EVENT: FOODIEMONDAY/BLOGHOP THEME: #94 SNACKS What is a snack? A snack is any sort of small amount of food eaten in between meals. It can be fruits, veggies sticks, to fried bhajias, baked goodies or even sandwiches. It all depends on individual tastes and requirements. When we were growing up, my mum would give us a glass of milk and leftover rotis with chevdo. We would put the chevdo in the middle of the roti, roll it up and it was the yummiest snack ever. In our house, bateta vada, bhajias, kachoris, samosas were mostly served at dinner time with parathas and vegetable curries. Once a week we would walk with my mum to the Westlands shopping area.It was a day when we would go…
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Continue ReadingHappy Mother’s Day— Everyday should be Mother’s Day Poğaça are cheese and herb filled Turkish savoury bread or pastries. Bread if you’ve used yeast to make the dough and pastry if you’ve used baking powder or baking soda as the leavening agent. I wasn’t exactly planning on making this famous Turkish breakfast bread/pastry as my hunt on the wide web world was for flower shaped breads. Found quite a few, some simple and some complicated. It was during my search that my eyes fell on this beautiful shaped bread. It was a potato filled poğaça (pronounced as poh-ah-cha). This led to my research for this delicious Turkish breakfast or tea treat and got to know that the original usually has a cheese and herb filling.…
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Continue ReadingSay Cheeeese! Monday means its time to blog a #FoodieMonday #Bloghop theme based recipe. Our 90th theme is #Cheese. Now who doesn’t like cheese? Before you say ‘I don’t’ hold your horses. There is a huge variety of cheeses out there in the world. Most countries have their own type of popular cheese like Paneer from India, Gruyère from Switzerland, Parmesan from Italy, Cheddar from England, Roquefort from France, Gouda from Netherlands, Oaxaca from Mexico, Halloumi from Cyprus, Akkawi from Middle East, Caravane from Mauritania and so many more. Did you know that there are 1775 varieties of cheeses? So from such a huge variety to choose from surely everyone enjoys cheese. Cheeses are definitely my weakness. When some people reach out for chocolates as…
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Continue ReadingA Healthy Snack Its Monday and that means the #FoodieMonday #Bloghop group will have a theme decided on last week and the recipes are live on Mondays. For our #89th theme,our group decided on #raw bananas which was suggested by Kriti, food blogger at Krispy Kadhai. I’m not new to raw bananas, plantains or matoke as its called in East Africa. Matoke is a part of the staple diet for many Ugandans. They add it to stew, mash it, fry it, grill it in charcoal fire or boil it. Lets not confuse the normal sweet banana with the raw banana or plantain. Plantain is the cousin of the sweet banana. It has many nutritional values just like the sweet banana. However, you cannot consume plantains…
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Continue ReadingMy favourite Country When Anshie, blogger at Spice Roots asked members of Bread Bakers group to bake breads from Italy as the April theme, I was really excited. I love the country and Italian breads with all that olive oil, roasted tomatoes, cheese, bell peppers. I’ve been wanting to try out panettone for such a long time, so I got the opportunity to bake it for this theme. Panettone bread is usually baked as a Christmas breakfast or dessert treat in Italy. Full of fruit and wonderful aroma of orange, its suppose to like a cake but with yeast. Panettone means pane de tono— bread of luxury.Its believed that this rich Italian bread has originated from Milan. When yeast was considered a luxury item, this bread…
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Continue ReadingGUEST NO.6 ON THE BLOG This week my guest on the blog is my sister in law (hubby’s sister) Varaharupa. When I got married, she was a vision of a modern ISKCON devotee with short hair cut, loved dressing up and never saw her without any jewellery. Things changed when she got married, it was only saris and her jewellery. After my marriage, obviously friends and families of my in laws would invite us for dinner or lunch to their place. As most newly weds would want to, I’d want to wear my saris but didn’t know how to drape them well. Varaha would help me to drape them. Her stay in Canada and Vrindavan temples meant that she would meet a lot of foreign…
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Continue ReadingHealthy Seeds Our 85th theme for #FoodieMonday#Bloghop group is #Nigellaseeds. Nigella seeds, kalonji, black cumin, balck caraway,fennel flower,charnushka, onion seeds, Roman Coriander as they are called taste like a cross between onion, oregano and black pepper. It however has no relation to onion, cumin, fennel or caraway. They are seeds from the plant Nigella Sativa.Its widely used by the Indian Subcontinent and the Middle East including Turkey. Nigella seeds are roasted and ground and used in curries, vegetable preparations. As whole seeds they are used in pickles, flat breads and other breads. Use the roasted seeds in salads, sprinkle them on egg dishes, add a few seeds to relishes or chutneys. The famous panch phoran spice mixture from Bengal is a mixture of kalonji, fennel,…
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Continue ReadingIRISH FRECKLE BREAD#BREADBAKERS HAPPY ST.PATRICK’S DAY Isn’t it wonderful to be part of cooking groups where one can learn not only about cooking about also about different cultures and festivals. So,though I’ve heard about St. Patrick’s Day and know that the Irish celebrate it, I’ve till today never really bothered to find out what the festival is all about. So there I was sitting at the computer and asking Mr. Google all the hows and whys of this festival. So my understanding is that St.Patrick’s Day is celebrated by the Irish world over on 17th March every year.St.Patrick the patron saint of Ireland died on 17th March.He was not Irish but came from Britain. He was kidnapped by Irish raiders and lived in captivity for…
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Continue ReadingHappy Women’s Day International Women’s Day is celebrated on 8th March all over the world.It focuses on gender equality, respect, love and appreciation of all women be it in the economic, political or social field. Every year the themes vary. This year the theme is “Be Bold for Change”.While many women have been recognized for their achievements in many countries, there are still many more countries that believe in subduing the growth of women. Whether a woman is working or a homemaker all deserve to be recognized and appreciated. Our #FoodieMonday #Bloghop group decided to have Women’s Day treat as the 82nd theme. I would like to take this opportunity to recognize women who have influenced the way I think and lead my life. Top…
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Continue ReadingGuest No.4 on the Blog My guest this week is my charming niece Pooja. Young, energetic, caring and always smiling. Pooja loves helping people, it just comes very naturally to her. Born in Kenya, partially brought up in Kenya and then in US, she is pretty much a very down to earth sort of girl. She would come to spend her holidays in Mombasa when she was very young. She loved to be around my mother in law or me when we worked in the kitchen.It seemed that she was observing how we were preparing the food. Trips to the beach was like an ultimate dream come true for her. She simply loved the sand and the sea. I remember as a toddler she…
