I have been off from work since Eid and I don’t know whether I am relaxed. I have been facing this dilemma for quite a long time now. This leave wasn’t very much away from work, since some days I have had to settle up a few things but over the last week, I made it a point not to entertain anything from work, so that I would feel like I am having a break. This time, since we haven’t gone home, we have been trying to go around over here and visit places, like Hatta. It has been mighty hot and extremely humid, but we have been loving the long drives. HD hasn’t been very much a part of it as usual, but sometimes I wonder how much can I drag him in. He is not keen on long drives and I am trying to not get him…
Cheese Samosas
For the final recipe for the Blogging Marathon #115 under the theme “Monsoon Delights”, after the Urulakizhangu Bonda and Brinjal Fritters, here is a samosa that is perfect for lazy heads like me. 😉 As much as I love making samosas, preparing the filling is one that makes me feel really lazy to make them, the other being shaping them. *Please don’t judge me – ahem!* I already have a recipe for make-from-scratch samosas as well as a lazy muffin cup style baked samosas on the blog. If you hate the shaping part, then these chicken cheese pockets are perfect, as they are easy to shape and good looking too. 😉 This recipe uses a filling that only needs a bowl and fork along with the ingredients and your regular samosa wraps to get it done. How easy can that be! Cheese samosas are something that the Arab…
Baingan Bhaji – Bringal Fritters
For the Blogging Marathon #115 theme of “Monsoon Delights”, after the Urulakizhangu Bonda, it is this super simple fritter made with brinjals/ aubergine/ eggplants – call it whatever you want! 😉 We had this huge brinjal sitting in our pantry not knowing what is to be done with it. That is when SIL suggested we make some fritters with it. We have initially thought of cutting it into roundrels and making it like pakodas but then changed the plan to make it a little different. This post is solely her creation and idea of making it. 🙂 The eggplants we usually get here are quite huge. You can cook one for the entire family! This one we used was no different. It was cut into rectangular sticks so that it would feel meaty in each bite. The recipe has no complicated ingredients, so you can just mix up…
Urulakizhangu Bonda | Aloo Bonda ~ Potato Balls
Time for two weeks of the Blogging Marathon this month too! By now, you would have figured out how much I love doing the Blogging Marathon whenever I can. I always tell Valli how much the two weeks makes me feel really energized and looking forward to trying new recipes and doing posts on the blog. I am really thankful that I am finding it easier to do posts and things seem to be in a nice flow now, though I wouldn’t want to get over excited about anything at the moment. 😉 This month’s edition is the BM #115 and this week, the theme I have chosen is “Monsoon Delights”. I have been going home every year for the past six years. Every year, we would think of not travelling, however at the beginning of the year while fitting in the plans, going home comes in automatically. Staying over…
Orange Cranberry Scones
There are time when challenges are due and I get excited about it coming up, just like how I felt for the current month for the AtoZ Challenge, hosted by Vidya and Jolly. Even though I haven’t done all alphabets due to many reasons, I love participating in this challenge a lot. You can find all posts related to this challenge in this tag. This month, the alphabet in question is O and the ingredient I have chosen for this challenge is “Orange”. Now, thanks to Covid and all the talks about how good Vit C can be for the virus, oranges and Vit C effervescents have suddenly become in so much demand, and expensive as well. Hehe… I have always loved oranges, just to eat it like that or in desserts, most of the time. Be it this self-saucing pudding, these yogurt popsicles, these yummy biscottis or…
Eggless Lotus Biscoff Brownies | Cookie Butter Brownies
So just like that the Eid holidays are over. This year’s Hajj was very special. Unlike having millions every year, thanks to the Covid, there were only blessed selected 1000 pilgrims from various nationalities residing in KSA were selected this year. Unprecedented, in all terms… When Hajj was supposed to be cancelled, it still went ahead with all the rituals. I can’t imagine how the selected ones must have felt to be selected during this time. It has been more than six years since we had gone for Umrah and everything is very fresh in our mind despite not having any pictures with me regarding those 10 days that we spent in the journey and going towards Madinah first and then to Makkah. Umrah is nowhere near the rituals of Hajj but the whole experience of seeing the Kaabah and the Masjid Nabawi with one’s own eyes is overwhelming,…
