Now here I was thinking we would never be seduced by a patch of green and a few decent schools. What a change a few years makes.

A new house means a new kitchen everyone. And this alone calls for celebration! Quick Indian Cooking is about to get a new HQ. A space that is actually designed for Indian cooking. Shiny black floor tiles and glossy white units aren’t best matched with turmeric powder and lemon juice after all.

An architect is on the case, under my watchful gaze and a precariously-dangled wooden rolling pin. He has a tough job ahead. The brief: to create the most gorgeous, functional and special space for £2.75. Now there’s a challenge.

In the meantime, I am dreaming dreams about floral aprons, flour-dusted hands and perfectly-stacked rotis with two charming angels playing happily with plastic bricks. In reality, I’ll be in my heritage-look trousers and shoe boots, trying to feed them porridge and make the dash to work while they squeal “my don’t like it, my don’t want it”.

Still, they’ll have plenty of space to grow now. And eventually, they will listen to me and do as I say because I am the mother. Or so I think. On the threshold of our new home, I wanted to dedicate this post to all other deluded mothers and father out there, swapping their old lives for the uncharted.

This recipe for Dim Begun – a lightly spiced egg and aubergine saute – comes from no other than my little sister’s childhood friend and flatmate. It’s her mother’s recipe, which she sent to me in a series of bullet points starting with “ma said” and unsurprisingly ending with “but I didn’t listen to her”.

I loved it, all three times I made it. Even though I never did write the recipe down until the very last attempt. If change tastes this good, I’ll have a second helping, thanks.

Feeds 4:

• 2 medium aubergines
• 2 large eggs
• 1 medium onion
• 1 inch ginger
• Half tsp white sugar
• Half tsp cumin powder
• Half tsp turmeric powder
• 2 red chillies
• Salt to taste
• 2 tbsp oil

Chop the aubergine into small, bite-sized cubes and plunge into ice cold water. They tend to rise to the top, so I stick them in a pot and stick the lid on. This helps them cook later, without just soaking up all the oil in their pores.

In the meantime, chop the onion into small pieces and finely mince/grate the ginger. Next, bring the oil in a large, preferably non-stick pot to heat and when it’s hot, add the sugar. As it caramelises, stir in the onion and ginger and saute until golden.

Then mix in the turmeric and jeera powders, and drain and toss in the aubergine pieces. Stir the whole lot well together, cooking the aubergine. You could lower the heat to a medium and cover the pot, stirring regularly.

In about 10 minutes, the aubergine would have softened but retained it’s shape. Now push the whole lot to one side of the pot. Then crack the two eggs directly into the pot and gently scramble them and mix them into the aubergines.

To serve, stir in salt to your taste and chopped red chillies. This is simply divine rolled inside rotis or served as a side dish to rice and dal.

There I was in my new 70s wooden platforms. Drinking Pimms on a boat. Dancing to Electronica. Smiling as I waited for a taxi in biting wind. Thrilled as I leapt into bed well past midnight.

And then the kids woke up at 5:30am.

The man and I valiantly took it in turns to nurse sore heads and play doting parents. As I lay starving stretched out on the once-pale cream rug being prodded with lego pieces, I remembered the glimmer of hope in the fridge.

Introducing my new secret weapon: K ji. Nanny extraordinaire. Superlative cook. This is the roti making, cumin seed/mustard seed loving soul I have been waiting for my whole life. (The kids love her too)

On Friday, I trialled her very own Capsicum Bhaji recipe – spicy bell peppers sauteed with gram flour, with just a hint of sweet and sour. It took 20 minutes to make. She expertly rolled the rotis and together we stashed the results into the fridge.

The keyword here being result! I slowly felt life return as I shoved warm rotis stuffed with K ji’s special into my parched mouth. A much needed lie-in or two and I’ll be ready for another big night. Maybe.

PS = Bheja means brain, and Bhaji means fry. Thank you Sandeepa, for inspiring this post’s title!

Feeds 4:

• 3 large capsicums (bell peppers)
• 2 medium onions
• 50gm gram flour
• Quarter tsp asafoetida
• Half tsp cumin seeds
• Half tsp mustard seeds
• 1 heaped tsp chilli powder
• 2 tsp sugar
• 3 tbsp freshly squuezed lemon juice
• Half cup oil
• Salt to taste

Slice the peppers and onions into cubes and set aside. In a non stick pan, dry roast the gram flour for about five minutes.

