When we keep gap in between participating in challenges, it feels like a long time. I was thinking that I haven’t been a part of the Shh Cooking Secretly Challenge for a long time, and then realized that after participating in March for the pancake challenge, due to the current situation, there was only one month with a challenge in between, which I did skip. If you remember, I did mention that each of the participating bloggers get a chance to suggest a theme every month. For this month, Kalyani suggested that we make summer salads. Before I go further, Mayuriji has updated this challenge with a new logo from this month. It actually feels good to see a challenge thrive for a long time and get uplifts as well, such cases are a rarity now. From beginning with under Priyaakka, this challenge has traveled interesting paths and themes…
Easy n Creamy Mushroom Sauce
I think when you say “Mashed Potatoes“, automatically some sauce has to come with it. The highest probability is always for Mushroom Sauce, isn’t it? So let it be the second recipe for the three back-to-back junk food favorites for this week. My girls can’t stand mushrooms. I have no clue why. The day we make something with mushroom, they frown. I try to tell them it is a nice meaty vegetable that won’t make you miss the meat, but somehow it doesn’t go much with them. So when I was making this sauce, I was kind of sure that my girls wouldn’t have it. Anyway, since I was craving for it, I got to making it. I wanted to make a sauce with pantry ingredients. I didn’t want the recipe to be over complicated, with spices that we may normally not stock in our store cupboard. That…
Mashed Potatoes
It is good to see the surroundings opening up. With Covid 19 cases on a downward trend and the all facilities slowly opening up, people are slowly coming back to normalcy. Over the weekend, we went for a long drive. We did see a crowd, but we could generally sense that people aren’t still comfortable with eating food from outside or being outside for too long. Even we didn’t walk around for too long. First of all it is really hot and then having the mask on is the most uncomfortable thing in this weather. With the upcoming months going to be really hot, this is something we may need to get used to. Over the weekend, I was really wanting to make some steak and sides. But I am not very knowledgeable about the steak to be used for such meals. I did get thin steaks and…
Honey Kiwi Walnut Salad
I literally feel like I finished an assignment right before the deadline. Hehe… Before that, a quick look into the scenes out here. We have had an awesomely wet weekend, with heavy rains, that caused total water clogging in most of the parts of the city. On Friday, we took a drive towards the outskirts and seriously enjoyed the rains. However, on Saturday, it caused a lot of trouble, but that comes with the enjoyment, isn’t it? The girls had their madrassa closed yesterday, and have their schools off today, so they are pretty excited about what the rains have offered them. 🙂 The rains are expected to be on and off for this whole week. Thankfully, slowly it is feeling like winter, and I hope this chill stays well till March or April. It’s been long since I have participated in the AtoZ Recipe Challenge hosted by…
Salad Shirazi ~ Persian Cucumber Tomato Salad
The tenth of the month means it is time for the Muslim Food Blogger challenge. This month, the theme was something of so much interest to me. I had put up the theme with so much excitement, but somehow my mood slid and I struggled to put this post together. I can’t express how sad it makes me feel… 🙁 This month, we chose to cook from an Islamic nation and the country in question is Iran/ Persia. I love Iranian food and I have mentioned it in a few of the posts covering some of the recipes in that cuisine. I had planned to cook a few recipe, bookmarked them, printed them, bought the stocks… alas, somehow my mood just didn’t work and I had to settle for a simple recipe. At least I am happy that I am able to participate… Iran or Persia has…
Barley Pomegranate Green Salad
When you are working, you automatically wait for the weekends. Not that it is going to be your rest time, but somehow you will feel at ease. This week is going to be a long one, Alhamdulillah. I am not very excited, since we don’t have much of plans and I actually don’t want any plans too. Maybe just a long drive, or a movie with the kids at home is what I hope for. The mood to move out and have some fun time has somehow diminished now – I don’t know if it’s the catching up of age or something else. 😀 Coming to the recipe for today… It’s an Emirati style salad that I have adapted from here. What I love about this salad is that it has a lovely combination of healthy carbs in the form of barley, and loads of greens in it….
Warm Chicken Salad
Rasha is at a very peculiar age. She is on her way to 12 and sometimes I get jitters thinking that she is growing up so fast. But still, sometimes I see my little girl in her, always excited about anything that comes her way. Last week, we were having a chat as I was driving with the girls to get some grocery. She was talking about her English class. They recently concluded their exams and the paper had an essay to be written about “Kerala Floods”. The teacher commented that many of them just wrote a couple of sentences and ended the “essay”. However, there were a couple of students who missed to see the “l” in the “floods” and wrote very narratively about Kerala Foods. I am not surprised that the teacher said she had a rumbling tummy while correcting the paper during the midnight. 😀 I…
Healthy Chicken Caesar Salad
“Oh you who believe! Fasting is prescribed to you as it was prescribed to those before you, that you many learn piety and righteousness” (Surah Al Baqarah:183) Ramadan is on us, Alhamdulillah… InShaAllah, with the sunset today, it will start – the time when every aspect of our life is looked into and disciplined… Actually, I always feel that we limit our good deeds and discipline only to these 29 or 30 days. It is said that it takes 21 days to create a habit, so in case we sincerely want to create a good sustainable habit in ourselves, this one month should help us with it. After all, there is even a Hadith in this regard: Abu Huraira reported: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “Take up good deeds only as much as you are able, for the best deeds are…
Amrood Chaat | Guava Chaat
I discovered this guava chaat when we had gone to visit my cousin’s wife’s parents. She is the one who introduced me to those yummy chicken croquettes. 🙂 We had dinner from there and then her mother bought some huge Vietnamese guavas for us. They weren’t sweet at all, had a thick skin yet soft interior. We weren’t really keen in eating them. Sensing our dislike, her mother immediately took it back, chopped it into pieces and bought it back to our tables with all those sprinklings. Sensing it was red chilli powder on top, I was a bit hesitant. She pestered us to try. The first bite, and oh my goodness! I can’t explain the plethora of flavors that danced in my tongue! Actually, we ended up gobbling down that whole plate shamelessly. 😀 This is the time when the market gets filled with the large guavas….
