with Mary Anne Mohanraj
Chai-spiced pumpkin muffins with chocolate chips. They are very delicious, and my kids have been devouring them, but I forgot the baking soda, oops! So they didn’t rise properly.
I’m going to make another batch soon, I think, so will post photos & recipe then – the next batch will go in the autumn treat boxes, which I’m hoping to ship out next week. Lots of sweets-making in the days to come. Watch this space. 
(the ones that didn’t want to ripen). The end result is sharp, interesting, a little bitter – nice with an aged cheddar cheese on a charcuterie board…
I used this recipe.
One of the libraries has a monthly spice club, and they had me do little curry powder packets for their club – Eliana packaged them up for me, with some recipes, etc., and it just came out very cute.
I’m still not a great cake decorator, but improving. Probably should’ve put more buttercream on the sides and added berries to the bottom of the cake, but I ran out of time, alas! (Note to self, allow at least 30 minutes for frosting cake in future. You are slow.)
Per usual, cashew milk toffee and passionfruit marshmallows. I would’ve made the dragonfruit-citrus white chocolate bonbons as well, and maybe the cayenne-chocolate roses, but ran out of time on those too! Oh well.
Someone asked me what my signature dish was last night, and I was totally stumped. I don’t actually have one! But I do like all of these.
I wanted to keep this event vegetarian for the South Asia Institute, so I skipped some of the classic Sri Lankan short-eats – if it weren’t vegetarian, maybe mutton rolls would be the signature dish. I don’t like the typical vegetarian version nearly as well, though. Maybe I should try making it with jackfruit…hmm.
This layout worked pretty well for an event, so noting for the future:
• three kinds of frozen samosas – these I just baked / fried as instructed. Pumpkin samosas from TJ’s (which I haven’t tasted yet, so not sure if they’re any good), paneer-chili samosas (don’t remember the brand, but spicy, good), and potato & pea Punjabi samosas (Swad). I’m really glad I got a deep fryer, because it makes this kind of thing SO MUCH easier.
Set the temp. to 350F (or whatever is appropriate), and then it’s just popping them in, waiting five minutes, popping them out to a paper-towel-lined plate. Transfer to foil pans, pop in warm (low) oven to keep warm until ready to transport / serve. Easy-peasy. Would’ve been nice to serve hot, but they work fine at room temperature, served with tamarind chutney and coriander chutney (decanted from store-bought jars).
• ribbon sandwiches (beet / carrot / spinach) — Pepperidge Farm Very Thin bread is key
• mini naan rounds (quartered) from the grocery store, with four dipping spreads: jackfruit curry, potato curry, eggplant pickle, mango-ginger chutney
I forgot to bring cheddar cheese cubes, which go great with the mango-ginger chutney and naan, but otherwise, happy with the savory options.
Was trying to convince my father that steel-cut oatmeal was much better than regular oatmeal. Good for his heart health, etc., but also it can be really tasty. I made a big batch and then served it with a few options — I had mine with sautéed onions and green chili, with a fried egg on top — could’ve used a little cheese too, I think, but I didn’t think of it. Pretty good, though I cooked the egg a little too long, so it didn’t do the runny thing when I broke into it, so the overall effect was a little drier than ideal. Ah well — I was distracted chatting.
I also took half the sautéed onions and added chopped apples and sautéed a little longer, plus a tablespoon or two of coconut milk, and that was a great accompaniment both to the oatmeal and to pancakes (my dad wanted me to show our young Sri Lankan guests how to make pancakes, so I dutifully did, although they can make dosas, so I suspect American-style pancakes will hold no mysteries for them). The apples would also have been good with a little shredded cheddar… (Any leftover apples would be great with some roast pork for dinner or in a sandwich…)
There’s a lot of oatmeal left, which I told them could be heated and eaten later in the week, and I tried to convince them to pick up some cashew butter to enjoy with bananas and maybe some chocolate chips, but I don’t know if they’ll take me up on that recommendation. We’ll see!
While I was at the board retreat yesterday (4.25 hrs, whew!), Kavi started working on our picture book, “Marshmallow Magic.” She got so much done! 4 pages (these are two-page spreads) drafted already! Only 22 – 26 to go…
Kavi said it was okay to share process photos with you. 
I think she’ll need to re-do the layout on the second one, to allow for the gutter in the middle, but still, very cool!!!!!
Cooking for the refugees again this weekend. Kept it fairly simple — I had some onion & bell pepper marinade (left over from the Venezuelan roast chicken last week), that I’d cooked down and then frozen. I dumped that in a pot with some chicken, and just let it simmer for a few hours, then let it cool and pulled it off the bone — it was delicious, and so easy.
Kevin made beans, I made rice, and I tried a new recipe for corn muffins — it didn’t really brown up, but they’re pretty tasty anyway. I always stir corn (frozen or canned works fine) into my corn muffins. If I’m just making it for me, I add a good amount of green chili too.
The real experiment was the sardine recipe — next post!
Quick note for locals that there are jars of freshly-made Sri Lankan dark-roasted curry powder (lovely as a grill rub, or on popcorn, as well as in curry) at Carnivore Oak Park, along with signed cookbooks.
And Roshani noticed that there were some hardcovers of Vegan Serendib at The Book Table, so I stopped in and signed those too.