IFR New Finds and Weekend Burgers

I heard some of you asking for some food, please! Your wish is my command. Sometimes.

I love my sister's refrigerator. It's always full. She's an amazing cook and is always trying out new stuff. It's a treat when she leaves us home alone and goes off to work. Yum! We wake up whenever we want, raid her pantry for all sorts of delicious namkeens and new cereals for breakfast. Lest she feel offended, we devour upma or pohe or idlis for a mid-morning snack. We down her special chicken masala with soft wheat wraps for lunch. And just when we're settling down with a humongous cup of tea, she arrives and becomes a blur in the kitchen, only to have whipped up some amazing stuffed baingan and Gujarati dal. Her husband makes his presence felt by pulling out his copy of the trusted Prashad and putting together a Goa Prawn Masala that lights you up from the inside as well as out!

I absolutely have to make this! It's fiery and hits you a couple of seconds after you have swallowed a mouthful. With my insides on fire, I lunged once more for the doors of the aforementioned refrigerator. Since there were fewer containers and serving bowls than in the morning, I spied a yogurt container that I had never seen before. Now those of you who live in and around New Jersey may scoff at me but when I read Desi Natural Dahi, I had to reach out and find out more.

• It's firm.
• It's not slimy.
• It's sharper than your regular store-bought yogurt.
• It's almost as good as the homemade dahi in India.
• It's made by Derle Farms, NJ and has been in the market for about a year now (I think!) after some serious product development.

I haven't yet seen Desi Natural Dahi in the local Indian grocery stores here but then again, I haven't looked for yogurt in the Indian stores since I make my own. If I'm out of yogurt, I prefer to buy Wallaby yogurt from Wild Oats or Whole Foods. It's creamy and has just the right flavor according to me. I don't need my yogurt extra-firm so it doesn't bother me that Wallaby yogurt is more cream-style than custardy.

Bee and Jai of Jugalbandi have a super tutorial on making desi dahi at home. Be sure to check it out!

Where's the food, you say? I haven't been cooking much lately. For several reasons. I was away on vacation, to begin with. Then we had back-to-back visitors as soon as we got back home. I did cook one meal but that was it. After that, my favorite client arrived and stayed with us for 5 days. We ate out, ordered extra and ate leftovers for lunch the next day. I did toss together a few salads that I found as a result of quick Googling. But there was no time for pictures as the focus was work, work and more work. I could have cooked if I wanted to but it was just too darned hot to cook. It still is. But since we are all tired of eating out and I had about 3 lbs of ground turkey in my refrigerator that was very close to the expiration date, my husband fired up the grill...

while Medha patted out the burgers after I had mixed all the spices into the meat. I washed and sliced the lettuce, tomatoes and onions...

and soon we had the most perfect burgers ever!

While I don't have an exact recipe for these burgers, I can tell you what I did:

• I put some olive oil in a mixing bowl
• Added some balsamic vinegar just because it was easier to reach than the vinegar from my pickled serranos
• Added Sweet Baby Ray's Barbecue Sauce
• Chopped one medium size white onion and added it, too
• Tossed in some garam masala
• Added some red chilli powder and salt
• Eyed some garlic and decided it was not worth the trouble. Same with ginger.
• Mixed in the ground turkey
• Showed Medha how to use that burger maker thingee. She was only too thrilled because she was finally allowed to handle raw meat. She has a thing about feeling the texture of raw foods. I did make her wash her hands in hot soapy water and clean her nails out before she was allowed to do anything else!
• Grilled the burgers and ran inside when the mosquitoes put in an appearance. They fear nothing: not citronella, not DEET, and not even Odomos, unlike the mosquitoes of Chicagoland. Hmmph!

I have enough burgers for two more meals. Yay! Tomorrow I will slice them and have them in some delightful Greek pitas. I might even make some of Anita's mint and walnut chutney to go with it. Or perhaps some labneh. I can't wait! And it looks like I am cooking again, despite the heat!