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 cookies. Baking these cookies was a delight as I loved the way they turned out—- so festive looking. Kerstkransjes literally mean little Christmas wreaths. These cookies are tied with ribbons to decorate the Christmas tree. The best part is that these cookies can be decorated with sliced almonds, sugar granules, chocolate, sprinkles. Actually whatever you fancy. They are nice fillers for Christmas goodie bags or even as a present. The…

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 parent/ parents cannot even afford to buy an exercise book for them.The school doesn’t get adequate support from the government.  These children attend the school in anticipation of a hot lunch every day. However, what I observed is that they were even hungry for knowledge. When we read out a story for them, they listened keenly and were impatient to lay their hands on the story books. One of the…

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 Shobha. the challenge for the month of November were recipes from Australia. While I had a bookmarked anzac biscuits and lamington recipes, I had never heard of damper. The dilemma was to make something I had never hear of or tick off some of my bookmarked recipes. Finally the cookies won as I wanted to give them as a gift to my friend’s family. Anzac stands for Australian and New…

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 in the bookmarked section. I finally decided on the poppy seeds and sesame seeds crackers. After baking them, I was wondering why I have never tried baking crackers before. They are healthier than the normal cookies and loved them. I use to love the dinner crackers made by House of Manji when I was a kid. These days the dinner crackers have no taste and I have stopped buying them.…

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 hungry? Churches, piazzas, gondolas, beautiful beaches, scenic countryside what more is required to feel romantic? Before hubby and I get into that holiday mood and behave like typical tourists, clicking umpteen photos and trying to see every thing and anything, we have to pack, catch a flight, close the house, etc etc. So many minor details to take care of before we can go on a holiday. Have you noticed…

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 and Dutch team. So today the finals will be played between Germany and Argentina. I must admit I didn’t watch the matches from the beginning, I usually wait for the quarter finals to get a bit excited. It has not been easy staying up till late watching football. What got me through, was the anticipation of that one or more goal. The most exciting game has to be the one…

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 finally made these cookies. I loved how soft they turned out with the taste of custard. The light lemony colour made the cookies look very attractive but don’t think my photos have done justice.        After dinner, we got talking about how family and friends of yesteryear valued relationships. Be it as friends, uncles, aunts, parents, grandparents, brothers or sisters, there was commitment, we helped each other without…

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 think of how many times you had wished for your own space, you hated your spouse or friend for some reason or the other. There are days when small habits irritate you to no end and its easier to remember the sad and irritating times than the happy times. How many times have you wanted to scream at the top of your lungs and pull your hair (not literally, you…

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 I am baking as they claim that the smell of freshly baked goods reaches their homes. The cookies hardly lasted for a few days. I will be baking another batch pretty soon. Cannot plan when as these days we are facing a lot of power cuts. Make these cookies to treat yourself to a sweet snack with either a hot cup of tea, coffee or milk. Don’t forget to dunk…