In another non stick pan, bring the oil to heat on high. When it’s hot, add the asafoetida and seeds. As they sizzle up, add the onions, peppers and chilli powder. Now stir the whole lot, mixing the spices and cookign the onions and peppers.

When they have softened, mix in the roasted gram flour, the lemon juice, sugar and salt. A teaspoon of salt should do the trick. Mix the whole lot together until the gram flour is golden throughout. The spoon onto a plate and eat with warm rotis or toasted pitta bread.

One last tip – this rocks even more the next day, so make extra and savour!

It was a big day last week. My husband turned a year older. Except he hates birthdays. Can’t handle the attention.

Sorry. I don’t understand. If I could attract any more attention to myself, I totally would. But a blog, a book, two darling sprogs and several superfriends and family later, I am running out of ideas…

So every year I devise devious ways to totally embarrass him to shreds. Sooner or later, he will begin to love the attention, right?

Errm, work in progress. Last year, we did candle in dessert plus Happy Birthday sung in pitch darkness. In Thai. At a swanky restaurant. This year, I emailed 20 of his closest friends. Disclosed his real age as opposed to the one he’s been pretending to be. And requested them to make the man feel really special on his big day.

This was not a surprise birthday party, my sis observed. This was war!!

Suffice to say, I had a wonderful time. The expression on his face to find 20 over-sized adults spring out of a corner of his favourite pub paled in comparison to the total horror when the white chocolate fondant cake appeared.

All tried and tested ways for ultimate success. Speaking of tried and tested, QIC is in the spotlight for this interesting event, hosted by Sudeshna of Cook like a Bong (Bong is slang for Bengali). This is particularly poignant for me given that I have been missing in blog action for months. So I decided to crash the party and try one of my own recipes, which is vastly searched.

The Saag Aloo. British curry house favourite of two utterly bland ingredients thrown together for no particularly great reason. Cooked well, however, it is lip-smackingly yummy. A host of recent negativity was beginning to make me doubt my own recipe. So I retried it, with the addition of one extra green chilli, lemon juice and a small onion.

The result, my man happily declared, was a pleasant surprise. Soft potatoes nestled in this healthy spiced spinach clearly deserve every bit of the attention they attract.

Feeds 3-4:

• 4 medium potatoes (400gm)
• 400gm spinach puree (I used a tin)
• 1 small onion (80gm)
• 2 garlic cloves
• 2 green finger chillies
• 1 tsp cumin powder
• 1 tsp coriander powder
• Half tsp garam masala
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 2 tbsp oil
• Salt to taste

Finely chop the garlic and the green chillies. Stir the green chillies into the spinach puree along with the lemon juice, and leave to sit in a bowl. I used a tin of spinach puree because it was just so easy. Go fresh and puree yourself if you fancy it.

Next, dice the potatoes into small pieces no larger than one square inch each. You don’t need to pre-boil the potatoes as they will go all mushy and not get a chance to absorb the lovely spices. Chop the onion and finely mince the garlic.

Now bring the oil to heat on high in a medium-sized pan. When it’s hot, add the chopped onion and garlic and saute for five minutes until golden. Then add the potato pieces, cumin and coriander powders and stir on the high heat for five minutes or until the potato edges start going translucent. If the spices start getting stuck to the bottom of the bottom add a tablespoon of hot water and scrape it off.

Next add hot water to the pan until it comes half way up to the potatoes. Lower the heat to a medium and cook the potatoes until they are done. This will take between 5 and 10 minutes depending upon how fresh your potatoes are, and you have to stir regularly.

When you can easily insert a fork through the potatoes without breaking them, mix in the spinach. Add salt to taste, you will need a fair bit to lift the spinach, and simmer for 5 minutes. Finally stir in the garam masala and serve hot with rotis or just tucked into some toasted pitta bread.

Note= This recipe does not and should not use tomatoes, despite various recipes on the internet including it as an ingredient. Please trust me on this one, okay?

Our babysitter suggested I had finally lost it.

I also started using a great, big, proper grown up food processor.

Now you may think this is odd. Especially for someone who cooks and writes about food. The truth is I have been joined at the hip with my trusted hand held food processor for eons. It’s dinky, safe and and finger proof. What’s not to like?

Then my man bought me a monstrous Magimix for returning to work after maternity leave. I became desperate for one. If it’s good enough for the great and the good of the celebrity chef world, it’s good enough for me.

Except, it scared me witless for the first few months. The fittings looked like weapons of mass destruction. The base weighed a ton. The manual didn’t appeal in its cling film packaging. Then I decided to improvise, stuck the small blade into the large bowl, and wondered why the damn thing was more noise less action.

