This post is long overdue. Let me tell you why… I rarely receive requests for recipes. Many bloggers write on their blog that they try recipes due to requests received, but somehow, I have never received requests as such. I always receive mails and messages about the recipes that are already on the blog or what they have felt after reading what I have penned down in my moods, but never a request for a recipe. Believe me, I have no complaints about that too…. 😀 But, I have a very faithful reader. One day, I got an email from her, saying how much she loves my blog and how, as a newly married staying with her husband, with no relatives in Bangalore, has made her browse through my blog, search recipes and try them. Each time she tried them, they turned out amazing – Alhamdulillah! Slowly that…
Bagara Baingan ~ Hyderabad style Eggplants in Peanut-Coconut Sauce
I guess we all would love to travel some or the other time. I would love to travel, however having a spouse who is not very keen to go around and prefers to be stuck more with his work doesn’t make it a possibility. In turn, B keeps travelling on and off. After an expensive trip to UK last year, he took a break for six months to recoup and then travelled to Hong Kong and Tunisia this year already. My fridge is slowly filling up with his magnets. 😀 My girls keep cribbing that we go nowhere. I just tell them to be patient and InShaAllah, we will go someday. Travelling with a family isn’t cheap though, but with loads of options now, I guess we all must plan in at-least one trip a year, even if it maybe by skipping the trip back home. After having talked…
Tamatar Moonge Ki Phalli Ka Salan ~ Tomato Drumstick Stir Fry
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…
Bhindi Do Pyaza ~ Okra Onion Stir Fry
Hasn’t it been ages since I shared a quote on the blog? Hmm… So let’s break the ice! I have been in this kind of a feeling for quite some days now. Life does get very stressful even though you want to take it slow. Sometimes, you really don’t know how to go slow too… That’s the condition I am in at the moment. With having started working out, weekdays are really hectic. I get home late and don’t know how time flies before I finally hit the bed. The best part is I sleep like a log, waking up only when the alarm rings. 😀 Anyway, at times, I don’t seem to like the fast pace, but I am trying my best to put less pressure on myself. InShaAllah, some day I will be able to go on with the slow pace of life… 🙂 Sharing with…
Jaisalmer Chana ~ Black Chickpeas Yogurt Curry
I have never known cooking black chickpeas rather than in this way that we make for puttu. This curry was a perfect discovery for my lazy bone. Apart from the cooking time of the chick peas, the whole curry comes through in hardly any time. Jaisalmer is a small town in the northern state of Rajasthan. I have read that Rajasthanis love using chickpea flour, known as besan, in many of their dishes they cook. It is no surprise that yogurt is added to this curry, since Rajasthan is a hot place with high temperatures – boasts of India’s largest dessert too – and yogurt is one calming, cooling food for sure. Apart from the soaking time for the black chick peas, there is hardly any cooking involved. There is no onion or tomatoes in this recipe, so you don’t need to do any chopping. The spices and…
Panchmel Dal/ Panchratna Dal ~ Mixed Lentil Gravy
At times, when I am typing my posts, I really wonder if anybody reads blogs these days. Unless and until you know the ways of getting the blog into public eye, usually it feels like a very hidden and protected section in the world wide web. The WWW is also a deep pit, so in between all the floating blogs, everybody is fighting for the same space and similar audience. It really makes me wonder why I am still blogging. The readership doesn’t improve and nobody seems to be interested in commenting too, and that includes bloggers! When I had started blogging, the blogging community used to comment on my posts and there are times when I had so many comments to respond back to, but now it is quite countable. I don’t know if it is a point to feel low on, but definitely blogging is not what…
Shahi Malai Paneer
My posts have been just popping up as per schedule to the current Bakeathon, so I haven’t been posting any recent happenings as such. My parents came around late last week, Alhamdulillah and will be with us for a month. They have come in time for the girls’ school closing for winter vacations by this weekend. They are already really loving their time with their grandparents and literally driving them nuts the time they are at home. Hehe… I have also decided to take a month break from the gym so that I can get home as soon as I can after work and spend some time with them, InShaAllah… However, as much as there is sunshine, things are looking pretty bleak on the other side. Life is never expected to be a smooth ride anyway, right? “And We will surely test you with something of fear and hunger…
