Waiting for a break is something that we all do. We just look forward to it, don’t we? Last year, we had decided to take a year off going home this year, since it involves too much of pressure financially. After all, four people travelling up and down to Kerala during the peak season is no joke. If you combine all the money spent on tickets, wardrobe updates, gifts and chocolates, etc, you can go on two international trips to decent countries. I am not joking about it. For an average middle class family, the daylight robbery that every airline does during the school closing time does put a lot of pressure on their budgets. Somehow, despite so much hue and cry, this practice repeats year after year. Since the number of people travelling home at that time doesn’t seem to diminish, I guess the authorities see no…
Avil Milk {No Sugar Added!}
As for the final post for the theme “One Bowl Dishes” in the Blogging Marathon #102, I had no doubt what I wanted it to be! Avil Milk is something very synonymous to Malappuram. VH Bakery is the first one to introduce and make it a craze among the whole of Malabar. If you are wondering what this is, then it is a layered concoction of mashed small banana, crispy roasted aval (rice flakes/ poha), some ice cold milk and peanuts for an additional crunch. Anything over and above that are add ons. I wouldn’t call it a milk shake, since it isn’t blended together, but it is very close to being a falooda without any catches to it. Each time I go home, I would miss exactly that time when my family would go to Kottakkal for something or the other. Last year, for the first time…
Simple Egg Muffins | Breakfast Egg Muffins
Making these egg muffins have been on my agenda since God-knows-when. Somehow, it just wouldn’t happen. So when I chose the theme “Savory Bakes” for the Blogging Marathon #101, I had told myself that I have to bake this somehow for this series. Even though this is the second post of the series, I had baked it only last week. Eggs are a good source of protein and fat, and we all know it. It has recently shed all its bad name and come into the group of super-foods. A couple of eggs in the morning or as evening snack can keep you satiated for quite a long time. I love eggs and eat at least two every day, especially after I have started my weight loss journey. If there is something that is present 24×7 in my pantry, then it is eggs. Most of the time I…
Easy n Soft Cinnamon Rolls
I just have to pinch myself to believe that we are almost at the mid of this month. Days are literally flying in the real sense! The girls are travelling home by this month end, and I have so many things to finish before they can fly out. I really don’t know when I am going to find the time for all of it. 🙁 But InShaAllah, as always has been the case, somehow matters just work out in time, so hoping for the same too… Usually the month of June gets hot, and as expected, it is getting horribly humid. Cooking and baking is the last thing you want to do. The heat is energy sapping now itself, so wondering how the coming months are going to be. I can’t wait to go home in August, literally running away from here… 🙂 I never…
Masala Oats | Easy Savory Oats
As I sit to type this post, I realize we are almost half way through Ramadan. This month has been very stressful on all accounts, but trying to take into account that life is always meant for surprises and we need to take it into our stride. With my mood not very conducive for long posts, I think I will just stop over here… When time is of essence, then quick meals are the call of the day. This masala oats is something I can eat anytime of the day. Just like this paneer capsicum rice, this meal appears very frequently, usually for breakfast. It is so quick to make and so delicious, that you would want to eat it every other day. I have always had oats in sweet form, but this recipe has changed my mindset for good. The whole cooking takes hardly 15 minutes, and…
Easy Chewy Granola Bars | Granola Bars with Goji Berries & Chia
I am usually very prompt with doing my challenge posts. But for this month’s Muslim Food Blogger challenge, I delayed it as much as I possibly could. It wasn’t that the challenge wasn’t tough. I had a lot of ideas floating in my head. Oh, I didn’t tell what was the challenge. This month, we went with Lubna’s suggestion of making some healthy bites. It is summer vacations back home, and even here, schools were off the past month. When kids are off, then naturally, they are constantly hungry and searching the home up, down and center for something or the other to eat. So this theme couldn’t have come at the correct time. If you have noticed, I did three recipes with the similar theme in the last month’s Blogging Marathon too. 🙂 My first thought was to do something in line with the Dates Bliss Balls….
