Portabella Mushroom & Broccoli Rabe (Serves 3)

My wife works close to the Bronx's little Italy (Arthur Ave.) in NYC. Since we had never been there, we decided to go check the neighborhood out, and have lunch at one of the local Italian restaurants there. Another big incentive for me was that Teitel Brothers, the biggest wholesaler and retailer of Italian grocery in Bronx is also situated there, and I wanted to stock up!

After roaming around the neighborhood for a while and building up an appetite, it was time to eat. We turned around Arthur Ave and came across this simple and nice little restaurant called GianTina's. We were lucky in that this place turned out to be really good food-wise, although I would expect a little more effort from a service point of view.

My wife and I ate like pigs and ordered a lot of good wine and great food, making sure we had some to take back home :-). My wife had a kind of spiral pasta with pesto and cheese, and I had chicken with vegetables and sausages cooked in a wine sauce, both of which were great.

What caught my eye while going through the menu was one of the appetizers, Broccoli Rabe with Portabella Mushrooms and I ordered that. It was one of the best tasting appetizers I have ever had, very simple in preparation which I found out by asking our waitress, but rich in taste due to the fresh vegetables and especially the extra virgin olive oil. The flavor of this dish stood out due to the bold tasting oil which took the taste up several levels.

Since then I have been cooking up this appetizer dish at home very regularly, which I want to share with you all here.

1 portabella mushroom
1 whole bunch fresh broccoli rabe leaves (store bought)
3 tbsp good quality extra virgin olive oil
5 cloves garlic crushed with knife and chopped
salt and pepper to taste

Chop the portabella mushroom into 1 inch long pieces and keep aside. Crush the garlic cloves with a knife and chop them.

Clean the broccoli rabe leaves well and cut the end portions out so you are left with the leaves and a little part of the stem. Chop the leaves up after this. If you would like to take some of the bitterness out of the rabe, put the leaves in boiling water for a few minutes, take it off the flame, drain the water and run cold water through it to stop the cooking process.

In a pan, heat the extra virgin olive oil, add the garlic and saute for a couple of minutes. Add the mushrooms, some salt and pepper and continue sauteing. Add the leaves at this point, season it with the salt and pepper according to your taste and cook just until the broccoli rabe leaves are done. That's it! Serve hot as a side dish to your pasta and sauce.

Oh, and by the way, after lunch we visited the Teitel Brothers store and I was like a kid in a candy store, wanting everything I saw. Law of the 'wife' was established immediately and I was brought to my senses :-). But I still got a stock of great extra virgin olive oil (Edda), oil cured olives, sun-dried tomatoes, and fresh and aged cheese.

Health Rating: High

Ingredient Substitute/s: You can replace the rabe with spinach leaves, or the portabella mushrooms with regular mushrooms but the taste isn't the same as with portabella mushrooms. Ingredients are really what your imagination can come up with as long as they complement each other well.

Roasted Plantains (Serves 2)

Spotting Dole plantains while shopping at the local Asian grocery store reminded me of my childhood days when my parents used to make this wonderful plantain dish. I immediately picked up a couple to revive those memories by making them at home, and also in the hope that I can pass on the tradition to my daughter, as she used to loved roasted bananas.

This is a very simple and healthy affair (if you leave out the butter, that is) and can be made almost anytime at a moment's notice. There are some common ways of making roasted plantains but I prefer making them the way it was done at home years ago.

2 Dole plantains
1/4 cup jaggery
1/8 cup water
1 1/2 tbsp unsalted butter

Preserve the plantains until they are ripe, with the skin turning black.

Peel the skin off and cut the plantains into 1 1/2 inches slices. Put it in a small container, scatter jaggery all over them, and add water. Steam cook for around 10-15 minutes until the plantains are well cooked in the jaggery water. Once the pressure cooker has let all of the steam off, transfer the cooked plantains into a bowl and mix them well together so as to incorporate the jaggery flavor.

In a small pan on high flame add 1 1/2 tbsp of butter and then immediately take the pan out of the flame, as the butter melts and browns immediately. Add the plantains to this and return to the fire at low to medium heat, and let the plantains roast, turning them around every now and then till they turn golden and crisp on all sides. Sprinkle some sugar on top and serve hot.

The combination of the nutty flavor from the browned butter, jaggery and the plantains in my mouth just brought back all those days gone by. And as for my daughter, she still has to buy into our tradition :-).

This dish is right on for vegans as well if the butter is left out.

Health Rating: Medium (High if butter is avoided)

Rose Ice Cream (Serves 8)

Last night for a potluck party at my very close friend Sriram’s place, we were to bring ice cream for dessert. I had bought Breyers vanilla ice cream. The plan was to do something different to the ice cream and my wife suggested why not do something with rose.

This is what I quickly came up with, a simple and refreshing ice cream bursting with flavor. For the rose ingredient I used Rooh Afza, a very famous rose syrup made in India. It's usually had with cold water or milk, and also added to desserts such as ice cream or milk shake. You can pick it up from any Indian grocery store.

1 1/2 quart Breyers Natural Vanilla Ice Cream

1 1/2 tbsp 'Rooh Afza' rose syrup

1/2 tsp cardamom powder

1 pinch of saffron in 2 tbsp of warm milk

1/4 cup of pistachio nuts (optional)

Add a pinch of saffron to 2 tbsp warm milk in a small cup and set aside for 15 minutes. Take the ice cream out of the freezer and set it at room temperature for around 10-15 minutes as well, until it is a little soft.

