By now, you may know I am a very impulsive cookbook buyer. Anything that catches my attention makes its way to my book collection. Most of the time I buy them through online sources, so usually it’s the reviews that get me through to the books. I must say that it has landed me into trouble by getting my hands onto really useless cookbooks. That’s a totally different matter… “The Jewels of Nizams” was one of my online purchases last year. I loved the way the book looked from the out, and then the phrase, “Recipes from the Khansamas of Hydrebad” really pushed me to get it through. The book is authored by Geeta Devi, whose other popular book is “Dastarkhan-e-Mughlai: 101 Easy to Cook Hyderabadi Recipes“. The book is done by Roopa Publications and the first edition released in 2013. In the introduction, the author does say…
Mary Berry’s Marble Loaf
Sometimes I forget about the last Saturday of the month, and then all of a sudden, it hits me that it is time for the book review! This time, I decided to choose a baking book that was purchased due to my admiration of the pretty woman in “The Great British Bake Off”. I don’t know if I sound lame but I never knew there was a program by that name till the news that Nadia won the title in 2015. It just kept making rounds on Facebook so I got down to watching the show on YouTube and I so loved it. It now comes under the list of programs that I binge watch when I just want to be crawled up on the couch! My eyes constantly went onto the warm and calm looking Mary Berry and I started searching more about her, only to know how…
Easy Rasam
The last Saturday of the month means it is time for a book review! Starting this series has been making me keep myself on my toes and go through the cookbooks I have with me to cook something and review about it too. Just this month, when my parents came, they lugged along in their baggage five more that I added to my collection, despite promising to myself that I wouldn’t get more. 🙁 So much so for promises… My girls, especially Rasha, keeps cribbing on how many cookbooks I have. Rasha gets irritated because I turn down her requests for more books and don’t allow HD to get her, even though they always manage to get things done through my back. I keep telling her that ummi is buying the books from my hard earned money, and at your age, you should be thinking more of borrowing and…
Cook Book Review – “Bake it Sweet” by The Cooking Doctor
This review has been overdue since long. Those who have been reading my blog since long may know about my admiration for Jehanne, who is more known as “The Cooking Doctor”. She was one of my first guest bloggers when my blog was hardly anything and I also had the chance of being a guest on her space, not one but two times. Unfortunately, with time, she never resurrected her blog for reasons best known to her. I must say that I dearly miss her space but I respect her decision and wish her all the best. Earlier, she had done four mini cookbooks, which I had reviewed it here. We would chat occasionally and have shared a lot of talks between us. I was aware that she was working on a cookbook and was having her own problems related to it. After having been with her through…
Chocolate Crinkle Cookies
I am excited to be doing the review for a very cute and interesting upcoming cookbook! Miranda Couse, who blogs at “Cookie Dough and Oven Mitt” is releasing her cookbook called “The Easy Homemade Cookie Cookbook”, which is up for release on October 31 and up for pre-booking on Amazon. Since I am a pretty lazy cookie maker but a lover of cookbook reviews, I decided to jump at the opportunity and get it going. The book is published by Rockbridge Press and contains more than 150 recipes of classics, occasion special and other American favorites. The book starts off with a lovely introduction about how Miranda started the whole process of working on the cookbook and she dedicates it to the two cookie monsters in her family – her husband and little boy. The book then moves on to mentioning the essentials required for baking, and…
Cauliflower Gashi ~ Mangalore Cauliflower Curry
It’s the last Saturday of the month and time for the book review! This is one segment I am trying to ensure that I continue with it, so that I get a chance to touch all my cookbooks. 😉 I hope you are all enjoying the book reviews, since I do get a lot of questions about the cookbooks I own and my opinions about them. I guess this answers a lot of those queries. 🙂 This month, I thought I will come back to a book that is one of the early cookbooks I bought. “50 Great Curries of India” by Camelia Punjabi doesn’t need much introduction. Like the name suggests, the book includes fifty recipes from various parts of India. The book is published by Motivate Publishing, which is based in UAE. I bought this book during the Sharjah Book Fair way back in 2012. It…
Baked Custard (and a Giveaway!)