Dalia Upma | Broken Wheat Upma
There is a reason why I chose this week’s theme when Valli declared it in the Blogging Marathon #98 – “Cooking for Two”. You all know, we aren’t two, we are four. 😀 But most of the time, I end up cooking for two because the other two I have are very fussy that I don’t feel like cooking for them. 😕 HD is forever looking into my food, so for my safety, it is better to cook extra and serve him as well. Do you have husbands who want to eat your food? OK, so jokes apart, dalia or broken wheat is not something that I frequently cook with. But when I got the opportunity to try the ingredient when my mentor included it as a part of my carbs, I fell in love with this upma. Every second day, I was making it for my breakfast…
Mini Vegan Wholewheat Pancakes
I am coming back to the Blogging Marathon after a hiatus. Somehow, I have mentioned it before and still mention it – this series by Valli gives a much needed push when it comes to blogging. You may have noticed that ever since this year has started, I have been going slow on my posts purposely, since I don’t want blogging to become a burden for me. I must say that the move has helped me tremendously to relax and concentrate on other things in life. 😉 When I need the motivation, I know that this initiative by Valli will be there to get me pepped up. Can you believe that this month is #98? Wow… That’s a really long time… 🙂 For this week, I chose “Kid’s Delight – Snack and Bites”. You may have already seen my event declaration post a couple of days ago. Actually,…
Crispy Dosa | Dosa using Poha/ Aval
I always use my idli batter to make my dosas. I make idlis the first day, and then after two days, I add little water to make it slightly thinner, and get the dosas rolling. Everybody does that, isn’t it? It was by accident that I discovered that poha or aval or flattened rice flakes makes a very good replacement when you run out of urad dal. Poha is something that is always available in our home, as it makes a super quick snack or breakfast, either in this way or this. So using it in dosa batter was something I really wanted to try. My girls totally loved how crisp these dosas stayed, even after cooling down. I have a pretty warm kitchen, so my batter ferments well. But getting crisp dosas has been a challenge for me, but not after trying this recipe. The poha…
Wholemeal Bread
I am just glad that the first recipe for a full-on bread is going live on the blog today. 😀 I have made a lot of yeast-based bakes, but those are usually buns or recipes that weren’t something like a breakfast bread. I have tried so many bread recipes but each of them were a fail for so many reasons. The highest reason is my impatience. You need to knead your bread sufficiently and not add too much of flour. The time when the dough becomes non-sticky and elastic, is the time to stop. That is the time when gluten is formed and the bread will rise and look fluffy. There is a lot of science behind bread baking but I am no scientist and I don’t wish to take away the joy of cooking by mixing in science. 😀 But somehow, bread baking can be very stressful…
Chocolate Persimmon Overnight Oats
I haven’t done overnight oats in a long time. So when I saw Sarah’s information email saying that this month, the theme for the Fantastical Food Fight would be “Overnight Oats”, I just wanted to participate. I love overnight oats and since I have been on a quantified eating of late, swapping my rice with oats was usually not a preferred option, so oats had to take a limited offering at times. I don’t know how better I can explain this. 😀 Anyway, there were this persimmons that I had reserved to try this muffin recipe for the Bakeathon that concluded last month. However it didn’t happen, since I had no mood to bake them whatsoever. Happens, right? I just wanted to eat them rather than cook with them. Hehe… Then I thought, why not I use them in overnight oats? I decided to make a chocolate version,…
Paal Vazhakka ~ Malabar Plantain Sago Dessert {Version 2}
Isn’t it such a relief to see a white colored post after an overdose of brown posts in the past month? 😀 At least, I am feeling so much relief to see a change. Hehe… Another year has started, and we inch closer to our end in this world… Does anybody think of it that way? We celebrate each year with so much aplomb, not realizing that every moment that goes by means that we are losing a chance to better ourselves. There is so much that can be written with this regard. But seriously, I am in no mood to write. My head is buzzing with so much that I am feeling tired. I don’t know if it is good or bad… 🙂 I will leave it at that and move on to the post for the day… I have already shared a Paal Vazhakka recipe earlier,…
Vegan Cocoa Scones
When I had started blogging, I was in a shared kitchen with umma. She wouldn’t allow me to bake as such, since she is diabetic and she would say that my baking would actually not allow her to be strict with herself. I would wait for her and D to go for their walks so that I could do the baking. When they would return back, the smell of the bakes would be wafting in the house and she would give me that look – I guess we all know what that look is, yes, the same thing we use with our children too now! 😀 Life is which goes around, comes around… 🙂 Once D retired and left the country for good, HD found a decent apartment close to where his business is, so we shifted. It’s been four years now in this house, Alhamdulillah. As soon…
Easy Chocolate Cinnamon Rolls
Ever since I have started posts this month, I haven’t shared anything much personal. Maybe because there hasn’t been anything interesting… 🙂 One thing I started doing this month is journaling a statement every day. It is basically one question, that needs to be answered in a couple of statements, depending on your state of the day. Even though I haven’t been regular with it, I have stuck to it 80% of the time and can feel how relaxed that jotting down a couple of sentences is making me. I am trying to stick to it and do it on a daily basis from now on. I am seriously thinking of doing a statement and sticking it next to my bed, so that each time I go to bed, I check it and ensure that everything is done. Just trying to emphasis a bit more on my mental health……
Idiyappam | String Hoppers
When Valli’s mail came for the themes for this month’s Blogging Marathon #94 and my eyes fell on “Meals within 30 minutes”, I really wanted to do it. I am currently building up my “Under 30 Minutes” recipes on the blog and the theme was perfect for adding three more. I have chosen three recipes that fits into different courses, so that it doesn’t feel like you get only drinks within that time. 😀 The first one are Idiyappams or Nool Puttu, as we call it. “Nool” is thread, and definitely these are thread-like rice dumplings, steamed and served. I never realized how much my girls loved this till they literally ate my head asking to make it. I thought it was a really complicated process and would just ignore it. It was one Instagram story of Fami which prompted me to try these. I pulled up my…