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…
Easy Milk Pudding with Cashew Praline | China Grass Pudding
After the Quick Jelly Mousse Pudding recipe, here is the second post towards the three back-to-back super easy desserts. I must stay that this is one among the oldest drafts I have on my blog. I started my blog six and a half years ago, and finally this recipe makes its appearance, amidst a lot of requests on how to tame china grass or agar agar. I already have a few agar agar recipes on the blog but they were posted in the initial years of blogging. Somehow, even though I find working with agar agar far better than its non-vegetarian replacement called gelatin, I am not very fond of the jelly consistency it gives to its dessert. I love desserts with a mousse-like structure over the hard jelly types and I always prepare desserts in that category. It was only lately I discovered that my girls love…
Almond Butter Maple Granola
Waiting for a break is something that we all do. We just look forward to it, don’t we? Last year, we had decided to take a year off going home this year, since it involves too much of pressure financially. After all, four people travelling up and down to Kerala during the peak season is no joke. If you combine all the money spent on tickets, wardrobe updates, gifts and chocolates, etc, you can go on two international trips to decent countries. I am not joking about it. For an average middle class family, the daylight robbery that every airline does during the school closing time does put a lot of pressure on their budgets. Somehow, despite so much hue and cry, this practice repeats year after year. Since the number of people travelling home at that time doesn’t seem to diminish, I guess the authorities see no…
Roasted Coconut Cashew Ice Cream
Some challenges are really irresistible, so much that you will make time to somehow prepare it and post it. Ever since Sarah posted that this month’s theme for the Fantastical Food Fight is going to be “Ice Cream”, I have been dreaming about it. We had previously done the same theme exactly two years ago and I had posted this ice cream, which is so similar to what I am posting today! Initially, I was thinking about making butterscotch popsicles that I had bookmarked from a site. But then when I messaged Sarah, she mentioned to stick to making an ice cream. Then my mind was constantly screaming “Salted Caramel and Chocolate”. Of late, I have been obsessed with salted caramel. I really do not why. I have never liked caramel or its flavor before but now I have taken a liking towards it. I still can’t understand…
Honey Labneh Pannacotta with Honey Walnut Sauce
If you think I am going overboard with challenges these days, then please feel free to think so! 🙂 Next month, I am travelling home, so I am going to leave an empty blog behind for you, but making sure that there is plenty to read and explore for all of you out there. I am participating in the AtoZ challenge this month. The challenge is hosted by Vidya and Jolly, and happens every two months, where we follow the alphabets, cook with an ingredient that is supposed to be the star of the dish. You can find the challenge posts done previously here. This month, the letter is “H” and the ingredient I chose to cook with is nothing but “Honey”. I am sure there is no home that doesn’t have a bottle of honey hiding somewhere in the pantry. Apart from being a natural sweetener, it…
Peanut Butter Brownies
This Sunday night, my girls went home. I was under so much stress over this past week due to this. I had few sleepless nights and thanks to that, I landed up with a massive headache. I must blame myself for not doing complete research before I took the tickets. My elder one is 12 and is automatically now an adult as per ticketing terms. Based on this, I booked both of them together, only to realize that for the eight year old to travel, she needs to be accompanied by an adult who is 16 years and above. I did try through all my channels to see if there were any family travelling on the same flight, but I received no good news. Once we went inside the airport, we realized that everyone was scattered and that made it even more challenging. HD was trying to keep…
Besan Kheer
For the Blogging Marathon #101, while I was deciding to make a sweet dish for the theme “Cooking with Besan”, my first intention was making some barfis or laddoos. I was planning to make it during Eid, since my cousins would be around and it would be easier to finish it off rather than make something that I am not sure my children would eat. But that didn’t happen. During the mad rush of those five days, time flew and I was still left with the task of having to make a sweet dish with Besan. I do make besan ka doodh occasionally, which is a hot thin concoction of milk and besan. That was when it clicked me, that there must be a kheer in those lines. My guess wasn’t out of place. Besan Kheer is prepared during the winter seasons in Punjab and some North Indian…
Kashmiri Chicken
We are having a long week ahead of us. Government offices and schools are already closed from Thursday on account of Eid holidays, and the private sector gets their holidays from tomorrow. So we basically have a one day working week, which sounds like fun. 🙂 The only problem is when we come back to work next Sunday, our emails may be a barrage to be sorted out. But I guess when you get a long holiday, you shouldn’t be bothered about work. We hardly get long weekends here, so this is definitely welcome. The climate is not very conducive for outdoors so we may stick to being at home, mostly. I really wanted to visit my best friend who is in Muscat on visit, but then His plans are otherwise and I just have to be reconciled with the situation, Alhamdulillah. After all, if everything happened exactly…
