Alhamdulillah, so far I have been having a good time organizing the 3 back-to-back posts. I am glad I have received some very good responses for the series as well. Since from last month, I have started the book review series too, I am planning to space out my series from the new year, InShaAllah. I may move the 3 back-to-back to becoming a bi-monthly series and making the book review a monthly one so that my books move in the shelves and don’t rot! 😉 Let’s see how it goes… I would love to keep my blogging journey as stress free as possible, so I have to make sure that I don’t fall into too many plans at the moment! 🙂 OK, so what do we have in store for this month? I guess when you saw the title of today’s post, you must have got a…
Persimmon Pistachio Lassi
My favorite fruit is back in season! But I always wonder why I have so much difficulty finding it in the markets here. 🙁 Usually HD’s staff goes to the main fruit and vegetable market to get stuff but despite explaining it to them, they were not able to trace this fruit. A couple of weeks back, I found it in one hypermarket which is quite far away from home. I had to go there for checking something, but didn’t find it, but that disappointment was offset when I found a big box of persimmons staring at me while simply loitering in the supermarket. Hehe… I must admit that I ate almost the whole box all by myself. HD must have eaten just one and B didn’t even bother to eat it, even though he likes this fruit. Two got pulsed into this delicious lassi as well. All you…
Kashata ~ Coconut Peanut Sugar Candy
Time for the MENA Cooking Challenge! This month, it was Djibouti, as unheard as the Comoros Islands, which was our October assignment. Djibouti is a tiny country located in the Horn of Africa, covering an area of a little over 23,200 cubic km, sharing its borders with Eritrea, Somalia and Ethiopia, with one side facing the Red Sea. The inhabitants are primarily Muslims and Arabic and French are the major languages spoken, apart from Afroasiatic languages. Due to its strategic location, it is a buzzing commercial hub and is site for various military bases. Djibouti cuisine is highly influenced by foods of Somalia, Yemen, Afar and French cuisine. Meat and fish are a staple part of the food. We were given three choices to make – Wat: a gravy made of meat and vegetables, Sabayaad: a layered flat bread which looks so close to our parathas and Kashata: a…
Pomegranate Pistachio Pilaf
I don’t know how many mothers have felt this way, but at times, when I look at my children, I feel, “Are they really mine?” 😀 I always wonder why I feel that. Children are an amazing mish-mash of chromosomes of generations in ourselves that come out in manifestation. Indeed, He is great, Allahu Akbar! Rasha was born looking like HD but now she looks like a splitting copy of me from every angle possible! Even certain mannerisms are like me – laziness, liking the egg yolk and not the white on a sunny side up, etc. 😉 Azza is a literal melting pot of so many people – umma, mattamma, a part of HD… The best part is both of them are as different as chalk and cheese, in every way! Maybe because of the difference, they literally drive me up the wall. Sometimes when they wreck havoc,…
Date Cashewnut Brownies
Like many, baking is therapeutic to me, but only if it would not make me feel so off with my weight! 😀 I have been on quite a low off late, especially since I have come back from vacation. I have been really struggling to get back into schedule. Either time is moving too fast or I have become slow – it is one of them. Thanks to this “lack” of time, the first thing that got docked off my list was baking. Not because I don’t enjoy it, I love the feeling of baking a lot and I miss doing it. But at times, I struggle at home to finish my bakes. Most of the time, it is me who is finishing it. If it is chocolate, Rasha is fine but otherwise she won’t touch it. Azza is really unpredictable – most of the time she acts as…
Grilled Pineapple Pecan Overnight Oats
Time to write about the weather! Come October and my favorite part of the year starts. This month and the next are the best for all sorts of outdoor activities – barbeque, beach, road trips, just about anything. You can shun the malls and be out more. The sun doesn’t hit you hard even in the afternoons, which is such a joy and relief, Alhamdulillah. Even though we haven’t moving out much recently thanks to HD’s packed schedules, I am already looking at options to go on for the coming months – some long drives and trips that will keep the kids engaged and will free up our minds too. InShaAllah, let’s see how it goes… 🙂 Meanwhile, coming back to one of my favorite lazy breakfast – the overnight oats. I have already shared a few on the blog previously and today what I have is just…
