indian veggie pancakes

She is crude, she is rude, she is a mess. If she doesn't like it, she throws it, spits it and yells. She is the Beast. The Beast is presenting me with a variety of challenges these days. In addition to making something that the Mister likes, I also need to take the Beast's meals into consideration. All her counter parts have a mouthful of teeth and she has two, it presents additional obstacles. Such as chewing. I must say, that she gums the hell out of her food when she likes it.

Anyway, I digress. Really, I want something healthy and tasty for the kid and if the Mister can eat it, then I can hit the bottle earlier rather than later. (Things burn when I drink and cook.)

I raided TJ's yesterday. I came back with the Multigrain Baking and Pancake Mix, among other items. Multigrain always sounds as if it tastes like dirt. Not the case this time. I wanted to make some veggie pancakes with Indian spices. My mother-in-law makes something similar called Appom, which is very tasty, but I'm looking for something a bit healthier (Appom involves coconut milk.)

Basically what I did was shred a bunch of vegetables and add some flax seed and spices to the basic pancake recipe.

Indian Vegetable Pancakes

1 cup pancake mix

1 cup milk

2 eggs

2 tablespoons canola oil

1 cup shredded zucchini, carrots (TJ's has them ready-shredded) and peas

1 tablespoon flax seeds

1 teaspoon turmeric

1 teaspoon chili powder (tweak to your tastes)

1 tablespoon salt

1/2 tablespoon cumin powder

Mix all ingredients in a bowl. Spray frying pan, spoon mixture onto griddle and cook as you would a pancake.

We ate the pancake with what I thought was the best tasting yoghurt I'd ever had. It was actually sour cream. (Tee-hee) I'd suggest yoghurt for a healthy alternative. I really think you could put a lot of different veggies in the batter...corn and spinach might be good.

After spitting it out twice, the Beast finally chewed and once she tasted it, she ate the entire pancake. The Mister ate the other two.

Beast is satisfied.

chindian noodles

If you've never tried Indian-Chinese food, you are missing out on the most fantastic fusion fare. My initial experiences with this genre of Indian food was in Goa, India (there is a large Tibetan and Chinese population in Goa). Chili Chicken and Gobi Manchurian are some of the tastiest dishes I've ever consumed. The marriage of Indian food to Chinese spices is magical.

Inexplicably, I rarely see Indian-Chinese offered on either Indian or Chinese menus in America. 

My creation initially started out as an attempt at Chili Chicken, however it rapidly turned into more of a Chinese-Indian noodle dish which, of course, naturally evolved into being named Chindian Noodles. You can make this dish with chicken, seitan or tofu. It comes out saucier with chicken and tofu; I think the seitan actually absorbs some of the sauce. (Personally, I think it tastes better with the seitan.) Seitan emits its own salt, so taste the sauce prior to adding additional salt.

Chindian Noodles 

Marinade

2 1/2 tablespoons crushed ginger

2 1/2 tablespoons crushed garlic

1/2 cup soy sauce

2 teaspoons chili powder

1 1/2 teaspoon sugar

1 tablespoon worchestire sauce

Noodles

1/2 package of rice sticks (I use Trader Joe's)

1 medium onion, chopped

1/2 green pepper, chopped

1/2 red pepper, chopped

1 cup mushrooms

1 cup veggie broth

salt to taste

Marinate chicken, seitan or tofu in marinade for atleast two hours. Chop and fry onions. Add chicken/seitan/tofu, chopped peppers, mushrooms and veggie broth. Cook on medium heat for 15-minutes.

Cook rice sticks (6-8 minutes). Drain and mix with meat/veggies.

The preparation and cook time for this meal is quick and painless. The Mister and I can eat this over two days for dinner. I'd like to experiment a little more and come up with some additional Chindian dishes. Gobi Manchurian (cauliflower) may be my next project, I'd like to try a roasted, healthier oven-version.

indian style frittata. take 2.

I dated a guy in college who made a killer omelette. His omelettes were always light and fluffy because he added 1/2-eggshell of milk per egg. (This was really the only useful piece of information I retained from the relationship.) 

I applied this ratio to the frittata, and sure enough. Light and fluffy.

Indian-Style Frittata

6-8 eggs

1 egg shell of milk per egg

1 small diced potato

2 cups of diced vegetables (mushrooms, tomatoes, green peppers, peas, etc)

1/2 cup diced onions

1 tablespoon crushed garlic

1/2 tablespoon chili powder

1 tablespoon cumin powder

1 1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup chopped coriander

1 teaspoon turmeric

1 green chili pepper

Immerse diced potatoes in water and cook in microwave for two minutes. Beat eggs, milk, chili powder, cumin, salt and tumeric. Add vegetables, chili pepper and coriander. Spray round baking pan with oil and add mixture.

Bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees, or until done.

Serve with Indian pickle or sriracha sauce.

mocha, coco or caramel? 'tis all brown

Interestingly enough, there are more than 1 million Indians in America and no Indian dolls to represent. As a result, we’re forced to adapt and make due with available resources. For example, I remember my Mom bought some cloth from Jo-Ann Fabrics and made a tan doll with a red dot sewn onto her forehead. And that was my Indian doll. The rest were all blonde-haired moppets withvacant blue eyes; they came with names like Cynthia, Adrianna and Melanie.

The Bebe has a very diverse assortment of dolls, but she is brown and I’d like some of her toys to reflect her ethnicity. I’ve done countless searches online and checked out various educational stores. None of them are genetically Indian, but what they don't know won't hurt them.

Beige Baby Stella

I discovered Stella (and promptly dubbed her Bhavani) a few months ago at an educational store on State Street in Media, PA (the store was having a going out of business sale). “Beige Baby Stella” is a workablee shade of brown. You can also find her on Dolls Like Me. The Mister thinks I’m ridiculous for renaming her, and yet, he does refer to her as Bhavani when she makes an appearance...who’s ridiculous now?

The Dolls Like Me web site is cool because it offers dolls in colors like caramel, coco and mocha. I believe the purpose is to give the shopper options on what they feels is an appropriate skin tone for their child. They have a nice selection of Asian, African and Latin dolls.

Livia

Last week I was looking for some baby winter shoes and I stumbled across “Livia” on the Old Navy web site. I was pleasantly surprised to see she was a nice shade of chai with dark hair. Suuure, she’s probably intended to be African or Latin, but now she’s one of us and is reincarnated as Mita. There were three other dolls with an ethnic appearance (Kat, Suki and Sydney). I thought it was very interesting that Old Navy, of all places, would offer such distinctiveness in their dolls.

Indian Barbie

Through the years, Mattel has produced various Indian Barbies. I’d really prefer that my daughter did not associate Barbie, but she will one day be a little girl who likes to dress up dolls and you can’t fight City Hall. The latest Barbie was supposed to be modeled after Aishwarya Rai Barbie, which was kind of exciting. Apparently she turned down the offer and instead Katrina Kaif (another Bollywood movie star and her alleged nemesis) is going to be featured. The doll was scheduled in September, but I was unable to find so much as a photo online. Below is Diwali Barbie.

While the limited selection is better than nothing, it's mildly insulting that toy manufacturers find brown folk to be so interchangeable that they generify their dolls to reflect this opinion. 

I wonder how Livia would look with a bindi....

do you speak Indian?

I was in DC visiting my sister this past weekend and didn't get back until around 7:30 p.m. last night. We ordered from Shere-E-Punjab on State Street in Media. (Overpriced and inconsistently tasty Indian food.) Thanks to leftovers, there will be no cooking today. 

Instead, prompted by the cashier at the Gap who said, "I used to have an Indian girlfriend," and "I eat a lot of Indian food," here are my top five pet peeve questions.

1.) Where are you from? This question is only irritating when you are trying to find out if I’m from India, Iran or Mexico. I was born and bred in Ohio and this makes me an American. However my parents are from India, although they are also American citizens. The correct way to find out my country of origin: What is your ethnic background?

2.) Do you know Ravi Patel or Priya Shah (or any other generic name combination)? I mean come on. Do you know John Smith and Jane Doe? Essentially, that is what I am being asked. Patel is like the Smith of the Indian world. Times a million. And, by the way, all Indian people don’t know all Indian people. 

3.) I like Indian food. I get that this is an attempt to relate to me on some level, but I don’t walk up to those who are melanin-challenged with ‘I like hot dogs’ as a conversation-starter. And further more, if there is an appreciation of Indian food, please know the name of the dish. “That spinach stuff with the cheese chunks” was not on the menu when I last checked.

4.) Do you speak Indian? No, I speak Konkani. And NO I will not say something in Konkani for someone's amusement. Fun fact: India has more than 500 dialects and not one of them is called, “Indian.” Acceptable: What language to you speak?

5.) What’s your tribe? (This conversation actually occurred in 1996 at Ohio State with a dude in a cowboy hat.)

Rando: What are you?

Me: Um..Indian?

Rando: Oh wow really?? That’s so interesting.

Me: Thanks?

Rando: So like, what’s your tribe? Do you live in a teepee? Where do you put your feather?

Just because Christopher Columbus was a navigational nincompoop who thought he was in India, thus proudly proclaiming the inhabitants “Indians,” does not mean we need to continue this idiocy. The correct term is NATIVE AMERICAN. Indians are from India. 

I'm done with my rant now and if just one person doesn't say, "I had some chicken stuff in some sort of sauce?" then I've touched a life in a way that truly matters.