Devil May Care by Elizabeth Peters

I have read many of Elizabeth Peter’s books with Amelia and Emerson Peabody the archaeologist couple who are involved in mysteries and murders on digs mainly in Egypt. I have thoroughly enjoyed their adventures and seen them fall in love, have a son who grows up and follows in their footsteps through the series. So when I picked up this book it was certainly a surprise that it was not a part of the Amelia Peabody series. In fact there are other series by this author and also non series books of which Devil May Care are one. I had not even read the synopsis and so had not even an inkling of the story that unfolded.

The story begins with Henry (who I gather at once is a stuffy pompous lawyer) and his fiancé Ellie. Ellie has to go for a few days and house sit for her rich aunt in Virginia. It appears that Henry did not know about this ‘eccentric’ aunt and now that he does is very interested in the fact that she is rich. Henry plans to drive Ellie there and stay overnight, giving a lift to Aunt Kate to the airport the next day. Along with Aunt Kate one wonders as to what Ellie sees in Henry who is constantly thinking of the ways in which he would change her behaviour and her style once they are married. He is also calculating the worth of the contents of Aunt Kate’s home as he wanders around. Kate keeps hinting that Ellie could do better. 

While she was away, Kate said that there was a local family, who came and did the house chores and a young man who did the extensive gardens. At dinner, she also introduced Ellie to her friend Ted, who lived nearby and visited often. It was a long time since Ellie had visited her aunt and was looking forward to spending some quiet time on her own there. Next morning she departed with Henry with a cryptic ‘And the ghosts are no trouble, they are very quiet types’ thrown in among the list of things that needed doing and animal issues that Ellie had to keep an eye on. 

Ellie thinks about this but dismisses it as there has never been any talk of ghosts even if this was an old 18^th century building. The first day seems to pass peacefully but as she is going up to bed she sees this person as an image on the wall in the landing of the stairs. It is clear and seems to dissolve as she goes up close. While this unnerves her a little she is not scared. But then she is woken in the middle of the night. There is a noise outside and she looks out of the window into the garden. Who is that couple in the garden? What are they doing? Why have they started running? Who is that man who came out of the shrubs to follow the running couple?

This frightens her and she calls Ted for help. This tale gets all around the village. The ghosts seem to have the people divided. It is all about the history of the 6 families who originally lived there. There are some dark parts to the lives of the people long gone. The young man who looks after the garden turns out to be the local doctor’s son, who looks strangely like the ghost on the wall, but is willing to help Ellie when the ghostly antics increase in intensity. 

The pace of the book is steady and many small but intriguing incidents occupy your mind. Why is Henry not answering his phone? Do the locals want to publicise the ghosts to increase tourist trade? As sightings escalate Ellie thinks it is time to inform her aunt. But where is Kate? No one seems to be able to get hold of her and the place she is staying at is closed. Will a séance help to find out what the ghosts are up to?

As Donald the gardener has been helping and supporting her, is something more than friendship developing? So were will all this lead?

This story certainly kept me hooked right till the end. There are lot of detailed descriptions of the house, the history of the families, the people and events. It is a good read with some mystery, some ghosts and some romance.

Moong Dal with Palak

The only way I used to eat spinach as a child was with moong dal. I was happy to have the tangy and hot dal with rice or even parathas and the spinach blended into the taste of the dal. This can be had just as soup as well on a cold winter day. I have not made it that often myself as I find that you need a half bunch of spinach as the most when making the dal for 2 people. This means that either half a bunch kind of wilted away for the lack of inspiration or I would have to make twice the amount of dal and freeze half to be had later. Unfortunately I have found a couple of such frozen moong and palak dal containers in my freezer as I have not remembered to use it up.

