Lemon Tree - Yet another Asian place

I had been eyeing this opening for a while and yet one fine day, without my notice, lemon tree opened it's doors. Yet another newcomer on Cedar Street aka restaurant row, in Dobbs Ferry. Well, a good choice at lunchtime I went over to try it. True to its name the restaurant has a crisp cheery decor, the yellow walls and nice sunny linen help to uplift the spirits,

The menu is at first first blush not very different from your usual asian fusian place, what is interesting about this one is that it does have a few different sushi items such as the Dobbs Ferry Roll and some Malaysian items in addition to Thai offering that find their place with the Japenese and Chinese offerings.

I ordered the Malaysian Red Curry - which was simply amazing no so much the actual curry but the lovely assortment of vegetables that accompanies the chicken and soft flavorful tofu in the curry. They even had baby okra. An unexpected tiny spring roll came with this selection, which they really should have left out. This item tasted stale and re-fried not what you look for in a spring roll.

Also had a nice plate of Goyza! My general 2 cents, if one is in the area it certain makes an interesting choice and worth trying out, I would not go cross county for it!

The Co-Ordinates

27 Cedar St

Dobbs Ferry,

NY 10522-1711

(914) 591-7088

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A simple fish curry

It has been busy the past few weeks with all kinds of things going on. I have also been somewhat under weather - nasty cough and flu. I get particularly sad when this extends to the weekends.

Folks, some weeks I live for the weekends, it really is rough when I hack and cough into my precious saturday sleeping.

I made a simple fish curry earlier in the week, with acorn squash the only little time I spent was in browning the onions.

Ingredients

3-4 tablespoons oil
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon nigella seeds
1 teaspoon grated ginger
1 onion, coarsely chopped
1 teaspoon cumin powder
1 teaspoon coriander powder
1 -2 green chillies, slit
1 cup finely cubed acrorn squash
1 teaspoon salt
1 lbs fish (I used tilapia - rubbed in turmeric and salt)
1 lemon
1/3 cup water
1-2 teaspoons cilantro

Method of preparation

1. Heat the oil and add the cumin and nigella seeds.
2. Add in the ginger and the onion and cook on medium heat stirring frequently for about 10 minutes until the onion is soft, wilted and nicely golden on the edges.
3. Stir in the cumin powder, coriander powder, chilies and the fish in a single layer and cook for 2-3 mintues.
4. Turn once, cut the lemon, lemon the seeds and squeeze the lime juice and add the water and simmer for about 15 minutes.
5. Stir in the cilantro and eat with rice.


In the meantime, we went to watch the NYC marathon, yes, dear brother was running! Kids did the subway - as you can see very excited.

Fall brightens the sky and the view and we look on to another week.

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An ungodly hour - a simple recipe

I am actually uploading some really nice pictures my brother has taken of his current trip to the east coast. I am up waiting while flick uploads the pictures, in bars of pink! I was around today. I took Aadi for a check to the immunologist. I was a little sad to see, how excited he was at the prospect of being taken to the doctor by me. Usually, dad does this. Well, such is life...

This morning I was really feeling on top of my act, because I woke up in time to make a good breakfast for all of us (we were all at home, but I tend to sleep in on Saturdays!), until I saw what my daughter had scribbled while I was making breakfast. LOL!

It read, " On Saturday, I went trick or treating! Mas is taking so long to get my eggs ready. Aadi is eating his rewards!Ma gave me my egg now, I don't have a spoon with my egg, I have a fork"

Gosh, tough crowd. Well, I made this fairly straighforward paneer recipe a couple of weeks back, try it!

