The heart seems so much at peace when it sees that the climate is changing finally! We had a really hot September and October was also not showing much respite, making us wonder if we would have the “beach and barbeque” climate all the UAE residents look forward to. Finally, the last week showed a slight change in the scales. There were rains in some interior parts of the country and that surely affected the temperatures. Early mornings are cozy and the times after sunset are just apt for those long walks. Afternoons are still hot at times but hopefully soon they will become more comfortable. This means that it is nice to do some baking and hogging, and more cups of tea and coffee… 🙂 With the wave of healthy eating all over, it becomes difficult to sometimes control ourselves from not having sweets at all. After…
Kheema Seviyan | Khare Sevayan ~ Spicy Vermicelli with Minced Meat
Time for the final post for the Blogging Marathon #105 theme of “Pasta and Pizza”, after doing the White Sauce No-Knead Pizza and the Chicken Fajita Pasta. Vermicelli over there is categorized along with pasta. So I dropped an email to Valli asking if I could cook something with vermicelli for this theme. And she mentioned a yes! I was thinking of making something sweet first, and then I gave up the plan. A little browsing and brainstorming later, I finalized on making this Keema Seviyan. This dish, also called as Khara Seviyan, is usually made in Hyderabadi households for Eid breakfast or lunch. It easily can double up as a filling breakfast or even a lazy lunch or dinner! The dish has vermicelli and mince meat – I used chicken – as main ingredients but you definitely add the vegetables as an extra to it. 🙂 For…
One Pot Chicken Fajita Pasta
After the No-Knead White Sauce Pizza, here is the next post for the Blogging Marathon #105 for the theme of “Pizza and Pasta”. I love one pot meals, because I hate washing up after cooking. Moreover, my kitchen isn’t the most comfortable place to be in. 😀 I mostly make the pasta in a jiffy each time I am in a hurry. But pasta isn’t something the girls are very fond of so it features once in two weeks. I sometimes wonder why they don’t make my life easy by loving food like pasta and daal. *crying inside* I have this habit of binge watching the Tasty app. I sincerely wish cooking and baking would happen in two to three minutes just like they show in it. 😉 During one of the session, I came across this recipe which was so easy and fit into my bill. My…
No-Knead Pan Pizza with White Sauce
Time for the second week of the Blogging Marathon! For this week of edition #105, I chose the theme “Pizza and Pasta”. Valli has a monthly Kid’s Delight event happening and this is the theme for this month. My girls are very fond of pizza but they don’t share the same liking towards pasta. However, slowly and steadily with time, they are finding their interest towards pizza. However since they are my girls, I know that they would get bored of it fast, so I am not getting overly excited about the scene. 😀 So from today for the coming three days, you will see three recipes for this interesting theme… Pizza is something my girls really love. I really don’t consider pizza as a meal. I feel that despite paying so much to buy it, it hardly fills the stomach. Please raise your hands if you agree…
Chocolate Coconut Cake
I have been on a dry spree as far as my thoughts are concerned. Somehow my head is quite empty. It is not that there is nothing much to share, but it is more of my head being empty most of the time. There are few tension filled moments happening, but then I guess the best way to live through life and not stress yourself is by looking at what you already have – four walls that protect you, food to eat, a nice bed to sleep, your family, your parents to talk to, your good friends to fall on to, etc. After all, didn’t Allah tells us that we are created of haste… Of late, the stress has getting on to me a bit too much. I have been mentioning that I am trying to hold on to my lost weight, but as soon as I came…
Nutella French Toast
After a little hiatus, we are back with the Muslim Food Blogger Challenge this month. Of late, we have been looking at easy themes to get in a bit of participation. How much that strategy has helped, I don’t want to comment. 🙂 When it comes to blogging, it becomes the last priority when life keeps throwing things at you on a constant basis. It is happening at the moment for me too. It is just that I don’t want to let my passion die and I am fighting it as much as I can. I have been doing the same for the past two years and so far, I have been successful. But how much I can hold myself up needs to be seen… 🙂 Coming back to the challenge, the theme for the month is “Sandwich”. So what is a sandwich? In layman terms, it is…
Haleeb Mal Zafran ~ Emirati Saffron Milk
After the Qahwa and the Laban – which are relatively no-brainer recipes – I was planning for something else as this post for the Blogging Marathon #105 for the theme of “One country, one category, three dishes”. But fate had it that I wasn’t to make the elaborate drink that I planned. I fell ill last week and I still had to prepare for this post. The lack of energy and mood reigned in and I gave up on myself. When you feel ill, there are certain drinks that play such a soothing role on your overall wellness. If we are back home, it has to be this turmeric milk aka masala paal. But when it is here in the UAE, I would vouch for this saffron milk, called colloquially as “Haleeb Mal Zafran”. Saffron is an expensive spice. It is definitely not something that we would use…
Laban ~ Salted Yogurt Drink