I have to say, three months of playing with the thing later, I can’t live without it. I’ve been slicing onions, shredding carrots, mixing stuffing/croquettes and cooking this addictive, fresh, green Dhaniya Palak Pulao (check out this Pudina Dhaniya Chicken too).

My nails are still intact! Now for that dishwasher, double oven, triple cooker, kitchen island and Global knife set…

Feeds 4

• 350gm rice (uncooked)
• 50gm fresh coriander
• 50gm fresh spinach
• 4 garlic cloves
• 1 inch cinnamon stick
• 1 bay leaf
• 4 green cardamoms
• 1 tbsp ghee
• Salt to taste

Puree the fresh coriander and spinach in a food processor with two or three tablespoons of water. If you don’t have a food processor, just chop them finely. Chop the garlic finely.

Rinse the rice well with cold water. Take a medium pot and bring the ghee to heat in it on high.

When it’s hot, add the cloves, cinnamon, cardamoms, and bay leaf and as they sizzle up, the chopped garlic. When the garlic turns a pale golden, measure the rice first into a mug, next stir it in and fry for a minute.

Then mix in the green paste, add 1.5 times as much hot water as the rice, measured in the same mug. Bring to a boil, lower the flame to simmer, cover and cook for about 10-12 minutes until all the water is absorbed and the rice is cooked.

Serve this with yogurt and pickle for a really simple lunch or as a side for some grilled chicken or pork.

The last jobless Friday night involved a leggy single brunette. Also top friend and white wine fiend.

First stop, the global launch of Smirnoff’s new Green Apple and Lime flavours. My favourite choice of tipple. Followed closely by Tanqueray and tonic. And champagne. (There must be some others)

I expected free cocktails and vodka bottles. I got a row of melting ice sculptures. The top had fallen off St Paul’s Cathedral. The London Eye had liquefied beyond recognition. Drinks were an hour later in a different venue.

An hour? That’s two eternities for a new mum on a night out!

Cocktail bar, French bistro and Cinema cafe later I was ready to call it a night. Return to my previous life as a corporate superbitch. Whip the world into shape with some quick Indian cooking.

No better way to get going than an easy, simple dal. It takes 20 minutes. Doesn’t disappoint. Enjoy.

Feeds 4:

• 225gm yellow moong lentils (about 1 mug)
• Half inch ginger
• 4 garlic cloves
• 1 long dried red chilli
• Half tsp chilli powder
• Half tsp turmeric powder
• 1 tbsp oil
• Salt to taste

Pour the lentils into a large pot and wash thoroughly under a cold tap under the water runs clear.

Add three mugs of boiling water, the turmeric and return to the boil. As the lentils start bubbling, scum and foam will appear on the surface. Just skim it off with a wooden spoon and lower the heat to medium so it bubbles away gently.

The mixture will go all fibrous in 10 minutes. Chop the ginger and garlic finely and mix it in. You need to keep adding hot water half a cup at a time, when the lentils are dry and start spluttering, to keep a runny but thick consistency.

In another 10 minutes, when the lentils are well integrated with the water, heat the oil in a little saucepan on high. Chuck in the turmeric, red chilli and chilli powder and as the red chilli starts sizzling mix this, the tadka, into the lentils.

Add salt to your taste and a knob of butter if you fancy before you ladle it over steaming hot rice. For a simple, complete meal, try it with Dhaniya Murgh.

One sunny morning, I opened our balcony door to let the first seasonal rays of sunshine in. A breath of fresh air. A joy in my step. A view of dead leaves.

Lovely.

My father-in-law took pity on me and decided to lead the charge on the gardening project. I extracted my fluorescent gardening gloves and scissors in preparation.

“Those are kitchen scissors.”

Yes, I know dad.

“When did you last water these plants”

Two weeks ago.

“You know plants need water to survive?”

That’s only a small technical oversight!

We spent the evening clearing up, replanting courgette and tomato plants my sister-in-law had ambitiously donated to me. Dad did, that is. I made every excuse to leap back into the flat: dinner, baby, strange itch in my little finger.

One week of watering later, I have two courgette flowers and a thriving collection of flowers (identity unknown). I won’t swamp you with courgette curries yet, but here’s a winter to summer Gobi Mattar or cauliflower and pea stir fry to celebrate seasonal changes.

