Homemade Pupusas

Pupusas with curtido and salsa roja

This pupusa recipe is more of a technique based project than an ingredient based one. The only important ingredient is the masa. Because it is after all a maize cake! You can play around with the fillings and decide what you like best. I made a bean and cheese pupusa because it is what I had on hand. So feel free to use what you have on hand. If you have leftover taco meat, that will go nicely as a filling after you grind it up a little. You can also totally make them vegan with a filling of mushrooms …

White Chocolate Espresso Martini

White Chocolate Espresso Martini

The White Chocolate Espresso Martini is a vodka based martini, hence it could also be termed as a vodkatini or a kangaroo cocktail. As with all cocktails, it is super easy to make. All you have to do is to make sure that you are uber cool and have all the ingredients on hand. As much as it may surprise you, I am not the official cocktail maker in the family. Food and wine is as far as I go and then for the occasions when the menu and mood need something rather creative with alcohol, it is Mr Spice …

Almond Linzer Cookies #CreativeCookieExchange

Almond Linzer Cookies

The Linzer cookies are named after the town from where they originated, Linz in Austria.  The name, Linzer, came from Linzertorte, which is an Austrian torte/tart with a lattice top and blackcurrant jam filling. Created in the 17th century,  the Linzer Torte is the world’s oldest torte recipe.  The ingredient that distinguishes tortes is that they use nuts rather than flour as part of the main ingredient. The Linzer cookies traditionally use a raspberry jam filling.   This month our Creative Cookie Exchange  celebrated Nuts in Cookies! Because they are delightful and a tradition all over the world. And since Linzer cookies …

Rajma – Indian Style Kidney Beans

Has it ever happened to you, that you presented the idea of making the best dish from your hometown with so much enthusiasm that you could barely resist the urge to get going and make it but your baloon of excitement was burst with one simple “ Sure! But I don’t understand what the fuss is about this dish.” A lightening strikes and then there is a deafening silence. While you scurry for an appropriate response, your mind is racing with responses that you want to utter in a thundering voice so high pitched that every crystal in the house …

Banana Bread with Pecans and Hemp seeds

It’s the 38 Power Foods Blog Friday and our ingredient for today is the Pecans.   A daily handful of pecans is said to reduce the overall risk of heart disease.  The unsaturated fats in pecans help lower the LDL cholesterol.  Pecan nuts are rich source of many phyto-chemical substances that may contribute to their overall antioxidant activity, including polyphenolic antioxidant ellagic acid, vitamin E, beta-carotene, lutein and zea-xanthin.  Research studies have been suggestive of that these compounds help the body remove toxic oxygen-free radicals and thus, protect the body from diseases, cancers, as well as infections. The nuts are very rich …

Nadir Yakhin – Lotus Roots in a yogurt sauce

A few of friends of Spiceroots recently asked me to share some traditional recipes from Kashmir.  Today I chose to share the Nadir Yakhin – Lotus Roots in yogurt sauce,  as it brings a lot of happy memories from my childhood. My cousin and I used to steal pieces of lotus roots from each other’s plates – just so the other did not get to eat one too many. We would sit next to each other and keep a sharp eye out for a moment when the other was not looking and grab it from the plate. Of course we …