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Saturday, February 25, 2012

Dinner Impossible and Quick Fire Dinner



We had a  "dinner impossible " night at our house this past week.  It had been a workday so we were tired and I was completely unmotivated when it came to making dinner.  I hadn't been grocery shopping, neither one of us wanted to head back outside into the cold to dine out and the thought of take-out just depressed me.  So once again I found myself staring blankly into the nearly empty fridge, then the pantry, then back again to the fridge.  As has happened often times before in similar situations, I was forced to come up with a dinner idea using canned and dry pantry items and what ever else may have been left in the fridge....kind of like a Top Chef "quickfire".  That particular night I made a tossed salad and south Indian fish cutlets.  Mom always made fish cutlets with canned tuna and store bought breadcrumbs.  The canned tuna addition was after she settled in the US, I'm sure that when she was back in India she used fresh caught fish, not canned.  I usually use canned tuna as well but on"quickfire" night I had to improvise with canned salmon.  I had run out of bread crumbs so I used whole wheat flour seasoned with salt, pepper, dry herbs and grated parmesan cheese. I make my cutlets similar to this recipe here, except I used a combination of chili powder and turmeric powder rather than garam masala.  I enjoy them just like I did when I was a kid, dipped in ketchup.  A more authentic accompaniment would be 
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