Feeds 2:

• 1 small cauliflower
• Half mug green shelled peas (I used freshly frozen one)
• 1 medium potato
• 1 tsp coriander powder
• Half tsp cumin powder
• Half tsp cumin seeds
• Half tsp chilli powder
• Half tsp turmeric powder
• 1 tbsp oil
• Salt to taste

Cut the cauliflower into large florets. Don’t make them too small or they’ll fall apart when you cook them.

Peel and chop the potato into little pieces. Bring a large frying pan to heat on high with the tablespoon of oil. When it’s hot, add the cumin seeds and as they sizzle up, the potatoes along with all the spice powders.

Stir the potatoes for five minutes until their edges turn translucent and you can insert a fork into them albeit with some difficulty. Now mix in the cauliflower florets, lower the heat to a medium, cover and cook for five minutes.

Lastly, stir in the peas, salt to taste and cook for a final five minutes until the cauliflower is soft.

I got a proper send off with Chanel skin goodies and a bang-on-trend silver cuff bracelet. These girls are after my own heart.

In the meantime, mother arrived.  Armed with new recipes, a suitcase of dubious home cures for indigestion and acne and a life time’s supply of dry roasted whole cumin.

I’ve delegated all manner of housework to her and seized my opportunity to accomplish a flurry of last minute activities. A vegan feature for the next issue of Cook Vegetarian magazine. A stream of beauty treatments, acupuncture massages and a promising performance involving gin-soaked puppets.

If I’m going down, I’m going down in style.

Sadly, this blog and blogging have had to take a back seat for a bit. I can’t promise how regular I’ll be in the next few weeks. But in the immortal words of The Terminator – “I’ll be back”.

Meanwhile, here’s a very simple Mixed Bean Palya, stir fried pulses with coconut, from the collection of recipes I contributed to the mag.

Feeds 2:

• 1 tin mixed cooked beans
• 2 tsp channa lentils
• 2 small carrots
• 2 tbsp unsweetened dessicated coconut
• 1 tsp fresh lime juice
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 2 dry red chillies
• 10 curry leaves
• 1 tsp brown cane sugar
• 1 tablespoon oil
• Salt to taste

Sauté a teaspoon of mustard seeds, cumin seeds, two teaspoons of channa lentils, two dry red chillies and 10 curry leaves in 1 tablespoon of hot oil until light brown.

Mix in two small chopped carrots and one teaspoon of brown cane sugar. Cook for five minutes on a medium flame. Then mix in a washed and drained tin of cooked mixed beans.

Stir-fry for five minutes, making sure the ingredients don’t stick to the bottom of the pan. Finally, stir in two tablespoons of unsweetened desiccated coconut, 1 teaspoon of fresh lime juice and salt to taste.

Turns out a passenger aboard a Virgin Mumbai to London flight wrote an impassioned complaint to Sir Richard Branson himself about the Indian food he was served.

The excruciatingly hilarious letter went global in no time. Prompting the maverick entrepreneur to personally apologise and invite the disgruntled one to test food at Virgin’s catering house.

Can I come along too?

For years, I have suffered partly-heated yellow gloop parading as curry on flights back to London from India. The desserts taste worryingly like their plastic packaging. Salads are either freezing cold or brown edged. The dry bread roll devoured with lime pickle would easily qualify as the highlight of the mile-high culinary experience.

No wonder families resort to clicking open tupperware tiffin boxes of parathas and dry palyas and sabzis. Give them cutlery and dinnerware while they’re at it, I say!

Revenge is a dish best served cold. Now we have a vocal champion for our cause. Who didn’t stomach the insult sitting down. May this be a lesson to other airlines. In an age of internet connectivity, food awareness and high consumerism, even the smallest gripes could become a stick to beat your brand with.

Digest this with my bitter sweet offering of Gajar Methi, a North Indian winter favourite of sauteed carrots and fresh fenugreek leaves.

Feeds 4:

• 4 large carrots
• 250gm fresh fenugreek leaves
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• Half tsp chilli powder
• Half tsp turmeric powder
• 1 tsp oil
• Salt to taste

Peel and slice the raw carrots into hald centimetre discs. Wash and chop roughly the bunches of fenugreek discarding the hard stalks towards the ends.

In a large frying pan, bring the oil to heat over a high flame. When it’s hot, add in the cumin seeds and as they splutter, chuck in the carrots and the spices. Saute for about five minutes until you can see the carrots softening, then mix in the leaves. Lower the hat to a medium, cover and cook for another five to 10 minutes untilt he leaves wlt and the carrots just fallt apart when probed with a fork.

Add salt to taste and enjoy with a paratha. Preferably in the comfort of your own home.

