Thanksgiving Dinner!

Today Thanksgiving Dinner menu was:

• Fried Tomatos with Chipotle Aioli


• Veggie Kebobs with spicy honey-cumin glaze


• Mint Pulao


• Fruit Custard Dessert

Fried Tomatoes

• 3-4 large tomatoes (beef stake tomatoes will do good as they are fleshy and large)


• All purpose flour


• Panko Bread Crumbs


• Yogurt or Kefir


• Oil to Fry

This is a fairly simple dish.

Cut tomatoes to about 2 inch thick slices. Sprinkle some salt on tomatos to draw out water. Pat tomatoes with paper towel to make them dry. Water in the frying ingredients will lead to a greasy food as water draws oil during frying rendering the dish very oily. 30 mins of leaving aside will make the tomatoes fairly dry.

Keep flour, kefir, breadcrumbs in 3 separate plates.

Put tomatoes in the plate of flour, then in the kefir/yogurt plate then in the bread crumb plate, coating the veggie very well.

Put it in a shallow fry pan with some oil and fry both sides.

Immediately transfer to paper towel or newspaper to draw out excess oil. You can also pat the slice in paper towel to get an oil free dish.

Serve with Chipotle Aioli.

Chipotle Aioli

Although the cookbooks recommend Aioli to be made with egg yolks etc. For me, the egg free Mayonaisse from Trader Joe's works wonderfully with the same taste. This is a very simple dish to make and you can use it as a dip for fried foods, chips and for sandwiches.

• 1-2 tbsp of chipotle peppers (you can get these in grocery stores as canned food, comes along with Adobo sauce, which is a tomato sauce. Choose the brand with less sodium)


• 3 tbsp mayonnaise


• 1-2 tbsp lime/lemon juice


• 2 tbsp oil


• 2 tbsp panko bread crumbs

Just put all these ingredients in the blender and blend. adjust texture, heat and lemon juice to taste. Add salt if needed. This should not come out runny but should be like somewhat of a thick dip.

Vegetable Kabobs with Honey Cumin Glaze

• about 7-10 Bamboo skewers. You can get them in grocery stores, they are cheap. Soak them for 20 mins or more so they wont burn.


• Veggies:


• Various peppers (orange, red, yellow, green, etc.) cut into 2 inch triangular slices


• Cauliflower: cut them rather large as it is somewhat tricky to put them on to the skewer if they are small.


• Onions: cut them into 2-3 inch long slices suitable for skewering


• Pineapple cubes 2-3 inch


• Paneer optionally


• You can also include other veggies like potatoes, brocolli, etc.


• Glaze:


• 2 tbsp lime/lemon juice


• 1 tbsp veg. oil


• 1-2 tbsp honey


• 3-5 red chile peppers


• 1 tsp cumin


• 1 tsp pepper

o Prepare glaze by powdering cumin, pepper and peppers. Put all the ingredients in a bowl and whisk them adding salt as needed.

o Build skewers by stringing veggies into the sticks.

o use a brush to coat veggies with glaze

o Grill the skewers on the gas burner set at medium. You can put a steel wire rack on the gas burner to help with the grilling. Keep turning the skewers occasionally. You can put 2 skewers on the burner at a time. Apply glaze occasionally.