Paneer Manoranjan - Indian cheese with mushrooms

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 15 minutes

Serves 4

Ingredients

1 tablespoons oil

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

1/8 teaspoon asafetida

1 cup diced tomatoes (I used a mixture of red and green)

1 teaspoon red chili powder

1 teaspoon tandoori masala

1 teaspoon freshly grated ginger

1 lbs paneer, cut into cubes

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon chaat masala

1 tablespoon ghee or butter

1/2 cup diced portabella mushroom

Cilantro to garnish

Method of Preparation

1. Heat the oil and add the cumin seeds and wait for the seeds to sizzle. Stir in the asafetida.

2. Add in the tomatoes, chili powder and tandoori masala and the ginger and saute for 20 seconds.

3. Stir in the paneer and salt and cook for 10 minutes.

4. Stir in the chat masala.

5. In a separate pan, heat the ghee and add the mushroom and saute for 2-3 minutes.

6. Mix into the paneer and garnish with cilantro and serve.

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Warm and Comforting - The best crossiant!

A lot of chunks of life can be just mundane, to beat it we all need to find spots that cheer us up in simple peaceful ways, add something special just by being there. A place that I like to stop at if I can is at this lovely french wine bar and restaurant. I have been there on occasion for brunch, but what makes my day is the wonderful cafe au lait and their fresh baked crossiants!

They make these sometime around 10am on weekends and they are gone within an hour or so..

WE
En route to errants, I like to stop by take 15-30 minutes to myself and relax. The place is exceedingly peaceful before the lunchtime crowd starts and does get pretty full before that. I had recently stopped by the day before halloween a day that seemed to be crazy to say the least. I was running around co-ordinating royal outfits, prepping for a food demo and in general going a little crazy...

However, the lovely smooth creamy cafe au lait hit the spot! They still did not have their regular crossiants, I needed little persuasion to try their moist buttery, gooey almond crossiant...


It fortified me with enough calories and caffiene to tackle the rest of the wonderful fall day that I

was going to spend braving the crowds in the preparation for our annual ode to the sugar industry! We even make sure that we dress the little ones for the occasion to celebrate the sugar high!

Ok! Ok!, while I am not big on the candy part of things and do clean out most of the junk that they collect, I love the dress up and the hoopla of halloween! This year, the greatest fun was dressing up my son, who really feels jewelery deprived. Yes, if he had his way he would wear it all. Well, this halloween, we decided that he could be a prince who could actually ransack my necklaces.

Beads and bead and a fake tiarra from his sister is what completed his day!

As an Indian princess, all I needed to do is to get a veil and place it securely over my head with a bright big fake crown! My brother was over from West coast to join the funfare and all in all we all had a good fun day, now onto thanksgiving!

Chiboust

14 main street

tarrytown, ny

914 703 6550

http://www.chiboust.com

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Gulab Jamuns - Cheese and evaporated milk balls in syrup

These golden globes of joy are a common presentation in almost any Indian restaurant menu. In fact, even my son knows this dessert by name. I made these for Diwali and tried them again using this recipe.

I pretty much stuck to the recipe without any modifications, I did elimate the cardamoms from the syrup. I patiently made the khoya cooking down 1/2 gallon of milk. The results were really luscious.

Now, I also make a variation which is my mothers in laws recipe where she makes the balls with a proportion of 1/3 paneer to 2/3 khoya and adds just a little flour to bind.

All were happy and let me send this over just a little late to the ICC.

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Green Tomato Chicken

I don't know if like us you have a plethora of green and semi ripe tomatoes, but we have had loads and loads of these semi-ripe orange and crisp hard green gems. I have been playing around with the green ones like there is no tomorrow.

Surely, I thought there is more one can do with green tomatoes than jam and fried green tomatoes. I did make both, I have to confess I was not super thrilled about my results with the fried version.

Well, this chicken was really nice... Spicy, tangy and just perfect for a cool, crisp fall day!

So, here is how I did it.

Green Tomato Chicken

Prep Time: 1 hour (mostly marinating)

Cook Time: 30 minutes

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

For the marinade

2 lbs chicken on the bone, skinned and cut into pieces (I used 2 cornish hens)

1 teaspoon red chili pepper

1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper

2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon turmeric

1 lemon, sliced

For the gravy

3-4 pods garlic

2 green tomatoes

1 firm red tomato

1 -inch piece ginger

2 green chilies

3 tablespoons oil

1 teaspoon cumin

1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds

1 onion, thinly sliced

8-10 curry leaves

2-3 tablespoons chopped cilantro

Method of Preparation

1. Place the chicken in a large container. Rub evenly with the dry spices, squeeze the lemon juice and set aside for an hour.

