Diwali cha faraal: Shankarpalya

It's pretty festive around these parts - Halloween with all the baking, roasting, and carving it involves, and Diwali with all of its lights and food and family fun! Happy Diwali everyone!!

Now I don't know about you, but whenever we celebrate a festival around here, we seem to focus on the eating, drinking, and general merry-making parts of it. Not for us the fasting and penance (though oxymoronically enough, fasting or "upaas" food is absolutely delicious and worth making even if you're not fasting, and happens to make "fasting" pretty freakin' enjoyable - in fact, watch out for an upaas food post here soon). 

And when the festival in question is Diwali, that means you start mixing up some dough and frying up some deliciousness! It's time to get busy making some "Diwali cha faraal" - or festive treats specially for Diwali.

Travel Tuesdays: Molasses and Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Writing about ginger cookies and gingersnaps made me realize I've been deprived of molasses, and I finally went and bought some. And now that I think about it, I've actually seen molasses being made!

It was on a family road trip to Ratnagiri - a fascinating place on the west coast of India, with a history that includes everything from delicious mangoes (I could wax poetic about Alphonso mangoes for days, and would recommend that everyone should brave the Indian summer heat to drown themselves in their deliciousness - even if you melt to death, it will be a sweet sweet way to go) to being the birthplace of Lokmanya Tilak to having been the home of exiled Burmese King Thebaw.

Maple Olive Oil Gingersnaps

These cookies were in response to a special request from my mom, who, upon reading about my Ginger Honey Cookies, suddenly realized that it had been years since she has had homemade gingersnaps. She requested actual gingersnaps, but, even though I'm a wonderful daughter (of course!!) I had to go and mess with a good thing. Once again, I took up the Kitchenaid at the very last minute, so when I discovered (yet again) the lack of molasses I shrugged my shoulders and reached for the honey. But when I found that I only had a measly 1/4 cup of butter left over in the fridge, I figured - what the heck, let's throw the ol' honey gingersnaps into the wind and just go all out in trying something totally different.

To replace the dark syrupy sweetness of molasses I reached for maple syrup - this was going to be a strong, powerful cookie. A little richer than the ginger honey cookies. If you make these, be sure to use the good stuff - that cornstarchy nonsense that passes for syrup won't do you any favors. And instead of butter, I've used olive oil in the past for cakes with excellent results, so olive oil it was. Nudge the ginger honey cookies here and there, and this is what you get:

The result? Rich flavors from the maple syrup and ginger, more crispness because of the olive oil, and still a bit of nice chew and bite. Delish.

Ginger Honey Cookies

As you know, recently there's been a lot of ginger going around these parts. Apart from making tea and using this root in savory dishes, I started thinking about what else I could do with it. A gingerbread house? Ooh that would be fun! Or gingerbread men! But a little beyond my current prowess. Also, not exactly the right season for it, because those definitely seem to be wintery sweets. And although the evenings have been a little cool recently, we're not exactly at X'mas time just yet (thankfully! Ouf this summer has just flown by!).

Co-Conspirator Gift: Chocolate Chip Cookies for a Surprise Visit

This weekend I wanted to surprise my dear friend J (also known as Petite Extraordinaire) who has just returned after almost a year away in India working with local artisans, traveling, eating, exploring, and generally showing the world how it's done. So I planned out a visit with help from her mom. Of course, if you're planning a surprise and it wouldn't be possible without that key conspirator, you should show a little token of thanks for all the zipped-lippery and not-giving-things-away-ness that they engage in. You know what's a perfect cookie that expresses thanks for this exact situation (and really for any situation)? Smitten Kitchen's favorite chocolate chip cookie!

This recipe is pretty freaking perfect as it is, so no interpretation is necessary here. I didn't have nuts on hand so I just used extra chocolate chips, but since I basically reproduced it step for step otherwise, I'll just leave you with a little snapshot of how they turned out.

Go to SK's website for the recipe, make these immediately, inhale them all, then clean up so nobody will ever know you made them and didn't share. Do it now.

And remember them for the next time you're looking for a gift for a surprise co-conspirator!

Cardamom Shortbread Cookies for a Cloudy Afternoon

Ouuuuuf this cloudy dreary day is quite depressing!

You know what would help? Some quick and easy cookies with a nice hot cup of tea.