~Funky Fast Fungi~

A Mushroom walks into a bar to get a drink. He walks up to the bar area and asks the bartender, "Can I have a drink?" The bartender looks down and says "We only serve people".  So then the mushroom responds, "But I'm a Fungi" (as in Fun guy). 

My Biology teacher shared this joke with the class the first day of the class to start off with a laugh. Until this day I still remember it and it cracks me up every single time. 

Anyways, let's get down to cooking. My mom came up with this recipe post Thanksgiving weekend. We had a lot of vegetables leftover from the holiday grocery shopping trip. So she thought, what better way to use them up but to create a whole new recipe:

Mushroom and Bell Pepper Medley Ingredients:
Serving Size: 4 to 6

- 1 lb of White button mushrooms, chopped

- 3 Green bell peppers,  remove seeds chop into cubes

- 1 medium Red Onion, chopped into cubes

- ½ cup (frozen) of Carrot and Peas

- 1-1 ½ tbsp of MTR Vangeebath powder

- 2-3 tbsp of Vegetable oil

- 2 tbsp of Dry Grated Coconut 

- 1 tsp each of Mustard and Jeera seeds

- ½ tsp of Turmeric powder

Procedure:

1) In a saucepan heat oil and add mustard and jeera seeds. When they splatter, add turmeric powder, chopped onions, mushrooms & bell pepper.

2) Add salt and Vangeebath powder and mix well. Cook the vegetables till soft & firm.

3) Then add frozen peas & carrots. Cook for another 5-6 minutes. Next, sprinkle coconut powder and mix well.

Finished Mushroom & Bell Pepper Medley

4) The curry can be served with hot rotis, rice or eaten by itself.

No Turkey, No Problem!

Growing up in the United States, I learned quite a bit about all the holidays and their importance. My favorite holidays are Thanksgiving (lots of eating) and Christmas (lots of presents). Although we are not Christians, we still take part in the festivities. Every other year, we go over to my Uncle's place to spend the holiday with them and enjoy their arrangement of  Thanksgiving: Turkey, stuffing, baked sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, and some kind of pie. We bring a couple of vegetarian dishes like green bean casserole and biryani to spice up the dinner variety.
This year my family decided to host the big dinner at our new house and invited a lot of family over for the weekend. Some stayed for the weekend since they were travelling from abroad. And boy, did we have our work cut out for us! My mom and I prepared the holiday weekend menu a week in advance so we could finish the grocery shopping and cooking in time for the bid day. Furthermore, Our Thanksgiving Dinner was moved to Friday to accommodate all the holiday guests.  Even though the holidays always seem to be the most stressful time of year...I love the feasting and stuffing our faces part.

Our Big Thanksgiving Dinner comprised of many dishes such as the ones illustrated above (starting from left to right): Chili bhajji, Cranberry chutney, Lavish Lilva beans, Pumpkin pulusu, Vegetable lo mein, Dahi vada, and Asparagus twists. These dishes were served with warm jeera rice and rotis.

Although, I thought I was in a food coma after dinner, I made sure I secured enough room for dessert. Some of our guests were kind enough to bring desserts and so we had a lot to choose from: Almond and cranberry Biscotti, apple pie with ice cream and rasmalai. We made rasmalai at home and it didn't take as long as I thought it would.

Over the next few days, we will be posting recipes for many of these mouth watering dishes for you to try at home.

Hey even though there was no turkey served for dinner, we all managed to burn off a few calories afterwards with the Turkey Dance!!