My Metamorphosis in the Kitchen

The Covid-19 pandemic brought about a lot of unprecedented changes in our lives. The carnage it wrecked around the world will never be forgotten. Besides innocent lives, it took away a number of our taken-for-granted privileges. Dining out in our favourite restaurants or holidaying in far-flung places seemed like a distant dream. However, the ‘new normal’ did teach us the value of things which we didn't even acknowledge earlier. And, it has certainly taught us how to be self-reliant and live within our means. The most prominent silver lining around the clouds of doom and despair brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic has to be the additional time we now had at our disposal. One would like to think that it is one of the most sought after treasures in today's world. All of a sudden, we had time to just be at home (especially for us working mothers) and do things which perhaps we never got around to doing in the past or even attempt things which we never thought we could. What follows is my experience which falls in the latter category. 

 

They say necessity is the mother of invention. So, when during the peak lockdown period, one experienced gluttonous desires to eat cake, traditional sweets or ice-cream, the only way to fulfill them was to get one's hands dirty. And boy, did I enjoy that! From baking my first-ever cake and bread to churning out blueberry ice-cream, Lebanese cookies, Turkish dessert, dominos-style garlic bread to feeding an improvised omelette (with grated zucchini) to my unsuspecting children, I certainly pushed the boundaries of my culinary skills in the past one and a half years. Never thought I'd find cutting bell peppers therapeutic as the mind is completely focused on making those precise cuts. The synapses between the neurons of my brain certainly never fired in this way!

 

Growing up, kitchen was an unexplored territory and it remained unchartered well into my adulthood. A number of reasons can be attributed to this, ranging from my mother being a great cook coupled with the untraditional upbringing my parents gave their two daughters to perhaps because I looked down upon all household chores as a waste of time since that meant being away from my books. It was only when I was about to get married, did I dare to venture in it to learn how to make gobi paranthas. If only I knew then that my future husband hated this edible flower, I would have been spared of the agony! Of course, getting married into a household with two seasoned cooks suited me just fine. It was not until my first born started eating solid food that I started frequenting the kitchen to cook and that too only for him, mind you. Fast forward through the time I worked in the Ministry of Finance and had another baby to the time I felt so proud of myself when my two grown-up boys relished a dish I occasionally prepared (on the days when the cook took a day off, of course). Their thumbs-up and the hand symbol of "perfecto" seemed to touch a nerve and that’s when I started my weekend cooking. But as luck would have it, new work profile pushed that hobby to the backburner shortly thereafter. An occasional polite reminder from the spouse of how well I cooked happened to fall on deaf ears.

 

The whole credit for kindling the hitherto unknown passion for cooking inside me goes to the lockdowns! I could have never thought even in my wildest of dreams that I would do, let alone enjoy, cooking. Even though I still have the chance of free-riding on my mother (a freshly baked black forest cake is just a phone call away), I look forward to dishing out new recipes and trying my hand at the traditional ones. The climax of this adventure was when my husband wore his formal clothes to go to office after about 10 months… he had to drill another hole in his belt! He had lost close to 10 kgs!! So, I killed two birds with one stone! Now I know this fact can be a double-edged sword and have the potential of ruining my reputation as a cook but the real reason has to be the mindful healthy diet that I served him.

 

So, here’s a look at what I have been upto for the past one and a half years. These pictures were clicked for sharing the fruits of my labour with my parents and sister. My father gave me an OTG as a birthday gift well in advance last year after the three-decade old oven he got from France that I had borrowed gave way. Little did I know then that it would be the last gift he ever gave me in this lifetime! 

I could teach my kids how the Earth is made up of tectonic plates after baking my first-ever black forest cake! In addition, the shape of my chapattis taught them the maps of many a continent and country. 

My first sponge cake was well.. not so spongy.

Baking a cake for myself on Mother's Day... read as WOW!

Whole wheat cake

Celebrating the Big Day

Blueberry whole wheat Cake

First Marble Cake

Blueberry cheesecake in the making

Ta Da...

Banoffee Pie

This two-layered chocolate tart made me feel the proudest of myself!

First batch of cookies- oats, raisins and almond

First garlic bread (Dominos style-mind you!)

One of my all-time favourite snacks growng up - Namak paare and that too baked!

Baked Donuts

Baked sabudana vada

Baked samosas

Baked Mutlti-grain wheat Matthi

Oats n cashew cookies

Zeera biscuits

Chocolate cashew cookies

Coconut cookies

Chocolate cashew cookies

Naankhatai 

Multi-grain tutti-fruiti cookies

Whole wheat Apple Pie

Our Staple dessert- Chocolate pudding 

Trifle pudding - I remember layering it while listening to a lecture on the Energy Crisis but man, did I need those calories to clean the house!

Besan burfi

Chocolate burfi

Chocolate pede

Desi Kalakhand

Chocolate kalakhand

Whole wheat Pancake

Mango pancake

Chocolate pancake

I scream, you scream, we all scream Chocolate icecream

Coffee icecream

Wish I could take credit for this one but I can't. It's way out of my league! This is my genious mom's cassata icecream with cassata cake

Vanilla icecream with mangoes

Blueberry icecream

Mango icecream

My sweets avoiding elder son just loved these dates pistachio balls (Turkish delight) to be eaten with a chocolate dip 

 

From Turkey, we go to Lebanon for these fantastic maa'moul with semolina flour, dates and almond stuffing. I amazed myself when I improvised the original recipe in the third batch by replacing all-purpose flour with rice flour and changing its shape to our desi gujiya.. 

Roasted pear with almond, honey and cinnamon

Our morning glass of goodies - Overnight soaked oats with chia seeds, strawberry, blueberry and nuts. 

Baked nutty apple cinnamon

 Now, moving on to some savoury dishes.

Broccoli quiche with tomato basil soup (don't miss the basil on the side.. food photography is certainly lost on me though)

Baked veg au gratin

This new age generation can't be kept too much away  from white sauce pasta and potato wedges, but it's fun to have them peel and cut the potatoes.

Before and After - Spinach n corn quiche

Never knew one could bake eggs!

My kids' all-time favourite - Baked Potato Flowers

Spanish Garlic Zucchini

Multi-Grain Bread

Above bread turned into garlic and cheese toasties

Oats Bread

Desi noodles

More veg au gratin

My mother later told me that an aunt of mine couldn't believe her ears when she told her that I had made lachcha parantha!

Pizza from scratch

Baked egg with veggies

Veg au gratin with pasta

Sweet Corn Soup

Veg Pie

Veg quiche

Zucchini fritters with sesame seeds dipped in soy sauce passed of as potato and onion fritters to the kids.

Served them real potato fritters too!

Our latest favourite breakfast - Bhat Na Shekla- must confess that I found the name of this Gujarati dish rather unappetising but boy, am I glad I took a chance on it. Leftover rice transforms into an amazing crispy vegetable pancake.

So, there you have it! A glimpse into my culinary travails. One feels that the above narrative can be used to support a number of theories ranging from neuroplasticity to a woman's ability to tee off a new skill at any point of time in her life.

Bon appétit!