'Ten dishes I miss the most' meme

Ashwini and Revathi have tagged me for this meme. We are meant to write about what we miss most of our moms' cooking. As I have mentioned here, my cooking is equally influenced by my mother and my mother-in-law. It would be unfair then, if I wrote only about my mom's cooking. Although I have a really looooooong list in my mind, I will try and restrict myself to five of my mother's dishes and five of my mother-in-law's. Let me begin then.

What I miss most of my mom's cooking:

1) Simple everyday subzis: My mother cooks a lot of different vegetables. Hardly any vegetable that is easily available in Pune's markets fails to make an appearance on the dining table, and all of them taste so good. It is thanks to her, that I have always been an 'unfussy' eater.
2) Goda Masala: This essential ingredient in Maharashtrian cooking looks rather easy to make. I have a few recipes for it too. However, my blend of Goda Masala and hence the subzis cooked with it never taste as good as my mom's.
3) Ice-cream: My mother has a simple, no-fuss method of making this without any ice-cream maker. But the kind of ice-cream she makes is divine. You should taste her mango ice-cream - smooth (no crystals whatsoever!), creamy and very mangoey. Baskin-Robbins and the likes can hang their heads in shame.
4) Gulab Jamun: Ambrosia...no jokes! All balls of the same size, with an appetizing dark-brown complexion, cooked to the centre and dunked in a wonderfully aromatic, cardamomey sugar syrup. If I am around while she makes the Gulab Jamun, I eat them in every stage : the raw dough, hot fried balls just out of the pan, Gulab Jamun still warm in the sugar syrup and Gulab Jamun well soaked in the sugar syrup. The Gulab Jamun are never seen around beyond this stage, because they are all resting in my tummy by then.
5) Puranpoli: I love her Puranpoli, and she knows it. So, if I am in town for my birthday, then everybody knows what the menu for lunch/dinner would be. Well, this year too I will not have that pleasure.

What I miss most of my mother-in-law's cooking:

1) NanKhatai: She calls these cookies Narayan Katar. So much for adapting the word to become more tongue-friendly. But the cookies are addictive. No one can eat just one!
2) Coconut Chutney: My ma-in-law prepares various kinds of coconut chutney to go with the yummy goodies for breakfast every day. All of them are too good to resist. When I am in Bangalore at her place, I suddenly forget all my 'healthy eating' fundas and start looking at the good properties of coconut. Cholesterol? What's that?
3) Breakfast: Having mentioned the chutneys, I must say that they are not the only attraction. The daily ritual of breakfast itself is something to look forward to. And mind you, she always prepares it on her own. My help comes into the picture, only when she starts cooking for lunch/dinner. If getting pampered at your in-laws' place is being lucky, then yes, I am lucky.
4) Curry leaves chutney powder: Spicy and yummy! I always get one large bottle full of this, whenever she comes to visit us in Pune or we visit her in Bangalore.
5) Konkani vegetable preparations: The vegetables that make an appearance in her kitchen are very different from what my mother cooks. Her selection is more of typical coastal produce, much of which was unknown to me until marriage. However, it is because of her cooking that I took to all those veggies, the very first time I ate them. I find it great, because bringing in variation in my cooking is quite easy for me, using the double set of veggies (my mum's and my MIL's) that I am familiar with.

Oh God, I just did a preview of this post and my, I have written a pretty long meme, haven't I? Thank God, that neither my father nor my father-in-law ever took any interest (much to their spouses' dismay) in cooking. Imagine how much I would have written otherwise!

I would love to read some more memes, so I am tagging Luv2Cook, Meeta, Mythili, Nandita and Veda.