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…
Instant Mango Kulfi
It’s been ages since I have worked on a 3B2B series for the blog. Somehow, my drafts have been dwindling and I haven’t been getting three posts that would fit into a theme, so I had thought to give the series a rest. 😉 But this month, because of the heat wave, I ended up making two back to back frozen desserts and one was staring back on me from my drafts, so bingo! I had three posts ready to be give a little life to that series. As you may have guessed, you will get to see three back to back ice-creams or frozen desserts, whatever you would like to call it, to beat the blazing summers! Last month, B traveled home for a few days and he came back with a whole lot of luggage, including mangoes and jack fruit. I am sad to declare that…
Dry Coconut Rava Laddoo
Taking my time to do challenges is really helping me breathe well and choose what I want to do on the blog. I am really enjoying the phase, to say the least. With life getting tougher by the day, we need to adjust our priorities and while I still keep my blog close to my heart, I am going really slow and loving the process. This month, after a couple of months break, I got back into Recipe Swap which is now hosted by Mir. In this challenge, we are assigned a blog, which we dig into and choose a recipe that we would love to cook. This month, I was assigned Usha’s blog, which is one of my favorite discoveries after being in the Blogging Marathon. I love her neat, crisp pictures and her simple recipes. Just like her blog name, she features a lot of savory…
Be My Guest – Strawberry Kesari
The first guest post for the year 2018 is here. 🙂 InShaAllah, I am looking at doing this series non-stop for the whole of the 12 months. Wish me luck! 😉 Meanwhile, today I have a blogger who is one among the first bunch I followed when my cooking craze started. Initially, her blog was called En Veettu Kitchen, which means “the kitchen in my house” in Tamil and then slowly she “camped in her kitchen“. I always wanted to ask her whether she actually had a camp in her kitchen. Stupid question, right? 😀 A very versatile blogger and an even more jovial person, she has a blog full of interesting recipes and bakes. Of late, her interest has been in learning frosting techniques and some of her latest cakes, like this one, had some really pretty work on it, that it is hard to believe that she…
Bread Jamuns
The third one in the series of the three back-to-back “Instant Indian Sweets” series, after the Kulfi and Rasmalai, is this quick fix Bread Jamun. If you ask me, if I have a recipe of Gulab Jamun on my blog, then it’s a “no”. I have never tried it on my own. I have always mentioned that Indian sweets gives me jitters, which I am still not able to get over. I have to give myself time! But Vinee had come over with a recipe during her guest post, and also I had tried jamuns with potatoes! Just for you all to check… 🙂 Coming to these bread jamuns, they are very easy to get done, but can be tricky as well. If you knead your bread dough too hard, then you will have hard bread jamuns that will refuse to soak up the sugar syrup. So treat…
Instant Rasmalai
After the Instant Kulfi, here is the second post under the theme “Instant Indian Sweets” for the three back-to-back series. I warn you, this is a photo intensive post. The dish was so photogenic that I couldn’t stop clicking and more than that, I had difficulty in choosing the pictures that would appear in the post, so instead of raking my head too much, I just went ahead and included all that I could into the post! 😉 So it is Ras Malai today, but the cheat version… 🙂 The ras is partly made of milk and condensed milk, which is boiled for some time till it thickens slightly. Usually, the balls in the ras malai are made from paneer, kneaded, first cooked in sugar syrup and then dunk into the milk base. But who has time for all that? Here, the balls are made from…
Easy Kulfi
It’s been a long time since I have done my three back-to-back series. Since I am a part of the Blogging Marathon of late and it operates on a similar idea, I refrain from doing an additional one, simply not to crowd up my feed. This month, I took a break and hence it was the best time to come over and do this series for the month. I have been wanting to do this since September but something or the other kept popping by and I kept delaying it. Finally it’s here – and it is “Instant Indian Sweets” as the theme! Indian sweets are always thought to be time consuming, so here are three back-to-back recipes, which will break off that myth. 😉 You know how much I love shortcuts. 😀 I have already made kulfi the hard way, ie. standing and stirring a pot of…
Gajar Ka Halwa ~ Carrot Halwa using Condensed Milk
I can have gajar ka halwa any time. It is one of the best sweets to have warm with a big scoop of ice cream, or who has the time to scoop out the ice cream, anyway! 😀 I already have an array of carrot halwa recipes on the blog… The traditional Gajar Halwa – the way I make it and love it! Gajar Halwa in the microwave if you are short of time or maybe some patience! If you are scared of using too much ghee, then here is the Tarka Gajar Ka Halwa… Nowadays, condensed milk is considered to be an indispensable part of our pantry, especially to make quick desserts. Even if I don’t want, I will still have a couple of tins in my pantry for emergency purpose. At times, I use up a part of my can while making Habbat Al Hamra for…
Be My Guest – Orange Saffron Sheera
