Lets Say Goodbye 2015 & Welcome to 2016

                                           Happy New Year Wishes to all

2015, what a year. I finished my 8 months course in Child care, then started working in a kindergarden now.This year started with many more hurdles and some more appreciations even in this virtual world aka blogging. Though this year was bit tough for me, i didnt stop my blogging and kept my work constantly atleast by posting thrice a week. Thanks to blogging marathon family, this monthly marathon keeps my blog alive and its the only event i try to participate without any fail.However i couldnt resist to participate even in some Baking event as baking is very close to my heart.

I successfully finished two whole month's of blogging marathon with 26 days of Fire up your oven with 26 different baked goodies and 26 days of Buffet on table with different themes for 5 weeks.

Not to forget, i got featured in one of the famous tamil magazine Kumudam in their supplement with my briyani recipes, a page about my blog and some soup recipes along with few more bloggers.

An another tamil magazine Malligai Magal featured 25 winter recipes in their supplement. Yea, this year was somehow very productive for me.

Finally my hard work got few recognitions. I won first prize in Diwali delight contest with Better Butter site and many of my dishes got featured in their site. Thanking God for making myself very proud during some difficult moments.

I have posted 179 posts during this year, i cant believe that i have published this much posts. Now my space have 3139 posts totally, am so happy to share this with you all. Actually this blog was started initially to kill my leisure time but now my blog baby became a part of my family.

I would like to share few of my best recipes i have created in my kitchen during this whole year and here comes my best recipes out of the 179 posts have posted in my space.

January: Turkish Ramadan Pita

February: Black Bean Stuffed Paratha

March:Cheese Naan

April : Fish Shaped Paneer Bhurji Stuffed Bread & Easter Brioche Nest

May: Fruits & Nuts Mango Cake with Homemade Cake Mix

June: Refriend Beans &Cheese Chimichanga & Eggless Butterless Black Bean & Orange Brownies

July: Minced Soya Kheema & Cashewnut Balls

September: Tortilla Espanola & Sabaayad - Somalian flatbread

October: Halloween Owl Cookies & Langos - Hungarian Flatbread

November : Nankhattai - Indian Cookies, Sweet Potato Gulab Jamun & Eggless Colour Pencil Cookies

December: Roti Telur , Eggless Christmas Pinwheel Cookies, Christmas Meringue Trees & Stained Glass Cookies

Hope you enjoyed this post and am very thankful to each and everyone for being part of my blogging world, nothing is possible without you all.This post is going to Srivalli's Best of the Year 2015.

My cooking resolution of 2016 is going to be some interesting and definitely healthiest foods, i have few things in my mind, fingers crossed now.

Once again i wish you a Prosperous and Healthy new year!!!

Eggless Stained Glass Cookies

One more addition to my cookies collection is this Eggless and damn cute stained glass cookies, this cookies are in my to do list since a long. Everytime i want to bake some, either i finish baking with a different cookie or my time schedule will get messed up. But this time when i planned something for a christmas theme cookies, the first thing came to my mind is this stained glass cookies. As usual these cookies are egg free but buttery, dangerously addictive cookies. None can resist to this beauties and am sure kids will go crazy if they saw this ultimate cookies in their snack box or else in a party table. Seriously this cookies asks for less efforts and the final result will definitely makes you super happy.

Christmas Meringue Trees

                                       Merry Christmas Wishes to All !!!

Meringue, i came to know about this kind of desserts or confections once i landed France, actually while my H took me to a walk, i was intrigued to see some whitish fluffy cuties sitting in our street corner Bakery. Immediately  i asked for it and H bought it for me,instantly i have completely fallen in love with this egg whites based crispy meringue. They just melt in mouth, later i came to know that we can make them easily at home. I tried my hands in making meringues at home and failed twice. Obviously i never want to give a try when its comes to meringue, days goes on and as a blogger i learned so many techniques regarding baking. Again i tried meringues at home, its was big success, you can take a look at my Meringue Mushrooms which is used for decorating this Yule log cake. But my today's post is quite a different from this meringue mushrooms, i followed Swiss meringue which makes some beautiful meringue.

Sprinkles Crusted Eggless Christmas Pinwheel Cookies

Christmas, this festival is one of the favourite festival we usually celebrate with our family and friends. I have couple of xmas based bakes in my space though am yet to try many. Christmas bakes are really special, colourful which brings the festive mood since most of the baking goodies are prepared with seasonal products, dry fruits and spices. Just love Christmas, if you have a chance to visit Paris during this xmas time, you will thoroughly enjoy the festival mood which this city brings to you with their tremendous lightings and decorations.This is also one of the reason i like this festival. Not to forget the variety of christmas themed chocolates we get easily during this festival time.My today's post goes for a buttery colourful Christmas themed cookies baked out with coloured cookie doughs which i simply crusted with colourful and catchy sugar sprinkles.

