I have always written very long posts for almost all my milestone posts on this blog. I have celebrated the blog birthdays, and then each time I achieved a number of posts on the blog, etc. Of late, I stopped celebrating. It started to make no sense to me. Should I say that they started to mean nothing to me? As this post goes live, the blog has completed 6 years old. I should have posted day before yesterday, but I wasn’t in a mood to clog up the posts on the blog. I wanted to give the posts some time, and myself some time too… Last year was a fight of sorts. I fought to keep my spirit of blogging. I fought to keep going. There were so many reasons to it. I started the blog as a diary of recipes for myself, and then it slowly…
Malted Nutella Bread Pudding
With due permission from Valli, I decided to move yesterday’s Bakeathon post to today, since I didn’t want it to clash with the MFB post. I somehow don’t like the idea of having more than one post a day, though I have done that a few times in the past, but not with a full heart. This time, I made sure I asked Valli and as soon as I got the OK, I just went ahead with scheduling the post on the next day. 🙂 The recipe today is an amalgamation of a lot of factors – leftover bread getting stale, wanting to finish a bottle of Nutella nearing expiry date and then not liking the bottle of chocolate flavored Horlicks that I had bought. Horlicks is actually my cheat meal. Especially with nights getting quite chilled now, I always wish for a warm drink before going off…
Banana Cocoa Waffles
The feeling of emptiness is a real tough one. After having a chirping noisy house for the past one month, and a back breaking crazy sessions over the past 12 days, my house is empty. Yesterday afternoon, my kids left for their vacation along with my parents and then at night, my sister and her son bid farewell. It felt all too soon… The house looked so deserted, with everything just left as it is. Today, I have to slowly start putting things in place and make the house look like how it did before. I am looking at the whole thing positively. Last year, my kids and I were apart for more than 5 weeks, but this time, it is shorter. I will be travelling by month end, and it’s not that far away. Moreover, it’s a good time to get back to my routine. The past…
Mutta Urapichathu | Paal Mutta Urapichathu ~ Malabar Egg Pudding
Malabar is the home of so many delicacies, that are slowly moving into oblivion. I am trying my level best to collect, try and post as much as recipes I can, but I believe I am so lazy to work on especially the recipes that need some level of hard work. 🙁 So at the moment I am trying to concentrate and do more of the easy ones, and InShaAllah, as time goes, I will get onto the easier ones. But my task is clear – get in as much as our traditional food on this blog as I can. I got this recipe from a group, and why wouldn’t it attract my attention? I love egg based desserts and this sounded so easy. Most of the desserts in Malabar are steamed or cooked on low flame, like the polas – check out the carrot pola, podi pola…
Podipola/ Kumsi ~ Malabar Plain Cake
Today we are on day 10 of this precious month. That is the first part getting over by today evening. The Prophet PBUH has said, “It (Ramadhan) is the month, whose beginning is mercy, its middle, forgiveness and its end, emancipation from the fire (Hell)” The days of mercy are coming to an end and we move into the days of forgiveness. He is always ready to accept us, as long as our intentions are clean. May Allah have mercy on us and make us among those who receive His forgiveness… Aameen… This is the fourth time I am being featured on Lubna’s Ramadan event, which is entering into its ninth edition this year, MaShaAllah… I cannot express how happy I feel each time she invites me over this lovely space of hers. I still remember how much I couldn’t believe myself when she invited me the first…
Mint Milk Ice Pops
After the Chocolate Popsicles, here is the second one! I am not a big fan of mint as such, but I do love its aroma and it’s flavor. Off late, I had got hooked onto mint choco-chip combination and especially love the Lindt Dark Chocolate Mint – OK, now I am off all that for the time being but I have the right to let my mind wander aimlessly over my past love, right? 😉 One day, I landed up with a bunch of mint leaves and I didn’t want to let them get spoiled. While searching through Google, I stumbled upon this recipe and put it to try almost immediately. I was actually apprehensive if I would be the only one eating it, since my kids are more bend towards chocolate than any other flavor. Still I went ahead thinking that if nobody eats it, I would…
Chocolate Blueberry Pudding
Blueberries are something that I started buying thanks to blogging. And it has got me hooked to it for sure. I have been noticing that they are available in the market and that too at a very good price, so each time I go grocery shopping, I pick up a couple of packs. A little goes straight into my mouth, some into smoothies and some into recipes like this one! 🙂 In one of the weekend magazines that comes with a local newspaper, they had a group of recipes called “Old Style Desserts”. There were some lovely retro style pudding recipes with equally tempting pics but my eyes fell on this dessert that I had to make due to two reasons – CHOCOLATE and then I had blueberries in my fridge. I quickly got making it and I must say that initially, I was a bit distraught as it…
Queen of Pudding
As I was sitting and browsing through some of my old pictures, I found this particular quote in them. There is something with old pictures, isn’t it? It reminds you of moments forgotten, or that have gone to rest in the recesses of the mind, some that can give you ecstasy, while some that can give you a tinge of pain. 🙂 Whatever it may be, at the end, we still keep a smile, as we know that life is meant to move on and sometimes those moments have already made sense to you now, or even if they haven’t, you have gained the wisdom to understand that very soon, you may find out. I have already posted a Chocolate Queen of Pudding on the blog before. This is just one without any chocolate – or the original version, I would say. 🙂 I feel that if…
