mayurisjikoni

a bread for Halloween    The We Knead to Bake group started by Aparna was challenged to bake a Barmbrack for October. Just the right sort of loaf as Halloween is just round the corner. What is a barmbrack? It's an Irish bread usually baked to serve on the night of Halloween.The Celtic festival Samhain, meaning end of summer and All Hallows'Evening was merged as one. Its believed that souls of the dead walk the earth on that evening. Barmbrack is an Irish sweet bread. Barm comes from the word beorma meaning a yeasty fermented liquor and brack comes from the Irish word brac meaning speckled. Speckled because the sweet loaf is dotted with dried fruits like raisins, sulatanas, cranberries, apricots, mixed peel etc.In Gaelic its known as báirín breac (speckled loaf). 5 items are added to the dough, a thimble, a ring, a coin, a piece of wood and a small piece of cloth. Each member must get a slice of the bread. Whoever got a timble meant they would not get married, if one found a c

salvaged    The Shhhh cooking secretly challenge was on break for a few months.The group was revived this month and I am glad. I enjoy cooking with the secret ingredients given by a selected partner. So how does it work? Well every month you are paired with a fellow member. We give each other 2 ingredients to work with. No one else in the group knows the ingredients except the partners. If we are ready with the recipe before the 16th of the month, we post the picture on the group Facebook page. Other members begin guessing what the 2 ingredients are. Its really fun because we can be left scratching our heads or we may guess them easily. Usually it is difficult. The reveal date is 16th of every month. That's when we post our recipes. Sometimes we miss the most obvious ingredient. Everyone comes up with innovative dishes right from juices to desserts. This month my partner was Niloufer of Kitchen Samraj  and she gave me lemongrass and ginger as my two ingredients. I immediately knew

Its time for garbas and dandiyas      Navratri is back and will be over before we know it. Its time for fasting, prayers and dancing (garbas and dandiyas). Many   Hindu families abstain from meat and alcohol during this period. Some fast by having only one meal without garlic or onions. Some fast omitting pulses and grains from their diet. Some have only milk and fruit. I don't fast all 9 days but do fast on the 8th day of Navratri. Nav means nine and ratri means night. During these 9 nights and 10 days the Hindus worship the nine forms of Goddess Durga. The nine forms are Durga, Bhadrakali, Amba, Annapurna, Sarvamangala,Bhairavi, Chandika, Lalita and Bhavani. Different states of India celebrate Navratri in different ways. In the northern part of India navratras are usually celebrated by holding pooja and singing bhajans(devotional songs). In Gujarat and Mumbai, its usually celebrated with garbas and dandiyas. Durga Ma is worshipped for all 9 days in the eastern part of India. Huge

Spicy Pumpkin Yeast Bread #Bread Bakers still learning   Do you write down everything in a diary to remind you what has to be done on which day? Do you still belong to the old school where its written and not on your mobile? I am, as I really cannot trust technology 100 %. What if my mobile gets stolen, or its not charged or refuses to work for some odd reason. Well jotting down the date to post last month bread was written in my diary. I had baked the bread before leaving for London. Just didn't get time to write the post and thought amidst all the wedding preparation I will be able to get away and blog for a while. I was mistaken. As a food blogger, people have a lot of expectations. I got busy cooking for a huge family and friends. Suddenly bakes by fellow bloggers appeared on Facebook and every other social media. I felt so sad, especially when I had already baked it, photographed it and eaten it! Anyway, there is a lesson to be learnt, what can be done tomorrow, do it now. I a

It is healthy!     Our Home Bakers Challenge for the month of October was Oat Bakes, recipes selected by fellow blogger Rafeeda of The Big Sweet Tooth . All the recipes were tempting to bake but for a change I chose the healthiest one. No sugar and no fat, yes you read right no sugar or fat. So you can imagine the bake without even fat. It was a big chewy but what I like about these bars is that it can be a snack for in between meals, a sweet treat after meals or can have it for breakfast. I know what I am going to carry with me when I am travelling next time especially by Ethiopian Airlines. As I mentioned before, long waiting hours at the Addis Ababa airport is not what I really look forward to. They still have to understand that there are vegetarians too in this world. Its difficult to find a vegetarian meal besides french fries at the airport. So before I travel I carry something small in my hand luggage. So next time round its going to be these delicious guilt free bars. You get a

Its time to jam     One of my hubby's friend owns a farm. He often comes to supply the surplus produce to the greengrocer that I usually go to if I don't go to the market. He gives me either vegetables or papayas whenever I go there. Last week he insisted that I take 3 huge papayas. They all ripened at the same time. Now there is so much papaya one can eat. So the next option was smoothie or a jam. Smoothie didn't sound too exciting, especially when the tummy is full. I am glad I made the jam. Its so easy to make it. I should stop buying the local jam as there is no fruit in it, its too sweet, full of colour and citric acid taste. I used less sugar, but it tastes just right. You may wonder why I have added cumin powder. Papaya for our family means papaya, a pinch of salt on top and a liberal helping of the cumin powder... yum! I have used a recycled jar. I usually keep all the glass jars. So I have a variety of them, coffee jars, olive jars, etc. I just dip the clean jar in

Just too expensive    We all understand that food prices are rising all the time. Sometimes its the scarcity or the petrol price. Whatever the reason may be we all are paying more for basic food. Last weekend My hubby and I went to one of our favourite restaurant to have lunch. Hubby usually orders fish and I stick to pasta(not many vegetarian options). For starters,we share the usual plate of breaded mushrooms. However, this time round we got only 6 button mushrooms on the plate. Previously we would get at least 10 - 12. On top of that the price had increased so basically for every breaded mushroom that went into out mouth,we had paid nearly 85c for it. All those living in the developed country may think that, that is not expensive. But for a developing country it is. So we decided not to order that dish in the future when we go to that restaurant again. I do know that most restaurants charge a slightly high price for the drinks and starters. But 6 mushrooms on a plate for nearly Ksh