There’s been a ton of cooking but I’ve been too exhausted (mentally, physically, and every other way) to take pics or write it up. Bit more relaxed the past couple of days, so I paused to get my phone before we dug in.
Barbecue pork ribs with an Asian bent, garlic green beans (a la din tai fung copycat pandemic practice), rice. We started with a light vegetable soup — bottle gourd, aromatics, red lentils, vegetable stock. Mom had the soup along with “baby” onion-tomato uttapams (rice pancakes).
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We’ve been waiting on mom’s tummy to settle again before having pizza night as it seemed mean to eat something she loves while she watched. Her appetite and interest seemed to have returned in the last day, so I took a chance, and she actually ate a “whole” pizza (6" thin crust) – which is a Big Deal at the moment.
I topped each of 4 pies differently – olives and grilled artichokes, pesto and taleggio, leftover kheema (from the freezer) and pickled onions, and white / 3-cheese with smoked salmon (after it came out of the oven). Thought we might run short, so I also made bread pizza from the last few slices, topped with assorted things.
The kheema pie was my favorite - can’t believe I haven’t done that before, because it tastes like lahmacun’s long-lost brother (I adore lahmacun). Sis was tied between the pesto and the smoked salmon white pie. Mom ate 3/4 of the olives and artichoke and 1/4 of the pesto and enjoyed both equally she said. Think we will make this a weekly occurrence (I just need to streamline my prep process and make less of a mess hahaha).
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And sis made a delicious and apparently easy Kerala Prawn Moilee / Mollee / Molly I need to learn from her.
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Last week we had puri fest (and I did remember to take pics because there are so many puri lovers on WFD) – puris, potato bhaji, shrikhand: our quintessentially celebratory meal for a birthday amid a garbage pile of a year. Mom taught me something new for frying the puris, which worked like a charm. We made 50% more puris than the count (ie asking everyone how many they will eat)… and 2 were left 
(If my little nephew were here, we would have been 10 short even after the overage.)
