Smriti "Simmi" D. Isaac

Posted on January 9, 2011 by Simmi D. Isaac — Leave a comment

Macho Illustrated

Hair color: ten bucks. Time: one hour. Having your husband for a colorist: PRICELESS!

p.s. This picture? Totally unrelated. Like this post, an impulsive camera-phone shot in the DIA’s giftshop.

And why is this post housed here, you ask? Because the idea of being loved is so excruciatingly priceless, this small and simple act of tending to the physical needs of a loved one captures the essence of life itself. Life is a play, and the show must go on!

Because to choose is to love, and to love is to live.

Posted on January 8, 2011 by Simmi D. Isaac — Leave a comment

Chicken Picatta Manchurian

So, if you’ve never heard the name of this dish, it is because it was invented today. For lunch. As the name suggests, it is a chicken dish. Picatta is Italian for thinly-sliced cutlet. Which also happens to be a popular Italian dish by the same name: Chicken Picatta.

Well, today, I decided I wasn’t content with the good old Italian recipe, and looked inside my kitchen pantry and saw an unopened jar of Ching’s Manchurian Stir-Fry sauce. This, I had picked up from our local Indian store, Bombay Grocers a while back. The recipe on the back of the bottle was one for Gobi Manchurian! This is the truth, people! Gobi Manchurian is a popular dish in India which is a spin-off of the Indochinese dish Chicken Manchurian, only you’ll find it made from gobi or cauliflower, not chicken.

So, manchurian sauce in hand, I thought why not make a type of chicken manchurian. Only I didn’t have the requisite cubed chicken pieces; instead, I had the cutlet-style pieces. So, I dredged them in cornflour, and you can see the rest in the slideshow below.

And voila, here was the Chicken Picatta Manchurian. A lovely union of Italian and Indochinese! If that’s not multi-ethnic, I don’t know what is!

Oh, and need I say that it was finger-lickin’ good? 🙂

Posted on January 8, 2011 by Simmi D. Isaac — Leave a comment

Dal With Veggies Isn't Always Sambar

Yes, that’s right, people! Sambar is associated with plenty of veggies, but I’m here to tell you that you can take any and all veggies you have or like and cook them with your favorite lentil, in my case it is the split yellow-pea, a.k.a, arhar dal, and make a fantabulous dal that can double as a hearty winter lentil soup.

Which is what I made for lunch today.

Again, you have a lovely slideshow to see for yourself what the ingredients are, and the order in which they were used and the technique of cooking. You’ll need no measures, although, you might want to get a pressure-cooker if you don’t have one. All the pictures are labeled for the details on what’s what and what’s happening!

Serve it as a stand-alone soup of the most gourmet kind, or the traditional way over white rice. Either way, enjoy! Slideshow follows:

Oh, and for all you foodies who must know the difference between a dal and a sambar: the latter has lots of veggies like the dal here, but it is also seasoned with tamarind, tomatoes and a number of other masalas.

Posted on January 7, 2011 by Simmi D. Isaac — Leave a comment

They Speak For Themselves

This past Fall, I was inspired to walk around the WSU campus and take in the sights around the area known as Midtown in the city of Detroit. Being new to the place, I was not only eager to learn my way around campus which blended into the city streets, but to also explore the area around, especially since I saw all around me many beautiful old buildings and structures.

A cold wintry day like this is a perfect day to unveil these photos. They are a reminder of blue skies and fair and mild weather that will surely come again! Many are campus buildings, others are area buildings, all within a few blocks.

A slideshow of the many pictures, for your viewing pleasure. Some of them were taken with my trusty Nikon Coolpix camera, but many others were taken with my erstwhile camera-phone. In the words of Julia Morgan, the pioneer American architect, “Architechture is a visual art, and the buildings speak for themselves.”

Posted on January 7, 2011 by Simmi D. Isaac — Leave a comment

The New Macho

via newsweek.com

Here’s to embracing the “new macho” and hailing the fact that I have been privileged to be privy to it for a long time now… thanks to the man I call husband– who does everything from getting the kids up and ready for school to folding the laundry. 🙂

Posted on January 7, 2011 by Simmi D. Isaac — Leave a comment

Rolls-Royce Apparition concept messes with our heads — Autoblog

via autoblog.com

Dream away!

Posted on January 7, 2011 by Simmi D. Isaac — 2 Comments

Hyderabadi Biryani: This Is How You Do It (Right)!

So, if you know one interesting fact about me, I hope it might have something to do with Hyderabadi Biryani, or in particular, the fact that I can make it. From scratch. The kind that willl leave you stunned at the fact that you didn’t know how impossibly amazing that dish could be. And leave you talking about it forever. 🙂

Well, that’s the kind I make. For all special occasions like birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, etc. I obvioulsy made it this past Christmas.

So, this is a step-by-step slideshow of the very many steps of this many-layered dish. You’ll have to get your own recipe, or guesstimate the measures from the pictures here, but the sequence is critical to success. This is a huge degchi (pot) that holds about 20 lbs. The pictures are all captioned so you can see what’s what.

The best part, however, is serving it up with love for the ones you love! Oh, and the papads/appalams, pudina chutney and the boondi raita are the consummate accompaniments to the dish.

Bon Appetit! Or, like we say around here: Yeh Hui Na Baat!