For the love of food and travel

Birthdays are always a special occasion. Especially when it is the birthday of that special one who transformed your life forever.....the one who gave you a new identity....a new name.....MOM.  Last August our little Miss J celebrated her 9th birthday. And as usual I was planning to order a cake from a nice cake shop. But she wanted me to bake a cake for her this time and that too in her favourite chocolate flavour.  Well it's not just about a cake.....a cake- that i can bake.....but I needed a design and frosting ideas. We were having guests coming over for the party, so  I couldn't go wrong here. To be honest, I was having the jitters.  Recipe wise,  I've always had my easy go-to chocolate recipe with me and with a help from Pinterest, I got a pretty easy design too.  So finally, I had a good idea how my cake was going to turn out. It was a chocolate cake with chocolate ganache filling and frosting with Kit Kat bars all around. A choc...

Well, I finally did it.  They have been on my list of things I have always wanted to make for way too long. Croissants are not something you make if you do not have the time. They do take a lot of time and labour. But I like to call it the labour of love. Now, will I ever make these again? Probably yes, but only because I love croissants and I live in a family of bread lovers. Technically, making croissants are not hard at all....they are actually pretty straight forward. If you can make bread then you can make these, but you do need time .  A croissant is a delicious French pastry, known by its crescent shape. (Croissant means crescent in French). Puff pastry is used to make this delicacy - the dough is layered with butter, rolled and folded a few times, then rolled into its shape. It is then glazed with butter and baked. The original croissant was called Kipfel and originated in Austria in 1683. It was created in honor of the Austrian victory over the Turk...

When you are living in a city like Bangalore, you could always expect showers in the evenings. It brings the down the temperatures and it gets cold outside. Though not very cold like the winters in December or January. But it's during these chillier days....or rather nights, you feel like eating a warm & comfy homemade food. I just love easy cooking one-pot meals, and a lasagna is perfect for such conditions. This is one recipe that I've been wanting to post for quite some time. I make this so often and couldn't decide which one should I choose first, the classic with beef, a vegetarian or this one with chicken. I finally decided on this chicken lasagna as it is lighter, and at my home kids love it.  I was really excited about how this chicken lasagna turned out. A classic is always a classic; but actually this chicken lasagna turned out just perfect.....it had the perfect texture and tasted incredibly good. I didn't use cheese between layers as I didn't wa...

We love pasta. We do make it a point to visit an Italian restaurant at least once a month to have pasta. Also I make it at home. So, pasta is always in stock in my pantry. Spaghetti, fettuccine, macaroni, fusilli, lasagna, ravioli, cannelloni and farfelle are all our favourites. And the sauces that go along with it, whether it is Alfredo, Carbonara, Pesto, Marinara or Arrabbiata....makes the pasta a wonderful meal in itself.  According to the International Pasta Organization, there are more than 600 different shapes of pasta produced throughout the world. Pasta is a staple food of traditional Italian cuisine, with the first reference dating to 1154 in Sicily. It is typically a noodle made from an unleavened dough of a durum wheat flour mixed with water or eggs and formed into sheets or various shapes, then cooked by boiling or baking.  Pastas may be divided into two broad categories, dried and fresh. Most dried pasta is commercially produced via an extrusion process...

The first time I saw and ate a slice of focaccia was at an Italian restaurant. Ooh la la!!! in an instant, I fell in love with the aroma, the texture and the taste of this wonderful bread. And definitely....also the way it is pronounced. So, the next thing I need to know...... is how to make this at home. And that leads me to go online and check for recipes and follow other food bloggers to see how focaccia can be made in one's kitchen......and just as I thought, it comes under my category of easy cooking. But, first of all what is focaccia? Focaccia is a flat oven baked Italian bread. It is usually seasoned either with olive oil, cheese, herbs, meat and onions. It can also be flavoured with a number of vegetables.  Most historians believe Focaccia originated with either the Etruscans of North Central Italy prior to the Roman Empire forming, or in Ancient Greece at the beginning of the first millennium BC, though flat unleavened bread has been made throughout the Middl...

What is it that you wait for after a busy week of routines????? WEEKENDS!!!! Not just school goers and office goers.....even stay-at-home-moms wait for weekends..... to relax, to sleep in, to wake up late and most importantly to no mess cooking or minimum cooking. Especially breakfast!! We all know that breakfast is the most important meal of the day and one should never skip it.  And in this era.... weekends are the time when we sit and eat together as a family.   Here's a recipe for such slow & lazy mornings. A breakfast casserole.  It's completely hassle free and easy cooking. All you need to do is quickly chop, sauté, whisk and bake. And while it takes time to bake....you can spend some time with your loved ones.  Ingredients 1 Onion, chopped 3-4 Button mushrooms, sliced 3-4 sausages, sliced 1 Tomato, chopped 1 bunch Spinach, blanched and chopped 3 eggs 2-3 Tbsp milk Shredded cheese (cheddar and/or mozzarella) Salt & peppe...

Kerala is my native land. I'm a Malayalee by birth..... but, I grew up in Bangalore. I've stayed all my life in Bangalore. Going to Kerala was either to meet my grandparents during school vacations or to attend some family functions and get togethers. But none of those times did I ever have a chance to actually sight see this state known as "God's own country". It was after we got married that Mr. Peter has taken me to different places in Kerala, like Munnar, Alappuzha, Kochi, Calicut and Kannur. All of these places are wonderful and each has its own distinctiveness. Kannur is located in the northern part of Kerala. Cannanore is the old English name for this city. Kannur is known as the Land of Looms And Lore, because of the loom industries functioning in the district and the ritualistic folk arts held in temples. Kannur is famous for three main things....its beautiful beaches, Theyyam - its native performing art, and its handloom industry. Mr. Pe...