Three times this year we got to celebrate the New Year 🥳. Not many in terms of company for the festivities, but you can still bring some cheer and change by whisking up one of those special occasion dishes ! New Year is 1 Jan as per the Gregorian calendar; 13 Apr is New Year…
Tag: Food
Iftar special recipe 🥥
Back in Kochi, in our second rented apartment, our immediate neighbours were Muslims. One evening, during the second half of the fasting month of Ramadan, the lady of the house rang our door bell and asked for two plates and two bowls. Why I asked? To give us some of their Iftar food, she said….
Memorable Easter brunch 🥂
Easter was last Sunday (4 Apr); we had cousins over for brunch and here’s a glimpse of the spread. Why am I writing a week after Easter? Because things didn’t go as per plan and it’s the little surprises along the way that make the occasion memorable 😌. So let’s start with the menu –…
POTD: Sweet and in season 🍇
Sunday mornings we have a local vegetable seller set up shop at the apartment complex. And today he had grapes, the slender, seedless green variety. Sweet !! As Ruskin Bond reminded fruits are a compensation for the summer heat. 😎 To know which fruit is in season, you just have to look at the push…
Summer delights 🍹
” Some compensations of summer: Shade, and an iced drink. Laziness. Siesta. A cool breeze. Wearing as few or whatever clothes as one likes. The exquisite shock from a bucket of cold water. And the fruit, the fruit! “ – Ruskin Bond in A Little Book of Serenity 🌸 A homemade lime mint cooler with…
Easy Mutton curry with whole spices (One pot dish) 🥘
The inspiration to cook comes from many sources; for me, one vein of motivation is the aroma of what’s cooking in my neighbour’s kitchen. My adjacent neighbours and us, we share a wall in the work area. In fact, it’s the only common wall between the flats in the building. The work area is a…
10 Feb: Celebrating Pulses🍲
“World Pulses Day is a designated United Nations global event to recognize the importance of pulses (chickpeas, dry beans, lentils, dry peas and lupins among others) as a global food. It has been proclaimed on February 10 of each year since 2019 by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 20, 2018.” https://worldpulsesday.org…
A Sunday browsing second hand books🍭📚
Downtown Garden City still has a green canopy! ☘️ It’s Sunday and since November last year, when we started going about the city again, once a month visit to Church street has become a casual routine. Three- fourth of the Church street has been closed to traffic and it has now become a popular backdrop…
Le Creuset lunches 🍛
This Advent season, I bought a few colourful dinnerware pieces from Le Creuset. I wanted to buy their cast iron cook pot, but felt it too heavy. I don’t want to do such heavy lifting in the kitchen right now. I am a Corelle fan, their plates are the absolute best. But the colour on…
Photo trail: 10 days of Advent (Veg food) 🥗
It’s veg food for Advent, till Christmas. 10 days down and another 14 to go. Here’s a dekho of what I managed to plate up so far. The pictures serve as a good inspiration to cook. So it’s always Cook, Click & Repeat !! Breakfast menu was Dosa, Appam and Puttu; the accompaniments vary. Lunch…
An evening by the Arabian Sea 🌅
“Kochi, one night? No problems, will get you a shack by the sea.” hubs trying to be funny. “You will love the views” he said. Hubs was not kidding. The sea view was pretty spectacular !! And I must say, the shack is pretty grand. There was this after the rains kind of stillness everywhere,…
Punalur – A (road) trip down the memory lane (guest post)🚂
So far our road trip from Bangalore to Kerala was uneventful; we sped along the empty highways crossing Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and finally arrived at the borders of Kerala. After 8 hours of non-stop driving and a ½-hr pitstop, it was the Tamil Nadu-Kerala interstate check post at Aryankavu which was proving to be a…
Love is Brown 🍂
No, it’s not chocolates, but equally sweet 😋 There are a few things quintessential Kerala, starting with Usha Uthup’s song Ente Keralam 🎶🎵🎶 followed by food specialities like banana chips, jackfruit halwa, tapioca & fish curry, parotta & beef, puttu and so on. There is much more you can keep appending to the list, like…
A glorious afternoon at Church street, Bangalore 🎋
It’s been over a month since we stepped out of the apartment and it was high time. The kid’s mid-term exams were over, festival holidays were underway and we were yearning for a change in scenery. It was late morning on a Sunday and we drove over to MG Road. The shop fronts were decorated…
Golden chickpea curry 🌟
Kadala or Kabuli channa or Chickpeas make an easy curry that goes well with rice and chapatti. The gravy is rich and creamy, the chickpeas are soft and delicious, combined with the aroma of kasuri methi makes this dish a delicious treat. The only constraint is to remember to soak the chickpeas overnight in water…
Prawn delights 🍤
You know the curry is good when the kid says “Why don’t you make this more often?” 😁 Roasted coconut is often added to curries to make the gravies rich, thick and so much more tastier. But the fact that you need to grate coconut, roast and then grind it into paste translates to more…
Craving an Eat Out ⁉️🍹
This time the Independence Day, 15 August fell on a Saturday robbing us of a long weekend🙃. You may ask whether in the present work from home and online classes situation, do holidays really matter? Isn’t it just another day at home ? Yes, they do matter. We need a break from the online classes…
POTD: Fish Biryani
I make fish biryani atleast once a week. Easy to make one pot meal keeps everyone happy. The fish I used this time is boneless cubes of sea bass or kalanji in Malayalam. Crispy pappadam and raita completes the meal😋. The bright yellow hue also adds colour to an otherwise grey and cloudy day here in…
Independence day photo trail 🦚
15 Aug 2020: Our 74th Independence day 🇮🇳 We had flag hoisting in our apartment complex in the morning. On the digital front, Google announced this special day with a colourful doodle😘. The public holiday also had a special treat for the residents of our apartment. Oven Story, a homegrown pizza brand was here to…
The magic masoor dal ✨
The humble masoor dal today has become one of my kitchen staples. Dal tadka made from masoor dal is addictive and the taste is so distinct that once you have tasted it nothing else will do😋. My discovery of this very common dal happened very recently; during the lockdown. Till then I used to make…