Christmas Fruit & Rum Cake/Christmas Fruit & Nut Cake with Rum

Christmas is around the corner and am getting ready with many christmas themed special bakes for this season. One of my H's favourite cake is fruits loaded rum cake,this cake was in my to do list since a long and finally i ended up in baking this cake today. I soaked all the dry fruits and nuts with spice powders along with treacle syrup,orange zest and rum before a month, and kept in a safe place to see the result after a month, trust me it came out extremely flavourful and aromatic. My H always asks for this rum cake but for some reason i couldnt bake this cake earlier finally i couldnt resist after smelling this aromatic soaked fruits to bake this cake. Personally i didnt felt the alcohol in this cake, its just half a cup of rum along with treacle syrup added to dry fruits and nuts makes this excellent fruit mix. Traditionally caramel syrup is used in Indian style of Christmas fruit cakes, but for a change i replaced the caramel syrup with treacle syrup. This cake tastes extremely delicious.

Chocolate & Walnut Yogurt Cake with Black Sugar

One of my recent find out is Black sugar, i didnt picked it accidently as i love to experiment with different ingredients to add in our dishes. I recently crossed black sugar in M&S during my recent visit, initially i was bit skeptical though i seriously want to give a try with this new ingredient. So i picked it immediately along with black treacle syrup to give a try. Back home, i tried making this simple yogurt cake with both black sugar and black treacle syrup. Black sugar can look quite similar to brown sugar,however black sugar is more darker almost black.Personally i felt that this black sugar is almost like our Indian jaggery but more dark in colour.

Caramel Peanut Topped Brownie Cake

I usually try to bake special cakes for special days, i couldnt resist to make this super nutty and super delicious caramel peanuts topped brownie cake for my elder son's birthday but this cake was in draft for a long. This cake was our recent favourite and each and every bite of this cake tastes absolutely fabulous. Actually this cake tastes almost like snickers, the famous peanut and caramel chocolate bar, yes the caramelised peanuts while having this brownie cake tastes absolutely decandent and whoever like peanuts and chocolate will definitely go crazy if they saw this cake. Also this cake is definitely easy to make and definitely a celebration cake. If you want to please anyone specially for a special day or else for a celebration, dont forget to give this try to this incredible cake.

Sweet Potato Cinnamon Rolls with Chocolate Chips

These yummy incredible rolls suits prefect to have for snacks with a cup of coffee or tea, just imagine this rolls with coffee, how super tempting na. Believe me, these rolls gets vanished quickly. I have to hide some rolls for better half as they were quite addictive. Sweet potato puree adds a fabulous colour to this cute rolls.My kids were literally behind these rolls and they couldnt stop themselves having this chocolate rich rolls. Even my Husband who dont like cinnamon flavour in bakes simply loved it. Obviously am gonna make quite often this chocolate chips filled sweet potato cinnamon rolls.

Baked Potato Slices

Usually most of us make spicy sliced potato fry for our lunch especially to serve along with lemon rice, i just love this sliced fried potatoes, i want to replicate the same but as a guilt free version. Hence i tried my hands with this less oil and absolutely crispy spicy baked potato slices. You can have this baked sliced potatoes either as a starter when served along with tomato ketchup or as side dish to serve along with dal rice or curd rice. You wont believe this potato slices will defnitely makes everyone happy, from a kid to an adult, anyone can simply have this baked version of our usual oldy goldy potato fry.

Oven Baked Carrot and Radish Fries

Who will say no to baked fries, one of my recent trial is this ultimate, quick and very easy fries with carrot and white radish. This finger food are quite easy to make and bake, just 20minutes of baking is quite enough to dish out this healthy guilt free fries.I simply spiced this healthy vegetable fries with just salt, pepper powder and olive oil. If you want to add any other herbs just go on adding, any dried or fresh herbs works awesome and add them according to your preference. These fries are best to eat once its comes out of the oven, obviously if you want to make this fries for your dinner,  prepare these vegetable slices ready and start baking 20minutes just before your dinner.