In my years of moping around following the festive season, I now have a tried and tested formula for surviving the dreaded New Year return. I:

• Blew my entire January salary in the winter sales
• Pencilled a party on Saturday to celebrate my birthday
• Booked a week long holiday to recover

Of course, no post-Christmas period would be complete without lashings of guilt at having consumed more food than the average farmyard pig. So  I am also keeping a close eye on what I eat, upping intake of veggies and limiting chocolates to a sensible quantity.

The first Indian recipe of the year was a healthy treat from the South of India – Avial. This coconut-steeped steamed vegetable curry was light, refreshing and the perfect way for me to use up the remaining carrots and potatoes in my complimentary box of organic vegetables from Abel & Cole.

The best thing about Avial is the coconut in it. My usual trick is to by frozen grated coconut at Oriental supermarkets. But I also buy fresh coconut when they’re in season. As I had neither I used unsweetened dessicated coconut, which worked remarkably well!

Coconut isn’t the most low fat of ingredients. But I did away with coconut oil, whole fat yogurt and steamed all veggies in my recipe making it far more healthy. And there is a whole list of other vegetables you can use.

A positive start to the New Year methinks. Hope yours is filled with good things!

Feeds 4:

• 80gm green beans
• 2 medium carrots
• 1 medium potato
• 75gm dessicated coconut
• 15 curry leaves
• 3 green finger chillies
• Half tsp whole cumin
• Half tsp mustard seeds
• Half tsp turmeric powder
• 4 tbsps reduced fat natural Greek or thick yogurt
• Salt to taste
• 1 tsp oil

Soak the dessicated coconut in enough hot water to cover it. Peel and slice the carrots and potato into straws and cook in a steamer or a covered colander over boiling water. Cut the green beans into 1.5inch pieces and add to the steamer.

When the vegetables are cooked through, set them aside. Grind the coconut, green chillies and cumin into a thick paste adding two tablespoons of water if necessary to get the consistency.

Next, in a medium pot bring the oil to heat over a high flame. When it’s hot, add the mustard seeds and 10 curry leaves. As they begin to crackle, stir in the turmeric, steamed veg and stir thoroughly to mix together. Add in the coconut paste, lower the flame to a simmer and gently mix together the ingredients for a minute taking care not to mash the vegetables.

Finally, stir in the yogurt and add salt to taste. Traditionally, this is served with a soft savoury lentil pancake called Adai but I just ate it with oven hot ready naan. Delicious either way!

So I invited my sister and her three closest mates over for dinner. That’s two three Bengali girls and one Punjabi boy, who is a recent convert to quick Indian cooking. None had eaten since end of November in anticipation of the feast.

I was set to impress with the trendy-but-domestic sister act. I cooked all the food in advance. Popped it into pyrex glass dishes ready to reheat the oven. The table was laid. The man taught me how to spin itunes to provide choons for the evening.

It was all going swimmingly. I couldn’t get itunes to work initially. When I finally worked it out, I set it on non-stop party playlist. A safe choice. What could go wrong? Ne-Yo. Tick. Mika. Tick. Beyonce. Tick.

And then Pump up the Jam. That’s 1989! I jumped out of my chair and lunged towards the imac. Just in time to prevent Madonna from breaking into a 1983 rendition of Holiday.

Pride in tatters, I turned to the food. We ate Kosha Mangsho, Cholar dal, Beguni with Kumro Chokka, a deceptively simple sweet and spicy pumpkin stir fry with little black chick peas. It’s cooked with a classic Bengali five spice mix called Panch Phoron.

I chose pumpkin because they are so in season. They cook in a jiffy. And I’m also sick of pumpkin soup. Luckily for my cool credentials, they also turned out to be the biggest hit of the evening.

Feeds 4-6:

• 750gm pumpkin
• 1 tsp panch phoron
• 1 tsp minced ginger
• Half tsp chilli powder
• Half tsp turmeric powder
• 2 whole green chillies
• 120gm cooked black chick peas (I used the ready tinned stuff)
• 2 tbsp oil
• Salt to taste

Peel and chop the pumpkin into large bite-sized pieces. Bring the oil to heat in a large non-stick saucepan.

When it’s hot, add the panch phoron anf the ginger. As they sizzle up, chuck in the spice powders and the pumpkin. Stir on a hight heat for about a minute until the pumpkin is well coated.

Next, mix in the chick peas with the green chillies and a tablespoon of hot water. Lower the heat to medium and cook for 10 minutes, stirring from time to time, until the pumpkin softens.

Add salt to taste and serve hot with dal and plain white rice.