Adventures of a healthy-ish pseudo-foodie

Can you smell the spices just LOOKING at this? I can.  Part two of the two-part series of favorite south Indian brunch foods brings us another traditional goodie: upma. This is one of my go-to dishes when people come over for brunch. They always look at it with skepticism and end up loving it (or at least they tell me they do, and they usually have seconds). It's just semolina, cooked and seasoned into a mush of spicy complexity that works for any meal of the day. A good day in the garden. In the middle of winter, this dish works pretty well with frozen peas and carrots. But on this day, I had collected tomatoes, zucchini, potatoes, a chili pepper, garlic, and shallots from the garden. So that's what went into the upma. And oh my, it was delicious. I've made upma many times without the urad dal. In that case, it looks and feels more like couscous when it's done. The urad dal causes it to be more creamy and risotto-like, not to mention healthie...

Toooooasted cooooooconut. For the first in a two-part series of my favorite southern Indian brunch foods, I present dhokla. It's sort of like a heavier version of cornbread, made with a mixture of chickpea and rice flours, with Indian spices and optional vegetables to make it savory and delicious. I can eat this for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. It'll look fancier with the topping. I make my Indian brunch foods from the mixes that they sell at Asian markets, because that's how I learned. However, it sounds pretty easy to do this totally from scratch if you are so inclined. The magic is in the topping. While the whole recipe is pretty flexible, I am going to insist that you top it with toasted coconut flakes and mustard seeds. Think of this as the ketchup to your burger. There is no compromise here. The Recipe: 1 box khaman dhokla mix 1 tb plain yogurt, plus more for serving Vegetables of your choice (I used 1 cup chopped spinach and 1...