Food and Recipes

Cooking doesn’t have to be complicated. Feel free to adjust the seasonings — this salad is very lightly flavored as a base recipe, since it’s meant as a complement to curries and other richly flavored dishes, but you can certainly add more salt / pepper / sugar / lime juice/vinegar to your taste. I didn’t […]

If you don’t happen to live in a tropical paradise, sometimes you go to the grocery store with a desperate desire for mangoes, and there is nothing resembling a ripe mango to be found — there may be canned mango (good for making mango fluff, my daughter’s favorite dessert), or even frozen mangoes (which are

On the podcast interview this morning, they asked me what was a good starting dish in Vegan Serendib — I said if you like spicy, you could start with deviled potatoes, which was one of the dishes I learned in college, as a very novice cook. It’s incredibly easy, but also incredibly yummy. I still

Do you have boring old leftover rice? Are you in the mood for a spicy, tangy, flavor EXPLOSION??? This is the recipe for you. (You can skip or reduce the cayenne and dried red chilies if spicy is not your favorite thing.) *** Tamarind Rice with Black Lentils (10 minutes, serves 4) Ever since I

(20 minutes, serves 8.) I had never been a big kale fan, but my friend, Roshani, completely converted me with her Aunty Indranee’s use of kale in this traditional sambol. In Sri Lanka, this would have been made with a native green, gotu kola, but kale is an excellent substitute (you can also try any

I felt like a relatively light dinner tonight, and a simple vegan meal of coconut milk rice, cauliflower poriyal, and pol (coconut) sambol hit the spot! (Coconut two ways…) I give you lots of photos of pol sambol, because I make it ALL THE TIME, and so I HAVE lots of photos of it. *****

Cauliflower poriyal is the recipe that got my kids to actually like a cooked vegetable for the first time. I give the credit to the salty, fried onions that intermingle so deliciously with the fried cauliflower. The key to this dish is sautéing the cauliflower until it’s browned—the browned bits will be the tastiest. *****

(35-40 minutes, makes 16 mini scones) Yes, I know ‘tarts’ would rhyme and ‘scones’ doesn’t, but I really wanted to bake scones… 2 3/4 cups flour 1/3 cup jaggery (or dark brown sugar) 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 tablespoon baking powder 1/2 cup cold butter 3/4 c. dried cherries, halved 2 large eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla

Another one for the Patreon boxes! (30 minutes, makes 30 bars) What’s summer without s’mores? You can make these with brown sugar, of course, but jaggery adds an extra dimension of yumminess. They are very gooey, in the best way. 1 c. butter, melted 2 eggs 2 c. jaggery (or dark brown sugar), packed 2

(makes one giant dessert drink) Ready to be indulgent? When my daughter and I were traveling in Sri Lanka, she decided that Sri Lanka was the land of ice cream, because we ended up eating it most places (especially when the dishes were too spicy for her). I wouldn’t serve her this drink, but for