2. Heat the oil and add the cumin and mustard seeds. When the mustard seeds begin to pop, add in the onion and saute for 2-3 minutes.

2. Grind the tomatoes, garlic, ginger and chillies to a paste.

3. Add in the tomato mixture and the chicken and now continue cooking this on medium heat for a good 20 minutes. The spices meld and soften, the tomatoes become a nice thick gravy with shards of carmelized onions.

4. Add in the curry leaves and cook for 5-6 minutes.

5. Stir in the cilantro and serve and enjoy as appropriate.

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Comforting Flavors - feels like home!

This post has been sitting in the drafts, along with several other recent eating forrays that we/I have had. However, time to bring this out of the woodwork!

Well, I used to love the tiny shacklike comfort diner, in fact, in better times I used to frequent it constantly. It took me sometime to realize that this is now, Comfort Restaurant.

Committed to serving organic healthy homey food, this place is wonderful, if you are feeling a little low and want the taste of good home-cooked food. Just like how, I have been feeling. The place is best with simple dishes like their lovely asian spiced chicken, pan sauteed brocolli, fish sandwich.

Things like their desserts are just too much on the healthy side to make their impact. Overall, highly recomended as a place with kids!

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An evening in good taste

Sometimes Christmas comes really early, even though you do not realize it. Or maybe one good turn just might deserve another... When, I met Christina R, she invited me to attend the Food Bank annual benefit telling me that it would be a good opportunity to find out about her organization .

She truly was happy about my love ok indecent obsession with food, (I mention one good turn coz, she found out about the food think because I had donated classes for the raffle of another auction of a charity_

Well, I do attend my share of these events, some out of choice and some because that really is what pays the bills and things. I certainly thought anything food related would be nice, but had not realized how much fun I would have. OMG, for me it was like being a child in a huge candy store. I have never been to a place where I felt I touched just the tip of the ice berg in terms of checking out the food. I have to write this, because as they say - the first time the earth moves! I will probably have to do this again, but I am not sure if the wonder will be the same... Well, let me tell about what I ate, the pictures that I took and what I could not cover. The pictures are from the 80 West Display , They featured - Citrus Crab Salad, served in those cones that you see, Braised Oxtail with Candied pumpkin topped with microgreens. I loved the Citrus Crab Salad and the oxtail, the pumpkin was a little too sweet as a contrast.

The next table down was Abigail Kirsch, this display was very elegant and well coiffed. They were presenting on a theme of Hudson Valley Cheese and using seasonal ingredients. The gooey potato thing, was Nettle Farms Goat Cheese Gnuddi. I shall just show my colors and refer to it as a heavenly cheesy mashed potato blissful thing. The spoot things were Old Chatham's Ewe's Blur Parfair, Carmelized Fig Beet Relish. The balance of flavors, colors and tastes were just amazing! Their third cheese was Hawthorne Valley Cheddar Apple Bite, Bacon Praline. The next display was AJ's Burgers and America's Favorite Food's that features Eggplant Rolatini and AJ's Sliders. While the display looked good, I passed this really thinking the selections were not especially novel and even I would not be able to sample all that the evening offered.

The next table I stopped at was the Bedford Post table. The farmhouse here is one of those places I would love to go to but just have not been able to make the time and occasion to visit. Well, they had a Kabocha Squash soup that was seasonal and perfectly smooth and luscious. Anshul and I had different feelings about the sprinkled spices on the soup. They has something star anise and black pepper like, that I felt clashed a little with the silky smoothness of the soup of course my better half felt that it enhanced the flavors just adequately!

The next stop was Caperberry at Mapleston/CV Rich Mansion. These folks had a nice risotto coake with grilled shrimp, expresso pannacotta and cheesecake lolipops. Both the desserts were chocolate covered and were like porable pops, this was actually a brilliant idea for this kind of a setting. Cute, fairy tale meets candy store like display.

