I will write recipes here. If you make them, venmo me $10. Support small businesses.
Cauliflower tomato soup- Massage olive oil into a cauliflower. Throw it into the oven at 400 with some onions, garlic and tomatoes. Blend the lot after an hour, add water, salt, oregano or any italian spice mix
Grilled cheese- I have found that Cheddar and Romano with cut hot peppers make a great grilled cheese.
A fig sandwich. Cut fresh figs, tomatoes and cucumbers. Place between slices of rye / white with mustard, cheese, butter, hot sauce and hummus. I used a peachy hot sauce. The key is to attack the sweet, spicy and umami taste receptors.
I’ve been experimenting with random things to throw into whole wheat flour while making dough for roti. I’ve found raddish is a great binder, and imparts a subtle salty acidic flavor, with nitrogenous notes. A hint of turmeric, salt and paprika, go well (could also add cumin to the dough). Interestingly, I found that using coconut milk instead of water did not affect the taste of the roti much, and grating ginger instead of raddish made it very hard to roll but was somewhat tasty. I found that using a thin pan instead of a cast iron pan, made the roti easier to work with, since the cast iron pan would cook the dough all the way through and make it more biscuity.
Tajin hibiscus tea - I got some dried shrivelled hibiscus from Egypt. They have a pleasant habit of shrivelling everything, even their pharohs. But more on that later. The tea is perfectly sweet, aromatic with fruity bottom notes. I like mine with a hint of spice and salt in it, to give it more balanced middle notes. I might recommend tajin, but salt and pepper could also work. If you’re feeling funky, try ginger.
I have also found that grating ginger and garlic into curries is better than mincing them - higher surface area. But this higher surface alrea also risks burns, and you lose the texture of the whole roasted garlic, which is a delicacy of its own. Whole roasted ginger, on the other hand, is not a delicacy and so is not missed. Consider grating ginger and garlic.
Gojju - A brilliant side to roti. Sauteed peppers, onions and mushrooms in a wok with oil, paprika and turmeric. squeeze in some tamarind. Add a tempering of mustard seeds and black gram (or add nuttiness however, can use coconut). The tangy, hot, savory dish is a brilliant side to roti. I have found that powdered spices burn quicker than whole spices do, so make sure to fry the vegetables in oil with salt before adding the spices. Adding the tamarind juice before the vegetables are fried will make them boil and not fry, so avoid that. Cook your rotis on cast iron, they get cooked through that way. I have also found that storing the gojju overnight gives them a really better taste, the peppers and mushrooms have time to absorb the flavors. I have found that this dish suits dosa and curd rice well.
I found that cooking rotis on cast iron gives the rotis such a nice color. Otherwise, I would get charred rotis that are not cooked, when I cooked them on a thin aluminum pan.