Wanderberry Tales

Glass jar full of colorful sweets, cookies and biscuits are common in local grocery stores in India. Rava/Semolina laddu was a popular sweet that adorned one of these glass jar during my childhood days. I remember making this dish  several times at home with my mom and very often instead of rolling it up into balls we just leveled into a steel plate and cut it out as barfi. I always had a penchant for these laddus. It was recently that Famidha from My Life in Yanbu expressed her love for semolina and desire to even create a semolina recipes only blog! That is when I got all pumped up to make this laddu again. It is easy with minimal ingredients and done in under 15 minutes.  So if you have guests popping in at short notice this is a recipe for you , after all semolina is an ingredient readily available in our household. Ingredients Roasted Rava/Semolina - 1 cup Dessicated coconut -  1/2 cup Sweet condensed milk - 1/2 cup Warm milk - 3 tbsp Ghe...

Happy Easter !! I did want this post to be done a couple of days early but Easter seems a good enough reason for this cake recipe to go through. I completed two years of blogging this month and if someone told me two years back that this would happen, I would never believe it! Now that I am here, I would just love to say THANK YOU to everyone.  While I try out my mamma's recipes, she tries some of mine too! My Pappa  religiously clicks away pictures of recipes from newspapers and magazines for me and my sister believes that my blog will make it big some day! My cousins - Vinitha and Neenu - one who diligently gives me ideas and other who meticulously reads them and  questions. My mother in law is the first one to share my recipes on facebook and my bro - in- law and co sister who always read my write ups and provide their comments. My love to all my friends, fellow bloggers and friends who are the reason why I am still in this blogging space and enjoy being here...

You know, there are some growing up memories that just never fade away and the happiest ones are invariably around the dinner table. Our family had a few ground rules - did I ever mention that my parents are professors? (No wonder we had rules!:P) Rules need not always be bad and are not always meant to be broken. There are some rules that shape your habits and looking back you would never regret having followed them. Our rules were simple - Always have every meal together - be it breakfast, lunch or dinner! We still follow it. Never skip a meal. Mamma says,' if you skip a meal it is I who go hungry not you', so I make sure she never goes hungry:) No TV while eating! Gosh, I wish I could follow that one. That is one rule we had to coax Pappa into relenting at times when our favorite TV programs were running. It was always the same meal for everyone, no specials! You like it, eat it or eat whatever you like that is on the table but special food for one individual was hard...

A perfect thriller makes my day and night too! A good book in hand and the literature within the levels of my understanding, then I have the potential of forgetting just about every thing around me - you will see me in the company of the book in the kitchen too. I may burn a chapatti or two in the go. I spent a major chunk of my single days immersed in such books and I had a perfect roommate for company. Our love for thrillers and mystery extended to television shows as well - Savdhaan India on Life Ok and Crime Patrol on Sony TV were hot favorites.  Both these shows end with the charming hosts signing off  saying - Be Cautious!! Our cautiousness extended to a level were both of us doubted everything we saw and heard. So negative was the impact that we decided to stop watching these series and stick to books which were more of fictitious work than reality. My married days are no better - both of us love the same kind of book and we had membership in the same chain of libr...

I keep saying that every dish has a story behind it and Shibin says every photograph should tell a story. So we definitely have a 'Once upon a time' in this dish and a 'happily ever after' too. Most of us have heard of Barbeque Nation and have atleast been there once to satiate our barbeque cravings.What you probably did not know was this restaurant chain is owned by Indore based Sayyaji Hotel. I was fortunate enough to spend two days here and that is where my love affair with crispy fried sweet corn started. I have tried making this snack couple of times - but never achieved success till about two weeks back. This definitely does not meet BBQ Nation standards but still we loved it this way. Last week, we had a family over for dinner and we spent most of the time playing carroms. The need for a quick snack at the carroms table was what reminded me of this recipe. It turned out crispy as I wanted it to and that led me to making it again the very next day for ...

I am relatively a beginner in bread baking and this is probably the only bread I have baked more than the fingers on my hand! I tasted focaccia only when I came to Dubai and that was the first time I even heard of it. Back in India, I knew 4 types of bread - white bread, brown bread, multigrain bread and fruit bread - that was my extent of bread knowledge.  I would not label bread baking as difficult - it is only time consuming - so if you have the time in hand - Foccacia is definitely worth a try. Focaccia is an Italian bread with a generous amount of olive oil - topped with herbs, olives, onions, sun-dried tomatoes or any other vegetables that goes along. Focaccia, I realised recntly makes a good sandwich bread too! I have tried topping with olives , tomato and onions but the best for me was the shallots. It is easier to chop them into cute little rounds - it caramelizes well and the looks quite pretty on the bread too. I read an article today by Nandita Iyer from the Saff...

 The first year of your married life is no doubt the most enthralling one. I don't mean to dishearten the ones who after years of marriage still feel the magic of marriage. I am somewhere in the same place too even after being married for over three years. But it is just that, there is still some force in me that makes me wanna go back to that first year! Some interesting anecdotes too... As is usual,my proof reader is gonna read this blog and I am just wondering what his response is gonna be seeing the dig at him:P As is normal for an Indian married woman, a week after we settled down in Bangalore - I religiously began cooking all the three meals a day and as a dutiful wife asked him what he wants for lunch in his dabba. His response was spontaneous - Oh No! Carrying a dabba is so typical of a married man. Get married and then carry a dabba to office. I am good without one, you do not have to make lunch for me on weekdays . I was ecstatic, I only needed to cook for myself as ...