Amitabha's Kitchen Chronicles

I named this post the Paratha warrior as Jia has been extremely fond of parathas since she started letting know about her preferences of food. These days (she is almost 4) whenever she eats what she loves, she says " Jia khaabe and strong hoye jaabe " (Jia will eat this and become strong). Aloo Parathas : The Quick Fix Option: Ready made mash potato, Onions chopped, Chat masala (replace with fried cumin and fried corriander powder and black salt), Corriander leaves chopped. Mix all the above well.  Dough: The usual aata dough used for parathas / roti (I cannot write about the process of making the dough!) Take a portion and make a nice large cavity and fill with the stuffing. Make the parathas. Serve. The lengthy version: Boil the potatoes, peel and mash finely. Take thinly sliced onions, chopped tomatoes, chopped ginger, chopped garlic and fresh corriander leaves chopped. In a pan, add oil and once heated, add the garlic and ginger. After a minute add the onion...

Oindrilla (Jia) is a little fussy about taste and has indicated she does not like the mayonnaise in salads and neither does she like the cheesy versions. I presume that she is not very keen to eat veggies at all and that too raw as she needs to exercise her jaws and she is a little of a lazy bone when it comes to eating!! So tried this version of a salad (a little similar to aloo kabli - an extremely popular bengali road side snack). You will need: A large sized potato, boiled and beeled A medium / small onion chopped Beans - a small bunch, chopped Capsicum - a small one, chopped (small to medium pieces) Carrots - thin slivers Green Peas - a handful Corriander leaves - chopped Lemon juice - 1 tsp Salt Pepper Ketchup Chat Masala (if available) Making it: Take the carrots, beans, capsicum, onion in a small microwave proof bowl. Add a little salt and water. Cook it on high heat for about 2 mins. (In case you are averse to using a microwave, boil water in a pan, drop the v...

You will need: Slices of bread Cheese slice Ketchup Butter (in case you want to grill) Making the Sandwiches Take the bread slices and remove the edges (kids find it difficult to eat as it is hard. And if you are making a snack to be eaten later, more the reason to remove) Put ketchup on the both the slices and spread nicely Put a cheese slice and close the sandwich In case you want to provide grilled sandwich, apply butter on the external surface of both slices and grill it. (Note: Grilling renders the sandwiches a little hard and difficult to chew in case it is to be consumed later)

All parents of today are often at wits end to provide wholesome as well as "interesting" foods to their kids. This gets amplified as kids are smarter and brighter and aware of choices. Me & D, as parents, are no exceptions. And Jia is one hell of a gourmet as she has distinct taste preferences and that is topped with a rigid decisiveness!! So we often do lot of experimentations with regular food. This gave growth to an idea that lets put up the various trials (& tribulations??) on the recipe blog which can provide a good resource for parents all over. Bringing up Jia for the last 3 years has given us a huge repertoire of recipes and hence difficult to put it all together. So the easiest way to start would be cataloguing the recipes as per the snack menu that we follow for her school. And the recipes for each would be coming progressively! Monday: Sandwiches ( Cheese , Egg) Tuesday: Parathas (Aloo, Gobi, Onion, Aloo Gobi) Wednesday: Salad (Cheese, My Style, Pota...