mayurisjikoni

Rice for Breakfast! Theme: Explore Latin American Cuisine BM #77 Week 2 Day 2    My exploration on the internet (what would we do with google?) took me to Costa Rica. As I mentioned in my previous post I had to restrict myself to ingredients that are available in Mombasa. What caught my eyes was an interesting breakfast dish that most Costa Ricans have and that is Gallo Pinto. It translates as 'spotted rooster'. The mixture of cooked rice and cooked beans together gives the impression of a spotted rooster. It is believed that there is no one version that all the Costa Ricans enjoy. They all have their versions of the breakfast dish. all you need for this dish as the core ingredients are old cooked rice or leftover rice and some cooked beans. When I say cooked beans it means beans that are soaked and cooked and not out of a can. However for a quick version I guess you can use canned beans. Some even enjoy this preparation for lunch or dinner. This concoction is not boring as yo...

Back to a normal diet   After all the festivities... Navratri followed by Diwali, its time to avoid all the sweet stuff, the fired goodies and its time to get back to a normal, healthy diet. After the festivities and over indulgence ( I must admit I had quite a bit of chips with yogurt dip and fried wedges) our #FoodieMonday#Bloghop team decided that our #65theme should be #soups . I love soups, not so much the ready made ones but  the home made ones.    Soups can be smooth and creamy, light and a bit watery or wholesome. I decided to prepare a wholesome soup, full of vegetables and lentils and with a hint of spiciness. You can literally make wholesome soups your meal. Just add the veggies, proteins and serve with some bread and hey presto you have a balanced meal.   Moroccan soups are usually made with meat and veggies. They are served during the month of Ramadan to break the fast and during the rest of the year served as a starter or as a light meal. Basic Mo...

Sunday is Pizza Day      I've made pizzas when my kids were at home, when we've invited guests, to celebrate special occasions. Years back we didn't get frozen pizzas, or ready made pizza base. There were not many places making pizzas back then, so the only option was to make them at home.Made them quite often but never ever thought of posting my pizza recipe. Actually don't know why I haven't done so till now. Well, as they say its never too late. I must thank my #FoodieMonday #Bloghop friends for choosing the 41st theme as #Pizzamania.          Normally on a Sunday hubby and I go to our favourite restaurant IL Covo to have either a pizza or lasagna. We usually land up with a pizza as they are baked in a brick oven using wood. The pizzas are simply amazing. Homemade ones don't give the same result. However, pizzas whether home made or ready made are mostly everyone's favourite. I still have to come across someone who hates pizzas. When the grou...

Thinking healthy     For the January Shhh Cooking Secretly challenge, my partner Veena Krishna Kumar of Veg Nation  challenged me to cook with bell pepper (sweet pepper) and poppy seeds. I nearly asked her change the bell pepper. No don't get me wrong, bell peppers are so versatile that one can make anything with them. The only reason I wanted her to change it was because hubby dear is allergic to them. Well, he doesn't break out into a rash or anything but feels that it upsets his stomach. But I love bell pepper, so thought that I really don't have to make something that he will like or appreciate; some day it has to be my choice too. So I decided to work with the given ingredients and was trying to think of something healthy. Salads are healthy, but I had this crunchy cauliflower bite recipe bookmarked for a while. So decided to make both sweet pepper and cauliflower to make the wonderful healthy bites.Cauliflower ones for hubby and sweet pepper ones for me :) I baked t...

  Me time!           Do you ever get some time in a month or a week just by yourself and no one else? No kids, no family, no hubby, etc etc? I do. Not saying that I don't get my space with hubby dear around. He is my biggest supporter in whatever I want to do in life. But there are times we women need to be alone, with no one around. I get those days at least twice a month when hubby attends his medical meetings in the evening. For that evening I am free to cook what I like, which usually means something that he does not like and to watch any program or movie that I want. No one to tell me that candy crush is a kiddie's game, no one to tell me that I am taking too long to solve the sudoku or no one to tell me that I only buy the newspaper for the crossword! For those 3-4 hours, I am doing what I want. It's a great relaxing feeling. But when he gets home, I am happy not to be alone. When I tell him that, he thinks I am crazy, wanting time by myself and at th...

a perfect winter soup      My son had bought 6 coloured peppers, forgetting that his dad does not like them. Hubby dear claims that even the sweet peppers make his tummy burn. Every evening my son would remind me to make something with the peppers before they get spoilt. With a few I made roasted sweet pepper pesto and with the rest I made some soup. For hubby dear I made mushroom soup. It was raining that day in Montreal, so hot soup was a treat to ward off the cold. The first spoon full went into his mouth and my son immediately commended that it's an excellent soup for winter. I tried out this soup for the first time and had to blog it so that it can be repeated again. Browsed through many recipes and taking tips from here and there put the soup together in a pot.     The idea of using ready made stock does not come to my mind easily as it's not available in Kenya. A few days ago my son made his style of broccoli soup(it was absolutely yummy) and used vegeta...