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…
Cheesecake Granola Dessert Jar
I was really thinking of posting this on V-Day but I don’t celebrate it, then why should I wait till then! 😉 This was my attempt to salvage a failed attempt at making the wobbly cotton cheesecake. It wasn’t wobbly, nor fluffy, just an awfully sweet mirror of a cheesecake. Thankfully I had made a small portion, but still didn’t want to trash it. It was then this was born. I just had a small quantity of chocolate granola left which wasn’t sufficient to make up for breakfast. That is when I layered them into a glass bottle, stored it in the fridge for it to settle and had it as dessert. It was amazing. The cheesecake and granola paired so well, though I was a bit doubtful initially. Moreover, they looked really pretty as well. I couldn’t stop taking pictures of it… Hehe… If you…
Mango Bread Pudding
Bread is something that is in my pantry at any given point of time, so the love for bread puddings comes naturally! Whenever I am lost as to what to make for dessert for the weekend, or have a pack of bread getting stale because I picked up an extra one without much thought, or I have a failed bread attempt, it immediately gets converted into bread pudding! 😀 How many like me, please raise your hands! A little search for “bread pudding” on the blog, will throw up a few options. Also this baked french toast was born in similar fashion. While placing the posts for the Bake-a-thon, my eyes chanced upon this amazing bread pudding I had made sometime ago and that left me wondering if I was posting this at a time when there are no mangoes, at least here. I was wrong in my…
Be My Guest – Cranberry Cobbler Dump Cake
The third Saturday it is, and time for a new guest on the blog! Would you believe we are almost closing on this year? 2017 has passed away in a jiffy… I really don’t know what to tell as far as the movement of the year in concerned. I am glad that I was able to restart the guest posting series in the middle of this year, and till now, we have had a new guest every month. 🙂 So coming to the guest for this month… I guess Ria of Kitchen Spells came by very naturally into the blog. I have been wanting to ask her to guest post but thought maybe I wasn’t ready for it more that she would’ve been! I dropped a message on our little Whassup group and within minutes, I got a message from her wanting to guest post for this month! 🙂…
Usbu Al Zainab ~ Crunchy Cheese Fingers
It is the tenth of the month, so time for the Muslim Food Blogger Challenge! Last month we completed a successful one year of this challenge, and here we are now entering into our second year, Alhamdulillah… We decided we must start this year sweet, and I had no other better option to choose than “Arabic Sweets”. The Arab world is filled with decadent, drool-worthy, tough-on-the-waistline options for sweets. Most of the desserts are very rich in every sense – either you have a lot of use of cream, loads of nuts, drizzles of sugar syrup, so on and so forth. But it is definitely an indulgence that you wouldn’t mind having and have trouble with stopping too! They are so tempting that saying a “no” after one bite is really tough. Even though I enjoy them on and off, I haven’t been really successful in making them…
Aseeda Bobbar ~ Emirati Pumpkin Wholewheat Sweet
Wishing my second home, UAE a very happy National Day #46 – Spirit of Union… I have been in UAE almost whole of my life. Even though my passport is Indian, the decision of my parents to educate us here and let us go through our life here, has caused this special attachment to this country. It’s been more than three years since my parents have said their “bye” to this country, but it doesn’t stop them from coming at least twice every year to not loose touch with this country. D’s friend’s have all retired and have gone back home, but he still wants to come and see around how life is. Life was much simpler when we were growing up. The fast paced growth of UAE at the advent of the twenty first century has changed the total face of the country. It is…
Tropical Trifle – Guest post for Love To Cook
Tropical Trifle – when you hear the name, what comes to your mind? 🙂 All tropical flavors, right? Trifle is one of my favorite dessert to make when I have a lot of guests coming. It is one of the oldest recipes on the blog (which deserves an uplift, but I am waiting for a party type gathering plus some extra time to photograph!) and I was really wondering why I never made variations and posted, apart from the Black Forest Trifle in cups, and yes, the Mango Trifle as well! This trifle screams tropical – coconut in every bite along with pineapples and cherries. The whole point is that it is so easy to put together and doesn’t take too much time. Just assemble everything, push it into the fridge and let it set during the time you concentrate on the other tasks on hand. It is…
Be My Guest – Dessert Taco with Twix Cream
I hope you are feeling glad to see the guest post series coming back to a normal schedule. 🙂 I am enjoying it a lot! I am glad that I restarted the series and getting the interest of lovely bloggers who will be gracing this space during the coming months, InShaAllah… so do stay tuned! 🙂 Meanwhile, this new kid on the block was due since July! I wanted her on board as a guest during Eid-ul-Fitr but Ramadan and her vacation spoiled our plans. Nonetheless, I left it to her to come back when she feels ready to do it. I believe guest posts have to be a relaxed affair. The host in the form of myself and the guest have to be comfortable with the arrangement. I also knew she would really not let me go with my request. While back home, we had spoken to each…
Be My Guest – Steamed Bread Pudding with Caramel
Just like I was excited about last month’s guest post, the same level of excitement follows for this month too! It feels lovely to get a “yes” from bloggers who have been doing this for longer years than you. It shows how humble they are in their attitude and quite explains their success too. 🙂 Julie’s blog is also one among the earlier ones I followed while I started blogging. I love how she starts her posts. They start off very innocently. She doesn’t share so much about herself but whatever she does, you can sense a humble and down-to-earth person being behind the blog. I eagerly wait for her recipes and go through them, since most of them are very “naadan” (country style) recipes and I keep pinning up most of her recipes! Hehe… Some of the recipes I really love on her blog are Ragi Ela Ada,…
Apple Pie Pudding
Time for the third post in the “Apple Desserts” theme for the Blogging Marathon #81. I was helped by my drafts for the French Apple Cake and the Apple Kiwi Smoothie, but I had decided I would do a fresh post for the third one. Somehow after coming back from vacation, my head has not been working well. Moreover, life has been so hectic that I find it difficult to even cook properly, forget clicking. Even on weekends, I just want to relax, so my mood is never touch my camera. But this third draft was very much playing in my head and I had to somehow finish it. During the Muharram fasting week, I made an apple based recipe for breaking the fast, however I couldn’t shoot it in day light. I wouldn’t have bothered about the night clicks – there are plenty on the blog! – but…
Chocolate Avocado Mousse
I sometimes wonder what makes good food bloggers stop blogging. There are many that I follow that have successful blogs and have been consistently blogging for many years, but there are some who have left it midway due to so many reasons. Sometimes I wish to ask and know why, but everybody has their personal reasons to keep aside their hobbies. I feel that for many, food blogging starts like a click. It just happens, just like it happened with me too. As you go ahead with blogging, you start realizing that getting people to read your blog and continuously keep coming to it is not easy. In fact, it is a lot of hard work plus a few flashes of good luck! I still haven’t got it, since I am not able to give time to promote my blog as much as I find time to do my…