Happy Birthday Peter!!

If you have a moment, please wish him a Happy Birthday!!! Hope your day is filled with food, food, and more food … oh and cakes and chocolate too

Kitteh bento

Had to share this bit of cuteness, from My Food Looks Funny:

Happy Birthday Debbie!

Happy Birthday JJ

To our Readers and Listeners. Today is JJ’s birthday!!!

Please join me and the rest of the guys to wish him a very very Happy Birthday !!!

Edible flags

This is kind of neat.
From http://cyanatrendland.com/2010/04/11/culinary-flags/

Advertising Agency: WHYBIN/TBWA, Sydney, Australia
Executive Creative Director: Garry Horner
Creative Director: Matt Kemsley
Art Director: Miles Jeffreys
Copywriter: Tammy Keegan
Photographer: Natalie Boog
Retoucher: Nick Mueller
Food Stylist: Trish Heagerty

Two Vegan Mayonnaise Recipes—via The Kitchn

I know there are a few Vegetarians and Vegans readers/listeners out there. The kitchn post an amazing recipe that you should check out.

From The Kitchn…

There are many versions of prepared vegan ‘mayonnaise’ out there on the grocery shelves. But they’re also quite simple to make at home where you can adjust the sweetness/tang ratio to your taste. Read on for two versions, one made with tofu and another made with almonds.

Read Full Post

Chicago Chef Week reminder

Don’t forget to make your reservations for Chef Week!

Check here for a list of participating restaurants but Carmichael’s, Hugo’s, Province, and Indian Garden have also joined the list, yet are not featured.

Uru Swati – Healing through food

Chicago.

An Indian word meaning “There are 1,712 Indo-Pak restaurants here.  Choose wisely.”  Tonight, I found the jewel of all Indian restaurants, and trust me, I’ve eaten at each of them.

I’m gonna get the one bad thing out of the way first.  They put fennel in.  I don’t like fennel.  That is all.

Now, on to the positive.

I almost didn’t go here, because the Yelp reviews were semi-poor: good food, but bad service, and I hate bad service.  But, we went anyway, and I’m ecstatic that we did, IF ONLY to have come up (conversationally) with another item to serve when I open my Mary Poppins themed Indian restaurant.  In addition to Peshwari naan, we will serve supercalafragilisticexpialadosas.  But enough of that.

The service was remarkable.  First off, they hand you a 3,000 page menu that is confusing.  Then they give you the annotated version of the menu that you can use to cross reference what is in the menu, to get exactly what you want, and believe me, you want it ALL.

Decor

I want my Bollywood TV

I started with batata vada and samosa chat, as I skipped both breakfast and lunch today.  I had never had either before, but will eat both again, every day, for as long as I shall live.  Batata vada are potato dumplings deep-fried in a batter made with gram flour, cumin seeds, red chili powder and turmeric powder. Served with green serrano-cilantro chutney and red tamarind chutney.  Amazing.  These puffs of potato love had rainbows inside.

Batata vada

Samosa chat

Everyone has had a samosa before, and if you haven’t, shame on you.  Samosa chat, on the other hand is topped with channa masala (chickpeas cooked down with tomato sauce and spices), potatoes, yogurt, red and green chutneys, cilantro, sev (fried chickpea noodles).  They’re served like samosas bell grande from Taco Bell, and taste oh so good.

I should point out that this restaurant is vegetarian.  Yum.

For dinner, I had the paneer makhani, which is never a mistake.  This had fennel though, which is a partial mistake.  Fennel should never come near the beauty that is the sauce that cradles the cheese, as only ginger and ghee can.

Paneer makhani

The raita was kind of a miss, but it was just different than I was used to.  No points deducted.  The mango pickle was sweeter than I’m used to, which was actually a bonus, since every mango pickle I have ever had in my life tastes of pine and gasoline, and is as foul as it is addictive.  Honestly, five or six times I have had bird beak or something in my mango pickle, and I just chew through it, destroying teeth and gums.  Seriously, though, try it.

It turns out that one of my dinner guests knew Chuti from a past life, so it’s a small, small world!

I intended fully on ordering shrikhand (strained yogurt mixed with cardamom powder, saffron and chopped nuts) for dessert, but I was so stuffed by the end of dinner, there was no way.  I washed everything down with my brilliantly mixed instant coffee and THICK milk and let everything settle.  And then I ran across the street and got 1,200,000 incense sticks for $4.00.  I love Devon Avenue.  <3.

Check their menu out here.

Map

Uru-Swati
2629 W Devon Ave.,
Chicago IL 60659

Daytime, not winter

Hours

The SousVide Supreme has arrived

Just passing this on while looking at Gizmodo at the full color Iron Man decal for the Mac Book.

I have been intested in this method of cooking since seeing it on Top Chef and the like.

Read the full article here.

(Read about the Iron Man Mac Book decal here!)

Homemade Baileys Irish Cream—via CupcakeProject

I came across this a few minutes ago and thought that I should share. The recipe sounds simple enough and you can make it fresh every time you have a party. The site also have lots of other recipes. Check it out after you read the post.

My homemade Baileys Irish Cream led to far more questions and comments from my friends than my cupcakes ever do. “What’s in Baileys Irish Cream?” “Where can I get the recipe for Baileys?” “OMG! This Baileys is sooo good! Will you be posting the Baileys recipe?” Sometimes I think that I should forget cupcakes altogether and just post recipes for things that people didn’t realize they could make at home. Some of my most popular posts right now are homemade grenadine (my most popular post of all time), how to make clotted cream, andhomemade tahini. But, how could I ever give up on my petite frosted friends?

Homemade Baileys Irish Cream Recipe

Here is the homemade Baileys Irish Cream recipe for all of my friends, both on and offline. It’s easy enough that you should have time to whip up a batch to take to your New Year’s Eve parties! I found the recipe on a discussion forum on Chowhound. The entire discussion is worth a read. It contains lots of information about the drink. I am repriting it below with my notes.

• 1 C light cream (I used heavy whipping cream, which made it even richer)
• 14 oz sweetened condensed milk
• 1 2/3 C Irish whiskey (I used Jameson’s)
• 1 t instant coffee
• 2 T Hershey’s chocolate syrup (I used Torani)
• 1 t vanilla
• 1 t almond extract (I skipped this entirely)

1. Combine all ingredients in a blender and set on high speed for 30 seconds.
2. Bottle in a tightly sealed container and refrigerate. Shake before using.
3. Will keep for up to 2 months.