Ingredients

200 gm of moong dal without the husk

½ - 1/3 bunch of spinach chopped

A medium onion finely chopped

4 cloves of garlic finely chopped

1 inch of ginger finely chopped

Green chillies finely chopped (have deliberately not written how many as you need to put according to how hot you can take, I generally put really hot green long chillies about 2 -3)

Tomatoes (2 medium fresh tomatoes or half a tin of tomatoes)

Spices:

Salt to taste

Red chilli powder 1 teaspoon

Cumin powder 1 teaspoon

Coriander powder 3 teaspoons

Turmeric powder 1 teaspoon

Handful of chopped fresh coriander

For tempering:

Teaspoon of whole cumin

A couple of small dried red chillies

4 cloves

A small piece of cinnamon stick

Quarter teaspoon of hing / asafoetida

3 teaspoon olive oil or any vegetable oil

Method

• Wash the moong dal in cold water. Place in a large pan and covers with water. The water should be 2 inches above the lentils. Bring it to boil and then simmer until the lentils begin to soften.
• Make the temper / tadka – Add the oil and whole cumin to a pan and heat. As the cumin starts turning brown add the dried red chillies, cloves and cinnamon stick to it.
• Once that heats up add the finely chopped onion, garlic, ginger and green chillies. Cook till onions begin to lightly brown.
• Then add the tomatoes and the rest of the powdered spices. Cook till you can see the oil rise back out of the masala (paste) you have made.
• Then add this masala to the cooked lentils. Slowly simmer the lentils to completely get the taste of the spices into the lentils.
• At this point you also add the chopped spinach into the lentils as it does not take very long to wilt. Adjust the amount of water based to get the right thickness for the dal - for it has to be more liquid when you have with rice than with parathas.
• Just before serving you can add the fresh chopped coriander.

Have a go at making this dal and it is especially good on a cold evening. I find that most of my cooking I do is on estimate that comes from practice of many years and so you do need to think of the amounts in terms of your tastes and the amount of lentils to be comparable with what measure you normally use for lentils for your family. Enjoy!

Palak / Spinach Parathas

A few weeks back I saw a website that came up in my Facebook news feed about making different types of parathas. Since I know a few different recipes myself, I was intrigued to see what kinds were in this recipe link. Scrolling down the list palak parathas caught my eye. Now I do feel I should have more spinach in my diet but always find it difficult to think what I can make besides the moong dal and palak. Just realised, that I have not penned that one and will do so after this one. I am not very fond of palak paneer as the palak is gets cooked to a pulp.

The palak paratha recipe was to my mind very lengthy and it involved blitzing the spinach in a mixer and using the pulp instead for water to knead the dough. Of course various condiments and spices were to be added to this dough. This would provide nice green parathas. I did not want to do the additional blitzing of spinach which meant I would not be sure of how much dough I would eventually make and additional washing up. So I adapted the recipe and made these wonderful tasting parathas.

Ingredients

1/2 bunch of spinach finely chopped

2 cm piece of ginger finely chopped

1 medium sized green chilli also finely chopped

300 gm of plain wheat flour / chapatti flour

A teaspoon of salt

Water about 225 ml

5 table spoons of Olive oil.

Preparing the Dough

• Place the finely chopped spinach, ginger, chilli and salt in a bowl.
• Add the flour and 1 table spoon of olive oil next and mix them together.
• Then start adding water a little at a time while bringing the dough together.
• Once all the dough is brought together knead it for a few minutes.
• Finally take a teaspoon of olive oil in your hand and knead the dough to make it smooth.

Normally I set aside the dough of parathas and chapattis to rest but with this one I try not to keep it resting for more than 10 minutes as the palak can make the dough too soft.

Preparing the Paratha

• Put a flat griddle or tawa on the hob to get it heating. Have a small bowl of oil and teaspoon to brush the paratha with oil as it is cooking. It is useful to get a foil ready to cover your parathas and keep them warm.  Take a dough ball big enough to fill your palm. You should be able to make about 7 balls / portions from that dough.
• Flatten it a little and cover it with flour before rolling it out. This use of flour as you are rolling out keeps the dough from sticking on to the rolling pin (Gujarati word is velan) or the surface you are rolling it on. Some people can use the work surface tops or wooden or marble patlo (a Gujarati word for the surface you roll out your chapattis on).
• Roll out the dough to as about 2 mm thickness.
• Put on the hot griddle and wait for it to warm up and start to get cooked. Turn it over once and brush with oil. Then turn over again and brush the other side with oil. The cooked paratha will have some blistering and darkening patches.

I would recommend having these palak parathas with raita or moong dal or even just mango pickle.

Palak / Spinach Parathas

A few weeks back I saw a website that came up in my Facebook news feed about making different types of parathas. Since I know a few different recipes myself, I was intrigued to see what kinds were in this recipe link. Scrolling down the list palak parathas caught my eye. Now I do feel I should have more spinach in my diet but always find it difficult to think what I can make besides the moong dal and palak. Just realised, that I have not penned that one and will do so after this one. I am not very fond of palak paneer as the palak is gets cooked to a pulp.

