It’s time for the next Muslim Food Blogger Challenge. The days from the tenth to the tenth just flies as if it’s nobody’s business! This month, choosing the theme wasn’t tough since within the next one week, we are going to be blessed with the beautiful month of Ramadan. “Allahumma Ballighna Ramadan” is the prayer on every Muslim’s tongue, eagerly waiting to reap the immense benefits and rewards that these 30 days hold. May Allah give us the blessing of living to see the dawn of the month as well grant our souls to go through the month with maximum ibaadah and taqwah… Aameen Ya Rubb…. So coming to this month’s challenge, we were supposed to dig into some Ramadan special across the world. There are certain dishes that are specifically cooked for Ramadan, or cooked more during this month than the others. If I talk about my…
Mango Muhallabiah
After the Mango Cream, another creamy dessert using mangoes but with more oriental flavors! I love a good muhallabieh and have even made a chocolate version of it. But if I tell you that this one is the best I have tried, then wouldn’t you believe me? 🙂 You should… I got this recipe from my cut-outs. But it wasn’t this. The recipe was plain muhallabieh with bites of mangoes and the crunch of pistachios. I gave it my own twist by pulping in the mango. The first time I made it, I wasn’t in a mood to click them, so we just enjoyed the whole batch. I made it again the second time only to click it first, and then enjoy it! 😉 If you are doubtful whether the flavors of rose water and orange blossom water gel along with the mango, then I would…
Mango Cream
Isn’t it mango season? Mango is easily one of the most favorite fruits of many. Since April is officially the month of mangoes, I thought of doing this month’s three-back-to-back series with the theme of “Simple Mango Desserts”. Even last April, I had done a similar series featuring the Mango Custard Verrines, Aamras and Semolina Mango Cake. This time, I am here with some more mango goodness, but really simple recipes with a heart-filling capabilities… 😉 Ready? 🙂 The first one is like you have seen in the name – Mango Cream. Fruit creams are very well received these days. Most of the cafes that serve fresh fruit varieties will definitely have a set of fruit creams. Haji Ali is very well known for the same. We have one outlet right next to our office and we used to keep ordering their delicious cheesy sandwiches. I never ordered…
Sticky Date Flapjacks
The dates for the MFB challenge seems to be coming one after the other at the blink of an eye! Before I even realize, I am mostly skittling through to cook and finish the post for the challenge. You can see the previous challenge posts here. This month, our challenge was to cook from a food blog run by a Muslimah and this month, we chose “This Muslim Girl Bakes“. This is one of my favorite blogs to gawk at. She has a very impressive Instagram presence as well. Apart from Pakistani delicacies, she posts a lot of lovely bakes that you can resist. Most of her posts are accompanied by step by step pictures, followed by a lot of pictures of the final product itself. I had a hard time trying to select one recipe from her blog. I have already tried her Pakistani Chicken Pulao and…
Mutta Urapichathu | Paal Mutta Urapichathu ~ Malabar Egg Pudding
Malabar is the home of so many delicacies, that are slowly moving into oblivion. I am trying my level best to collect, try and post as much as recipes I can, but I believe I am so lazy to work on especially the recipes that need some level of hard work. 🙁 So at the moment I am trying to concentrate and do more of the easy ones, and InShaAllah, as time goes, I will get onto the easier ones. But my task is clear – get in as much as our traditional food on this blog as I can. I got this recipe from a group, and why wouldn’t it attract my attention? I love egg based desserts and this sounded so easy. Most of the desserts in Malabar are steamed or cooked on low flame, like the polas – check out the carrot pola, podi pola…
Chocolate Crackles
I discovered this new group called Recipe Swap through Mayuriji. I had enjoyed the SRC so much that I was sure I would love this one too. So I landed up signing up for the group and participating in my first challenge! I feel it is always a pleasure to discover and interact with new blogs. My first blog assigned was Cook at Home by Sarah. As soon as her blog was assigned, I got to digging into it, scouring through pages after pages trying to decide what to cook from her blog. Meanwhile, I received an email from her to make things more interesting. A mini interview for me! The whole thing got me so excited… 😀 While I replied to her questions, I made sure I threw her a rapid fire round too… Do hop onto her post to see what she cooked from…
Saffron Milk Cake ~ Guest Post for “Cake N Curry”
