dosa masala

Dosa are thin rice-flour pancakes stuffed with spicy yummy fillings. They're often served for breakfast with side sauces. They're a convenience food that you can buy from a cart off the street.

We have two dosa sources within walking distance of our house, a cart and a restaurant, and dosas have become my favorite fast food. A plain dosa is usually filled with onion. My favorite kind is dosa masala, which is stuffed with masala-spiced potato. I've also had dosa palak paneer, which is stuffed with spinach and cheese. The sauces are usually a coconut chutney and a lentil soup. One of the restaurants near us also serves dosa with a ginger chutney, which has been my favorite sauce so far.

Here's the tricky part about dosa. Despite the fork and spoon shown in the photo, dosa are traditionally eaten with your fingers, with just your right hand. It takes some practice to rip the pancake, scoop up all the filling that falls out, dip your fingers in one of the sauces, and get it all into your mouth (and in our case, without dropping any on the baby's head) with one hand. I'm getting the hang of it.

breakfast is served. in india

For those of you who don't follow my other blog, Where in the World Am I?, here's a summary of the last few months. We moved from Burundi in June and had the baby in August in the United States (a little girl named Sophie, who goes by Muffin in the blogosphere). Last week we moved to Hyderabad, India.

We are temporarily living in a furnished, "full-service" apartment. One of the services provided is breakfast. We have a choice of Western, which is an omelette and toast, or South Asian, which is idli (steamed rice pancakes) with savory sauces. I don't like eggs and can't eat the toast, so I get a plate of idli with fresh fruit. And I yank a little of the sweet red jelly from Mike's tray because my stomach isn't ready for savory sauces early in the morning. They don't go well with coffee.

Wait, let me be more precise here. On the weekends I get a plate of idli and fresh fruit. Because on the weekends we request breakfast at eight o'clock. But during the week we request breakfast at seven o'clock and they can't source their idli that early in the morning. So despite our protests that we have plenty of fresh fruit, Mike's Western breakfast is served with an additional plate of fruit for me. (I can't wait until our blender arrives and we can go back to making smoothies, which is an excellent way to consume all the freakin' fruit that gets hoisted upon us.)

hain gluten-free products

Now through the end of October, select Hain gluten-free products are on sale at Amazon.com Groceries. Hain products include Arrowhead Mills cereals and baking mixes, Imagine soups, Rice Dreams and Soy Dreams milk, and DeBoles rice and corn pastas. 

The DeBoles rice pasta elbows with cheese is one of my favorite macaroni and cheese mixes. It's a white cheddar cheese mix and it's a neutral base that you can add seasonings and fresh shredded cheddar to mimic a baked macaroni and cheese.

Enter code HAINGF25 at checkout for 15 percent off, through 31 October. 

Image from Amazon.com

perky's nutty rice crunchy cereal

Right now one of my favorite cereals is on sale from Amazon.com Groceries. When I first saw the ad for Enjoy Life products being on sale, I figured I’d glance at the list of products but probably not buy anything because I haven’t loved anything I’ve had from them. But I can’t let any gluten-free stones go unturned.

I’m glad I took a few minutes to look. I had no idea that Perky’s Nutty Rice Crunchy Cereal came from Enjoy Life. I love this stuff. I mix it with granola or other sweet cereals. I eat it plain. Per the serving suggestion on the front of the box, it's amazing with fresh blueberries or strawberries.

The back of the box has a recipe for an easy crumb pie crust with jam filling. Mmm, cereal and jam in a convenient pie formation.

But I digress. Now through 31 May you can get 20% off selected Enjoy Life products, including Nutty Rice and Nutty Flax cereals, when you enter the code ENJOYLIF at checkout. Note that neither of these “nutty” cereals actually contain nuts. I think they are trying to cash in on the Grape-Nuts fans who had to go gluten-free. (Although, these cereals are much easier on the teeth and gums than Grape-Nuts.)

And from the Enjoy Life website you can download a coupon to use at your favorite grocery store.

riceworks sweet chili gourmet brown rice crisps

My most recent impulsive snack purchase is much better than my last one. Riceworks Sweet Chili gourmet brown rice crisps are my new Doritos. 

I wrote a nice rant about how Doritos aren't gluten-free, even though they should be because they are corn chips. But apparently, most Doritos flavors are gluten-free now; it's just been so long since I've bothered to check on them. That's probably not a terrible thing, that its been long, since Doritos are probably one of the worst snack foods for you; maddeningly they are also one of the most addictive.

Back to Riceworks.

I'd tried other Riceworks chips flavors back in the States so I was confident I'd get a tasty chip. They are salty and crunchy, but they don't taste like corn chips or potato chips. They taste like whatever the flavoring is so it's important that Riceworks gets the flavoring just right.

I didn't expect them to satisfy my Doritos craving so thoroughly, a craving I didn't even realize I had until I started eating these chips. They are triangle-shaped. They are just spicy enough to make my nose run. They turn my fingers red from the chili-flavored coating. They are a bit sweeter than Doritos, which I'm enjoying. 

The Riceworks website is kind of annoying, with lots of moving images that take ages to load on my hamster-run Africa internet connection. But they have a coupon (on the U.S. and Canada sites; couldn't find it on the U.K. site). Saving a few cents is worth a few moments of uploading time, right? 