Kayikkante Biriyani | Kayees Style Biriyani
For the last three years, we have been celebrating Eid-ul-Adha back home. “We” means the kids and me. HD would still be here. I was never keen on Eid celebrations back home because the only one that I could remember when I was a kid was extremely boring. As children, we had some of the most amazing memories about Eid over here. The Eidgahs, the stay over at ammayi’s house, all the eating, talking and giggling, etc. made up our Eid celebrations. As we grew up and moved into adulting, it has changed, but Eid is still Eid and we try to see what best we can do. But the last three Eids back home have been really interesting. With going to the Eidgahs in the school grounds, to walking home the long way with all the aunts in slow motion, chatting and enjoying the green views while walking…
Sarlas / Challas ~ Kerala Pickled Onions
When you have a biriyani recipe coming up and an accompaniment is one of the best part of it, then it has to mandatory come before it on the blog. 😉 I was contemplating whether this needs to be on the blog, since it is hardly a recipe. But the whole point is, this very simple dish with a funny name is something that I adore when I am being served biriyani at a wedding or at a hotel back home. I am not a person who like to eat raw onions, for the obvious reason of bad breath that it gifts you after, that doesn’t even go with chewing gum or brushing your teeth with the strongest toothpaste at home! But somehow, this humble onion salad can be had in a little bowl as the biriyani gets wiped up. In fact, I love this sallas and the chammanthi…
Sugiyan / Sukhiyan | Green Gram Jaggery Dumplings
HD is a huge fan of Tik Tok. He can continuously keep watching videos on it at any time. I do not seem to enjoy it much and I get irritated when I see him wasting his time on it. At times, he shares videos to my Whassap. There was this video which had two dogs. One was constantly barking on the other, the barking dog was referred to as ” the wife” and the silent dog “the husband”. :/ Then, one comment below it from the Mr., “Don’t they remind us of ourselves?” Yeah, right… At times, he would send me some interesting cooking videos he would see, and among one of them was the Sughiyan. I was in the kitchen, when he screamed out, “I have shared a video, watch it!”. I usually don’t watch all that he shares. I am not an avid video watcher…
Easy Chicken Curry {Using Curry Powder}
I am not a fan of spice blends picked up from the supermarket shelves. I would rather have individual spices in my pantry. Each brand has its own distinctive taste, actually making it difficult to like one. The only masala powder I pick up is the chaat masala and then on and off, a pack of Madras curry powder. I am not sure why I pick it up, but I love that smoky smell the spice mix gives when you open the dabba. Unlike most of the curry powders which are in a plastic pack sealed inside a box pack. the Madras curry powder always comes in a tin. I have read somewhere that they use this curry powder a lot in Emirati cooking, likely due to the influence of South Indian cooking on the local cuisine here. With the current batch I have, I used them in the…
Bull’s Eye Egg Curry | Potticha Mutta Curry
There is a reason why I specifically chose “Bring on the Curry” as the theme for this week’s Blogging Marathon #114. During the lock down period, my SIL and I would break our head thinking what to try for dinner. It is a multi-million dollar question all the time, isn’t it? Like many, a lot of my time goes trying to decide what to cook instead of the actual cooking. It was then I discovered umma’s notebook while rearranging my kitchen shelves. She had noted down some recipes that she had seen on TV and actually had cooked them a couple of times. I have already tried a few recipes from the book, and this is one of them. Many more will come in due course, InShaAllah… I always wish I am a bit more organized with food plans. Umma used to be like that. She had a…
Mixed Vegetable Sagu | Karnataka Style Vegetable Stew
For this week’s Blogging Marathon #114, when Valli published the themes and I saw “Bring on The Curry!”, I picked it up right away. I struggle with making curries especially for dinner. For lunch, we have a standard rice-curry-fish-stir fry combo, that is still manageable, but for dinner, to keep the folk’s interest, it is a tough task. Anything non-veg gets accepted with gusto but when it comes to vegetarian fare, I have a roller coaster ride. I guess anybody with a carnivorous family would agree to this. So you can imagine my excitement, when I made this sagu and it got wiped up from the plate. Such a joyous moment! A sagu is a rich gravy that is very specially made in Karnataka, usually eaten with set dosa or pooris. When you go through the list of ingredients, you may figure out the richness. The coconut and…