The palak paratha recipe was to my mind very lengthy and it involved blitzing the spinach in a mixer and using the pulp instead for water to knead the dough. Of course various condiments and spices were to be added to this dough. This would provide nice green parathas. I did not want to do the additional blitzing of spinach which meant I would not be sure of how much dough I would eventually make and additional washing up. So I adapted the recipe and made these wonderful tasting parathas.

Ingredients

1/2 bunch of spinach finely chopped

2 cm piece of ginger finely chopped

1 medium sized green chilli also finely chopped

300 gm of plain wheat flour / chapatti flour

A teaspoon of salt

Water about 225 ml

5 table spoons of Olive oil.

Preparing the Dough

• Place the finely chopped spinach, ginger, chilli and salt in a bowl.
• Add the flour and 1 table spoon of olive oil next and mix them together.
• Then start adding water a little at a time while bringing the dough together.
• Once all the dough is brought together knead it for a few minutes.
• Finally take a teaspoon of olive oil in your hand and knead the dough to make it smooth.

Normally I set aside the dough of parathas and chapattis to rest but with this one I try not to keep it resting for more than 10 minutes as the palak can make the dough too soft.

Preparing the Paratha

• Put a flat griddle or tawa on the hob to get it heating. Have a small bowl of oil and teaspoon to brush the paratha with oil as it is cooking. It is useful to get a foil ready to cover your parathas and keep them warm.  Take a dough ball big enough to fill your palm. You should be able to make about 7 balls / portions from that dough.
• Flatten it a little and cover it with flour before rolling it out. This use of flour as you are rolling out keeps the dough from sticking on to the rolling pin (Gujarati word is velan) or the surface you are rolling it on. Some people can use the work surface tops or wooden or marble patlo (a Gujarati word for the surface you roll out your chapattis on).
• Roll out the dough to as about 2 mm thickness.
• Put on the hot griddle and wait for it to warm up and start to get cooked. Turn it over once and brush with oil. Then turn over again and brush the other side with oil. The cooked paratha will have some blistering and darkening patches.

I would recommend having these palak parathas with raita or moong dal or even just mango pickle.

Blueberry Yogurt Cake

When we go to Fairfield there are 2 places to visit. One is the chemist warehouse to increase my stash of drugs and other is the fruit and veg shop. They have a huge variety of fruit and veg that is also cheaper in comparison to the supermarkets. This shop also does tinned produce and bit of deli, breads and biscuits and so on. One day I saw a blueberry cake and since I love blueberries we decided to buy it. It was delicious but the next visit of course there was no cake. Why is it that once you like something it always gets discontinued?

So I asked my husband if he could concoct one. He loves to bake and tries his hand at all sorts of desserts and cakes. So he found a recipe and made a blueberry cake. That one tasted fine but the blue had bled across the cake and the texture was more moist than required. The next time he made a chocolate cake and added blueberries into it. Now that one was also yummy but not quite the same. Yesterday he tried a different recipe and that one has come closest to the taste of that shop bought one but knowing what is in the cake I can say it is definitely a healthier version.

Ingredients:

125g of softened butter

1 cup (225 gm) of caster sugar

2 medium eggs

1 cup (225 gm) self-rising flour

3/4 cup (175 ml) plain yogurt

250 gm of frozen blueberries

Method

• Preheat oven to 180C or 160C for a fan-oven. Grease a 20cm (base) round cake tin. Line base and side with Greece proof paper.
• Beat butter and sugar in a bowl until light and fluffy. It is certainly easier and faster to use an electric mixer.
• Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating till it combines with the mixture. Sift half the flour over mixture. Stir to combine. Add half the yoghurt and stir again to combine. Repeat with remaining flour and yoghurt.
• Spread mixture into prepared pan. Sprinkle with blueberries. Press blueberries lightly into mixture. Bake for 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean (cover cake loosely with foil if over-browning during baking).
• Stand in pan for 10 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool. Serve with yoghurt if desired.

Tips:

You can use 225ml of olive oil instead of eggs. Again the oil amount can be reduced by substituting it with a little more yogurt.

I hope you enjoy the cake as much as I do.