It’s been some time since I have done the guest post series. This year, so far, I had featured a few guest posts which came to me as requests. Slowly, I may reintroduce this segment in full scale though I am still undecided about it. I have loved each and every guest post that has graced this little space of mine and I really wouldn’t want it to be laid to rest. I would rather keep it alive with a staggered presence as much as I can. Having said that, you must be wondering why I am here on a fourth Saturday when it was supposed to be on a third Saturday. 😉 While working on this post, I forgot that this month has five weekends for us (here, weekends are Friday and Saturday) – in fact it started with one, and ends with one! 😀 But I was…
Semiya Payasam ~ Vermicelli Milk Dessert
Assalamu alalikum to all my readers in this beautiful month of September! Hope you all had a wonderful Eid-ul-Adha celebrations. If you would like to read more about this festival, then do check out this post! I already have a pressure cooker version of semiya payasam on the blog, but this one is old school – needs some time and patience, but the end result is sweet! 🙂 I am not sure if anybody hates semiya payasam. I have a couple of cousins who don’t like this payasam, and I find them to be really weird. When anybody says “payasam”, the first thing that will always come into mind is semiya payasam, as it is easy to make, with easily available ingredients and basically, no-mess. Just like how you need to be while making the sago payasam, you have to cook enough that the vermicelli looks transparent, the…
Thari Unda ~ Malabar Semolina Laddoos
Malabar has so much variety of food that sometimes it is so difficult to bring all in one fold. Despite blogging for four years, my aim at collecting as much as Malabar recipes at one place seems to be moving at a snail pace, mainly because there is too much to explore! It seems to be a never-ending pit, however since I have taken the dive, let me go deep into it. 😉 Thari Unda is nothing but Malabar style semolina laddoos. While the North Indian version is loaded with ghee, this version is without even a drop of it! These undas are made by mixing roasted semolina into sugar syrup and rolling them into balls before the mixture hardens. The process is a pain. The heat of the mixture can cause burned hands, so it is something that is not very frequently made at home. I…
Mango Kesari ~ Mango Semolina Sweet
Mango season is slowly disappearing and I am really feeling sad about it. What is making me even more sad is that I have not been able to eat the best of mangoes. Somehow the produce that have arrived in the markets this year haven’t been really nice. Either the mangoes looked raw or they looked sad. 🙁 The only mangoes I really relished were a couple of batches of Badami ones that I got from our nearby hypermarket prior to Ramadan. We are slowly starting to get Pakistani mangoes and I am really looking forward to eating some of it, to make my soul happy… hehe… I love kesari, so I had to try making kesari with mangoes. I have to first invite your attention to the color. The brightness of the yellow for your kesari will purely depend upon which mango you use. I have used…
Be My Guest – Vermicelli Cups with Kesar Rabdi Mousse
It is the third Saturday of the month. Days are being replaced by weeks and weeks by months in quick succession. It is with a tinge of sadness that the days of Ramadan are moving at such a quick pace, that you wish you could hold on to it for longer. Alas, that’s not the case… We are now in the throngs of the final ten days and very soon it will be time for celebration, and then… the feeling that follows is an unexplained emptiness, as though something precious has just left from our hands… We all go through this every year during Ramadan and this time, it is not going to be different… Prior to Eid, I thought why not have somebody to come over on this space. I felt nobody was as apt as Nusrath, who blogs at “The Food Factory“. If you remember, I had…
Aamras ~ Sweetened Mango Puree
After the Mango Custard Verrines, I thought of choosing a very traditional and simple recipe. Aamras is nothing but mango puree. In the north, during the mango season, mango is pureed and stored in order to use it for the future. Aamras is usually served as a dessert or even as a part of a main meal. My colleague P (do check out her Bombay Chicken Biriyani and Mangalore Chicken Sukka!) would tell how amazing a combination aamras is with pooris. Yes, I have heard about it too, but somehow was never convinced, thanks to my South Indian roots. 😉 We can never mix sweet with savory. But since we had the Balaleet experience and were converted, I was somehow confident that this would work too. Aamras is the best to be made the day before. Allow it to cool and the flavors to mingle, to taste…
Dulche De Leche Shrikand ~ DDL Yogurt Dessert
I was just thinking to myself how long it has been since I have shared some motivational quotes or even thoughts on the blog. Sometimes the head doesn’t work, as simple as that. Especially when things are going smoothly, Alhamdulillah. At times, we feel routine is boring. We wish something extraordinary would happen. Good surprises add joy to the otherwise mundane life, but what if the surprise decides to take an ugly turn? Nobody would like it. Nobody would be able to accept it as soon as it happens. Once it slowly settles down, then you start absorbing it and accepting it, believing that things will turn better. So till I don’t have any surprises, good or bad, I am Alhamdulillah happy with my life. Frustrations are there – very human like – but I try for it not to interfere into my current thought process. 🙂 Sharing…