Pistachio Milk Cake
The last ten days of Ramadan always feels sweet and sad. Sweet – because the Almighty has promised the highest of rewards whoever does his good deeds and gets through the Night of Qadr. “We have sent it [the Quran] down in the Night of Qadr. And what may let you know what the Night of Qadr is? The Night of Qadr is much better than one thousand months. The angels and the Spirit descend in it, with the leave of your Lord, along with every command. Peace it is till the debut of dawn” (Q. 97). Sad – because the month is quickly coming to an end before you could even enjoy it completely. This Ramadan has been really hectic. I have been working on a few things this month and it has literally drained me. I have been having late nights almost everyday. But I have no…
Mocha Almond Fudge Ice Cream
While I made the Mango Kulfi and the Jack-fruit Ice Cream to fulfill my “blogger mind desires”, this ice cream was fair and square made for the girls. Whenever we go to Baskin Robbins, I always end up taking Jamoca Almond Fudge. I just don’t look anywhere else. It is my standard choice. Now my girls have started following suite. The elder one moved her favorite flavor from Praline and Cream and the younger one has graduated from the bizarre colored ones like Bubble Gum (yikes!). They have been telling me since ages to try this flavor at home. I knew it wouldn’t be hard to replicate, but then it is more work that other ice creams. I have to roast and chop the almonds. I have to make the fudge sauce. I have to do a little bit of work in between to get it done. Oh…
Dry Coconut Rava Laddoo
Taking my time to do challenges is really helping me breathe well and choose what I want to do on the blog. I am really enjoying the phase, to say the least. With life getting tougher by the day, we need to adjust our priorities and while I still keep my blog close to my heart, I am going really slow and loving the process. This month, after a couple of months break, I got back into Recipe Swap which is now hosted by Mir. In this challenge, we are assigned a blog, which we dig into and choose a recipe that we would love to cook. This month, I was assigned Usha’s blog, which is one of my favorite discoveries after being in the Blogging Marathon. I love her neat, crisp pictures and her simple recipes. Just like her blog name, she features a lot of savory…
Chocolate Hazelnut Spread | Easy Homemade “Nutella”
I had mentioned regarding my tryst with my one and only pack of hazelnuts in this biscotti post. I also did mention that I used up the rest of the hazelnuts in trying to make one of the most loved spreads in the world. Of course there is no point for guessing, it has to be Nutella, right? 🙂 I must confess I am no Nutella fan. I belong to the category who can’t stand eating Nutella, condensed milk or Biscoff from the spoon. I may eat Horlicks or Boost but not these. I really have no reason why. Sometimes, our aversion has no explanation, isn’t it? But I love using them to cook or bake. Here are a few Nutella recipes on the blog, among which my personal favorite are these super easy puffs with banana – so delicious that you must try them for your children….
Chocolate Persimmon Overnight Oats
I haven’t done overnight oats in a long time. So when I saw Sarah’s information email saying that this month, the theme for the Fantastical Food Fight would be “Overnight Oats”, I just wanted to participate. I love overnight oats and since I have been on a quantified eating of late, swapping my rice with oats was usually not a preferred option, so oats had to take a limited offering at times. I don’t know how better I can explain this. 😀 Anyway, there were this persimmons that I had reserved to try this muffin recipe for the Bakeathon that concluded last month. However it didn’t happen, since I had no mood to bake them whatsoever. Happens, right? I just wanted to eat them rather than cook with them. Hehe… Then I thought, why not I use them in overnight oats? I decided to make a chocolate version,…
Paal Vazhakka ~ Malabar Plantain Sago Dessert {Version 2}
Isn’t it such a relief to see a white colored post after an overdose of brown posts in the past month? 😀 At least, I am feeling so much relief to see a change. Hehe… Another year has started, and we inch closer to our end in this world… Does anybody think of it that way? We celebrate each year with so much aplomb, not realizing that every moment that goes by means that we are losing a chance to better ourselves. There is so much that can be written with this regard. But seriously, I am in no mood to write. My head is buzzing with so much that I am feeling tired. I don’t know if it is good or bad… 🙂 I will leave it at that and move on to the post for the day… I have already shared a Paal Vazhakka recipe earlier,…
Rocky Road Bites
I could have moved away from the chocolate theme, while doing today’s post for this month’s Fantastical Food Fight challenge. Sarah had messaged us that this month, the theme would be “Candy”. It is obvious because December is considered to be a sweet month and candy is surely a part of it. After a little bit of confusion, she clarified that candy could include fudge, squares, bites, anything that looked like a candy. I was initially planning to sit out of the theme, since I am not much into candy making. The time I had baked the Fudge Brownies for our school meet-up, I wanted to make something else for the kids. My eyes fell on the pack of marshmallows that Azza had finished 80 percent and wouldn’t eat the rest since it didn’t appeal to her anymore. It always happens, isn’t it? They want everything but then…