mayurisjikoni

A fulfilling bowl Theme: Healthy Weekday Lunches BM#77 Week 4 Day 3    When its really hot and humid in Mombasa, the last thing hubby and I want for lunch is curries, parathas and rice. I try and make exciting salads which are filling and yet healthy. As I've mentioned before I like my salads to be as colourful as possible. I like falafel but having it with pita bread can be heavy on the stomach during the hot season. I hate frying food during the hot season and will only fry if I have guests over.    I baked the falafel, but it was refusing to turn that nice golden colour. I didn't want to keep on brushing more oil on it. However, the baked ones tasted really good with the salad. However, if you want to fry them then please go ahead.    To make it a filling meal (something that will not have hubby running to the fridge in 1 hour!) I added quinoa. Quinoa is a super food as its labelled by experts. Its gluten free, high in protein. It contains flavonoids...

Ideal Workplace lunch Theme: Healthy Weekday Lunches BM#77 Week 4 Day 2    During my visits to Bangalore, I've prepared healthy and filling salads for my daughter to carry to work. She doesn't like me adding fruit to the salad. The salads have to be filling and yet not too heavy. Pasta salad is one of the salads I prepare just not for her but also for myself. Hot days usually means salads for lunch. I pack the dressing separately so that the salad stays crispy and one can choose the amount of dressing they want to add to the salad.    This parsley and walnut pesto tasted so amazing. Since it was a simple salad, the star is the pesto sauce. Initially I thought that the taste of parsley would be overpowering but believe me it was not... and I had to use the curly parsley instead of the flat one. Usually pestos call for a copious amount of olive oil. I decided to reduce the amount oil and used a bit of water instead. If you add water, the pesto stays good only for a few...

Happy Mother's Day--- Everyday should be Mother's Day    Poğaça are cheese and herb filled Turkish savoury bread or pastries. Bread if you've used yeast to make the dough and pastry if you've used baking powder or baking soda as the leavening agent. I wasn't exactly planning on making this famous Turkish breakfast bread/pastry as my hunt on the wide web world was for flower shaped breads. Found quite a few, some simple and some complicated. It was during my search that my eyes fell on this beautiful shaped bread. It was a potato filled poğaça (pronounced as poh-ah-cha). This led to my research for this delicious Turkish breakfast or tea treat and got to know that the original usually has a cheese and herb filling. Poğaça can be shaped the way you want, simple like pies, or as roses (my were disastrous after baking), squares, rounds well basically any shape you want as long as it has a cheese herb filling.    You must be wondering why I was searching for flower shap...

Where are all the vegetables?       Our Shhh Cooking Secretly group (started by Priya Suresh ) decided on #Summer Salads as the theme for the month of April. Summer has come early in India. Here in Kenya we are suppose to have the long rains. However, due to drought conditions, vegetables are scarce and forget about getting exotic herbs, mixed salad leaves and all that. I was partnered with Shobana Vijay of Shoba's Delights . I gave her pasta and mango to come up with a summer salad.She prepared a mango avocado pasta salad. Check it out here .       She gave me potatoes and herbs like basil or thyme as my secret ingredients. I couldn't find any fresh basil or thyme at the shops in Mombasa and I didn't want to use the dried ones for the salad. So I decided to use another herb that we get plenty of and that is coriander (cilantro). I was thankful to Shobana for not giving me exotic vegetables or fruits to use as it would have been difficult to source th...

Antipasti          Italian meals are usually served with a starter. Starters or antipasti (singular antipasto) usually consist of cured meat, pickled vegetables, mushrooms, cheeses, olives, peperocini, pickled meats etc. These are suppose to be colourful, attractive and usually should be able to change the mood of  people or gathering who will dine together. Anti means before and pastus means meal. Therefore its the starter or appetizer. Antipasti is usually served in individual plates or as bite size where diners pick it and enjoy it. It can be cold or warm or hot.                  There is much confusion between the crostini and the bruschetta. Crostini are usually made from small bread slices like an Italian baguette.The bread is toasted and the topping are more rich.                 Bruschetta is usually served on more rustic Italian bread slices that are slightly ...

A different taste    The August theme for Shhh Cooking Secretly was exciting. Participating pairs travelled to different parts of the world. We're going to be able to see dishes that are prepared in Indonesia, Brazil, Morocco, Sri Lanka, France and Mediterranean. I'm eagerly waiting to see what they all prepare. My partner for this month is the talented and friendly Shobha Keshwani. Her blog Shobha's Food Mazaa has different types of recipes ranging from simple chutneys to complex breads.If you're ever looking for some authentic Sindhi recipes then be sure to check out her blog.   Shobha and I got Moroccan cuisine. She gave me couscous and olives as the ingredients to prepare some Moroccan dish and I gave her lentils and tomatoes.Must admit that though I have heard a little bit about Moroccan food, I never really checked out the cuisine in detail as most of their dishes are meat based. So having couscous as one of the ingredients I was really happy. Couscous is a staple...