“Padharo Mhare Desh” Diwali Menu – Behind the scenes

First of all incredibly thankful for more than 1100+ likes, your love, support and appreciation on my Diwali Party Menu post in Euphoric Delights Facebook Group. I am overwhelmed with your words of encouragement and interest in knowing how did I execute it, “Padharo Mhare Desh” means welcome to my country “India” as my Diwali 2022 menu covers dishes from all over India. I live in California, USA but my heritage belongs to Madhya Pradesh, India so this menu takes you on food adventure of India. So here we go, super excited to share my behind the scenes of Diwali Party 2022 Planning !!

Before we go into all details and I walk you through WHAT & HOW, I want to mention about WHY? I came to USA in 2006 to do my masters and I am Software Engineer by Profession which I love but I also love to do so many other things like cooking and that undoubtedly is my passion. I love to cook to not only make something which tastes appealing but to make it a wholesome sensory experience. I come from a family where I have seen my mom making any and every dish at home being it traditional food or anything like cookies or cake irrespective of if she knows how to make it or not she will not hesitate to try it out, we will explain it to her what does it taste, look and feel like and she will recreate it for us. Also, I had 2 elder sisters due to which I actually never got a chance to cook anything in kitchen while I was at my home in India but as soon as I stepped my foot away from home I started missing & remembering all my mom’s recipes, food tips & tricks and started enjoying my food adventure. Though I never cooked myself at home but I was always around my mom when she was cooking herself and she used to talk through her cooking on why she is doing what, for example:

• She will say you know when we make any sabzi we always add 1 spoon of water after we add all spices to saute onion so they don’t burn and still cook well so oil is separated before we add tomatoes.
• How will you know when sugar is mixed well while making mawa coconut burfi? I will not know this but my I still recall my mom telling me you hear it, sugar mixing noise stops, it’s incredible how she taught me how to use all my senses while she was cooking.

So, that certainly tells you where I got my cooking skills from 🙂 Now, one thing which I certainly didn’t like about Indian food gatherings at home in India that my mom used to cook even after guests arrive and barely get any time to connect with guests or spend quality time. Because there would be dishes which would need frying or cooking last min. On the contrary, here in USA I have been cooking and hosting since the year I arrived, and all my friends and family love it. But I always wrap up my food preparations a little ahead of time and rely on microwave and air-fryer/oven to warm up when we all are ready to eat. That gives me time to get myself & kids ready, present my food the way I imagine to indulge sense of sight as soon as my guests enter my kitchen. All of my friends and family help in warming up food as they arrive, help with serving, even packing left overs and cleaning up which makes it not only easy for host but also makes you feel so loved and appreciated by everyone. Sometime they just make me not enter the kitchen at all after they arrive and take it from there, truly lucky & blessed to have such people around me.

Now, let’s get started with WHAT part of party planning. Before any of my events I create a google doc as soon as I know about the event in my mind (usually 6-8 weeks in advance) and here is basic checklist which helps me plan better:

• Date & Time
• Guests List – Count of adults & Kids (I have a huge friend circle in Bay area so always have to play around a little based on my capacity, space and occasion)
• Theme of the event
• Where
• Menu (Let’s dig in more on this in next section)
  • Drinks
  • Appetizers
  • Main Menu
  • Desserts
  • Kids Menu
  • Dietary restrictions (if any)
  • Ideas for presentation (I am a dreamer so I write down as idea comes to my mind so I don’t forget at the time of planning and execution)
  • Link any recipe or recipes you want to refer to
• Games – I believe it’s very important to plan some fun games appropriate to occasion and crowd to keep everyone engaged and have some fun memories.
• Things to buy
  • Tableware
  • Serving platters
  • Dispoables
  • Decor
  • Theme related stuff
  • Grocery list
• Things to do
  • Online order items list so they arrive on time
  • Any store errands to buy stuff
  • Any cleanup which needs to happen ahead of time
  • Packing return favors or gift for games, etc
  • Game preparations
  • Song playlists (if any)
  • Anything special you need to do for menu (Like I decide to prepare a Huge Map of India and create that as my Menu guide for my guests)