Tabbouleh ~ Middle Eastern Parsley Salad
This month, being Ramadan, for the MENA Cooking Challenge, we were given a free reign. We were asked to choose any recipe that is normally cooked during this holy month in the MENA region. The first thing that came into my mind was salad – and of course, what better than Tabbouleh! One good thing about this region is the incorporation of a routine of soup and salad into their daily eating habits. You will see that before every meal, even in restaurants, a small serving of soup and salad is always provided. It is a mandatory part of their eating habit, unlike our Indian style of mostly having only onions as salad and never any soup! I have tried hard this Ramadan to introduce a soup and salad routine, but barring from a day or two, I wasn’t really successful, thanks to the heat in the kitchen…
Simple Quinoa Salad
It is the month end and time for the Shh Cooking Secretly Challenge! This challenge was initiated by Priyaakka and then moved on to be managed by Mayuriji. I must say that she is doing a good job keeping everyone motivated to participate in the challenges, even though the group is small. This month, the theme is “cool salads” since it is summer in almost everywhere in the world. I am teamed with Priya Satheesh (there are too many Priyas in the bloggy world! 😀 ). I admire her for all the innovative combinations that she comes up with, for almost all her recipes. This is the second time I am teamed with her, the last time being when I made the potato frittata. The two ingredients she gave me was avocado and tomato. I was fine with the tomato but avocado always gives me nervous…
Greek Salad
One cuisine that I would really love to dabble with is Greek cuisine. If you check out certain recipes of Greece, they have a high Middle Eastern influence in their food, which may be one reason I am so keen to try their food. There are a few that I have in my cut-outs, but when I will try them is to be seen. InShaAllah, hopefully I have many more years of blogging in me so I get to try some! 😉 Meanwhile, as a part of the last recipe in this month’s 3 back-to-back green recipes – the first one was the Coriander Chutney and the second Kiwi Green Grape Juice – here is a refreshing Greek Salad for you. There is nothing much complicated about this salad – lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes, onion, olives all mixed up together, some crumbled up feta cheese and a little seasoning…
Spiced Chickpea Mango Salad
Most of my cookbooks are instant purchases. I just flip through and purchase. At least buying that way has given me decent cookbooks compared to some of my online purchases that have literally made me cry once the books have landed in my hand. 😀 I guess I better not talk about them and move on with the book chosen for this month’s book review… 🙂 “Chilli Notes” by Thomassina Miers happens to be the author’s fifth cookbook. And she is no mean one – she is a Masterchef winner. I really didn’t know that when I picked up the book. 🙂 I picked it up from the Borders store at Mirdif City Center, along with the “Low Fat Baking Book” that I reviewed the first in the series. I don’t know what exactly pulled me to buy it but there were surely these factors: Hardcover – I…
Purple Cabbage Coleslaw/ Salad
Somehow, winter is stuck somewhere. It is already beginning of December and we aren’t getting the chills yet. Mornings are cold, but not cold enough to give you a chill across your spine. A drive in the evening still needs the a/c on in the car. It is not cold enough to go inside your blanket while sleeping. We have had an overly foggy morning this Saturday and today as well, so maybe it means that the winters are slowly coming. Last year, we had quite an early start to the winters and maybe that is why the expectation is a bit dampened this year. Since it is not very cold, it is quite comfortable to be outside, for walks, for just those simple outings. At times I wish HD would be fine with going out just like that without an agenda. He feels I am being too nagging…
Egg Mayo Salad
We had the Sharjah Book Fair at the expo center for 10 days. Last year, I had so much of will power that I came out without buying even a single book for myself. To compensate for that, this time, I picked up so many, adding on 13 books to my shelf. 😕 I really don’t know if I need to be going to a de-addiction center to get rid of my cookbook addiction. There was a time when I used to love watches and rings, this has weaned away. Then it became shoes and bags, which then gave way to abayas. Everything has now settled and moved way to a really expensive addiction of cookbooks! Cookbooks in this part of the world don’t come cheap and getting them at a real bargain is a rarity. So you can imagine my excitement when I picked up books like Simply…