mayurisjikoni

Summer Treat  When the Shhh Cooking Secretly Group decided on the theme Summer Treats at the beginning of June, it was pretty hot, not only in the Indian Sub Continent but also in Mombasa. A few days later and the weather changed. I hear its raining in many parts of India, France was flooded and though we don't have any rain, its become a little cooler here. My partner Anu Kollon, blogger at Ente Thattukada  gave me orange and cucumber as my secret ingredients.Check out her blog for some lovely Kerala dishes. The options with those two ingredients were to make a smoothie, ice lolly or a healthy salad. I decided to make the latter. I served the salad for dinner with home made flat bread. Absolutely delicious and healthy. I love adding freshly roasted and ground cumin seed powder to oranges. I think is a lovely tasteful combination. I used cumin powder in the dressing and also sprinkled a bit more on the salad.    Yesterday was Canada Day. We decided to make a day trip...

  Times have changed     I enjoyed reading Femina magazine for many years. I found it covered all areas - housekeeping tips, food, recipes, health, children, fashion, make up ... basically anything that women identified with. It was not entirely a housewife's magazine. It also covered modern issues, balancing home and work, career options, finance and so many other worldly happenings. Then slowly the magazine began to change. More pages on fashion and brands started to appear. Now I find it is like any other fashion magazine and not as a whole package to cater for women from all walks of life and different interests. I have tried many recipes from Femina magazine, picked up numerous tips and drooled over food photos. A salad recipe I tried out from the magazine became an instant hit with our guests. That led to me being invited by various communities and ladies clubs to give a demonstration on salads. 20 years down the road and that salad is still a favourite. The favouri...

Hard work   Esther, the lady who brings vegetables to our doorsteps daily is a petite woman, but very strong. When she started coming to our building last year, to sell vegetables, she was shy, meek and rarely smiled. As time has gone by she has become more confident, strong, smiles and even jokes with us. She will usually ring my neighbour's and my door bell at the same time. The minute I greet my neighbour with Jay Shri Krishna, Esther too will respond and immediately tells us not to start our talk as she is getting late. She wants us to buy the vegetables quickly and disappear behind our doors. This morning I wanted to buy some tomatoes and told her that Ksh 100 is too much. Immediately her response was okay then buy it for 120!!!! Today she also bought the freshest white radish with the leaves intact. I bought nearly 5 of them from her... you know I go mad when I see fresh vegetables and fruits. With three of them I made sabji and the other 2 were used to make mooli parathas. I...

an unusual veggie White long tapering roots, full of crunchiness and healthy minerals. I am praising the humble white radish, mooli or moora as its called in Gujarati. It is the most under appreciated vegetable in spite of all its health benefits. Eating radish regularly helps to cleanse the kidney, helps to sooth sore throats, fights the flu virus,aids digestion, helps to get rid of toxins from the body, fights cancer,is a natural coolant and keeps the body hydrated. I love making moora ni bhaji whenever its available. I find that whenever its Ramadhan month, the white radish is available in abundance. Many of the locals can be seen biting into the radish when they break their fast. In the Gujarati cuisine, we tend to use both the root and leaves to make a sabji , shaak or vegetable to go with nice hot rotlis. I also love using radish to make theplas and mooli parathas. I made this shaak when my sister and her family came down from UK recently and I was pleasantly surprised to know th...