Spicy Baked Cauliflower Florets

Nothing can be easy as like baking veggies in oven, i have been baking vegetables constantly whenever i feel like having healthy foods for our lunch or for our dinner. Especially cauliflower, this vegetable works awesome for baking or for oven roasting. I have already tried couple of baked dishes with this vegetable and one of my recent trial with this incredible vegetable is this simple baked guilt free baked and spiced cauliflower florets. Usually my family like cauliflower when deep fried either as crispy pakodas or bajjis, this time i quickly baked those florets with a spiced chilly paste just to serve along with our meal for lunch.

Mozzarella Stuffed Potato Balls

If you are searching for a simple, hassle free snacks or starter for a get together or for your family, am sure this dangerously addictive mozzarella stuffed potato balls will definitely makes you happy. With less efforts and simple ingredients, these crispy cuties gets ready very much easily, no chopping and no sauteeing vegetables etc is needed. Very simple potato balls stuffed with mozzarella bites makes this cuties. Kids will definitely go crazy if they saw this deep fried beauties for their snacks. Trust me, anyone who ever like cheese especially mozzarella cheese will definitely fallen in love with this cute balls.

Mini Jam Crescent Rolls

Its been a while i posted crescent rolls with homemade bread dough. Crescent rolls makes a prefect dinner rolls to serve along with a bowl of soup or else with grilled meat. But for a change i stuffed the usual crescent rolls with strawberry jam, obviously this cute crescent rolls makes an excellent evening snacks or breakfast. But trust me, this crescent rolls gets disappears once they comes out of the oven. Whenever i have some leftover bread dough at fridge, i wont forget to make crescent rolls, most of the time i do stuff with nutella but this time i couldnt resist to make the usual chocolate dinner rolls to jam crescent rolls. Trust me, these cuties are very quick  and very simple to prepare.

Malaysian Stuffed Egg Prata/ Roti Telur

Roti Telur is a kind of Malaysian flaky pancake aka roti canai. Roti canai is a Indian influenced flatbread which is quite famous in Malaysia, Indonesia and in Singapore, though it is called as Roti prata in Southern Malaysia and Singapore. Roti canai is quite like a younger sister of Kerala parotta which we find easily in most of the road side shops in most of the cities in South India. Roti Telur is a variation of the flaky roti canai when a egg mixture is added in the center of the cooking rotis. Roti telur is usually found in square shape as the rolled dough need to cover the egg mixture added inside the thinly rolled sheet like dough. I always want to give a try to this incredible egg stuffed paratha since a long,finally i made it at home for our weekend as a special meal.

Eggless Spiced Pumpkin Rolls

Pumpkin, this squash marks the fall season in most of the countries. I just love this fleshy squash, trust me anything i do with pumpkin goes directly to our family favourite dish. Most of the time i do soups, though sometime i make puree out of this squash to make baked goodies. One of my recent bread rolls with pumpkin puree is this spiced pumpkin rolls. Am sure this rolls will definitely please everyone. Not only the tastebuds also a real treat to eyes, this spiced pumpkin rolls makes an excellent dinner rolls to decorate your thanksgiving dinner table and they looks very much prefect to attract anyone especially the kids.This spiced pumpkin rolls are this month's  We Knead to Bake, monthly event by Aparna, My Diverse Kitchen.

Chettinad Paneer Masala/Paneer Chettinad/Chettinad Paneer Curry

Paneer is our family favourite Indian cheese, i have already cooked couple of delicious dishes out of this popular cheese. Paneer is definitely a interesting cheese to work with and its completely versatile, you can cook many rich dishes from cake to desserts, from biriyani to side dishes. Many dishes cooked with Paneer are quite famous in North Indian cooking. Though South Indians do make many more flavourful rich curries or masalas with this ultimate cheese. Weather is getting too chilled here, obviously our tastebuds beg for hot and spicy foods. When you want something hot and spicy,Chettinad style of cooking will definitely tickle your tastebuds. Hence my today's post goes for Chettinad Paneer Masala.

Baby Bittergourd Fry/Midhi Pavakka Poriyal/Kuruvi Thala Pavakkai Poriyal

You might have already cooked with bittergourd atleast once in your life, though this gourd is bitter in taste they are super healthy and highly recommended for diabetic peoples.We get bittergourd in Indian groceries but i have never seen baby bittergourd here. But i got a chance to cook with baby bittergourds during my stay in India.Trust me a kg of this baby bittergourd costs just Rs 15 which i bought from a grandma who never fails to sell her homegrown veggies in market. I have became her client and never failed to get her super tender fresh vegetables whenever i go to Pondicherry farmer's market, seriously i miss those fresh produce here.

