We've had an unusually cool summer here (something for which I am very thankful); this meant that all the vegetables and other crops were behind in their growth cycles, and so harvest time came later than usual.

About a mile northeast from our house is a vegetable farm offering U-Pick i.e. you can pick your own vegetables from their fields, take it to their stall and have it weighed to pay by weight. No hothouse vegetables, no ripening in artificial conditions, just fresh, ripe vegetables on your plate that were still growing this morning.

With the nip of autumn in the air early mornings and at night, we decided to try a hearty soup with our freshly harvested bounty, and this recipe from 1000 Vegetarian Recipes From Around the World seemed just the ticket; for one thing, it looked as if their ingredients-list was written while checking off the items we brought home from the farm!

Of course, we take most recipes as merely a suggestion - I might be more guilty of that than my chellelu, which is why she is a better baker than I - so we adjusted the proportions toward more tomatoes and onions, but fewer capsicum and less garlic.

The general principle is this: roast the vegetables, then roughly chop them. Add them to vegetable stock, season and simmer until the flavors are blended. The recipe calls for a quarter cup of cream to be stirred into the soup when it is removed from the heat; our household was split on that however, so we placed a creamer on the table and let each person add to taste - if at all. Also on the table, a block of parmesan and a grater, and chilli flakes.

Onions, tomatoes, zucchini, bell pepper and brinjal starting to take on color
spread out on the roasting pan, drizzled with olive oil and herbs The magic part comes from a familiar quarter to us, but a new one to this kind of cuisine. Who says that tempering can only be applied to Indian food?

I use olive oil for this dish (since it used olive oil throughout). After heating the oil, I added a few black peppercorns that I have crushed, a broken red chilli and a pinch of the herbs mentioned earlier. I use fresh rosemary, so a little goes a long way because the fresh flavor is a lot more intense than the dried one. Adding this to the soup just before bringing it to the table intensifies the wonderful flavors.

Some notes and hints:

Do not crowd the vegetables on the baking sheet while roasting it; leave space around each piece so it can brown all around.

If you have a barbecue grill outside, feel free to roast any or all the vegetables out there; they have if anything an even more intense flavor.

This is my entry for the Weekend Breakfast Blogging event, No. 15.

I thought that this would be a good time to show how to read the tabular recipes at the same time as showing how to make these delectable bajjis using up some leftover rice and a standard can of cream style corn.

The full recipe card is at the bottom of the post. For clarity during the explanation, I have cut it in two, and brightly colored each block so that you can follow along. Refer to the full recipe card to see how everything fits together. (Also note that clicking on any image will bring up a larger image, so you can see things in greater detail.)

Starting at the top left, the blue block tells us our first step: take the ingredients to its left (i.e. two cups of cold cooked leftover rice) and spread it out on a plate; this is to make sure that it is dry, not clammy, and to separate out the grains.

Moving to the right, we see that the yellow block spans the lavender block below the blue one as well, so we know we have to complete the stuff in the lavender block before we can move on to the yellow block. The lavender block contains the maida and other dry ingredients, including some spices. These have to be mixed together well.

Now we can move on to the yellow block, which mixes the rice and the flour mixture (blue and lavender blocks) together. This is a very important step, because the flour mixture coats each grain of rice to keep them separate; if you first mixed the wet and dry ingredients together, and then tried to add the rice you would end up with a rice mush, and if you first added the rice to the wet ingredients, and then tried to mix that with the dry, you would have a terrible time trying to get rid of the lumps.

Moving on to the next block, we see that the rose block extends beyond the yellow, so we go back to the next block below the lavender, i.e. the peach block, before moving on to the burnt orange block to its right. The peach block has some preparation instructions for the vegetables, and then everything should be mixed all together with the contents of the can of cream style corn.

The white block below just contains milk, and now finally we have all the parts that are needed to proceed with the rose block, which requires us to mix everything thoroughly. Now we can move on to the next section below.

Glancing through the steps, it becomes obvious that we are making a tempering, a tadka or a popu or a talimpu. Soaking the dhals for a few minutes in water (lavender block) before adding to the tempering ensures that they will fry up to a crispy crunch under the teeth; slicing the curry leaves (blue block) will help them disperse their flavor evenly through the batter.

