If your house is anything like ours is right now, your cooking revolves around the very finicky tastebuds and moods of a mini-dictator. Yes, he has adorable wispy curls and his gap-toothed smile makes you find new corners in your heart for jack-o-lanterns, but, man, he is stubborn at meal time. So we have to get really creative, by which I mean crafty and manipulative.

Besides playing around with tastes and textures, I thought it could be fun to make some bite size treats. And, wonder upon wonder, I found a fantastic, heavy-duty non-stick mini-muffin pan at Sur la Table. Yes, I love SLT, but I don’t love having to pay $35 for a piece of kitchen equipment that’s, let’s face it, completely superfluous. It doesn’t help that it’s almost impossible not to feel like a pretentious ass just saying the store’s name. South Park gets it right:

But that store is like crack to a cooking addict. And so imagine my delight when I found the perfect pan in the clearance section for just over $10!

Ben used it to make some banana-yogurt muffins this weekend, and they turned out predictably adorable and bite-sized. The recipe is inspired by Chobani’s greek yogurt recipe, but he just used regular whole milk yogurt since we have cartons of the stuff on hand for said picky child.

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Banana-Yogurt Muffins

 

• 1/2 cup whole milk yogurt
• 1 c all-purpose flour
• 1 c whole wheat flour
• 1 t baking soda
• 1 t baking powder
• ½ t ground cinnamon
• ¼ t salt
• 4 ripe bananas, mashed
• 1 c packed light brown sugar
• ½ c canola oil
• 1 large egg

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease your muffin tin, unless it’s amazing and non-stick like the one above. Whisk the dry ingredients together. In a separate bowl, beat the rest of the ingredients with an electric mixer. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, mixing on low until combined. Pour batter into the muffin cups and bake until golden brown, about 20 to 25 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

These fared well with our 21 pound boss for about a day, and then he figured out what we’d been up to. This morning we chased him around with some muffin bits in hand, until we finally called them “bread” and he about-turned, snatched them up, and stuffed them in his mouth. Your guess is as good as mine.

 

The frankie is my favorite street food from my childhood summers in Bombay. Right next to the McDonald’s down the street from my grandparents’ flat, there was a frankie stand. You would pay a guy a few rupees and he would give you a small coin that signaled either chicken, mutton or veggie to the man you handed it to through a small hole in the wall. A moment later a hand would emerge and give you the most delectable snack– spicy (always mutton for me) filling wrapped up in a tawa-fried, egg-coated roti. My cousins and I would eat them on our walk back home along Linking Road, with juices running down our elbows, and quickly mop our faces before adults could figure out what we’d been up to.

I wasn’t really allowed to have frankies. One, I was of a weak Western constitution, and two, well, did you hear about the hole in the wall? But it didn’t really matter. I ate them so often that I figured after the first dozen or so, I’d beaten the odds.

And now, in adulthood, I make my own frankies whenever I have leftover, spiced meat. My shortcut is that I use store-bought rotis, particularly the Spring Home Roti Paratha that is readily available in many of the large Asian grocers in the DC metro area. This time I had some leftover masala raan, an Indian-spiced leg of lamb that I slow cooked for 8 hours. Given that my shortcut frankie isn’t even brushed with egg (a nice touch, but one I’ve learned to forsake in a household where my mother is deathly allergic to eggs), I’ll give you the recipe for the lamb instead. It’s delicious fresh, of course, but the tender, slow-cooked leftovers pull into wonderful frankies. To assemble the frankie, though, just pan-fry a roti (if you’d like the egg-coating, just brush each side with a beaten egg and flip), fill with meat and veggies of your choice, roll up and enjoy!

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Masala Raan

 

• 2 tsp freshly cracked black pepper
• 1 tbsp ground coriander 
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tbsp ground fennel
• 6 green cardamom pods, husks removed and discarded, insides crushed
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 2 tsp turmeric
• 1 tbsp minced garlic
• 1 tbsp minced ginger
• 5 tablespoons olive oil
• 4-5 lb leg of lamb, stabbed all over
• 3-5 red chillies, dried or fresh
• 4 sprigs rosemary
• 4 whole cloves of garlic
• 15 whole cloves
• 2 large onions, sliced
• 1 – 2 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 cup water or stock

 

Combine the first nine ingredients. Add four tablespoons of olive oil and stir to make a paste. Rub the paste all over the leg of lamb. Set aside to marinate in the fridge for at least 4 hours, preferably overnight. Allow the lamb to come to room temperature for 1 hour before inserting cloves, rosemary, and red chillies into the meat’s slits. Spread the onions, garlic cloves and rosemary sprigs over the bottom of a slow cooker. Place the lamb on top, sprinkle with salt and douse with the water or stock. Cover and cook on low for 7-8 hours, or high for 4-6 hours. Try to baste every hour or so, if you’re not using the slow cooker for convenience in your absence in the first place.**

Speaking of the wonder of leftovers, one of the most inspiring social campaigns I’ve seen recently fights child hunger on the streets of Bombay. Share My Dabba is a fantastic initiative that takes advantage of one of the most efficient food delivery systems in the world. Over 200,000 dabbas (lunches) are delivered to people across the city each day. While this adds up to 120 tons of food each day, more than 16 tons are left uneaten, so SMD started handing out sheets of stickers to see if their patrons would be willing to share their food with the city’s 2 million starving children. A little red circle with the simple word “share” designates the dabbas with remaining food. Once the tins are collected again after lunch, those with the stickers are sorted by volunteers and shared with hungry children.

I used to work at a school that provided a home and education to impoverished children in Bangalore. Mealtimes were my favorite–they were spirited and loud and the kids always used to light up (unless bittergourd was on the menu). This program reminds me of Ananya’s efforts to make sure that children who were hungry were fed, period.  If you’re anything like me, you won’t be able to watch this video without getting teary. And, hopefully, without donating to this wonderful initiative. Please consider it. And please let me know if you do!