One thing I love about participating in challenges is that it does help you tick your to-do list earlier than later. Ever since I mastered the Creme Caramel, I have been wanting to make the chocolate version of it. I am a chocoholic and so is my elder one. When I had made the creme caramel, Rasha had told me, “Ummi, please try a chocolate version for this!” It’s been a long time since she said that, but when I was planning the Bake-a-thon posts, this request was right up there. I feel that my Creme Caramel is a slightly complicated recipe, so I wanted to make the chocolate version with just pantry essentials – milk, eggs, sugar and cocoa powder. But I was really nervous while making it, since my earlier simple versions have always flopped. I have already noted down that I need to make the…
Goji Berry Breakfast Cookies
If anybody enters my kitchen, they will think they have entered an office. I have a white board on the side of my fridge with full of scribbling, a cork board on one of my cupboard doors with lots of cut outs pinned to it and a sticker hanger with even more papers clipped onto it. Anyone new who comes gives a very curious look at them to see what I have spread on them. Obviously, they are recipe printouts and cut outs that I pin up so that I try immediately. That “immediately” has no specific time frame – it can be a week, a month or even years. But I must say that this recipe I am posting today didn’t have to wait indefinitely to be tried, thanks to the Bake-a-thon. 😀 I mentioned about receiving a small pack of goji berries from Zerin, while I…
Malu Paan ~ Sri Lankan Fish Buns
While I was trying to figure out what all I need to bake for this month’s Bake-a-thon, the first thing I did was to go through my Pinterest boards for ideas. However, it so happened that nothing went as per what I was planning to do. Interesting ideas kept coming in between and I kept changing my plans but then if there was one thing that I stuck to and did was to bake these buns called Malu Paan that I had bookmarked when I had dabbled a bit with Sri Lankan cuisine in an edition of the BM sometime ago – remember the Sri Lankan Chicken Curry? If you haven’t tried it, then please do! I don’t have a tuna friendly home, to say the least. I love it as a lazy meal and usually prepare it this way. It is the best thing you can get…
Simple Vanilla Muffins
After ages, we had a long holiday the past week due to the National Day. I had already scheduled the Khameer and the Apple Scone so that I wouldn’t miss out on the posting on the due dates. I had a lot of plans for the weekend. I had literally pushed my cousins into excitement so that I could have them along to go to Muscat. I have gone there two times already, however my trips have lasted less than 24 hours and I haven’t been able to explore the beautiful places around it. This time, I really wanted to stay three days, relax and move around for some long drives, some mountain and farm sight seeing and in general, just be calm. A break from your own surroundings is usually a good way to rejuvenate, when you are constantly under stress. The trip was planned in such a…
Eggless Apple Walnut Scones
Bake-a-thon is a yearly baking series headed by Valli during December and I have been a part of it for the past two years. There will be a total of 13 baking recipes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday till the month ends. Since the last post was more related to the UAE National Day, I thought I would rather move the details of the series in this post. 😀 You can find all the posts related to the previous years here. While the first year, I did random posts out of the burgeoning drafts, I focused on chocolate bakes last year, and this year, I am doing based on the theme of individual servings. Just like the Khameer I posted as the first one… As soon as I had started jotting out my posts for this series, I wanted to bake a scone, and somehow it had to…
Khameer | Emirati Yeasted Flatbread
This month, three days of the week, you will see posts related to the Bake-a-thon. This is a baking event that is conducted by Valli every year. I think I will leave more details in the next post, while today, I will celebrate the birthday of the country that gives our bread and butter… Every year, I have made it a point that I do a post for this day. December 2 was the day when this country was declared in its current known state. The country today completes 48 years of existence. We all know how much the young country called UAE, despite its diminutive area, has managed to come to the top of the world, due to its exemplary leadership, swift development and enthusiasm to soak in new technologies and innovation. 2019 was celebrated as the Year of Tolerance and through out the year, there were…
Aloo Gosht ~ Meat and Potato Curry