So, we follow the familiar path in creating the tempering: heat the oil in a small pan, add the seeds (rose block), wait for them to splutter, then add the dhal (burnt orange block), and when these start to brown, we add the curry leaves (green block)

What remains now - if we look at the full recipe card below - is to combine tempering with the flour-rice-sweetcorn-milk mixture, and then to start shallow frying spoonsful of the batter. We've found the best heat to be somewhere between medium and medium high, but each stove differs, so play around with it a little. You want the outsides to become golden brown and crispy, while the insides should be cooked through and creamy when you taste it.

We served it with homemade ginger chutney, but it would go well with most other chutneys as well.

Anapakayi KuraOkay, confession time: once upon a time I used to use my pressure cooker only for dhal and rajma, rice and soups; all the boiling-type stuff. You can stop laughing at me now; I know that you most likely have been using your pressure cookers constantly in wonderfully versatile ways.

But I have caught on; I might be a late bloomer, but I learn my lessons well. See, I was always scared that I would damage the cooker in some way, and when I saw others serving up dishes from the pressure cooker, I would be amazed, but too timid to ask for the technique.

And then one afternoon almost ten years ago, browsing through Odyssey in Adyar, I found a little book that changed my life. It was called Quick and Exciting Pressure Cooking (Vegetarian) by Anuradha Sinha, published by Nita Mehta books. The book captivated me with its possibilities, and I could not leave the shop without buying it. But as we all know our relationships with cook books can be difficult; if you start off on the wrong foot, no amount of making up can ever erase that first bad impression.

Just as well then that the very first recipe I tried from the book turned out to be an absolute winner! It was titled "Ghia Lajawab" which I have translated (honoring the spirit if not the letter) as "Incomparable Bottle Gourd." It remains a standby dish for me to this day, and over the years I have changed very little in the recipe. This makes a great addition to a thali, or it can be served as a lighter meal with some raita and chapatti.

Today I have four different pressure cookers including a Western one - where the weight doesn't give a whistle, but rather a long, continuous hiss - that is stuck in the back of the kitchen cupboard.
Whenever we (or anyone else we know) go for a visit to India, we always bring back some new rings (gaskets) and spare safety valves, trying to nurse the pots along. If one gets to a stage where we think it might no longer be safe, we retire it from pressure duty and use it as just an ordinary pot; they have served me so well, I can't go so far as to throw them out.

My husband has an eye for a bargain; at least that is his story.

He has been known in the past to buy things from these direct marketing TV ads; you know the type: "But that's not all. If you call in the next 17 minutes, we will give you another one, absolutely free - you just pay shipping and handling; that is a ****-dollar value for just three easy payments of $39.95!" When they arrive, he opens them once, and then store them away, never to be touched again.

Now when one of these ads come on the TV, I just change the channel very quickly!

A little while ago he came home lugging a 25 lb bag of onions. Twenty-fi-i-ive pounds! And since then we have been trying our best to find ways to use up these onions.

Everybody in the house have pretty hectic lives - there are some days when the only time we are all together under the same roof is when we are sleeping. On days like these, it is important to have an easy meal that is quick to prepare and filling. Now that the weather has turned colder, we often turn to thick and hearty soups to fit the bill.

This particular soup again comes from 1000 Vegetarian Recipes From Around the World - I have previously referred to it when I made the Roasted Vegetable Soup. The more I use this book, the more I like it; the recipes tend to be straightforward and well-illustrated, and more importantly, they work.

We've made a few minor changes, mainly in the spicing and the cheese biscuits. Yes, this meal includes a recipe for really quick and delicious cheese biscuits - totally delicious.

Note: The parmesan cheese can be replaced by sharp cheddar instead.

Well, I promised I would post the recipe for the Orange Bundt Cake that played the supporting role in my AFAM Peaches entry, and the foodblogging community did not let me forget that.