Butterscotch Bread Pudding
I guess those who follow this little space of mine know how fond I am of doing guest posts. If any blogger asks me for one, I cannot say “no”. It is not my nature. Sometimes, this character can get misused but Alhamdulillah, Allah has been kind and normally I haven’t had trouble as such personally. But definitely at times, when the “no” is the only way out, I have made sure that I have put my foot down and say it! 😀 However, I guess this does not apply to my blogging experience… 🙂 This happens to be my 36th guest post… That is quite a bit in the past almost three years of blogging, but I love the affection that I get from this little fraternity who have accepted me wholeheartedly into the stream of things. 🙂 I have known Nusrath before the time she turned into…
Layali Lubnan ~ Lebanese Semolina Pudding
A long overdue guest post, which I finally managed to finish off… 🙂 It is always a pleasure to be somebody’s first and I am so glad that I am gracing Sherin’s space as her first virtual guest… 🙂 Sherin had asked me for a guest post not less than three months ago. I was totally packed – Ramadan, Eid, travel, then home sickness. Having foreseen my schedule, I requested her for time. And she granted the same. I had also mentioned that I would work on the same in September. Even though I didn’t forget about it, the task I had agreed was pushed to a corner as I battled with home sickness, kids getting back to school and me getting back to work. Alhamdulillah, I settled in quite fast thanks to the kids and then I suddenly remembered that Sherin’s request was pending. So finally I guess the time has come… She was already a guest…
Saffron Egg Pudding
A little slide that I saw on Yasmin Mogahed‘s FB page and thought made a lot of sense… Some recipes tempt you to try them immediately as you see them. One of them is the recipe I am sharing with you today. Having to visit a cousin and a cousin’s wife, both of whom were pregnant at that time, I was lost as to what to make and take for them, as they normally enjoy anything sweet that I make. That was the time when I saw this recipe and it just stayed at the back of my head. An easy recipe to put together, the only minus point is the waiting time for baking and cooling! Totally delicious, I packed 80% for the expecting moms who loved it and we at home fought over the 20% that I had hidden in the fridge. Time to bake a batch…
Eylanchi ~ “Love Letters”
I was wondering why this snack never appeared on the blog! Hmm… this happens to be one of HD’s favourite chai time snack. I don’t know how much he loves it but whenever we have sudden guests and he runs down to the restaurant to get some snacks, he would pick up a few of these. The restaurant ones would be so sweet that the guests wouldn’t eat it much, however once they are gone, he would happily sit and have them. Umma would also make them each time she would run out of ideas for tea snacks. I don’t understand why they have a tag name “Love Letters” – may be it is because of the sweetness hidden inside a normal cover! 🙂 There is another interesting name for this snack in my place – mayyithappam. “Mayyith” actually means dead body… grrr… I would always tell umma not…
Kinnathappam ~ Malabar Jaggery Egg Pudding
I was really happy when Remya approached me for a guest post. I must admit that she is one of the simplest characters I have come across in blogging. No frills attached, and I literally mean it. She is a person of few words, though I love that she is very frank with her comments on the blog. She comments on almost all my blog posts and that too very generously. I must admit that because of this character, I have a little soft corner to this beautiful lady! I wanted to make something traditional for Remya and I sincerely appreciate her patience to wait for almost three months to decide what to make for her. In our area, “Kinnathappam” is usually an egg based pudding, though in majority of Kerala, this name is used for a cake like disc made of ground rice and other ingredients, made either sweet or savory. I searched…
Mango Entremet
Food blogging opens up a lot of avenues which I would have otherwise never ever tried… Maybe that is one reason why I love blogging – it helps me get over a lot of my fears and become more confident with my cooking and baking skills…. The idea of entremet would have never come into my head, had it not been this post. I am a member of a wonderful group called Fondbites, which is a bake along every week. The mastermind of the group, Suhasini keeps coming up with wonderful bakes every week and it is amazing how everybody so enthusiastically participates! If you are keen, you could hope into the FB page and join in! There is no compulsion to bake, however seeing the bake alongs she comes up with, you will be automatically tempted to! Hehe… I have been slow in baking since I am trying…
Kaayayum Muttayum ~ Plaintains with Scrambled Eggs
There is something magical in the word “Alhamdulillah”. We, as Muslims, are to remember His name in whatever circumstance and “Alhamdulillah” basically means “By the Grace of Allah“. One of the major tenets of our faith is belief in Qadr (destiny). Whatever happens in our life, good or bad, does not happen without His Knowledge. Whatever happens does happen for our good. If He gives us something or snatches away something, we are not so intelligent to understand the wisdom behind it, but InShaAllah, time will tend to prove and it needs patience. I have always noticed that at times when I feel mentally down and somebody asks me “How are you?”, I say “Alhamdulillah” and a very strange calmness encompasses my mind. Somehow, that mood disappears and I feel that there is someone above who is going to take care of my insecurities. Definitely, it is one of the…