One fine morning, I received a message from Papatia, who runs Djaribi Books, which specializes in Islamic books for kids and adults in the USA. They have launched a new book called “Halal Comfort Foods” and she asked if I would be interested in reviewing it. I was more than happy to do it and hence responded back with a “yes”. Couple of weeks later, I received a pretty parcel which actually had more than the book itself! It came with some nibbles, which were thoroughly enjoyed by ourselves over tea. 🙂 Why the book? USA is said to have the most number of reverts into Islam. More than the inclination to the Shahadah (the Oneness of Allah and accepting that Prophet Muhammad SAW is His messenger), it entails a total change in lifestyle for reverts. That change includes in food as well. Food as a total is…
Bangala Dumpa Kurma ~ Andhra Potato Curry
It is the last Saturday of the month, and here we are with the book review! Since I have quite a lot of cookbooks – small and big – it is a task to select one for the month. This time, I decided to review “Southern Flavors – The Best of South Indian Cuisine” by Chandra Padmanabhan. The reason why I went for this particular book was some very favorable feedbacks from vegetarian food bloggers. They swear by her books for authentic south Indian cuisine. Apart from my own cuisine – which I am still learning! – I do not know much of our neighboring state food apart from the masala dosas, vadas, idlis and sambar, which we have adopted into our eating habits. It was this quest that made me buy this book and make it my own. I purchased the book through Amazon India and got…
Chocolate Peanut Butter Mug Cake
Last month, I decided to give the book review segment a miss as the last Saturday coincided with the starting of Ramadan. We are almost ending Ramadan now, and looking forward to Eid – which basically means the morning prayers, the get-togethers, the family meetings and lots of good food. 🙂 While we look forward to it, I thought let me leave you all with the review for this month, while InShaAllah, will come back with more recipes after our little break. We all love small treats once in a while, don’t we? Especially when we crave for a cake, but don’t want to make a whole cake or share it with anybody else, then we do prefer going for mug cakes. They are really quick to make, satiate your cravings without tempting you to go for more again, which isn’t the case if you make a whole…
Majboos Dejaaj ~ Emirati Chicken Rice
Did you miss the book review last month? Or you haven’t? If it’s the second case, then you haven’t been reading the blog properly. 😛 Jokes apart, last month, I gave this segment a miss since the Blogging Marathon post collided with the last Saturday. Since I had to choose BM over the book review, I let it go for the month. Here I am this month, making sure that I don’t miss it. 🙂 I am pretty much excited about the post I am doing today. As you know, I am on a mission to collect as much as local cuisine as possible. Having resided in the UAE my whole life, I feel ashamed that I haven’t been accustomed to local cuisine as much as I would have wanted to. But those who have come here would agree to me that local food is not readily available,…
Hummingbird Bakery Blueberry Muffins
It is already the last Saturday of the month! Wow! I thought doing once a month would be a cake walk, but coming to see, the one month itself passes off in a jiffy! 😀 You can see the previous book reviews here. Most of the book adorning my shelf seems to be baking book, and that too with a majority of sweet bakes. I don’t know if it is a matter of pride or shame. Hehe… Today, I chose to review this little book that I have in my collection. Everybody must be familiar with Hummingbird Bakery, which is like a must-go for cake treats in London and how famous their bakes are known to me. I have gone to their outlet in Mall of the Emirates sometime back with the kids. While the kids enjoyed their cupcakes, I gorged down on their pistachio loaf along with…
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…
Iced Chocolate Mousse
A few weeks ago, I had posted a live video of Rasha trying to help me with this mousse on my personal FB timeline. From then on, I received a few requests for the recipe that she tried, or she started to try and then left in the middle, I must say! 😉 I was not intending to do this recipe any earlier on the blog, but then, I thought, since the video had gone live, why don’t I use the opportunity of making this post appear earlier, in the form of a book review? 🙂 Today’s book for review is “Hamlyn All Colour Cookbook 200 Delicious Desserts”, written by Sara Lewis, printed by Octopus Books, UK. This book is a part of a collection of books with 2oo recipes. This was one of the books that HD picked up for me from this year’s Sharjah Book Fair…
Uralakizhangu Musakhan ~ Malabar Potato Fry
It’s the last Saturday of the month, and I am here with a book review! InShaAllah, I am trying to make this segment as regular as possible, so that my ever increasing collection of cookbooks are touched and cooked from. 🙂 Being from the Malabar side, I have always been intrigued to learn more about the cooking there. As I have always mentioned, the cooking done in my part of Malabar is very limited. When I got married and moved to Payyoli, I was surprised by the different types of food they would cook up in a matter of minutes! I still haven’t posted many of what I have learned from there, but as time goes by I will cook it up and feature them on the blog, InShaAllah. It is a passion of mine to collect as much as sources I can of Malabar cooking as available….
Orange Honey Bread
I have a lot of cookbooks. I don’t know if it is a big collection, but yes, from my perspective, it is quite a lot. I keep adjusting space to accommodate them in the little book shelf that HD got done to keep mine as well as the kids’ books, but with the way it is going, I may have to ask him to make another one for the kids. 😛 As of now, I have literally put a stop on my buying. In the past three months, I have bought only one cookbook, which is an achievement, taking into account how impulsive I am. 😀 The Sharjah Book Fair is coming up next month and I am chanting to myself – “no more cook books”!!! Hehe… That was when I thought, why not I do cookbook reviews? I have enough of them to do for a few…