mayurisjikoni

Merry Christmas Everyone   This Christmas I'm celebrating it in the Exotic Tropical Island of Bali... yes the Bali where Julia Roberts finds inner peace and balance of love in the movie Eat, Pray and Love. Spending this holiday season with my eldest son, his wife and her parents. The #124th theme Christmas for FoodieMonday/ Bloghop group has come just at the right time. Last week before traveling I baked an Easy Christmas Cake and some Cookies. So for this post was contemplating whether I should post the cake first or the cookies. The cake won and the cookies will be posted a bit later.    The last time we spent Christmas with my daughter in law and her parents was in Dubai. Family time together is fun and makes any festival more meaningful. My family is spread all over the world and for us to get together as one becomes very difficult because of jobs and number of days they can take off. For quite a while we were planning that the whole family gets together in Bali for C...

Gingerbread and Oatmeal Bread#BreadBakers Theme: Whole Grained Holiday Breads    Whether people would like to admit it or not, December brings about an air of festivities for all. The celebrations begin with ThanksGiving and will end with New Year celebrations. Shops are decorated, Christmas sales are on, friends and relatives share decorated streets, trees, homes photos. One cannot help but get drawn to this seasonal celebration. I consider myself very lucky that I get to enjoy Diwali, Eid and Christmas. As a Hindu living in a predominantly Christian Country and a strong Muslim part of Kenya, I get drawn into celebrating all three festivals.    When Kalyani of Sizzling Tastebuds suggested Whole Grained Holiday Breads, I tried looking for recipes where I could use whole grains. There are many recipes out there using spelt and rye flour. I don't get either in Kenya or India. Kalyani suggested that we try and use whole grain as much as possible. I was nearly going to s...

MEGA BLOGGING MARATHON -SEPT 2017 #80TH BLOGGING MARATHON THEME: PROTEIN RICH DISHES DAY:19     When I was planning what protein rich dishes I was going to make, peanut butter was on top of the list. I was planning to make a peanut butter and banana sandwich, but then I came across this delicious pudding recipe. It was also full of chia seeds so one recipe took care of both the protein rich ingredients peanut butter and chia seeds. What I really like about this pudding is that one can even have on days that you are fasting. I know many people fast all 9 days of Navratri without consuming grains, pulses, salt and vegetables. So here's just the right kind of pudding to energize you and make you feel full too. Just replace the normal salt with rock salt or omit it.    One should be a bit careful about the quality of peanut butter we buy. Many of them have transfat added to them to make the whole process of processing the nuts faster, also add...

Shravan.... A Holy Month    Shravan or Saawan is the holiest month in the Hindu Calendar. Many Hindus fast for the whole of the Shravan Maas or month. Different Hindu Communities begin the fast on different dates. Some begin the fast immediately after Guru Purnima and some later on in the month. This holy month then culminates with Raksha Bandhan, a festival where the sisters tie a rakhi or thread on the wrists of their brothers. Some people fast the whole month i.e. every day for the whole month and some fast every Monday of this holy month and are called the Shravan Somvar Vrat.          Why is this month so important to the Hindus? According to the Hindu Mythology, when the Gods and Demons churned the Ocean (Samudra Manthan) many precious gems came out but also poison came out from it in the month of Shravan. This poison would have destroyed everything. However none of the Gods or Demons wanted to deal with the poison. Lord Shiva came to the re...

Baking is therapeutic    I nearly skipped the 96th #FoodieMonday #Bloghop theme Baked as I am just too busy and didn't have time to bake. Weddings are fun but at the same time stressful. Bangalore traffic makes the tension worse as one has to be on the road nearly 1 hour or more to reach the venue on time. I was feeling sad when Waagmi chose baked as the theme. I so wanted to bake something (I've missed the 2 cookies theme!) but knew it was not going to be possible.    I thoroughly enjoy baking. I find its so relaxing and fun. If all the ingredients are at hand, then its pretty easy. Baked goodies make great presents for any occasion, a nice treat for picnics, a tea time snack and they can be stored for later use.    So you may be wondering how come I have this post. Well a few weeks ago was my best friend's birthday and I had made these muffins for her birthday. I hadn't tried out a new muffin recipe for a long time and decided to try this one out. The ...

Date and Chai Muffins#BreadBakers Natural Sweeteners   While browsing on Facebook one night, I saw a message from Stacy the initiator of Bread Bakers group, requesting members to host the coming months. Quickly, she found hosts for August to December 2016.The only month left was July! For a long time I wanted to host but what put me off was the too technical sounding google documents and htmls and all those alien technological terms. There are files explaining how to go about it, but a mental block was making the whole task sound just too difficult. Knowing that in July I would be spending time with my son in Montreal, I quickly "whatsapped" him asking if he will help to create the document. "Of course mum," he replied. So, I decided to 'jump into the deep end knowing that I don't know how to swim'.     The next step was to go through the previous themes and decide on one. Natural Sweeteners came to mind and I wrote to Stacy that I will be the host for J...