In a medium bowl transfer the ice cream and add the rose syrup, cardamom powder, saffron with milk, and 1/4 cup pistachios. The other nuts which go well with this ice cream are cashews and almonds. Mix the ingredients to the ice cream till it combines very well with them, smooth in texture and pink in color.

Scoop the ice cream back into its container and refreeze until ready to eat. Serve this ice cream for dessert to your guests next time you host a party and wow them!

If you want to enhance the flavor more, before adding them to the ice cream toast the nuts in an oven at 350 degrees for 5-10 minutes until they are slightly brown.

Health Rating: Medium

Shortbread (yields 8-12 cookies)

- adapted from recipe by Gourmet magazine found in Epicurious.com

On Sunday we had gone to visit my wife's cousin and his family in Connecticut. While we were there, we had coffee and some home made shortbread cookies. On a previous occasion I had the opportunity to taste almond barfi her cousin's wife Suneeta had prepared and it was very sumptuous.

The shortbread cookies are egg-less and really easy to make. Suneeta had also added coarsely ground almonds to the cookies which is optional. I have to say that they were one of the better shortbreads I have eaten, with the right amount of crispiness. Here is the recipe.

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, soft
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup sugar + 4 tsp sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 cup toasted almonds coarsely ground (exclude this if you have kids with allergies to nuts)

Preheat oven to 375°F. Blend the butter, sugar, vanilla, and salt in a medium size bowl with a fork until everything combines well. Add the flour and almonds into this mixture and keep mixing with fork or hands until the mixture forms into a soft dough.

Transfer the dough to a large baking sheet (ungreased) and pat into a rectangle (1/2 inch thick). Imprint the edges decoratively with a fork and prick the dough all over with the fork. Bake the shortbread in middle of oven until edges are golden, which takes about 15 minutes.

Once this is done, sprinkle some sugar on top of the shortbread, and cool the shortbread on the baking sheet on a rack for 10 minutes. Cut the shortbread into the desired number of slices while still warm with a knife. Transfer the slices with a spatula to rack to cool completely. Shortbreads are good to go.

Health Rating: Medium

Bio on Suneeta: Suneeta lives in Connecticut with her husband and two children. She is very fond of baking, and tries to balance this passion with her work life and family life. Suneeta holds a senior position at an insurance company. She is still not ready for the attention her photograph might generate :-), and hence declined the offer to load her photo here.

Ingredient Substitute/s: Avoid the nuts if you have young kids who may be allergic to nuts. If you are fine with nuts, original recipe calls for adding pecans or hazelnuts other than almonds. You can add other extracts other than vanilla, chocolate bits, etc.

Frozen Vanilla Cream Pie (Serves 8)

Last weekend, our friends had come over from Long Island for lunch. We had prepared traditional South Indian dishes for the occasion with rice, sambar, potatoes, beans and fried chips. When it came down to dessert, since the triple chocolate cream pie that I had made a few weeks turned out so well, and time was a factor I thought of making another pie since I had the crust handy.

I did want it to be different from the last time though. So I came up with the idea of a simple vanilla pie with chocolate biscuits and chocolate chips, with a hint of mint flavor in it. Here is the recipe.

2 cups heavy cream

1/2 cup sugar

2 tsp pure vanilla extract

15 fresh mint leaves

8 chocolate biscuits crumbled (without the cream filling)

1/2 cup Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate chips minced fine

Keebler Ready Crust pie crust (Graham Cracker)

Chop the mint leaves into small pieces. In a sauce pan, pour 2 cups of heavy cream and add the mint leaves and sugar. Bring the cream to a boil and stir it to dissolve the sugar. Pour the cream into a large bowl through a strainer in order to strain the mint leaves. With your hands squeeze out any juice left in the mint leaves into the cream. Add 2 tbsp of pure vanilla extract and mix. Set aside the bowl in the freezer to cool down.

I had a packet of Indian chocolate biscuit sandwiches with chocolate cream filling called Bourbon biscuits that my daughter and I love. You can buy this from any Indian grocery store or you can use any substitute chocolate biscuit that you like. Take 4 biscuit sandwiches (8 biscuits without the cream filling) and crumble them into small pieces. Set aside. Take enough Ghirardelli (or any other good brand) bittersweet chocolate chips and chop them into very fine pieces. Measure 1/2 cup of this and set aside.

After around 1 hour or so, when the cream has cooled down enough, add the biscuits and the chocolate chips to the cream and stir once or twice till everything mixes well. Pour the mix into the pie crust and freeze this for at least 5.5 - 6 hours. Garnish with mint and serve cold.

This pie turned out to be really good. Next stop is Thanksgiving :-)

Health Rating: Low

Substitute Ingredient/s: My friend's son said he would have preferred semi sweet chocolate chips instead of the bittersweet as he didn't like the bitterness. You can add any kind of chocolate chips you want in this. For the biscuits Oreo cookies can be used as well but that's too common. You can add nuts as well. I avoided them as there were kids in the audience. I think Keebler Chocolate Pie Crust might work better instead of the Graham Cracker version, although the Graham cracker was good enough.

One thing I would mention is that when I served this dessert, I had frozen it for around 4 hours only. So the vanilla pie was soft and hence the chocolate chips and the pie crust were interfering with the smooth texture of the vanilla pie. Since we are freezing only heavy cream here, there is no binding agent and hence it is advisable to freeze the pie for close to 6 hours so that the pie feels whole when you eat it.