Wanderberry Tales

Habits are quite situational! I hate waking up early mornings although I know that's the best part of the day and would love to inculcate the habit of waking up early. Having said that, do not mistake me to be a person who wakes up at 9 am! I am up before 7!Ain't that good enough :P However, I surprise myself on trips, I become an early riser. I love those early morning walks and that peace it gives! The part of Dubai I stay in has a serious dearth of such good and peaceful places for a morning walk which makes me think would the presence of such a place in the neighborhood make me an early riser (**thinking**) The next best thing that could happen in the morning is an amazing breakfast. Eggs form an integral component of the breakfast table. When you can have a wholesome egg dish with just a slice of bread to wipe away the final gravy - yumm! Mornings are made! That is Shakshouka to me - it makes an amazing dinner too! Its a dish popular in the Middle east and Afri...

Shibin's office shifted about a year back. Earlier, he had to invariably walk through a supermarket twice a day. ( shortcut, instead of having to walk two more blocks and go all the way around the building). Twice a day includes one crawling and the other running - crawling to the office ( everyone crawls in the morning especially during the beginning of the week) and running out of it in the evenings (It is my belief that he ran to meet me :P). In the process, it is hard to ignore those items that stare at you from the shelves beckoning you to pick them or those that scream out offers  or the ones that flatter you with the lighting .  So atleast once a week, he came home with a treat to my delight. I am still a kid at heart, such treats fascinate me . Anyways with the shifting of his office to a core business area , there were no more supermarkets to pass through and there went my treats. He comes home empty handed these days! If you are wondering why I chose to tell ...

Every vacation has three phases -  The waiting phase - You have planned your vacation, arrangements have been made, you are on a shopping spree, you are texting your relatives and friends on your upcoming vacation plans, you are clearing your fridge and finally packing your bags. To add on - I do an additional cleaning of the house because I love to see the house clean and neat on my return! This is an exciting phase and the feeling that you have something bright to look forward to makes even the most daunting task enjoyable. The actual vacation - this is the fun part. Your waiting is over and here it is finally - the execution of all that you planned. Meeting family, friends and relatives - lots of nostalgic moments, being pampered by family until the day it is time to pack your bags and return. The vacation hangover - the most annoying phase that comes after your vacation. The feeling of emptiness, a vague sense of nothing to look forward to, a weariness to get back to tra...

It is vacation time and for the first time blogging from a place other than home in Dubai. It feels good to be home and lot of changes have happened in a year - our family of doggies grew from 2 to 3, trees have been replaced by roads and places are beyond recognition, the bakery with my favorite egg samosa seems to have closed down, swipe machines have appeared even at the smallest of stores - demonetisation effect and yet the Gudbud ice cream tastes heavenly except for the increasing price and the decreasing glass size!! While I feast on my mom's food and savor every moment - why don't you guys virtually feast on the recipe from my archives - Vermicelli Upma. I love the sweetness of this and for me it goes well even without a chutney. Ghee enhances the flavor and peanuts adds the crunch. So here we go -  Ingredients (Serves - 2) Vermicelli - 1 cup Water - 1 cup Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp Urad dal - ...

There is nothing like a hearty breakfast! I would not say that breakfast is the best meal of the day for me - I am always partial towards dinner. Yet having a good breakfast keeps you going for most part of the day.  As a part of my first job in India, we were part of the HR panel for Campus recruitment of freshers. This demanded of us to travel to different cities and were often put up in hotels approved by the company. No compromise on safety and security! Goes without saying that we had the luxury of staying in a couple of prominent 5 star hotels - royal bedrooms and hearty meals. Breakfast is complementary in these hotels and we would definitely not miss that! It was always a combo of Indian and English - from idli, vada, sambar to the croissants, muffins and sausages - name it and you had it there.  So even now when I hear of breakfast buffets I jump at the idea. The widespread buffet is such a visual treat and leaves you with a happy tummy. So over to my recipe...

New Year started on a pretty low note. Climate is amazing here in Dubai and so very apt for all sorts of infections! So after two weeks of medicines and rest, we are slowly getting back on track.  Phew! finally food tastes like food!  Two weeks almost made us forget what it was like to be foodies with our tongues absolutely losing its sense for taste. The beginning of a New Year went by and our third wedding anniversary too confined within blankets and cup after cup of ginger tea! Since it did not exactly feel like a New Year - we decided to postpone all our celebrations till we were fine and we are on the verge of recovery now. Now, I do wish we could have posted about a dinner date or romantic outing on our anniversary but never mind we did something special too! We took care of each other:) It is not easy having two sick people taking care of each other but we did tide through proving true the marriage vows we took three years back - 'In sickness and in health'!...

Deck the halls with boughs of holly, fa la la la la, la la la la Tis the season to be jolly, fa la la la la, la la la la Christmas is here and so is the holiday season. While we  prep up our lunch and dinner menus, lets not forget the breakfast! Quick and simple recipe which the young and the old will love alike - peanut butter sandwich with honey and fried banana. This time round we made the sandwich with homemade peanut butter!That is quick and easy too, if you have not yet tried. Before I move onto the recipe, let me remind you to make the festive season fun filled and all the more christmasy, do not forget to watch some Christmas movies. We have already begun ours with The Holiday and Polar Express! Just so Perfect! So here is the recipe -  Ingredients Bread slices - 3 Banana  - 1 Cinnamon powder - 1 tsp Butter - 5 tbsp Peanut butter Honey Method Heat a pan and add butter to this. Once the butter melts, place the banana t...

Poha is a simple and quick breakfast dish which you can whip up in under 15 minutes. That is why it is one of the most favored breakfast recipe in my kitchen. I always considered Poha to be a South Indian dish since a room mate of mine from Shimoga, a place in Karnataka often made it for breakfast. This notion changed on a short trip to Indore for a recruitment event. We were served Poha in the hotel for breakfast, as a snack in the college between the interviews and we even saw people relishing Poha at Chappan - a popular food bazaar  during the evening.  The Poha, I tasted at Indore was sweeter than the version I had down south which is why I try to bring in a little sweetness to the version from my kitchen. It is a lesser known dish to the Keralites. My husband had never even heard of it, till I cooked it for him the first time. This dish is a miracle breakfast recipe as far as I am concerned and  a lot better than the normal bread - jam/peanut butter or...

Quite a few friends have requested for some vegetarian recipes to be posted in my blog else they say they would  " unlike" the page on facebook :) I have been trying to recollect the vegan recipe that I love the most and that is when Rava Uthappam clicked! A quick uthappam recipe that does not require the batter to stand over night. So here goes the history. This recipe dates to those days when I had just moved out of college into corporate life. A few of us classmates moved in together after college beginning to bask in the glory of the newly found financial independence. After a hectic day at work, we would gather in the kitchen to cook ourselves a decent dinner. All we had was three or four utensils, an over packed small refrigerator shared by nine maybe ten of us, a double burner stove(one burner which hardly worked) and our inadequate cooking skills. We were always on the lookout for simple and quick recipes. None of us had the time or the energy for elabo...