Pear Almond Cake
Have you ever tried baking with pears? If not, then you must! Very soon… 🙂 My first attempt was this delicious crisp, but somehow I never went beyond it until this recipe occurred. The recipe appeared in one of the Friday magazines. I have this feeling – that if a recipe catches my fancy, then I think about it every time – in my walk, in my talk, even in between my sleeping! This continues till I finally decide to bake it, irrespective of how long it takes for me to do so! This recipe tormented me for so long till I finally bought some pears only for making this cake. The kids and I love the soft pear, which literally melt in the mouth. If we buy the hard pears, it languishes in the fridge. But umma and mattamma (my grandmother) loves them, so whenever they get their…
Dates Granola Bars
I was thinking of giving the 3 back-to-back series a break this month as well, like I did in August, but while simply browsing through my drafts, the idea for what I need to do this month hit me and here I am with it! 🙂 Since I have been a vegan for five months, I have always looked at various ideas to satisfy my sweet tooth. I am feeling so amazed that there are actually ways of making sweets without having oodles of butter, eggs and milk in it. I have already shared some bakes on the blog before and will continue sharing more in the future, InShaAllah. Though I have now got back to having milk into my diet, my curiosity to try and make more vegan desserts is definitely not going to lay to rest for any time sooner. So this time it is three back…
Rose Flavored Yogurt Mousse
One of my favorite things to do now is pulling out a random cookbook and going through it during my sleep time. Once the kids are tucked into their bed – that’s a different story altogether! – I look into my bookshelf and pick up one, it maybe a full fledged cookbook or a magazine that I purchased sometime back and then take that along with me to my bedroom. I spend 15 minutes browsing through and folding up pages of recipes to try soon. Those folded pages are alas getting more and more day by day, hehe… Talking about putting kids to sleep – I sometimes wonder why kids don’t love to sleep these days. True, during those days, our alarm – read, my umma 😉 – would ring up by 9:30 pm, pushing us off into the washroom to wash ourselves and change and by 9:50…
Carrot Pistachios Mini Cakes
My last two posts were typed and scheduled in advance. I was somehow sure that the long weekend would leave a hangover on me and I wouldn’t want to do live posts. So the hyper blogger is me just typed it out and placed it on schedule. 😉 I wouldn’t say we had a fantastic Eid. We were mostly at home. The day of Eid was loaded with cooking, since HD decided to call in some impromptu guests and I was caught off guard. With just a couple of hours and a little more to finish the whole process, it was indeed a struggle but thankfully HD was of good help too. A big pot of Thalassery Mutton Biriyani, along with a roast chicken, and the normal sides – raita, chammanthi, onion soaked in vinegar and store bought pickle, since my trial of Kadumaanga (a Malabar raw mango pickle)…
Kheer ~ Indian Rice Pudding
We are having a long weekend in this part of the world. The government departments and schools reopen only by next Sunday, so that’s 9 long days, though I, like many working in the private sector, go back to work on Wednesday. Since it’s just two days, I don’t think many would mind it. 🙂 Since holidays are very rare here, everybody looks forward to them, to plan their travel trips. Many go home, many go for a quick vacation, and many more enjoy staycations over here itself. With the climate getting slightly better, everybody is looking at taking maximum advantage of these days. From my side, we have no plans. Somehow I feel that’s also good. Yesterday was super boring. The kids and I were at home. Though I planned to finish up the laundry, we ended up watching long hours of Food Network and then finally slept…
Sharjah Shake
The name is intriguing, isn’t it? Yes, even I was intrigued… When we were kids, we used to have long trips with a whole bunch of relatives. Uncle (my aunt’s husband) is a total foodie so we were guaranteed that we would get non-stop eating all the way from start to finish. I still relish those days when we used to stand by sides of the carts – so lovingly called “pettikadas” (literally translates as “box shops”) serving hot dosas or porottas and beef varatti (roast), and hogging on them like crazy! Not to mention of how much the next day, we would be flat on the bed, in and out of the washroom – so typical of “Gulf kuttis”! 😉 But still, that wouldn’t stop us from eating, hehe… All that has come to an end now. D doesn’t like to eat much from such outlets, and HD…