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.

Greek Salad (Serves 2)

This salad happened by chance. I was at the local grocery store on Sunday buying vegetables for the next couple of weeks and was looking for ricotta cheese. I ended up picking a box of feta cheese thinking it was indeed ricotta cheese that I was picking up. Here comes old age.

My wife called me when she left work and asked me what's for dinner. Since we wanted to prepare something real quick, I offered salad and that too Greek salad as a choice. We already had most of the ingredients, some whole wheat pita and hey, feta cheese as well. How perfect! :-) So it was decided. I picked up some oil cured black olives from the market at the Grand Central terminal in NYC.

I put together the salad rather quickly after referring to a couple of books and then deciding to go my own way. My lovely wife Anita meanwhile grilled some tofu Indian style and toasted the pita bread. A few camera clicks later, we were devouring the salad away and wiped the whole salad bowl clean. Well, almost. Okay now to the fun part.

2 endives

2 kirby cucumbers

1/2 large red onion

2 medium plum tomatoes

3 scallions

1 cup crumbled fresh feta cheese

1 1/2 cups chopped fresh parsley leaves

6 tbsp good quality extra virgin olive oil

1/4 cup chopped oil cured black olives

1 1/2 tsp coarsely ground black pepper

2 1/2 tbsp lemon juice

Clean and chop all the vegetables into similar medium size pieces. Add the feta cheese, olives, and parsley leaves. In a small bowl, whisk together the extra virgin olive oil, ground pepper, lemon juice and salt (be careful with the salt since the feta cheese and olives already are salted). Pour this over the vegetables and mix everything together well. Serve cold.

Health Rating: High

Ingredient Substitute/s: One thing I didn't add in the salad that is a part of Greek salad is wine vinegar, simply because I didn't have it. Quantity depends on your preference really. Now since I have made this once, I can't wait to experiment with different ingredients in this. Something for vegans perhaps.

Spicy Portabella Mushroom & Fenugreek Leaves (Serves 4)

I had a handful of portabella mushrooms in stock. What I like about portabella mushrooms apart from their unique taste is the relatively harder texture compared to the other kinds of mushrooms. They also absorb the spices and oil flavor well.

One of my favorite dishes is portabella mushroom and broccoli rabe cooked in really good extra virgin olive oil and garlic. But I wanted to try something different with the mushrooms this time around, and was a little stumped looking inside the refrigerator for a while trying to find something out of the ordinary that would complement them. I finally ended up with a large bunch of fresh store bought fenugreek leaves, and with a little help from Mr. cayenne pepper, we have a knockout dish people! :-)

4 Portabella Mushrooms (1 lb)

1 whole bunch of fresh fenugreek leaves (sold at the Indian or specialty grocery stores)

1/2 tsp cumin powder

1/2 tsp coriander powder

1 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper powder

3 tbsp olive oil

salt to taste

Wash the mushrooms and fenugreek leaves well. Cut the mushrooms into 1/2 inch pieces. You can even cut them lengthwise into thin long strips. Strip the fenugreek leaves off their stems, cut them fine and set aside.

In a wok or something similar, add 3 tbsp of olive oil, coriander and cumin powder, and fenugreek leaves. Sauté for a couple of minutes and then add the mushrooms. Sauté the mushrooms as well for a few minutes.

At this point when the frying pan is hot, start adding the cayenne pepper powder to the dry sides of the wok, above where the food is actually cooking. As soon as you put the pepper there, due to the heat of the wok, it will start smoking and will release fumes. Immediately mix the powder from the side of the wok with the vegetables. Do this a few times until all the 1 1/2 tsp of cayenne pepper powder has been used up.

This semi burning process with the cayenne pepper powder that I just experimented on a whim imparted a smoky hot and spicy taste, and added great flavor to the vegetables. Hope you enjoy it. Serve with chapatti/tortilla or mix it with plain rice for flavorful 'fried rice'.

I did want to mention that I found cayenne pepper rather different than the usual Indian red chilis, in that the heat from the pepper hits your tongue initially like a blast and then quickly subsides down unlike the red chilis where your mouth burns, eyes start watering and you are running around for some cold water.

Health Rating: High