I started going to office from Wednesday. Initially before joining, I never thought my life would become so busy and I will never have time for anything because the timings were 8.30 to 5. I thought, I will get a lot of time in the evening and I can regularly post here. But, things are not going on so smooth. First of all I get tired after reaching home and the cold weather has many adverse effects on health....

If I ask V any time what he wants in his lunchbox, his immediate reply is Egg Biryani. For me, it is very difficult to stick to one recipe. So I try to make it a little different each time. That makes lunches more exciting. I made this couple of days ago and it was very delicious. The recipe is based on a Egg rice that I had tasted many years ago....

When I carve cakes like Thomas cake or football cake , one of the things I worry about are the small irregular pieces that remain after the carving is done. They are all pieces which are not so pretty to eat (they taste great) or to offer to someone. Last time, I ended up wasting most of them and felt terrible about it. This time when I prepared football cake, I wanted to do something with them....

We had a snow storm 2 weeks ago that dumped about 12″ of snow here in Kansas. Just when we thought we could move around again, we got the second one last week. Although the driveways were cleaned, it was too cold to move around. We still have lot of snow on the ground. This kind of weather calls for some hot soup. I don’t make chicken soups at home because V does not like chicken flavor in his soups....

Ishaan turned one recently. I have been so humbled to see many of you sent best wishes to him. Thank you. So I thought I should update about his birthday party. We started planning for the party about 2 months ago. Every weekend we would go and buy supplies for the big day. We checked out couple of party halls and finally decided and booked one. As most of you guessed, I was practicing cake....

We are having a very hot summer here these days. We moved to a new apartment last week and it was extremely difficult under hot sun. All that we craved for was some cool drink which would cool down our bodies. I am not a great fan of any kind of sodas and I get bored of store bought juices very soon. I made a couple of cool drinks which I am going to post here in next few days....

Potato and eggplant is such a popular combination. There are many variations to this dish. Every time I make this at home, I change the spice powder and they all taste great. I like to serve this spicy dish with rice and a simple dal. A comfort food for a busy day. Ingredients: 2 cups eggplant pieces 1 cup potato 1 tea spn chilli powder 1/2 cup onion Oil 2 tea spns chopped garlic A pinch turmeric Salt...

I was planning to post this recipe from many days. One of my reader, Manoj had inquired about this recipe a few days ago. In fact he had asked for the authentic Konkani “ Methi Sukke “. ‘ Sukke ‘ is some dry side dish usually containing coconut. So I started my quest for the recipe. Though I did not get the authentic ‘Sukke’, I made this absolutely delicious sukke :)....

Few days back I was chatting with my friend and colleague Poornima. She was very happy about my blog. So she voluntarily gave me two recipes. Here is the first one. The other one requires deep frying, so I haven’t tried yet. This requires a bit patience. When I read the recipe, I thought, ‘Such a big procedure for upma!! (I am not a great fan of upma). But still, Poo is telling the recipe, so it should be good’....

Chirmuro (Konkani) meaning puffed rice. This is a versatile item which can be eaten as it is or made into many tasty dishes. I like any dish with puffed rice. When I was thinking of posting something simple today, I saw the picture of this dish in my picture “library”. Aayi makes two types of spiced puffed rice. The one is most common and prepared in most of the houses....

V’s grand mother is a very enthusiastic cook. It amazes me to see her interested in cooking even at an age of 85+. Everytime I call her, I ask for V’s favorite recipes. V has loads of childhood memories associated with her, she knows his likes and dislikes. Few days ago when I had found Spanish mackerel here , she told me to make this dish. She makes this amazing Iswana sukke – king fish in a spicy coconut paste....

We were in Belgaum in December and we visited pachi (aayi’s sister). As usual, she had a feast planned for us. I have so many memories associated with her food that I can clearly feel the taste just by looking at the dishes. When I saw her making these, I did a happy dance. These are a variation of Maddur vada s. She said these are usually made with bhajani flour , but she had just mixed a variety of flours she had on hand....

We both love ambat(gravy) with garam masala in it. There are many dishes with this traditional paste in it – like mushroom gravy , masoor bhaji , potato bhaji , green peas kurma and many more. At my home, all these dishes are prepared for breakfast with either puris or dosas. V likes to eat them any meal of the day. So recently when I was running out of ideas to make with spinach, I thought this masala would make a delicious ambat....

Wish you all a very happy Yugadi (Ugadi). I normally do not make anything special for this festival. But I read so many wishes on blogs/Facebook etc, I felt like making something special. As I have mentioned many times, none of us in the family have any sweet tooth. V atleast eats sweets, but Ishaan and I stay away from it. When I started thinking about it, I wanted to make these polis....

Sweet potato has become a regular at home these days for us. I initially started buying it to make baby food for Ishaan. Then soon realized his lack of interest in eating it. With very little time on hand, I can just make one-two dishes each day. So I make something all of us (including Ishaan) can eat. If you like sweetish spicy dishes, this is for you. I don’t make it very spicy....

I thought it would be better if I make it more interactive. So every now and then I am going to ask you to comment with suggestions and your ideas so that we both learn and widen our culinary skills. Here is my first question or rather doubt… I got a beautiful papaya from my last weekend shopping spree. It looked yellow from outside and I hoped that it might be ripe and juicy like the ones we get in India....

Today I wanted to try something new. Was bored of eating same thing again and again. Searched for about half an hour. Then I found this one. I felt it is too simple to do and tried it. It was great. Ingredients: Capsicum 2 Potatoes 2 Sambar powder 1 tea spn Oil 1 tea spn Cumin seeds(jeera) 1 tea spn Turmeric a pinch Tamarind pulp ½ tea spn Chilli powder ½ tea spn Coriander leaves 3-4 strands Salt...

We came to US last week to stay with our daughter for a while. Since both of them love pickles, I started with their favorite cauliflower pickle. Usually I make no-oil, no-masala version cauliflower pickle , it is very healthy as it does not involve even a drop of oil. This time, I wanted to try my mother and grand mother’s version with the pickle masala (mustard, methi are fried and powdered)....

Picked up this recipe from a book. It came out well. Give it a try. Ingredients: 3 cups chopped cauliflower 1 tea spn butter 1 cup capsicum chopped into long slices 1 cup tomato chopped into long slices Oil 1 tea spn chopped garlic 1 tea spn chili powder 1 tea spn coriander powder A pinch turmeric ½ tea spn pepper powder ½ tea spn garam masala ½ tea spn chaat masala 1 tbl spn lemon juice 3-4 strands coriander leaves Salt...

Like any other kid that goes to daycare here, Ishaan loved goldfish crackers from a very young age. Although I was okay if he ate them at daycare, I like to avoid giving them at home. So I wanted to make something similar for him, where I could control the ingredients. One day I was searching for crackers recipe and I came across this and this . I bookmarked the recipe and forgot all about it....