Magpie's Recipes: Spicy Rice Crispies, what we munched on during the match!

I am not a sports fan. I am a food fan! If I ever go to a baseball match here, I am sure I will be more interested in the stadium hot dogs than the match. The last time the husband tried to get me interested in American football, I was looking at game menus and baked some super quick and easy beer bread for us to have instead- don't blame me for that though- that game is so crazy! There are waaaaayyy too many rules and too much violence for me!

However, some times, you cannot help getting caught up in the excitement around you. And being so very far away from home, I never expected that I would get caught up in the cricket craziness here in the US!

But the excitement of my FB friends and that of the sports obsessed husband was infectious.

And there I was rooting for team India during our World cup finals this week with full on zeal and patriotism! ( Since the matches happened over night for us, mostly for the moments when I was awake!) Of course I had to bring food into it, like I do at every special moment, celebration or even something as simple as watching a movie, or in this case a nail biting cricket match- everything in life really is better with yummy food and good company!

I even made some chocolate chunk cookies to console our Pakistani friends when they lost to us at the semi finals!

In the middle of the night, I was looking in my cabinets for something to munch, to steady our nerves- things were not looking very optimistic at that time. All I found was a box of rice crispies and suddenly remembered a scene from the movie Namesake, where Tabu as the new NRI bride Ashima, craving the spicy food of her home makes this snack (traditionally made with puffed rice in India) with breakfast cereal! I quickly proceeded to throw together what ever I imagined would recreate the taste of one of my favourite snacks, and we loved it! As much as taste of sweet victory today during the Cricket World Cup 2011 Final ( India vs Sri Lanka)! What an amazing feeling!

Spicy rice crispies

Recipe source: My own, Inspired by favourite Indian puffed rice snack

Time taken: About 10 mins

Ingredients:

2 cups Puffed rice, Rice crispies or equivalent amount of other cereal - I imagine cheerios would work as well, though not the sweetened cereals or those that have fruit

2 tsp coconut or vegetable oil

1 tsp mustard seeds

1/8 tsp turmeric

2 tsp chilli flakes ( add more if you like it spicy)

1/4 tsp salt (or to taste)

1/2 tsp pepper

1 tsp garlic powder ( or you can use a few pods of garlic-fried till brown)

1/4 cup peanuts or cashews

5-6 curry leaves

Method:

In a khadai or wok or a pot with tall sides, heat the oil on medium heat and add the mustard seeds.

When they splutter, add the spices and garlic powder and stir for a few minutes

Now add the curry leaves and the nuts and salt and stir until they are well coated in the spices

Reduce the heat to low and add the puffed rice/rice crispies and stir to mix well.

Enjoy warm or store in a tightly covered container. Keeps well for weeks.

This is a super quick and easy snack, best enjoyed with a cup of masala chai and some good friends, a rainy day, a cricket match, a movie or a good book :) Perfect for those spicy-salt cravings and much healthier than that bag of potato chips or buttery pop corn.

This crispy crunchy snack goes out to all my cricket crazy fb friends who I am sure are celebrating our big win.

On another note, for those who have been following it, I have been baking up a storm for a bake sale today- bakesaleforjapan.com and am thrilled at the response and to see my baked goodies disappear! It was super fun to meet some awesome food bloggers and taste some awesomely yummy food! There will be a many baked goodies coming your way on this blog ( virtually for now) as I post the recipes that I used for the bake sale, as well as a celebratory sweet dish for our big win today as part of the 'Chak de India' cheer leading squad on FB! We will be celebrating for a while, since this victory is here after 28 long years since our last World Cup victory. Any reason to celebrate or bake is fine with me, but what could be better reason than this!