At this moment, I am trying to fight my lagging spirit and keep up with everything that I would normally do. True, the future looks bleak and worrying, but at the moment, there is nothing I can do. All I can do is to tie the camel and place my trust in Allah. He is our Sustainer, He is our Provider. If He forfeits, He gives us more than He takes away from us. With the way my life has gone, I have seen it and even though a part of mine acts human by feeling low, the other side reminds me that He has always taken care of us and He will, irrespective. All I need to do is to do what I am supposed to do, and be grateful for each and everything that He is giving us… Gratefulness is the key now. When everything exposes and…
Oats Apple Cinnamon Pancakes
March has been so hectic and overwhelming, to say the least. The Covid 19 pandemic has spread such havoc that it has disturbed all lives from the rich to the poor, turning everything upside down. I don’t think I need to mention how the overall mood is at the moment. As much as our normal daily schedules have been hit, things aren’t looking good anyway. The overall economy movements are going to affect everybody’s personal finances and that doesn’t spare us either. But we are just trying to keep calm and hope that everything will pass, just like all our previous tests from the Almighty has gone off. Maybe, it is a reminder from the above that there is some force that is beyond our imagination, and all of a sudden, human beings are feeling helpless. I only pray that this test passes away as soon as possible, and…
Zucchini Dates Muffins
Sometimes I feel like thanking the Westerners for classifying muffins and cakes as breakfast. It makes our life so much easier. 😀 I mean, would our mothers ever agree to eating cake as breakfast? No way! But then with ways of incorporating all kind of “healthy” ingredients into your cakes, you can very well have a delicious baked breakfast. I have a few lovely bakes that I had made specifically for breakfast, like these Apple Flax Muffins and the Blueberry French Toast, among what I can remember. So when I was considering making something with egg as my breakfast – because eggs are default breakfast material for me since very long – I remembered these muffins I baked recently, which can easily be eaten for breakfast since it has a lot of goodness in it. So after the simple Jam and Cheese Sandwich and the Upma, here is a…
Upma | Easy Rava Upma
As the second recipe for this week’s theme of “Breakfast” in the Blogging Marathon #110, I have chosen to make a recipe, that is considered to be very simple but can drive you up the wall! Please let me know if you agree or disagree. 😀 Upma is considered to be one of the easiest breakfast dish that can be prepared in no time. Being a basic recipe, I have always struggled to make it the way I like it. In fact, I have a “love-hate” relationship with this dish. I never liked upma when umma would make it for breakfast. Hers is usually a little dry and used to get stuck in the throat. Each time I would see her large kadai with a lid on the stove top when I would walk the kitchen, the frown would start from the heart to the face. Hehe… It…
Jam and Cheese Sandwich
For the second week of the Blogging Marathon #110, I have chosen the theme of “Breakfasts”. Even though everybody would say that breakfast is the most required meal for the day, I am really not a breakfast person. I can’t eat really early in to the morning, neither can I have a heavy meal. Hehe… You can find some easy breakfast recipes already on the blog over here. Adding three more to it… Bread sandwiches are a repeat for my kids’ lunch boxes. They love bread, and they love it with any spread. Nutella and Biscoff is always welcome, and Rasha prefers peanut butter over jam and Azza is viceversa. I am someone who doesn’t like to have jam on its own. Either it needs to have thin slice of cold butter in it (are you salivating? I am!) or a nice slather of cheese. The saltiness of…
Eggless Condensed Milk Cake
Mentally, I am not in a state to do a blog post. I am sure that nobody, or majority aren’t either in an upbeat mood. When movement is restricted, children are at home with no confirmation on school reopening, daily routine takes a beat so much that even your five-times-prayers are restricted to only the call to prayer from the closeby masjid, events are cancelled, unnecessary travel is asked to be avoided, borders are closed, work gets crazy because shipments aren’t arriving on time nor is there any visibility on the shipments for the next months, sales works overtime as the population is on a frenzy and panic buying… SubhanAllah! I have already mentioned my general feeling in the last post and don’t want to ponder over it. From our side, we are doing the maximum that we can as far as hygiene is concerned, restricted our outside movements…
Kofte Dejaaj | Middle Eastern Chicken Meatballs/ Koftas
I really haven’t felt this empty in the near future. My head is just refusing to cooperate with my fingers, it feels. The current situation on the world, thanks to all the violence and virus, makes the mind feel disoriented. Is it just me, or do you all feel the same? When such instances happens, it points out to the fact again and again that we as humans are just helpless. There is a limit to what we can do. We may go on and on about the strength of the mind and the infinite capabilities of human beings, but when it comes to something as minute as a virus, we are nothing in front of it. We do not have the eyes to see it nor the capability to feel it. Anybody can catch it. The irony of the situation is that there are much more deaths…
Falafel {using Chickpeas}
While deciding on the recipes to try for this week’s chosen theme for the Blogging Marathon #110 of “Middle Eastern”, Falafel was surely on top of the list. I don’t know if you would find it a shocker but back home in Kotakkal, a little shop called Salsabeel sells such amazing Falafel sandwiches that sell like hot cakes! In December when I had gone home, we were on the way back after the doctor’s appointment for the TMJ, and D suggested we stop over to eat something. I am sure we all do that on long drives – at least one stop for a cup of chai and some munching. I was in this outlet for the first time so I let him do the ordering for me. We were served with hot falafel sandwiches, that were so mouthful and delightful – I am typing with this with…