Once you have all of that information you are better prepared to execute your event. Let’s take a deeper look into what did I go through while I planned my menu “Padharo Mhare Desh”. As I mentioned, I am a dreamer, while I was doing one my earlier event of the year (Mata ki Chauki) one night I was thinking about how different parts of India celebrate this time differently and started thinking about fun food I know from so many different parts of India (my parents were omnist so though I am Hindu by birth and celebrate all Hindu festivals but we also celebrate other religion festivals in any way we can like by making sewaiyan on Eid, Going to church and making cake at home on Christmas, reading sukhmani path sahib daily in my prayers, going to gurudwara, serving people with sharbat on karbala, doing iftar party for villagers, feeding whole village during ramayan path) and that gave me this great idea as I realized I don’t know any food from some parts of India and I love challenges and food adventure. I decide to look at map of India and it’s popular street food, traditional food and sweets and came up with list of around 30+ foods which I showed it to my husband as he is my first go to person to brainstorm anything going on in my mind. He loved the idea of food across India but shared his concerns as this will be very hard to execute and too much food and not practical to cook (he keeps me practical lol) so I decided to cut down and after some back and forth over a few days we agreed on the following list where we decided to keep 9-10 sweets and 9-10 savory items:

• MP – MawaBati, Gujiya
• Jammu Kashmir – Kahwa, Nadru Monje, Kachalu Chaat
• Punjab – Makke ki Roti & Saag
• UP – Bedmi Puri, Dubki wale alu
• Bihar – Khaja
• Assam – Gur Narikol
• Manipur – Nakuppi Bora
• West Bengal – Jhalmuri
• Orissa – Ghugni
• Andhra Pradesh- Idli Podi
• Tamilnadu – Rava Ladoo
• Maharashtra- Wada Pav, Chivda
• Gujarat – Mohanthal, Khandvi
• Rajasthan – Malai Ghevar
• Karnataka: Mysore Pak

My husband and family are great supporter. He is a great help, encourages and support me in any & every possible way but he is not great at cooking and as this is my passion I don’t expect him to do any of that as well, so it’s very important for me to sign up on only what I can deliver. I am very confident and strong person and believe if I determine to do something I can & will achieve it. And planning an event like this is exactly like a software project delivery lifecycle which I am really good at being a Tech Lead for years:

• Spike (know all your unknowns and risk ahead of time)
• Tech Spec (Know details of all your recipes, time it will take to execute and art and science behind it)
• Sprint Planning (Commit what all can you deliver keeping stretch goals in mind)
• Scope creep (whenever you didn’t plan for anything but demand appears for that like my little ones wanted Mamma to make white burfi and also I signed up for my Daughter’s school Diwali event so time needed for planning that and also making an additional sweet for 30 kids)
• Release date (we all know last min hiccups so be ready for that)

Let’s talk a little about how did I finalize my menu? Here are few things I thought when I was deciding this menu:

• On Diwali, I prefer to keep more snacks/appetizer food options than main menu item as I want people to enjoy and explore as many food as they like served on the table
• Do keep 2-3 main menu dish so it doesn’t feel like it’s all snacks
• As I was going to make so many indian sweets, didn’t add any other desserts in menu
• Googled popular dish of every state and short listed a few, read recipes of each and decided if that would work or not in terms of type of dish, time it will take to cook, easy to reheat, taste/texture which people from other states might not like
• Balance between items which need steam, frying, no cooking, can be cooked ahead of time, etc
• In Indian sweets, I usually make more common sweets from Madhya Pradesh (I am from Bhopal & Indore) and other nearby states which I have usually seen or tasted at home and I knew Indian sweets preparations are very tricky as compared to regular food cooking so I chose my dishes but kept in my mind that some of these might not successfully execute
• I wanted to cover all parts of India but that’s not practically possible so I went with dishes I think I could execute and I understand the recipe (read 2-3 recipes for each new dishes from various sources to understand it) and it’s variations and come up with my version of that recipe. It’s important to be familiar with ingredients you use in any dish and what’s their characteristic is to really ace any recipe.
• One of my dear friend offered to make a Gujrati snack “Khandvi” so I outsourced that to her.
• For kids, I wanted to keep it pretty simple so they can eat without any fuss, so asked one of my close friend to make paneer sabzi as I wanted nut free and with so much going on in my kitchen would have been hard to take care of allergens. I had store bought Naan and aam ras to go along with that.
• I have a mother’s helper who comes for chopping and making parathas so I decided how can I utilize her to help me in this menu in the given time she comes for help.

