Comfort Food

A few weeks ago on a Saturday. It was 3 in the afternoon. Raining. Cold.

 

Did not feel hungry. But wanted to have some comfort food. Felt lazy to cook anything,

 

Opened and looked in the Fridge. There was not any cooked and stored food available.

 

Opened the freezer section. Ahh. I found one. Onion Pakoda I made about 3 weeks ago and I have stored about 20 pakodas in a freezer bag.

 

Took the bag out. Turned on the oven to 350 degrees. Wrapped the pakodas in an aluminium foil and placed inside the oven for 30 minutes.

 

Bingo. Hot crispy pakodas were ready. Ate all of them with a hot cup of tea.

 

Cooked food can be stored in the freezer section up to 3 months. It has to be stored in an air tight freezer box or freezer bag. Some say we should not put yogurt based gravy (Punjabi Kadhi or South Indian Morekuzhambu) in a freezer. But, to me, it works out OK. No probs.

 

Until 1 year ago, we stored the food in the freezer section only when we were getting ready to go on a vacation. We stored some cooked dishes to take it out and eat during the first few days after our return from vacation. But now, me in charge of cooking, I use the freezer a lot.

 

One word of caution: Please do not try this (storing food in the freezer section up to 3 months) in those countries where there is voltage fluctuation and/or frequent power cut.

 

PS: Only after eating all the pakodas I realized I did not take a picture to show them here.

PPS: Is the plural for pakoda is pakodas?

Ahh. Romantic

5th Grade Science Teacher proposing to 5th  Grade  Math Teacher in front of the class.
 

                                                             (courtesy: youtube)

Indian Ingenuity

Just read the news item that the Air India Flight crew staying at a London Hotel, were caught with filling their lunch boxes with buffet food.

 

The Hotel alleged that "some AI crew members regularly come down for breakfast with empty boxes into which they fill food items from the buffet, presumably to eat later".

 

What a way to save their layover allowances.

 

Recently I had a visitor from India. He came by the Air India 15 hour non stop flight from Delhi to San Francisco. He told me that the drinks cart on a 15 hour flight came only once thru the aisles, and that too just before landing.

 

What are they doing with those miniature bottles? Hope they use it among their family and friends and not sell them.

Focaccia Bread

Went into the City of San Francisco day before yesterday. Long Long time ago we used to live within that city’s limit. I was driving by the Coit Tower. It is a 210 feet tower built to beautify the city of San Francisco.

 

I was passing through the “no name” bakery store. (We always called it that way because there was no signboard in front of the bakery.) It was 2 pm in the afternoon. I was pleasantly surprised to see the “Open” sign on the front door. I parked the car in the no parking zone and ran into that store.

 

Here is a side bar. This bakery is located in the Italian neighborhood. They are world famous for their focaccia bread. Of course, focaccia bread is available in many other places. But no comparison with the one made in this bakery.  Focaccia bread from this bakery will melt in your mouth.  They used to open at 6 am in the morning. There will be a line of about 40 people (mainly Italians) waiting for the bakery to open. All their breads will be sold out by 8 am.

 

Originally they sold only two types of bread. Plain and Pizza. When I went there this time, I noticed they were selling 12 different types of bread. I bought a plain and a pizza for the sake of nostalgia.

 

                                                        L Plain and R Pizza

 

When we have parties or get-togethers at home, we used to serve this bread as one of the hors d'oeuvres. Guests (children and adults) would go crazy.

 

PS: Someone told me it is named Liguria Bakery.