Moutabal/ Mutabal | Middle Eastern Eggplant Dip
I have always been vocal about the reason why I love to be a part of Valli’s Blogging Marathon. It is actually a great push for my sagging cooking moods. Her themes actually make me think a little and push me to try recipes that I have been wanting to make for a long time and get them onto the blog. For this month’s version #110, one of the themes was “Middle Eastern”. I love their food, however it is not something I cook that often as I would love to. This theme gave me the chance to try out something that I would love. I have been taking a back seat with trying new recipes, since my girls are not very receptive. However, with my SIL with us now, she is backing me full on to try new recipes and I am hoping that push will slowly get…
Broken Glass Pudding | Jelly and Milk Pudding
Sometimes we make certain recipes mainly because it looks pretty. The taste comes secondary in such cases. But when beauty means tastes (not brains in this case 😉 ), then it does make a difference. That is what I have always felt about this recipe that I am sharing with you today. This post also becomes a part of the AtoZ Cooking Challenge hosted by Vidya and Jolly. The letter for this month is “M” and I chose “milk” as the ingredient. Since a huge part of this pudding is milk, there is nothing better that I would want to share! This is one of the first recipes that I had tried when the cooking bug hit me, apart from the Malai Chicken, of course! I was actually intrigued about how the medley of jelly and milk pudding would taste like. Ramadan is usually considered to be the…
Bengali Ghee Bhat | Bengal Ghee Rice
Later last month, when Mayuriji posted on the Shh Cooking Secret Challenger FB group that this month’s West Bengal was going to be the last state to be considered as a part of this challenge, I decided to jump in and give my name. However, I conveniently forgot about it and was reminded only when my partner, Sasmita messaged me earlier last week for the ingredients. Since then I have been trying to cook for the challenge, but ended up doing it only yesterday. The ingredients that she gave me thankfully were very simple – ghee and cinnamon. Coming to the state in question, West Bengal has a lot in common with our own state. An ex-colleague of mine would always say, “Both the states are bound by their love for football, fish, communism and coconut!” I guess it does make a lot of sense. Bengal used to…
White Chocolate Sago Pudding
Do you see the flow in this week’s Blogging Marathon #109 theme “Anything and everything with chocolate”? It is going from dark to milk to white. 😉 Just saying… So after the French Hot Chocolate and Milk Chocolate Brownies, here is the final recipe for this week’s theme… Initially I had decided that I would make a white chocolate rice pudding with a jam topping. I remember seeing it on some blog eons ago and it had such amazing clicks that it stuck to my mind. I have to agree that food, if clicked beautifully, does stick to your mind. I have not achieved that level and there are so many reasons to it, first being my lack of patience and my lack of interest too. I feel I do take decent pictures but I am just not able to push to the next level, or rather not…
Milk Chocolate Brownies
Haven’t I always mentioned that my girls are hard to please? And that applies very much to my bakes as well. If you thought that kids would eat any brownies baked, then you are wrong. My girls won’t. They seem to have a criteria for their brownies – shouldn’t be too dark in color, shouldn’t have any bitter cocoa taste, shouldn’t have anything to bite in between, etc. etc. My problem is I tend to like more of dark chocolate and the girls end up not eating my brownies. I always tell them that everybody loves my brownies but not them, but they care a hoot. So while thinking of what to make for the theme of “Anything and everything chocolate” for the Blogging Marathon #109, I had decided to make these brownies that have been on my to-do for quite a long time. There is a reason…
French Hot Chocolate | Paul style Hot Chocolate
Here I am with the next week of recipes for the Blogging Marathon #109. I chose a theme that I totally love. There are no points for guessing – it has to be chocolate! The theme is aptly called “Anything and everything with chocolate” and I had no qualms about choosing this. After all, chocolate is something that we all love and would love to incorporate it into our daily eating, if life permitted. Thankfully, scientists have declared that dark chocolate takes care of your happy hormones, so that gives us permission to include at least one square into our daily eating. What say? 😉 The first post is a recipe I have been wanting to try since ages. I always enjoy my home made hot chocolate, either made this way with chocolate chips or simply with cocoa powder. When I am haunted by outdoor cravings, there is…
Red Velvet Mug Cake
I am actually not so fond of challenges ending. Especially if I enjoy participating in them, I feel a tinge of sadness. I felt it when we had to end the MFB challenges. I felt it when Sarah had ended her old challenge. I was pretty excited when she started the Fantastical Food Fighting Challenge, but unfortunately due to priorities, she has decided to give this challenge a break. I am sure it is not with a happy mind, but when life gives us some exciting challenges, we definitely need to balance out to ensure that life doesn’t get too hectic and unmanageable. Wishing Sarah all the very best for her upcoming endeavor… Since this one is the last, I wanted to make sure I participate in it. Oh, I forgot to mention the theme! Since February is the month of love for obvious reasons, the theme she…