For the Blogging Marathon #105, for the theme of “One country, one category, three dishes”, after having chosen the Qahwa as my first Emirati drink, I chose a rather easy one for today. The reason is obvious – I was literally running against time to do more research on the drinks I would love to make. I would rather say that I procrastinated over my task, that I almost hit the panic button. I am not very fond of leaving things to the last moment, but of late, I feel that I am changing into someone I am not liking. Hehe… Maybe I need to buckle up myself a bit… Anyway, coming back to today’s post. “Laban” is a watered down yogurt drink that is flavored with salt. You heard it right – just three ingredients, served chilled. This drink is literally the most demanded during the hot…
Qahwa | Gahwa ~ Emirati Black Coffee
Each time I take part in the Blogging Marathon, I try to make sure I select easy themes so that I don’t struggle to finish up the cooking. But still, thanks to my lazy bones, I still ended up skittering through at the end! 😕 This week, for its edition #105, I chose “One country, one category, three dishes”. While I chose this theme, I had no other intention than to cover the country which is my second home – the UAE. After moving in between the category to choose, I ended up choosing “drinks” since that wouldn’t take much time to make nor shoot as well. 😉 The first drink I chose to make was the Qahwa or Gahwa. Qahwa is very well known all throughout the Arab countries. In fact, it is the sign of their hospitality. Every local home would have ready-made Qahwa in a…
Karivepilai Sadam ~ Curry Leaves Rice
When I came back from home, I bought a lot of curry leaves. It is not what I had intended. Mattamma – my maternal grandmother – has a lovely curry leaves tree in her plot, and even umma gets her dose from her. She asked me if I wanted some, so I told her, I would but very little. What she sent with my cousin was a big pack with a lot of curry leaves! I simply loathe the curry leaves we get here, they smell so artificial! The ones we get from home – not from the market, but made at home – smells so heavenly that you could sit with it for hours just enjoying the aroma… For this month’s Shh Cooking Challenge which is coordinated by Mayuriji, the state in question was Tamil Nadu – the place of dosas, idlis, vadas, sambars and some awesome…
Aloo Paneer Tikki Chaat
If I say I am still sulking past my vacation, I am not lying to anyone and myself. My mood to cook nor work out has come back to being normal, even though I would say things have got back to routine and is moving well. With my weight snuggling happily upto me, I have to sooner or later get my act together and start pushing as much as I can. My couple of years of working out has made me realize that just workout won’t help you in losing weight. What you feed into your system does make a huge difference to your overall journey. I have been happily eating without much thought these days and that is directly affecting my weight. After having hit my lowest in so many years during Ramadan, I have come back to a level where I must be seriously thinking of…
Fruit Salad
I sincerely hope you are enjoying this three back-to-back series of super simple desserts. 🙂 I just wanted to push up my momentum, which is at a dragging phase at the moment and these posts have somehow tried to get me back out of the inertia. Hehe… So after the jelly mousse pudding and the milk pudding, here is a no-cook one that is so simple but is usually ignored for fancier options… For last Eid-ul-Fitr, I was intending to make my easy trifle recipe, since it badly needs an update in its pictures, plus I hadn’t made it in a really long time. Unfortunately, nothing worked as per plan and the tin stayed in my pantry till I found it out while I was rearranging my stuff prior to leaving for my vacation. It did have enough time to expire but I wasn’t in a mood to…
Easy Milk Pudding with Cashew Praline | China Grass Pudding
After the Quick Jelly Mousse Pudding recipe, here is the second post towards the three back-to-back super easy desserts. I must stay that this is one among the oldest drafts I have on my blog. I started my blog six and a half years ago, and finally this recipe makes its appearance, amidst a lot of requests on how to tame china grass or agar agar. I already have a few agar agar recipes on the blog but they were posted in the initial years of blogging. Somehow, even though I find working with agar agar far better than its non-vegetarian replacement called gelatin, I am not very fond of the jelly consistency it gives to its dessert. I love desserts with a mousse-like structure over the hard jelly types and I always prepare desserts in that category. It was only lately I discovered that my girls love…
Quick Jelly Mousse Pudding
This month, after contemplating a bit, I decided to post three back-to-back super easy desserts. I make some form of dessert on Fridays. That is the only day I take out of the week to make something to enjoy after the heavy lunch. I normally don’t tend to repeat the desserts, so sometimes I am forced to because my head wouldn’t work as to what to make. I guess that happens with everybody after a tough working week, hehe… So in order to ease your tension, I am posting three really simple, basic desserts that will be loved by anyone. You can make them just for your family or even when you have guests. So here we go… If there is something that is usually in my pantry most of the time, then it is a box of jelly. My younger one loves jelly. Even though I don’t…
Dejaaj Tahat ~ Emirati Chicken Rice
Sometimes a vacation doesn’t exactly do what you wish for it to do. Yes, for sure, I relaxed as much as I could, so much that we didn’t even go for any long tours, nor did I stay at HD’s place as much as I would have liked to. I visited only those relatives who I had to, and avoided moving around as much as I could. Sometimes, it was boring but that was all I wanted to do. Still, after coming back, it feels like I have been pulled back into a bigger rut than what I had left and gone. But then life is about fighting it out. We just say “Hasbunallahu Wa Ni’mal Wakeel” – “Allah (Alone) is Sufficient for us, and He is the Best Disposer of affairs (for us).” (Surah Aal Imran:173) and leave everything to Him. Is there any other option? I…