Indian As Apple Pie

Garam Masala is becoming one of the most-commonly found Indian spice blends on your grocery store shelf. But, what is it?  I hear that constantly when I'm teaching cooking classes. Even from folks who use the spice and cook Indian food on a regular basis. They know they need it. They know where to find it. But, they are not exactly sure what it it.  It's a spice blend - that's what masala means. A mixture of spices. Garam means warm or hot. This blend is basically a combination of spices that are considered warm, earthy, and robust.  This is a blend also typical of...

Halloween is around the corner. But, instead of getting spooked by the bags upon bags of candy that my kids and I will be surrounded by, I instead decide to empower myself. How? By pulling out my slow cooker and cooking...without really cooking.  Instead of fighting the inevitable, I just realize that the only way I can manage the amount of candy my kids (and I) suck up is by simply keeping us all full with the good stuff. So, come this Friday I'll throw something delicious into the slow cooker and insist that my girls and hubby eat a...

This past week, I became a banner hanging from every corner of the largest Whole Foods in North America, I cooked enough Chana Masala for over 100 people, I was on just about every TV and radio station in Chicago, I persuaded Whole Foods - a major retailer - to celebrate Diwali the Festival of Lights, and we sold books, shook hands, and signed even more copies of 'Indian For Everyone'. I love this pic..credit for it goes to David Acevedo. Needless to say, it's been an amazing fun-filled week. I just wanted to share some of the pictures and...

Your July 4th table will never be the same. This amazing high-protein veggie salad will leave everyone - especially the omnivores - asking for more. It's nutritious - but in a way that I demand from all my food - it's delicious as well.  I want to thank Chef Jamie Oliver for the inspiration for this dish. He was showcasing a fresh California-style salad on his show filled with roasted everything and topped with cold avocado and crunchy greens. I started to think about it from an Indian point of view, and came up with this.  You will work -...

We're just five months away from the official release of my third book, Indian For Everyone,  and I predict that this is going to be an amazing summer. Why? Because we are going to party - Indian style. There's a lot to celebrate. Free Books: I'll be giving away a free signed copy of either The Indian Slow Cooker or Vegan Indian Cooking for every new 500 'Likes' on my Facebook Fan page, Indian As Apple Pie and on this blog as well (look for future posts).  Free Spice Blends: I'm also so excited to start giving away samples of my latest product offering: Custom Indian...

I am going to be brutally honest.       The best way to get on my bad side is to be pretentious. Maybe because most of the confident - successful - and talented individuals I have met and known in my lifetime have had one common quality: humility. This includes the late great Dizzy Gillespie, Rosa Parks, President Barack Obama, Colin Powell, Indian actors Shabana Azmi and Amitabh Bachchan.       I truly believe that once we become pretentious in our respective careers - we also lose the ability to listen and learn. I learn as much from watching and...

   The one thing I always say about Indian cuisine is that it’s one of the only that takes vegetables – like this cauliflower – and places them center stage without ever skipping a beat. Growing up, I rarely ate meat. At home, it was typically Vegetarian Indian at every meal. When we protested, my mother would either make spaghetti spiked with cumin seeds or my father would take us to the Burger King a little north on Route 202 in our town of King of Prussia, PA. It took me years to realize that I would eat the whopper...

  When my first cookbook, The Indian Slow Cooker, was released in September, 2010, I did what every new author does. I religiously checked Amazon.com every hour on the hour with my breathe held. I was looking for rankings and reviews. As they started to trickle in, most were stellar, five-star ones. But there were some negative ones too. The first really nasty review came from a ‘man’ in Thailand, saying that he was disgusted that the chicken curry recipe never turned red. And, that it was not up to his expectations of standard Indian food. I wrote back saying that...

Lentils are the heart of Indian cuisine. Regardless of where in India you live, or what kind of household income you have, there’s one thing you have in common: lentils – tiny little dried seeds that grow in a pod and pack a nutritious punch. In North India, they are prepped with earthy cumin seeds and cilantro, while in the South their flavors are heightened with slightly bitter mustard seeds and curry leaves. Regardless, when you get a bowl of lentils in your day you know you are also getting a plant-based protein that’s not only delicious but clean and...

Vegan Indian Cooking is out - I know you all know that - but, what you might not know is that I've reserved 2 months for Chicago and Chicagoland events alone. This includes Media coverage: Chicago Tonight, WCIU, the Chicago Tribune, and an interview with Radio Girl podcast. We launched with the first ever indian as apple pie bloggers event at Williams-Sonoma this week as well. This is a pretty big deal, because last go around, I spend more of my days on the road promoting The Indian Slow Cooker and teaching classes. But this time around, I did not...