with Mary Anne Mohanraj
That feeling when your arm gets too tired stirring a triple batch of banana scones (with cranberry and ginger), and you have to call your husband to finish stirring them, and you realize that no, you would never survive the Great British Bake-Off. 
I am going to try to remember not to attempt this again. We just had SO MANY black bananas in the freezer.
Children, eat the darn bananas before they get overripe. Okay? Okay.
This week’s cooking video — coconut sambol, which is just a great accompaniment. Sharp and tangy and spicy, yum. I think I’m going to have some on a grilled chicken sandwich later today.
I forgot to mention in the video, it freezes well too, so if you make more than you’ll eat in a week, I’d freeze half. That’s what I did! Then it’s easy to pull out when you’re in the cooking doldrums, to add some zest to your meals.
The Totoro roller is delightful, although I admit, I sort of feel a little goofy now, as I’m not sure how much I’m going to use it. I think I threw it in because the store was having a buy 3 get 1 free sale. I kind of want to send it walking around the neighborhood — anyone local want a Totoro rolling pin that they’ll pass on eventually?
My embossed spiced cookie recipe is here; I skipped the cayenne for this batch, since Anand doesn’t like heat in his cookies:
http://serendibkitchen.com/…/embossed-spiced-chocolate…/
Taught Kavi how to make marshmallows today. (Video in a week or two.) She said she really likes cutting marshmallows and finds it very peaceful — “I could have a shop where I did this all the time!”
Of course, cutting one tray of marshmallows isn’t exactly the same as spending all day doing it every day.
Beef curry really is one of my staples; when I was learning to cook, I probably cooked it once every two weeks, and ate it for 3-4 days straight. These days, it’s very lovely to have with an egg hopper and some tempered potatoes. Feels indulgent.
(Also was so much food that I ended up saving half of my breakfast for lunch…)
Tempered potatoes. The kids liked it! Woot. I am inching them towards Sri Lankan food, bit by bit.
Okay, I admit, no one came clamoring to me and demanded that I make a video on how to cook chicken liver curry. My daughter refused to even taste it. But I love it so, so much, I actually crave it sometimes, esp. when I’m feeling depleted. Chicken liver curry is a) cheap, b) nutritious, and c) delicious. So here you go!
Just so pretty. I can’t even.
We may not be able to visit a tropical island right now, but I did make myself a cocktail to enjoy poolside in a plastic cup.
Rose Fizz
Mix syrup with citric acid and vodka, add ginger beer, top with rose petals and enjoy.
*****
(Rose simple syrup is basically boil water and sugar until sugar dissolves, reduce heat to simmer, add rose petals and cook for ten minutes, strain out rose petals; should store well in fridge for months. This batch I’m using is actually from last summer — planning to make ice cream with it tomorrow.)
Hey, so it turns out that if you are completely bewildered as to where your hopper pans might have gone (did I loan them out to someone?), but your friend gave you some hopper batter that you really want to use, you can totally make (giant) hoppers in a wok.
(Enjoyed with eggplant pickle and coconut sambol.)