It always warms my heart to receive emails from my fellow bloggers for guest posts. I have known Pankthi for a quite some time now, when she used to the “techie mom”. But then, she took a break from blogging and then now is back with vengeance as “Cake and Curry”. I got an email from her asking if I would be keen on doing a guest post for her. Why wouldn’t I? I have loved doing guest posts and Alhamdulillah, in these five years of blogging, have never said “no” to requests that have come to me. I have been mentioning that I have gone slow on cooking, especially making desserts, though I still do on and off, mostly for family. When her email came and especially mentioning that she would want to start at the earliest, I as usual dug into my drafts. I still have…
Biscoff Cheesecake Tiramisu
Ah… now the third one for the 3 back-to-back Biscoff recipe series – the others being Cookie Butter Cake and Shrikand… This was not tough to choose and I had to keep it for the last. 😉 This Biscoff Cheesecake Tiramisu is a revelation to the say the least! I was on a tiramisu fix for a few months. All I would do was get the long finger and get making them. Hehe… Tiramisu is really addictive, isn’t it? Whoever agrees with me, please raise their hands! 😉 Now this isn’t an authentic Tiramisu since it doesn’t use mascarpone cheese. Instead it uses the thick cheese that comes in packs – call it Philadelphia or any other brand. So I decided to make it cheesecake style, but layer up dipped long finger in between as well, and what more, with a generous sprinkling of crushed Lotus cookies. As…
Cookie Butter/ Biscoff Shrikand
There was this post I was reading, and I thought I must share it here as I strongly believe in it: Sometimes, all it takes to cheer up a person is a kind word of appreciation of a good quality that he has. I feel that in today’s world, people have become really miserly with expressing appreciation. Even though by mind we may think good of the person opposite to us, we take a backward step in admiting it to them. What do we loose by doing so, I fail to understand. There are times when such an action from us is enough to raise that particular person from the throngs of depression into a positive outlook. Or it may have been a bad day for them, and that statement turns out to be a silver lining of hope for them. The goodness is many… let us…
Kayi Curry ~ Malabar Sweet Plaintain Curry
In Malabar, we cook a lot with plantains, aka kaaya, kaayi, nenthrapazham… it is known by various names. There are so many ways we recycle our ripe plantains – it becomes nirachathu, a part of paal vazhakka, a combination with kooka or semiya, tossed up with eggs or with aval or just with coconut, as a part of puttu or becoming pradhaman, and how can we forget the favorite way of many Keralites – pazhampori and if it’s for the Malabar, then it’s unnakkaaya! I guess I have noted down all the ways that I have tried them into my cooking, even though there are many more ways, which InShaAllah, I will . Every Keralite will stock up their homes with ripe plantains, mainly because they are a very handy breakfast when you don’t want to cook anything and gets transformed into a snack, for unexpected guests! Such a versatile…
Watalappam ~ Sri Lankan Jaggery Egg Pudding
As soon as the “Sinhalese Cuisine” theme was declared in the Blogging Marathon #84, the first and foremost recipe I wanted to make was the Watalappam, come what may! As I was chatting with Rizna for ideas for Sri Lankan food and I mentioned this one, she told me, “But that’s not Sinhalese?” Like I mentioned in the Kukul Mass Curry recipe, influences do make recipes not 100% “Sinhalese”. When Valli assured that we can do recipes that are prepared in Sri Lanka irrespective of ethnicity, my breath fell in place. Alhamdulillah, I could make the Watalappam finally! 😉 Watalappam or Watalappan is a steamed jaggery pudding, which sounds so similar to the kinnathappam made in our place, with the only difference being that the latter doesn’t use the coconut milk. It is believed to have originated from the Malays, who came to the country during Dutch rule….
Red Velvet IceCream Cake
Alhamdulillah, the blog is 5 today! I have written long posts every blog anniversary, but this time I will give it a break. 😉 I guess I am done with being emotional about the blog and look at it very practically from now on. 😀 As I go into this post, I want to share with you a little secret. I actually planned a super long post of the best recipe of each month since The BST started, yes, 60 months and 60 posts. But as I started working on the post and reached close to the end of the first year, I got so overwhelmed of selecting the posts that I decided to give it up halfway! 😀 I really couldn’t help it… So coming back to what I had originally planned for… This year, you may have noticed that the flow is broken. I am taking…