Chettinad Mushroom Masala/Chettinad Kaalan Curry

Chettinad cuisine, doesnt need any introduction. Its quite an important cuisine of Tamilnadu region and this cuisine is very well known around the world for its flavoursome, delicious and lipsmacking dishes. They have numerous traditional dishes and nothing can beat their flavourful rich and hot spicy dishes. Chettinad cuisine is one of my favourite and have been pampered with many beautiful dishes from my childhood by both my grandmas. Yes though i have been born and brought up in Pondicherry, our cuisine is a interesting mixture of various cuisine from Tamilnadu,Kerala, French and Andhra  obviouslt my cooking style will definitely have chettinad touch, and my love for this cuisine pulls me always to cook different dishes from this cuisine. One among those chettinad fame masala i cooked from this cuisine is this Chettinad Mushroom Masala.

Vendaikkai (Okra) Podi Curry/Bhindi Curry With Spiced Dal Powder

Few posts back, i have told that during my stay in India i tried many delicious dishes with fresh vegetables which were easily available in every farmer's market. During my stay, i prepared couple of easy and healthy dishes to share with you all, with those fresh vegetable. You cant just resist to make simple but yet comforting dishes. I usually get okras/Bhindis/Vendaikkais everytime i go to Indian groceries in Paris, though they are not cheaper when compared to India. This vegetable is one of our family favourite and my kids just love it. When i saw 1kg of Bhindi costs 10Rs in India, i couldnt resist to grab a kiloeventhough i was alone and back home i tried many interesting dishes out of it. One among those dishes is this podi curry, a prefect side dish for rasam or curd rice. The spiced dal mixture used in this curry makes this curry more flavourful and definitely a interesting  curry to try.

Roasted Rice Tea/Japanese Dark Rice Tea & Pimp My Rice - A Cookbook Review

Rice is a staple food of Indians, we cant survive without rice and we need it for our daily menu. Recently Sam collins and Gemma from an English cook book Publisher pinged me in Facebook to review a cookbook. Cookbook to review who will say 'no' obviously i immediately said yes and this book came all the way from England to Paris. When i opened the courrier, the book cover attracted me immediately, there was no attractive food pictures over the cover, a black background with brass letters saying Pimp my rice was seriously interesting and pulled me to check out the content of the book.

Baked Mathri/Baked Sesame Mathri/Baked Salt Crackers

Mathri is a popular North Indian fried snacks usually served with spicy pickle or along with a cup of masala tea or coffee.These mathris exists with different ingredients, from dry fenugreek leaves to sesame seeds, many flavourful, crunchy and delicious mathris do exists. These crackers are prepared easily with basic ingredients which is quite easily available in everyone's pantry. Usually fried, these crackers makes an excellent evening snacks, a crowd pleaser or just as an appetizier depending upon how they are served. You can simply serve this mathris with spicy chutneys,flavoured cream cheese or simply with your favourite drink.

Eggless Colour Pencil Cookies

I have already tried many varieties of cookies but still they do exist many which are quite creative, interesting, cute and effortless cookies. One of my recent bake is these attractive shaped cookies aka Colour Pencil cookies. Actually i baked this cookies for an event, as a member of this baking group i baked this colour pencil as this event goes for weekly baking. When i saw this colour pencil cookies, i couldnt resist myself to bake some. Obviously i opted for an eggless version though the original recipe calls for an egg yolk. However even without egg, this cute cookies came out absolutely buttery.

Nankhatai/Wheat Nan Khatai/Indian Nankattai

Nankhatai is butter Indian shortbread cookies have their important place in most of the Diwali sweet list. These cute cookies makes an excellent buttery snacks as well, its quite easy to make and obviously super dangerously addictive. So many versions exists, some goes for all purpose flour, while other makes with a combination of gram flour and all purpose flour and some makes these cookies with wheat flour. The word Nankhatai is from Persian word Nan meaning bread and Khatai from an Afghan word meaning biscuit.Traditional Nankhatai was made with gram flour and maida, the most important flour mixture which is now can be replaced with wheat flour, some add semolina to make this cookies aka biscuits more crunchy.

Chicken 65 Biriyani/Chicken 65 Biryani

Have you ever tried combining chicken 65 and biryani together as one pot meal?, if not then you are missing something. This chicken 65 biriyani makes an excellent meal for a party get together, family get together or else simply for a special sunday lunch. Actually i love to serve biriyani cooked with chicken,mutton or prawn along with chicken 65 and raita but imagine how delicious this biriyani will be if both chicken 65 and rice gets cooked in a spiced aromatic paste. My family members are great fans of chicken 65 and briyani obviously this one pot meal was their favourite since ever i served them for their sunday lunch.Though this briyani goes for both frying chicken pieces and cooking kuska like biriyani, dont forget to give a try to this interesting and delicious one pot meal. If you are a vegetarian, do try this biryani with Paneer 65 or else with vegetables like baby potatoes or cauliflower, the choice is yours.

