatoes
• ·      Pinch of hing powder
• ·      Salt to taste
• ·      Pinch of turmeric
• ·      Red chili powder to your taste
• ·      Cumin Seeds

Directions

1. Slice the potatoes into thing, even rounds and set aside in water.

2. In a pan, heat oil. Once the oil is hot add the hing powder. After it sizzles, add the cumin seeds.

3. Then add the potatoes to the hot oil and mix; then season with salt, turmeric and the red chili powder. Mix periodically and cook until the potatoes are tender and crispy. This can take about 20-25 minutes, depending on how thick you cut the potato.

*Notes*

* This can be served with rice or roti 

* If you don't want to have it with rice or bread, then you can thin out the lentil with water and make it into a soup 

* They can also be eaten separately....for fun 

Ease: Both are simple enough to prep but can take some time to cook 

Ayurvedic Friendly: Soooo not ayurvedic friendly 

Yummy: Umm, if I didn't find it yummy, then why would I post about it? 

Restaurant Review: Rasika in Washington D.C.

Reviewing restaurants seems to be a very rare thing for me. It's probably due to the fact that I don't go out to eat a lot, and when I do, I manage to forget about taking pictures thus rendering posts useless. Well, I finally remembered to blog and take pictures! I will be giving you my review for the Indian hot spot, Rasika, located in downtown DC, right near Chinatown.

DC boasts many fine dining restaurants and I have patronized several of them. I've very rarely been dissapointed, which is great because I would hate to dislike the food in the city I'm living in. Raskia is a highly rated Indian establishment that continously gets rave reviews. Being the foodie that I am, I take such honors very seriously. I have now started to realize that this is not always a good thing to do. But only when it comes to eating at an Indian restaurant.

As you may know, I love Indian food. If you don't, then clearly you haven't been reading my blog. So when it comes to these food places, I hold the bar very high, perhaps a little to high. I compare the food to the likes of my mother, grandmothers, and aunts. Once again, having the bar so high can't be a good idea. For one, the food made in restaurants won't be authentic. This may come as a shock to you, dear reader, but many ethnic foods are dumbed down for the American palate. That's not saying we are the only country that does this, I am sure there are pleanty of other countries that the same. Take note of the Pizza Huts in India, I think they have paneer pizza. Not that it doesn't sound awesome, but I'm just thinking that it's not what Mr. Pizza Hut originally envisioned. Anyways, the Indian food is not what I eat at home, so I should assume that it won't be as good as what I expect.

Now it's not that Rasika is a bad restaurant. By no means is it bad, it was actually pretty good. The ambiance of the place is a modern chic with a hint of India thrown in. There is the ever present low lighting (always seen at the swankiest of establishments) coupled with low squishy lounge chairs and large modern paintings. Overall you could see from the decor what the chef intended to portray in his food.

Upon sitting, our waiter greeted us promptyly sporting a Nehru Suit uniform. He looked very nice, but most guys look good when sporting Indian clothes, so who knows! We sat at one of the small lounge tables (you know where one person sits in the booth-y part and the other sits in the chair). The booth was comfortable, sans the fact that I sank lower than the eyeline of my friend, so that wasn't ideal. 

The menu definitely presented quite a few choices making it extremely hard to decide on what you want. They all sounded so good, so narrowing them down seemed difficult! We decided to forgo the pre-planned tasting menus (vegetarian and non vegetarian) and decided to order our own things: two appetizers (or apps as my homie Tom Haverford would call them), 2 entrees and 2 desserts (aka zerts via Tommy Fresh).

Apps aka Appertizers

Seafood Seekh Kebab

This was our first appetizer and I was actually quite happy with it. Two kebabs were served along side a fresh mint chutney. I found the kebabs to be quite flavorful and even had a little spicy kick to them. My friend didn't agree with the spicy part, so I think I may have just eaten a green chili. This was a mix of crab, salmon and prawns, resulting in a hearty and meaty start to the meal. With the qunitssential Indian spice, garam masala, mixed in, this is something I would order again.

Tawa Baingan

The second of our appetizers didn't impress me like the other one. I called it "the poor man's vunkaya (eggplant) kura (curry)." The presentation on this was quite similar to a caprese you would get in an Italian restaurant. Thin layers of grilled eggplant was placed between spiced potato. Then it was topped with a semi-sweet, tamarind like peanut sauce. This was a very tender dish that allowed my fork to cut into easily. After taking my first bite, I noticed that the eggplant was lost in the startchiness of the potatoes. For something with the name "baingan" in it, it was certainly lacking in the eggplant department. I was rather underwhelmed by this dish, which made me a little sad and wishing there was more of the seafood kebab left.

Entrees

Lamb Roganjosh

Now this is a very popular dish that I have seen on several Indian menus. Tender chunks of lamb that have been stewing away in a masala tomato sauce. Cooked properly and the lamb can be cut with your fork, cooked poorly and it could take out a couple of our teeth. I'm glad to say that the lamb was easily cut with the fork and fell apart nicely. The sauce was also nice. It was very reminicient of the many meat masalas that are found in Indian cooking. While this wasn't the most amazing thing I have eaten, it certainly seemed quite authentic.

Fish Rechad

Now this was a somewhat new, exciting and unusual dish for me. This was a filet of flounder cooked with Peri-Peri malasa and then covered with a tart baby shrimp curry. This was pretty good! What made me happy was that they left the skin on the fish and they browned the edges so they were extra crispy. I think what would have set this over the top was if it wasn't served with the baby shrimp curry. I think it took away from the flavors of the fish and masala powder. However, this wasn't a huge loss and it was still quite good. The fish was cooked perfectly and flaked nicely, becuase nothing is worse than over cooked fish.

Zerts or Desserts

Apple Jalebi (Beignet) w/ Cardamom Ice Cream

Now I'm not sure what part of this was a jalebi, but I think they were just using the term loosely. I feel like the could have found a better Indian snack to compare to a beignet. Despite its misleading name, this dessert was lovely. They took sliced of apple and deep fried them into a nice airy beignet. Then they gave it with a rich silky cardamom ice cream. This definitely screamed Indian fusion and it's something worth ordering again.

Coconut Jaggery Creme Caramel

Once again another attempt at fushion that wasn't very succesful for me, but that's because I don't like jaggery.....I have no idea why I ordered it then. This was literally a coconut flan serve on a jaggery caramel syrup. Then it was topped with a tart cream. It was just a lot of things I didn't want in my dessert. I think other people would probably love this, but its because they probably don't have the same aversion to jaggery as I do. Jaggery is pretty much a solid mass of sugar that has it own distinctive taste. It reminds me of very specific dishes from home, so when I eat it in any other setting, it just doesn't seem right. While I may not order this again, I'm sure someone else would and they would enjoy it swimmingly.

Overall: Rasika was a good expereince and it was a place I may recommend. May being the operative word. The big issue I had with this place was that the food was priced much higher than it should be. Just because you are a highly acclaimed place doesn't mean your prices need to reflect that. The quality/taste of the food didn't match the price very well. While the quality of it was excellent and the overall taste was good, there was no need to price it like everyone there was a Rockerfeller. I'm not sure if I would go back again because I think I could just go to my local Indian store and make several of these dishes myself and do better. Perhaps I should just stop going to Indian restaurants.....