Cellar 49 - I somehow missed this display, I am not a huge fan of red meat, but make a very special exception for lamb. So I passed on the mini veal OssoBucco that they were serving.
Connie's Bakery & General Store had some interesting goodies, what was a pretty and cute hit were the mini candy apples. These apples could literally be popped into your mouth in one bite. Another thing to think of - bite sized apples!!!
Well, since most of these restaurant hand out cards and pitch you to visit them, I did not feel too bad when I sampled these really crabby Marylan Crabcakes being presented by the FISH restaurant, since I could tell them without much fuss that we did indeed visit them not too long back.

An ice-cream stop - Longfords Own Made Ice Cream that also, I did not have the time to try also passed, Lulu Cake Boutitique, that claimed to have Retro desserts that actually had this lovely wedding cake looking item!' Also passed Morton's Steak House, coz, I just ended up missing it in the crowds! I went right off to Mt Kisco Seafood, that won the Lobster Sandwiches Fest. I shall explain this in a little bit, they had this lovely Lobster roll, that was actually created on these lovely grilled butter griddled toasted bread and sandwiches. There was another lobster roll on the menu, but this one with the buttered toasted bread worked better for the evening.

Next to, Mulino's of Westchester, that was serving good pasta in a somewhat strange plastic pumpkin container. This restaurant I actually remember for an office Christmas party where I had ordered spicy pasta dish and let me tell you they took the spicy part seriously!

Another display was by a vendor who I have never heard of called, Myong private label gourmet, they were serving poached salmon and cello wrap with curry chicken and vegetables. Anshul liked the salmon, I was indifferent to both these items.

Next onto one of my favorite restaurants, Sonora,
I have had several really innovative meals here. They were serving something called Reyna Pepiada which essentially was a creamy avocado and seafood topping on warm mini tamales.
Sunset Cove restaurant had braised mini-short ribs, that were well appreciated by the crowd. Friendly staff at that table.

Tarry Lodge, also offered appropriately seasonal fare with Beets with a sweet sauce and mozzarella with heirloom tomatoes.
The Atrium was the second folks offering mini-lobster rolls also nice but the kisco folks won this one. Their autumn organic vegetable caviat was a little goat cheese tart topped with seasonal vegetables.

The gourmet taste had amazingly good lamb ragu with rissoto cakes. Lots of great dessert, did not have space for it. The wine and spirits were a plenty too. However, fun as all of this was it did ring home a scary thought that in the mights of plenty several people in our county go to sleep hungry.

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A neighbourhood kind of day! - Sam's Italian Restaurant...

I was begining to panic over the weekend, possible since I sort of, kind of, knew at the back of my mind, I was becoming a year older - so did we go out for my birthday, yes! I shall post later, but much more because I was horrified that my favorite season was going away! Well, thankfull unlike summer, the sunday was a blip, today was nice warm, crisp and very falllike!. I was back at my little neighbourhood joint! Work neighbourhood, that is...

Well, in this context, I was not visiting neighbours, or even stopping by my local wine stores, but I was indeed looking for the comfort of familiar settings, I had a not so nice experience today at the ranch, so I needed something that felt like home. Believe it or not, my dear friend Pat is always home to me, unfortunately she is not always there on quick demand, that is when I have to make do with the neighbourhood Italian...

Now, I have possibly tried every worthwhile spot in that Dobbs Ferry

L that is the cross roads of Cedar and

Main, yes around the Cookery viscinity, they are mostly good but what Sam's does for you is transports you to a world where you think Cianti, want to listen to Dean Martin and eat well - good stick to your ribs feel happy Italian fare.

The place was done up with seasonal centerpieces. I tried the mini Pizza which was more that enough for 2 for lunch, most of the Pasta is good, the Panini Sandwiches are nice too. I have not tried any of their entrees. If you want a place where you want to feel comfortable, and well fed this is where you want to go.

I have been there at least 7-8 times, alone, with 1-2 people and once with a group of 19 - I have dealt with the same waitress, who actually remembers that I drink my coffee with no sugar. A lovely fall day, the kind that you want to sit by the water and read your favorite book.

128 Main St. '

Dobbs Ferry 914-693-9724

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