Bandhakopir Tarkari/ Dalna/ Ghonto ~ Bengal Cabbage Potato Curry
I used to always crib how boring a vegetable cabbage is. The only we have eaten it when we were growing up was in the form of this upperi. Blogging has allowed me to explore ways of using up this vegetable in ways other than the upperi. That is when I ended up discovering the cabbage capsicum masala and the chana dal sabzi. This is another way that I found out that belongs to our Bengali counterparts. A Bengali ex-colleague would say that Kerala and Bengal are similar, in terms of communism, fish and coconut! To some extend, I do find it true. I have been really tempted to try some of their foods but never got a chance as such. Let this be my first one and hopefully the start to many! I love that the cabbage is paired with my favorite potato and potatoes can never…
Matar Makhana Malai ~ Creamy Lotus Seeds Peas Curry
Food blogging tempts you to pick up new ingredients – all the time. We keep reading so many blogs and various recipes that sometimes some ingredients just sit in the head. Makhana or lotus seeds was one of them. It all started when I saw the picture of the roasted makhana in a group. My interest was immediately piqued. Reading through the discussions, I figured out the ingredient and set searching it in the aisle at the hypermarket close by. I was glad to find it without much difficulty. Half the pack got roasted with a little chilli powder and it disappeared. It felt like we were having a healthier version of the popcorn! Makhana is supposed to be a power house of iron, magnesia, potassium and a lot more minerals and hence is one of the best snacks that could be taken especially for weight loss. InShaAllah, will…
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…
Makai Paneer Bhurji ~ Corn Paneer Scramble
Making my kids eat paneer is a headache. They don’t like it at all. Rasha says it is too blank, and yes, if not cooked properly, it doesn’t have much of a taste. That explains why I hardly have paneer recipes on the blog. But once while we were watching Chef Harpal’s show on FoodFood, he cooked up this dish. My kids love his show, especially when he starts singing “Namak Shamak, Namak Shamak, daal dethe hain…” 😀 So while this show was going in the background, Rasha asked me if I could make this for dinner. I was a little shocked, since she shows her paneer dislike very evidently. I guess she was more interested in the corn. Anyway, happy that I got a chance to try something with paneer, I made it the very same day. First of all, it takes hardly any time. The taste…
Marag Alkhadaar~ Kuwaiti Vegetable Stew
If you regularly read my blog, last year, during this time I had gone for a 10 day treatment for my body pains. I have mentioned it in this post. During the stay, I had become pally with a Kuwaiti lady who had also come for her treatments. I hadn’t seen her during the initial days of my stay, but then I met her at the passage, and we stuck up a conversation. She was so relieved to know that there was somebody who could converse with her in English! 😀 After the initial meeting, whenever she would feel bored, she would knock at my door and get chatting away for at least an hour, till her husband calls from their room. For me, it was a good time pass, since I also had no company other than my books, the phone and the TV. During our chats,…
Cabbage Chana Dal Subzi ~ Cabbage Chickpea Lentil Stir Fry
Cabbage is a pretty boring vegetable. The only way I like to have it is in the form of this stir fry for rice. Sometimes, I end up buying a big one and then forget about it in the fridge, and one fine day, when it stares back at me, I wonder what to do with it. It was during one such incident that this recipe was discovered. Here is another one to be added onto it when you are looking for inspirations to cook with cabbage… Channa dal aka chickpea lentils or bengal gram goes amazingly well with any vegetable – a perfect example being the lauki chana dal sabzi. This recipe was a trial in similar lines, just that cabbage is more of a scoop-able vegetable than one that can be curried. I kept the flavors very simple and let the vegetable plus lentil do the…
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…
Masala Buns ~ Potato Stuffed Buns
“The month of Ramadhan [is that] in which was revealed the Qur’an, a guidance for the people and clear proofs of guidance and criterion. So whoever sights [the new moon of] the month, let him fast it; and whoever is ill or on a journey – then an equal number of other days. Allah intends for you ease and does not intend for you hardship and [wants] for you to complete the period and to glorify Allah for that [to] which He has guided you; and perhaps you will be grateful.” (Surah Al-Baqarah: 185) The holy month of Ramadan has descended upon us, Alhamdulillah. How each year, Ramadan comes and goes, without even us realizing is an enigma. 🙁 We are passing through difficult times in all ways, whether it is globally or on personal fronts for many of us. I only pray that He makes this Ramadan…