Now, let’s time travel to 8-10 days before the day of event. I ordered groceries needed for all my sweet preparations and the weekend before the party I started my Diwali sweet preparations. One sweet at a time in the order of longest shelf life outside fridge. As I mentioned, I work full time and usually have pretty busy work day so there is no possibility to do anything during day hours and I have 2 kids, 8 yr and 3 yr old so my evenings usually go running around them. My most effective hours to work on my personal hobby of cooking is after Kids go to bed, Hubby took over responsibility of putting kids to bed so that I can free up myself around 8:30-9 pm and can take care of cooking sweets every night that week. I usually cooked from 9-11:30 pm every weekday that week to make 7-8 sweets.

Out of 10 sweets I successfully executed 8 of them MawaBati (stuffed Gulab Jamun), Gujiya, Gur Narikol, Khaja, Rava Ladoo, Mawa Burfi, Mohanthal, Mango Coconut Ladoo and failed 2 of them, Mysore Pak & Ghevar. Mysore Pak is extremely tricky sweet to make and one of the sweet I personally like so much and grew up eating that. Almost all recipes called out that almost every one who try this sweet gives 2-3 tries before they can really get that formation and I knew if I will try it 1-2 more times I can do it but with given time and material it takes I decided to skip that. I kept the last night (2 days before the event) to make Ghevar, I made rabri while I was making this. This is another extremely tricky sweet to make as it’s very sensitive to temperature and many other factors for formation of honey comb texture. made huge quantity of batter as I wanted to make at least 10-12 Ghevars and I started making it, I could see my honey comb formation happening I got super excited but then I realized it’s not binding and coming out as raw blob with honeycomb formation, I tried 2-3 more times, tried couple of things but no luck. At midnight USA time my husband comes to help trying all sorts of tips & tricks then I messaged my Mom, MIL, Sisters, messaged FB group haha time for calling all possible help. Mom gave few ideas but nothing worked. My sister is such a sweetheart, within seconds she connected me with one of her friend who made Ghevar before she tried to help but nothing worked. At this point it’s 1 am local time for me, I am exhausted and I know this is not working and I need to let go but still somewhere in my heart I don’t feel like giving up as it feels I am too close to getting it right but I put all my remaining batter in the fridge and go to bed, omg what a horrible night I had it was all about how can I fix it in my mind through the night, also thinking what am I doing I need lots of positive energy and confidence as I have to start cooking tomorrow and this is drowning me on negative energy. I wake up in the morning, toss the batter and tell myself I will listen to my mind and not heart and let this go. So now this is still in my list to make one day.

Two days before Diwali Party, I took off from work on Friday and Monday to enjoy Diwali festivities. On Friday, I also had to go to host my daughter’s school Diwali event. I made Mango coconut Ladoo with kids the evening before so they feel engaged and excited.

I got all the grocery I needed for the menu. Husband took care of all Diwali lightings, moving furnitures, etc. We got the complete house in order, finishing up all decorations. I asked my helper to help me with chopping veggies I need for cooking and store it in fridge. There were few hiccups in finding ingredients in stores, all Indian stores were out of Mustard Leaves which I needed to make Saag and also couldn’t find Lotus Stem (for Nadru Monje) and Banana Leaves (for serving Idli). Asked Hubby to go for another round of grocery in few other stores to find these ingredients, suggested him to try asian store as I know they also eat Lotus stem so he found it there and also found frozen banana leaves !! Was happy to finally have all my ingredients except one, mustard leaves which was one of my key ingredient. For mustard leaves I found Saag cans which I really didn’t want to use but kept as a backup in case we don’t find it at all in maybe one more run to different store. As my helper is a punjabi aunty, she happened to found it in one of the store on Saturday so she called me and I was relieved to have that as well now.

On Saturday and earlier in the week, I spent some quality time with kids to enjoy festival activities, do Diwali Pooja preparations as that was just the next day after my event and engage them in any fun things they can do to help me as I knew Sunday I will be crazy busy.

I took care of boiling & peeling potatoes. Few more early preparations like washing veggies, any remaining chopping, made Ghugni in the night itself as takes around 1-2 hrs for that quantity. Also made wada pav alu masala and shaped them in patty so they are ready to use. I took out all cutleries, disposables, set up my serving table, marked all serving platters with post-aids, pretty much finalizing every single details before the main cooking day.

