a lovely way to decorate a Christmas tree   For the month of December, Saraswathi challenged the International Food Challenge group with some Dutch recipes. Bitterballen, boterkoek, kerstkransjes and gevulde speculaas. I chose to make kerstkransjes as I wanted to take some festive cookies to Dubai for my daughter in law. She loves home baked…

Hunger for food and hunger for knowledge.    Last Saturday, our Lions Club went for a service activity to one of the schools in the slum area. We donated stationery and reading books to the school. It has nearly 200 children. Most of these children are either orphans or come from a very poor family.Their…

Slowly working my way through       Joining these various groups has so many advantages. Meeting new food bloggers, learning more about international cuisines, learning new methods and I am actually working slowly through my bookmarked and noted down recipes. I have recently joined a new group International Food Challenge started by Saras and…

First attempt at crackers         Priya challenged the Home Bakers Challenge members to bake crackers. As usual the first few days are spent on deciding which recipe to follow, this one, no that one, try them all! Usually don’t have time to try them all but the recipes keep on piling up…

crunch, crunch, munch   Tomorrow I am leaving for Italy… my dream destination. I have always wanted to visit Italy because from what I have read , pictures I have seen and the food, makes Italy seem like a romantic country. Wine, pasta, pizza, caprese salad, gelato, limoncello…. seriously how can one leave that country…

World Cup finals BBC world news   For so many days I had pages open on my ipad researching vegetarian cuisines from Brazil, France, Germany, Costa Rica, Argentina, Netherlands, Belgium, Chile, etc. The search was narrowed down to Brazil, Germany, Netherlands and Argentina.Unfortunately Brazil suffered a humiliating defeat in both the hands of the German…

Life Values         Last week we went for dinner to Ajay’s aunt and uncle’s house. I couldn’t go empty handed to their house, so I decided to try out one of the bookmarked recipes, custard cookies.I can’t remember from where I must have written this recipe. I am so glad that I…

Happy Valentine’s  Day Image courtesy of Ohmega1982 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net       We hear from everyone that we don’t need a special day to remind us that we love someone so dearly, we should feel that way everyday. Now feeling love and nothing else 365 days is a tall order. Be true to yourself and…

healthy cookies Isn’t amazing how one can bake so many different cookies by just adding some more ingredients or interchanging ingredients to the basic cookie dough. I love oatmeal and coconut so no wonder I had to bake these cookies. Instead of the usual chocolate chips I added some dried cranberries. My neighbours know when…