Navadhaniya Pulao/9 Beans Pulao

9 beans, usually i make them myself as i always have beans in my pantry, beans are rich in proteins and obviously i love to add them quite often in our diet. Earlier HD wasnt a great fan of beans but finally he started loving them as i never forget to feed with beans. If you are a regular visitor of my blog, i have already shared tips for freezing beans, actually dry beans are much needed to soak a day before to dish out dishes with them, but i have been following a simple method since few years. Yes i usually soak them in huge quantity, the next day i'll drain the water and pat dry them. After pat drying i'll freeze them in freezer friendly zip lock bags for further use. While pressure cooking, just drop enough frozen beans directly to the cooker, wash it with enough water, add salt and cook them. Your beans are ready to make dishes out of it.Do follow this method and see how handy this method is.

Spicy Watermelon Seeds Rice

So many Cookery Tv shows do exists in my mother tongue 'Tamil', obviously i dont have that much to follow each and every cookery shows. Whenever time permits, i check those shows and try to recreate few dishes if they sounds different from the usual one in my kitchen. Recently i saw a famous cookery show in one of the regional tv and got hooked to a rice dish where the host of this show used pumpkin seeds to make this quick rice. Since i dont have pumpkin seeds, i tried the same rice dish with watermelon seeds which i bought during my last India trip. Pumpkin or melon seeds, am sure this easy breezy rice which definitely tickle your tastebuds and you can pack them very well for your lunch.

Sweet Potato Gulab Jamun/Shakarkandi Gulab Jamun/Sakkaravalli Kizhangu Jamun

Happy Diwali wishes to you all.. Have a safe and joyful festival!!!!

Indian cuisine is vast and varieties of sweets do exists especially during festival time. Obviously its not that much easy to make all the sweets which exists in Indian cuisine, though  many of those sweets are easy to make. Gulab jamun, this sweet is a star among the sweets. We Indians make often this sweet for the festival especially during Diwali.Even i have tried couple of jamuns and still i have few more to make. You can make this succulent,juicy and spongy jamuns with different methods, the easiest one is with store bought mix which is quite often in every Indian stores. If you want to make the traditional way by simmering the milk and making khoya out of it, which is later used for making the jamun dough asks for a long cooking process, else one more method of making jamuns is with milk powder, i have already tried these methods and even a jamun with potatoes, yes you read it rite, i have already prepared Aloo jamuns aka potato jamuns.

Wheat Ribbon Pakoda/Godhumai Ola Pakoda

Hope you guys are busy in making sweets and savouries for Diwali, just two more days to go and once again i miss celebrating this fantastic festival of lights at my hometown. However its again a working day for us, seriously we are going to miss the fun here. What to do, thats the disadvantage of living in abroad. But fortunately this time Wednesday is a holiday for us, obviously we are trying to arrange a get together among our friends atleast to have fun after a day of this popular festival. I have been making couple of sweets and savouries for this get together and this time i have opted for an interesting ribbon pakoda with wheat flour aka our Chapathi flour.Sending to Srivalli's Kid's delight - Cooking with Wholegrains hosted by Kalyani.

Kala Jamun with Khoya/ Mawa Kala Jamoon/Fried Milk Sweet Dumplings

Gulab jamun, this succulent spongy fried milk sweet dumplings are our family favourite. For any special occasions or during festivals i dont forget to make this ultimate jamuns. Even a huge box of this jamuns gets vanished very much quickly at home especially when they are served along with vanilla icecream. Am sure most of us have already tasted this combination, needless to say how delicious this combo will be na. Though am keeping myself away from deepfrying and sweets, i couldnt resist to make this Kala jamun with khoya. Yes this jamuns are not made out of the storebought packets, i prepared my jamun dough with homemade khoya. Kala jamun makes me nostalgic, when we were kids mom usually go and get this dark jamuns from a Sweet stall owned by a old man who never fails to make this succulent jamuns everyday at 6pm. Though this stall doesnt exists now, i still remember the taste of those juicy kala jamuns. Kala Jamuns was my personnal favourite, and finally after having a kala jamun even my better half fallen in love with this dark beauty.