One of the weekly magazines in South Africa has a column where readers send in their favorite recipes. They run it through their test kitchen, and if it works, they publish it. After they have collected a good number of these, they publish them in a volume of "champion recipes." A few years ago they selected the best from those volumes, and published "the best of the champion recipes:" Die Beste van Huisgenoot se Wenresepte, edited by Annette Human.

The basis for this recipe comes from that book, but over the years we have adapted it to our tastes. It is basically a "never-fail" recipe, rich and moist without being too dense. Its appearance is rustic - which makes it beautiful to my eyes, just like the unevenness of kadhi is part of its appeal.

If you insist you can certainly ice it, but to me that is gilding the lily. Serve it as it is, or make a simple syrup to which you add the juice of an orange and a couple of drops of orange extract to pour over it, serve it with cream or ice cream, add some fruit or some fruit syrup - the options are many.

Note: The recipe scales really well. Our bundt pan is very large, so we double the recipe. After the first 30 minutes in the oven we check, and do 15 minutes more. That usually is enough, but if not, we add five minutes at a time.

Suppose you have an Oreo cookie and a chocolate brownie. The Oreo is nice enough, right? Stuffing in the middle, chocolatey biscuit on the outside. But then you have the rich lush gooey, melt-in-your-mouth, sweet-behind-your-ears total yumminess of a good brownie. Can you picture that? (More importantly, can you taste that?)

Now, you might prefer Oreos, or you might be a brownie addict; whichever it is, you will agree that you cannot (and should not) call an Oreo cookie a brownie.

Good. Having got that straight, here's my problem with bhatura. The bhatura recipes that I have result in delicious-tasting stuff, but it is not bhatura. For me, bhatura are thicker and more "doughy" or "spongy" than puri (and in most cases much larger, but that is an externally controllable factor).

The recipe I use however results in a very crisp and brittle end-result. It is not doughy at all, and it bends only a little, so it is not easy to eat chole with it. It tastes very nice, but it is not the delicious full-bodied hotel bhatura that I crave.

I think part of the problem is that I have never actually cooked with a North Indian in the kitchen. I've cooked with lots of Telugu women obviously, some Tamilians and a few Kannadigas, but no-one from the north. I've never first-hand seen the dough, touched it to feel its texture and elasticity so that I can strive to reproduce it.

And then I am using the recipe of a southerner to boot! Most of us know and love the series of small books by Mrs. S. Mallika Badrinath. Most of her recipes are great basic jump-off points for all sorts of South Indian food. I personally use this particular book, "Tiffin Varieties" for many of its other recipes. But its bhatura recipe just does not yield bhatura.

So I am appealing to all of you out there in the blogosphere: please take pity on this poor confused woman, and tell me how to make those delicious spongy bhaturas! I will even do a mini "Bhatura Roundup" if you post them on your blogs; if you've posted a great recipe in the past, post the link to that to me.

This is not an event, it is sheer desperation, but I do want to acknowledge anyone who takes the time to help me out.

Below is the recipe from "Tiffin Varieties" that I am currently using. Try it - it is really very tasty - it should just be called something else!

Bhatura - III
2 heaped cups maida
3 pinches cooking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1.5 tsp oil
- blended together

1/2 cup thick curds
1/4 cup milk
- mixed

Knead liquid into dough. If necessary add more milk.
Keep closed for 2-3 hours

My husband has strong opinions about okra (lady's fingers): it should never have the slightest hint of sliminess. I can understand that, and I agree, but he is ever so slightly fanatic about it. He is very - shall we say "careful" - about eating any dishes with this in it. His favorite way (read "just about the only way he likes it") is sliced thinly and dry fried.

So, when about ten years ago I decided to try this recipe from Premila Lal's "Indian Cooking" he was really hesitant, but he wanted to be supportive of my early cooking experiments. Then, about halfway through this recipe it looks as if it is never going to work, and you start wondering whether you should order pizza delivery instead.

But then, all of a sudden, everything just comes together, and you realize that you have an exceptional dish here. Here's the basic concept: you make a rich gravy from ground onions and yogurt, to which you add fried whole young lady's fingers. If you follow the steps carefully in the right sequence, you will end with a delectable meal that will have everyone asking you for the recipe!