Goodbye 2016 and Welcome to 2017

         Wishing you all a Happy and Colourful New Year 2017!!!

2016!!! What a year, life went on super duper busy during this year though i have been enjoying some major changes happened in my personnal life and in my professional life. 2016, this year started with a Dilemma for me, i was like whether to write an exam to enter into a government job or to keep up the oldie goldie job in Child care. But nothing is predictable in life na, i finished brilliantly the entrance exam with writing and oral test in front of 8 juries. All happened very much quickly and i got a new full time job in a school. Obviously its been 5 months, my life was like roller coaster, i have been juggling between my work, home and blogging. However i have been constantly blogging. Thanking god for it, for giving me some force to cook and prepare the blogposts during weekends.

Am keeping myself busy in blogging either by posting thrice a week or atleast posting from 12-15 posts a month. Not to forget that i have blogged successfully two whole months of Mega marathon with two different themes during this year which was quite a challenge for me.

If you are interested to know what i cooked for Blogging Mega Marathon do check the links below:

April 2016 : Journey through the cuisine with 26 days of French cuisine in Alphabetical order as theme.

September 2016 : Cooking Carnival with 5 beans for 5 weeks as theme.

I kick started 2016 with a super healthy fingerlicking Gravy with Mixed Herbs, which i cooked up during my trip in India. I have posted 206 posts during this year and now my blog counts 3345 posts.

I have won few contests this year too especially from Better Butter.

Am so happy to say that i got an immense chance to meet two wonderful food bloggers Jeyashri and Raji who travelled all the way from Singaport to Paris to meet me. Whatelse a blogger need.

Let's take a glimpse of my top recipes with highest views i have posted during this whole year:

January: Deep Fried Snickers Bars

February: Paneer Biriyani 

March: Easter Special Hot Cross Buns 

April: Gai Mei Bao - Chinese Coconut Buns 

Mai: Key Shaped Yeast Bread

June: Paneer Kalimirch

July: Eggless Checkerboard Dinner Rolls

August: Pain d'Epi

September: Garlic & Cheese Black Bean Pull Apart Bread/Black Bean Monkey Bread

October: Chinese Pan Fried Baozi Buns/Chicken & Carrot Panfried Baozi & Boondi Pak

November: Tawa Noodles with Banana Stem

December : Chestnut Smoothie Bowl & Christmas Tree Patterned Swiss Roll Cake

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.

Sending this post to Srivalli's Best of Year 2016.

My cooking resolution of 2017 is going to be blogging every week atleast twice a week, yes believe me am so skeptical about blogging nowadays as my professional life is very much busy.

Christmas Tree Patterned Swiss Roll Cake

Swiss roll or cream roll is a kind of sponge cake roll stuffed with either whipped cream,fruits or buttercream or sometimes simply with jam. A thin layer of batter prepared with flour,eggs and sugar baked in a sheet pan, spread with jam or buttercream, rolled up and served as round slices makes this roll. I have prepared this roll with usual measurements as christmas tree Patterned Swiss roll, filled with chocolate mascarpone cheese cream. This delicious vanilla swiss roll filled with a chocolate loaded mascarpone cream makes an excellent dessert after a meal. I carried this swiss roll cake to our Xmas dinner party and all our friends enjoyed thoroughly this incredible cake. I got so many appreciations for this cake, watelse we need na.

Christmas Candy Cane Cookies

Candy cane cookies, one of the popular festive cookies with a rich texture, a holiday favourite cookies for kids and adults. Always a must during Christmas season, this candycane cookies have their own place among the christmas cookies. Usually prepared with sugar dough, these cookies calls for two coloured dough. Those both colourful dough when twisted together, looks prefect as like the candy cane. These cookies are seriously very simple to bake. A prefect holiday cookies to bake and share with family and friends. If you want to bake some christmas friendly cookies then this cookies is a must to give a try. You can pack them very well as christmas gifts too.

Eggless Funfetti Sugar Cookies

I have been looking for a chance to bake some sugar cookies with colourful sprinkles and finally i baked some few days back. Adding colourful sugar sprinkles to a simple sugar cookie dough turns this eggless cookies more catchy and extremely addictive. You can pack these cookies very well in your kid's snack box or else to pack and carry for a celebration. Not to forget that this dangerously addictive buttery cookies suits prefectly to enjoy during your Christmas party as well. However this cookies are kid's friendly munchies and trust me kids will go crazy if they tastes this super delicious buttery cookies.

Chestnut Chocolate Smoothie Bowl

Once the autumn starts here in Paris, you wont miss street vendors selling freshly roasted chestnuts which is quite common in every street corners. Freshly roasted chestnuts are our favourite street food obviously we never miss to get them. Then later i came to know how to roast and steam cook chestnuts at home which is quite similar to roasting/steam cooking peanuts but it will take more time to get roast/steam cook. Roasted chestnuts tastes fabulous while the weather is too nasty. When i picked Seasonal Special as theme for this week's blogging marathon, i seriously want to give a try to a different dish with chestnuts. Hence i want to give a trial with a smoothie bowl with steam cooked chestnuts and this smoothie came out extremely delicious. Trust me, we enjoyed thoroughly our smoothie bowl for our sunday brunch.