After posting the Batata Harra and Aloo Raita, here is the final potato recipe for this week’s Blogging Marathon #106 theme of “Pick one vegetable, cook dishes from three states/countries”. I have moved from Lebanon to India and now to our neighboring Pakistan to select a humble potato dish. In fact, this dish is cooked in Muslim heavy areas of northern India as well. My first tryst with Aloo Gosht was at a nearby Pakistani restaurant, adjacent to the building we used to stay during our school days. We would go there for eating their huge thick oil laden parathas and order sides of dal fry and this aloo gosht. It would look the same all the time – a dark brown color gravy with a couple of inches of oil floating on the top, which we used to pull out by dropping a couple of tissue on…
Aloo Raita ~ Potato Yogurt Dip
After the Batata Harra, here is the post no.2 for the Blogging Marathon #106 for the theme “Choose a vegetable, prepare three dishes from different states/ countries”. I decided to do three recipes from three countries, so after a Lebanese recipe, we come to our very own India. 🙂 If you thought potatoes are loved in my house, then I beg to differ. HD, I and B are the ones who love to eat potatoes. My girls scoff at it unless it is in french fries form. Believe me, I sometimes really admire my level of patience with them when it comes to eating – they are way too fussy. *leaving a cry out* Anyway, one Friday, as I was cooking fish biriyani for lunch, I wanted to make a different type of raita. The posts for this theme was pending and it was perfect time to cook…
Batata Harra ~ Lebanese Skillet Potatoes
This week, I am doing three posts related to the Blogging Marathon #106 for the theme “Choose a vegetable, prepare three dishes from different states/ countries”. I have no clue why I chose this theme, but I am sure it was with the good intention of making some nice vegetarian dishes for the blog. I first pondered around using eggplant as my ingredient and even mentioned three recipes I would try. Alas, nothing materialized and to make sure that I have posts ready for this week, I went with the easy to work with, world famous tuber called potatoes, which was incidentally Valli’s example for us to explain the theme. 😀 I was supposed to be doing another dish to start off these three weeks. But I skittled through last moment, and realized I only had saved up the pictures of this post in my pen drive. I…
Masala Pattani Kadala | Spiced Green Peas
Usually, I start to like posts with something that is happening in life, like maybe the weather, or some interesting happening. I don’t know why these days, life is a haze. It becomes morning, then it is the usual rush to work. Once work is done, then I go for my workouts and then reach home just in time to make something for dinner. Days just seem to be moving in super speed, from weeks to months. Before we even know, 2019 will come to an end, in fact it is almost close to. I did give a sigh when I noticed the date today. It hasn’t been a kind year, to say the least but Alhamdulillah for everything. We have survived through it and InShaAllah we will surely go ahead with His grace… 🙂 But something interesting has been happening and that is – finally winters are…
Pressure Cooker Chicken Curry | Easy Chicken Curry
I am wondering how should I start this post. Most of the time, these days my head is really blank. There has been a lot happening – good and ugly and my thoughts are all muddled up in that process, not knowing which way to think and keep my mood. But one thing I know – that what is destined, good or bad, will surely come our way, come what maybe. Sometimes thinking that way makes sense more than becoming tensed about what is going to come. I keep telling HD that we have always been relieved of the tensions we face, so maybe we just need to stay positive and hope that everything will settle, InShaAllah. Having said that, winters are slowly sweeping in and is releasing a very laid back air in all. I find it hard to do anything, forget about cooking. Even though I love…
Pazham Vaatiyathu ~ Malabar Caramelized Plaintains | Guest Post for My Sizzling Taste Buds
It has been a long time since I have contributed to guest posts. The last one I did was more than a year ago. So when I received an email from Kalyani, asking if I could do a guest post for her blog, I was obviously excited. I have mentioned before that doing a guest post literally feels like going with a dabba of home made food to the host’s house. 🙂 Kalyani had only one request, that the recipe would be a forgotten family recipe. I had a few ideas running up my head. But then, Malabar food is usually non-vegetarian and most of our snacks somehow have eggs sneaked into it. After brainstorming myself and digging into my deep memory recesses, finally I ended up making this Pazham Vaatiyathu aka Malabar style caramelized plantains. The recipe is so simple that I was worried if Kalyani would…