mayurisjikoni

very tempting    For the month of February, the International Food Challenge was Bordeaux cuisine. The recipes were given by Saraswathi. Bordeaux is the port city on River Garonne in the south west region of France. It is famous for its wine as it sits in the wine region of France. Bordeaux is famous for shopping, wining and dining. We had a choice of French vanilla and rum cakes, Bordeaux cookies or Mesclun salad. Since I have baked a lot for the past two months I decided on making the salad.    What is mesclun? Mesclun comes from the Provençal word mescla (to mix) which literally means mixture. Mesclun is a mixture of young spring time edible leaves. The mixture can have arugula, spinach, endive, chervil, mustard greens, swiss chard, mache, lettuces and sometimes added with edible flowers like nasturtiums,dandelions or rose petals.These young leaves add a flavorful taste to the preparation. Goat cheese, other salad vegetables, dried fruits,onions, shallots etc are...

a lovely way to decorate a Christmas tree   For the month of December, Saraswathi challenged the International Food Challenge group with some Dutch recipes. Bitterballen, boterkoek, kerstkransjes and gevulde speculaas. I chose to make kerstkransjes as I wanted to take some festive cookies to Dubai for my daughter in law. She loves home baked cookies. Baking these cookies was a delight as I loved the way they turned out---- so festive looking. Kerstkransjes literally mean little Christmas wreaths. These cookies are tied with ribbons to decorate the Christmas tree. The best part is that these cookies can be decorated with sliced almonds, sugar granules, chocolate, sprinkles. Actually whatever you fancy. They are nice fillers for Christmas goodie bags or even as a present. The cookies turn out crisp and buttery, much like shortbread. If you don't want them as a wreath shape, then you can have them star shaped or any shape you prefer. When I was in Primary school, I remember our teach...

Disasters in the kitchen!          Many recipes that food lovers come across on other blogs, the internet, recipe books, magazines, television, etc tempt them to save it and try it out some fine day. I too have saved, bookmarked, copied recipes and try them out as and when I can. Many have turned out to be disastrous. While some can be saved or consumed, others have had to be binned and I hate that. I've had nankhatais where the photos portray lovely dome shaped cookies and when I baked them they were flatter than a pancake! Caramel custard that sank as soon as it come out of the oven as the recipe called for whipped eggs and high temperature! Dhoklas which refused to rise.However the photos depict a perfect preparation looking smooth as silk, delicious, spongy, well risen, beautiful colour etc etc. Now and then such disasters occur. Now I actually research different recipes of that particular dish and check out for the similarities. Many times I have posted com...

Slowly working my way through       Joining these various groups has so many advantages. Meeting new food bloggers, learning more about international cuisines, learning new methods and I am actually working slowly through my bookmarked and noted down recipes. I have recently joined a new group International Food Challenge started by Saras and Shobha . the challenge for the month of November were recipes from Australia. While I had a bookmarked anzac biscuits and lamington recipes, I had never heard of damper. The dilemma was to make something I had never hear of or tick off some of my bookmarked recipes. Finally the cookies won as I wanted to give them as a gift to my friend's family. Anzac stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps established during the World War 1. Its been claimed that the wives would make these biscuits to send to the soldiers serving at Gallipoli. The ingredients used to make the biscuits did not spoil quickly and this made it easier to tra...