Here is the day of the event, Sunday before Diwali, I made sure night before I don’t overdo it so I am well rested and wake up with good night sleep. Enjoy my morning coffee time with family, made some filling but simple breakfast for kids so they are set for few hours. (Parent TIP: Always keep few surprise small toys, games, snacks for kids handy during such days as it’s pretty normal for them to throw tantrum as they will see you busier than usual and any tantrum drowns my energy level so having these things handy helps me navigate the situation much smoothly and without stressing out myself.) Gave them a big pack of beautiful sparkling play doughs so they can pretend play cooking variety of desserts for Diwali and that set them for hours of fun time with minimal engagement from my end. Husband took care of them for anything they needed, taking them out for few hours so I can concentrate on cooking. Started my cooking around 9:30 am with organized list of to do in order (I create “Order of execution” list in my doc as well which helps me mentally prepare what all needs to happen and when). I knew I needed to cook a lot of things, this is what I decided to do:

• Peeled and cut Lotus stem for Nadru Monje and prepared it’s batter and started cooking them as they will cook in small batches on slow flame and would need hours of gas stove. This goes on for next 3 hrs with everything going on in parallel.
• While they are cooking, in between each batch I work on other things like peeled and chopped Kachalu and kept them in fridge so harden a little bit
• Took out all ingredients from the fridge and freezer which need thaw like banana leaves and coconut chutney
• Made Urad masala for Bedmi Puri & prepared the dough
• Made Dubki wale Alu Sabzi
• Made batter for wada pav and started frying that in next stove
• Meanwhile my mother’s helper arrived who I am counting to bring mustard leaves and help me with dough and making puri and Makke ki roti
• Started making Saag on another stove, now at this time 4 out of 5 stove are occupied and last one will not be of much help as that’s the slowest one so I differ next item which needs cooking and keep multi tasking with stuff cooking on stove and doing non cooking work like making batter for Nakuppi Bora, taking out idli batter, making green chutney, etc
• I gave dough for Bedmi Puri to aunty and asked her to start rolling kachori style puri followed by making Makke Ki Roti now she is occupied for next 2 hrs doing this
• Asked hubby to take kids out for lunch so that’s sorted, I usually don’t eat much when I cook as I love the light feeling when I have such crazy cooking days, food makes me lethargic haha, so I had few bites of paratha warmed up from the fridge (I usually store cooked Paratha for 2-3 days in fridge) and asked aunty to take break while I utilize gas stoves for more cooking as I can’t afford any empty gas stove today
• Frying is still going on with gas limitations but many major dishes are done. Now I work backwards with time remaining as it’s around 1:30 pm already and my help will also have to leave in an hour.
• I take care of making idli (used readymade batter), made kachalu chaat, put out all chutneys for wada pav
• I kept all my cooked fried food in foil trays and covered with an aluminum foil.
• All my cooked food which will need microwave later was in microwavable safe dish so I can keep cleaning dishes and kitchen as I go.
• Asked aunty to help me with dirty dishes as I have lot of them as I almost wrap up cooking meanwhile I still keep frying few last remaining batches of my dishes.
• It’s 3 pm now, my cooking marathon finally ended, aunty have left, hubby keeping kids occupied, took care of vacuuming house, putting toddler to nap
• Party starts at 6 pm, so working backwards on time I need to go take shower as I am mess right now and get ready by 5 pm so I can take care of last min serving preparations, so I have an hour to take care of remaining stuff in kitchen. I start with cleaning stove & kitchen, setting up indian sweets platters covering them with cling wrap. Needed to put fresh flowers in all decorations so occupied my older kid (8 yr old) to help me with that.
• I rested for 20-30 min to recharge myself as I didn’t even sit down from 9:30 am till 3:30 pm, got ready by sharp 5 pm, meanwhile Hubby and Kids also got ready and made tea for me, while having my tea (I am popular for reheating and drinking it in batches lol) I started plating everything on table. Serving small quantities of food on the serving table for presentation and extra food on side kitchen platform for refill. I keep air fryer next to extra food so it’s easy for anyone to use that to warm up their food. By 5:45 pm we are all ready for guests to arrive and take some pictures of my food presentation and family pics. Hubby loves to take good photographs of my food so he does the honor of taking some awesome clicks. My daughter helps me light up exactly 68 candles around the whole house (she counted it to tell me how much hard work she did ;)) While my toddler sets up all LED candles and I give some snacks to kids.

We were all set to welcome our guests and present my unique menu “Padharo Mhare Desh” !!

One very important thing, always remember your WHY? Do this only if this gives you pleasure and makes you happy, not because you need to do it for any other reason. Last but not the least, don’t forget to enjoy your event 🙂 Hope you all enjoyed reading my behind the scene execution of this grand menu as much as I enjoyed executing it !!