Riceworks crisps are sold at a store near you (not me). They're also available in bulk from Amazon.com groceries and Homegrocer.com.

Image from homegrocer.com.

annie's rice pasta & cheddar

I grew up loving the original Annie's macaroni and cheese and I was devastated when I couldn't eat in any more. On the other end of the spectrum, I also loved the fake oranginess of Kraft macaroni and cheese. I found some enjoyable gluten-free macaroni and cheese mixes, but nothing that brought me back to childhood (and college-hood, and first-apartment-hood).

Just before we left for Bujumbura last summer I noticed that Annie's had finally developed a gluten-free macaroni and cheese: Annie's Rice Pasta & Cheddar. It was tasty! It was orange! It was Annie's + Kraft, sittin' in a tree. And I could buy it in bulk from Amazon.com Groceries.

This month, just as my supply is starting to dwindle, Amazon.com Groceries has Annie's products on sale, including the gluten-free Rice Pasta & Cheddar.

Save 30% instantly when you purchase select Annie's products. Enter code ANNHOME5 at checkout. The offer is valid through 31 March 2009. Sold in packs of 12 boxes.


Image from Amazon.com Groceries.

E Mart International Supermarket

E Mart International Supermarket
Originally uploaded by girl_in_bleue

(I wrote this on Yelp! first.)

The produce here is phenomenal and it's the best reason to go. It's so fresh and the selection is huge. There are Asian fruits and vegetables that I'd never heard of before. There are also things I'd heard of, read on restaurant menus, but had never seen what it looks like before. And whenever I take something home and cut into it, the fresh scent is amazing. Cucumbers, mango, avocado, you name it--it can be found here and it will be great.

This is an international grocery store focussing mostly on Asian foods, so you'll find a huge variety of rice and soy products, anything you'll need for Asian cooking. My husband lived in Okinawa and traveled through South Korea and has found some of his favorite brands here. I'm gluten-free so the abundance of rice products makes shopping and cooking a breeze for me.

Neither of us are seafood eaters, but they have a huge selection of fresh critters from the water. Some are still alive! There's often a bucket of clicking-clacking blue crabs hanging out for sale.

There are limited Mexican, South American, and Middle Eastern brands and a handful of familiar American brands. (If you can't find an American brand you're looking for, check out the CVS on the other side of the shopping center.)

Downsides: The dairy is iffy. All the cheese and milk I've gotten from there has gone bad much sooner than it should have. (But it was great for the first day or two.) Some of the dairy is beyond expiration dates on the shelves, so check carefully. Also, the smell of the fish market wafts throughout the whole store. It can be distracting. It's somewhat disorganized--coffee and coffee filters are in two different aisles on opposite ends of the store. The selection of beer and wine isn't great. And if you're wary of products from China, read the labels carefully because a lot of stuff is imported from there.

But all the fresh stuff is so cheap! The bill is never as high as I think it's going to be. And fruit is healthier than cheese, so maybe I shouldn't be buying so much dairy anyway.

E Mart International Grocery

8100 Arlington Blvd.

Falls Church, VA

703-891-4355

spring rolls

My mom's in town for a week, so I had a helper for my first attempt at making spring rolls. We are having warm sunny weather during the days, so cool salad-type lunches are in order.

You can buy spring roll wrappers in the Asian foods aisle of most major grocery stores. I also bought stick noodles for the filling and Thai Kitchen peanut satay sauce for dipping. (Thai Kitchen labels their gluten-free products clearly.)

First we prepared all the fillings. We cooked the noodles so they'd have a few minutes to cool and get sticky while we got the other fillings ready. We had lettuce, sunflower sprouts, carrots (purchased pre-sliced for ease), mango, yellow pepper, and some tiny shrimp for my mom. You can pretty much take any fruits or veggies out of the crisper drawer and slice them up. It's a good way to clean out small amounts of something before it goes bad. (I was hoping to add some mint and cilantro, but they expired. It's the risk you take when dealing with fresh food sometimes.)

We decided to make one spring roll at a time, because it takes up a lot of counterspace, more than I really have in my kitchen. I filled a square glass baking dish with warm water and submerged my spring roll wrapper for about 20 seconds. Then I placed it on a clean, damp tea towel (which I had previously placed over the cutting board I was using as the wrapping work station). I pulled up the edges of the towel and blotted the wrapper until it was slightly sticky. Then I put my fillings in.

It's best to keep the fillings as log-shaped as possible, and don't let them get too close to the edges.

Once the fillings are in place, bring up the bottom of the wrapper, trying to keep the fillings as tight as possible before letting the wrapper seal with the top part. Fold in the left and right edges, then roll up tight. You'll find the wrappers can take quite a bit of rolling abuse, as long as you don't try to unseal and unroll them.

Our first ones were sort of loose and fillings spilled out on the plates when we sliced them in two. Our second ones were much tighter. You really can pack a lot in them.



These can also be deep-fried. I haven't tried that yet, but looking forward to giving it a whirl!

It's fun to make these, and I bet it's a good project for kids, but it's a lot of work for basically a salad. I'm sure I'll get faster the more I make them.


This is my entry for Weekend Herb Blogging. This is a weekly event that collects recipes for herbs and vegetables, sponsored by Kalyn's Kitchen. This week it's being hosted by The Well-Seasoned Cook, so head over there on Monday to check out the weekly recap of recipes.