Leek Pakoda/Leek Fritters/Leek Medhu Pakoda

Leeks belong to the onion family, its usually used in dishing soups or quiches. But trust me, you can dish out some incredible Indian style dishes too. Its peak season of leeks here and this vegetable shows its heads during Autumn season. I just love this super flavourful leek especially in soups. However i dont want to dish out a soup when i picked Seasonal Special as this week's theme for this third week of blogging marathon. As usual, my brain worked awesome and i couldnt stop myself dishing out some fritters aka pakodas with this incredible vegetable. If you love loads of onions in pakodas, am sure you will definitely love this leeks loaded fritters. Once i finished frying, we went on munching this fritters as they were dangerously addictive.

Kiwi & Clementine Upside Down Cake

Its peak season of both Kiwi and clementine here, both these fruits are my favourite though i cant eat kiwi raw to enjoy their goodness. However i dont miss eating kiwis, i usually bake or dish out apple sauce with kiwi, else a simple kiwi compote or jam to please my tastebuds. Obviously am posting one of those incredible kiwi based cake today which i baked recently with clementines. I have a reason for it, yes this week's blogging marathon's theme is going to be Seasonal produce. Since its going to be Winter very soon, we are trying to keep ourselves fit to overcome the upcoming nasty winter by enjoying these fruits. Kiwi and clementines, both these fruits are loaded with loads of vitamins especially vitamin C. Trust me we are literally overloaded with these fruits but still if you check my fruit baskets, you can still able to see some kiwis and clementines sitting silently.

Vánočka/Vanocka - Czech Christmas Bread

Vanocka/Vánočka is a Czech Republic and Slovakia Christmas bread which is often baked during Christmas time. This bread calls for a rich bread dough prepared with eggs, butter and this bread dough sounds almost like Brioche. Usually this bread have raisins and almonds though sometime you can add some lemon rind or orange rinds just to give some flavor. Braided like Challa, this bread calls for three progressively braids stacked on top of each other. This is sometimes interpreted as a rough sculpture of Baby Jesus wrapped in cloth laying in a manger (manger is a structure used to hold food to feed animals). Manger is also a Christian symbol. Earlier people felt like saying that this bread is very difficult to prepare at home and so many superstitions and special customs are followed while baking this bread. When making Vánočka some says that the person who bakes this bread should jump up and down while the dough rises, another custom says that to avoid touching silver or metal to the Vánočka.

Panettone/Mini Panettone with Chocolate chips - Italian Christmas Bread

Panettone is a sweet Italian bread loaf which have its origin from Milan, which is usually prepared during Christmas and New year in Italy. This bread is very much known in most other countries of the world and this bread is one of the symbols of Milan city. Recent times, this bread have their important place in many christmas table. This bread is prepared usually in a cylindical base mould and panettone weigh usually 1 kg. Traditionally, this bread dough calls for a long process, the proofing process take several days which gives an incredible fluffy character to this bread. And this bread contains candied orange, citron, lemon zest and loads of raisins which are added directly to the bread dough instead of soaking.My today's version is one of the easiest and simple version of panettone which turns extremely prefect as much as like the traditional panettone.

Jewish Apple Christmas Cake

When winter comes, apples shows their head in every fruit stall. And we get varieties of apples during this super chilled weather. Obviously i dont forget to bake some delicious bakes out this fantastic fruits. When i get a chance to bake with apples, i dont hesitate a second to bake with. I have couple of cakes to give a try and am trying to cook from my bookmark recipes.This Jewish apple cake was suggested as a christmas special recipes by Priya of Cook Like Priya long back for a baking event. Since i couldnt able to bake this cake for the baking event i have been looking for a chance to bake this cake and finally i baked this fabulous cake as i was running this week's blogging marathon with 'Christmas Special' as theme.

Quinoa Nei Payasam/Quinoa Sharkara Payasam

Nei Payasam is one of the popular payasam which is usually served as prasadam in Sabari Malai temple. Obviously many Kerala temples serves this very sweet thick consistency payasam during special occasions to the devotees. This payasam is simply prepared with rice, jaggery and ghee, hence the name comes from ghee which is known as Nei/Ney. If you give a try to this lipsmacking payasam, am sure you will definitely make this super delicious payasam quite often. Since i always want to give a twist to the traditional dishes, i couldnt stop myself to try this famous nei payasam with quinoa. Trust me, these tiny grains works out awesome to make this super delicious payasam.

Quinoa Mixed Dals Bhath

An another incredible dish which is quite a must to try if you want to prepare something different with the super humble grain aka Quinoa. Quinoa, this is my star ingredient of this week's blogging marathon as am running One ingredient,three main courses as theme. Prepared with loads of vegetables and three different dals, this lipsmacking healthy dal bhath is a must if you are searching for something healthy and easy to dish out. Trust me, this mixed dals bhath is a one pot meal and you can prepare this super comforting food in less time than you can imagine. Pressure cooker is a must if you want to dish out your meals in less time. Obviously this dish calls for pressure cooking.

Quinoa Chakli/Quinoa Murukku

Quinoa, this wholegrain is must in my pantry since i started cooking with these tiny grains. This wholegrains are seriously versatile and you can dish many ultimate dishes out of this grains from snacks to sweets. I have been experimenting different recipes with these grains and one of my recent trial is this crunchy munchy murukku. If you are searching for a different murukku,am sure my today's post will definitely help you to make your savoury snacks for any occasion. I have prepared quinoa flour myself at home after dry roasting those grains and grinded as flour out of it. This homemade quinoa flour makes excellent crunchy and dangerously addictive murukku.