Over baked..

therefore on a short break. Be back in a month or so.

Carrot cake

With winter hitting Mumbai,  the markets are stocked with healthy looking, red carrots. The Dilli wali gajar comes to the city  only during the winter season. For the rest of the year we are expected to make do with the orange coloured, bland tasting hybrid that lends itself beautifully to Chinese cooking  but has limited(if any) use  in dessert making.   

I have had this carrot cake recipe bookmarked  for a long, long time. Since  over a year to be precise. The Dilliwali gajars begged me to turn them into a cake this weekend and here are the results-

 

I basically followed Homey’s recipe but made some minor changes. For the sake of convenience, I am mentioning her recipe here. Changes made by me are italicized.

Ingredients:

• 1 and half cup APF/ maida
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 3 eggs
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup shredded carrot- 1 large grated carrot was sufficed
• 1 cup raisins – this was reduced to ½ C
• 1/2 cup walnuts – chopped and lightly roasted
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon powder

Method:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F/180 deg.C.
• Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl and keep aside
• In another bowl combine oil, sugar, eggs, brown sugar, honey and vanilla with an electric mixer. Add the shredded carrot and mix.
• Then add the flour mixture to the other ingredients and mix until just combined.
• Then add the raisins and walnuts and mix well by hand.
• Pour batter into two 8 inch loaf pans. I have a rather tall loaf pan so I managed with one.  Bake for approx 45-60 minutes till a toothpick comes out clean.

Carrot cake has a lot going for it. A- its carrot.  So its healthy. Even if you match up with quantity of carrot with equal or higher quantities of sugar and maida and fat.   B- It has a distinct taste,very different from the regular vanilla/chocolate pound cakes. C- if you live in Bombay you can make it only for two months or so. That fact by itself should up the value of carrot cake manifold.

We’ve been making carrot cake at home for many years now. Essentially our recipe is similar to Homey’s but her’s  is superior on a few accounts. She uses honey and brown sugar along with regular white sugar and that makes a significant difference in the taste. Its amazing how much difference to the overall taste sugar can make.  I think this is the trick that makes this recipe special- using a combination of sugars. Besides adding to the flavour it also makes the top crust more crisp.  Homey  uses baking powder and baking soda while we only use baking powder. May be that makes a difference too, but I am not sure.  I am still to figure out why some recipes call for only b.p. and others for b.p. and baking soda. Besides acting as leavening agents, there must be some functions that they perform individually.  If you have that figured out, let me know please!

 I have always had carrot cake flavoured with cinnamon so I cant quite image it without. You could add any other spice that you like. If you powder the sugars together, combining the ingredients will be easier and faster.

This recipe is a real keeper.  You should try it before the carrots go out of season!

Note to Homey- Thanks so much for the great recipe!!  It was such a hit, I had only 4 slices left to click. Compared to your three, I think I survived better on the picture-taking front. I owe you big time for this recipe.We all loved it(extended family included!) ! :)

 

Herbed cheese braided bread-step by step

My luck with baking has, on the whole, been good. By and large things that I try out don’t flop. Miserably that is. They may not turn out to be the best, but at least  they are edible. Bread being the only exception(so far!). When I began baking, I was completely unfamiliar with bread making. Baking cakes was quite a common occurrence at home but no one had ever tried their hand at bread. So  in terms of  getting advice on what to do and how, I had precious little to begin with.  I took me a while and a whole lot  of wasted dough  and numerous phone calls to Lakshmi to get my first loaf of edible bread.

 One recipe that always works for me is the French bread rolls. I have experimented with other recipes as well, but somehow they never turn out as good as this one. Just yesterday I tried the potato bread from A mad tea party and messed it up. I think I have figured out what went wrong.  I read somewhere that it is better to work with the same recipe multiple times that to try out multiple recipes (I think it was on A mad tea party, if I am not mistaken). I think I am going to be in the stage of trying variations of the bread roll recipe for some more time. I would love it if I would be able to experiment ceaselessly with other’s recipes and get fabulous results,better still, if I could come up with my own recipes, but I realise that will take some time…OK, a lot  of time.  That said, I also realise that even with one good recipe that works for you, you can do a hundred different things to get a hundred different flavours and shapes of bread. It is all about creativity… and good yeast!

Monika’s experiments  with bread making have been similar to what mine where a few months back. We discussed it over chat and I  while I was making bread yesterday evening(that was attempt 2, after failing at the potato bread. I needed something for Monday’s breakfast, you see), I though of taking a step wise series of pictures. Sort of like a guide to help her, or anyone else who wants to get started with bread making. I tweaked the basic recipe to turn it into the expotic sounding Herbed cheese braided bread but its essentially the same recipe witha few add ons. Here’s what you’ll need-

Ingredients:

• Maida –1C
• Wheat flour 1C
• Milk/ Water – 3/4 cup
• Yeast – 2 tsp
• Honey/ Sugar – 2 tsp
• Salt – 1/2 tsp
• Olive Oil – 2 tbsp
• Basil(dry)-2 tsp
• Chopped garlic-2 tsp
• Cheese cube (grated)-1
• Butter (optional) – to grease the top

The method of making this bread is fairly straightforward-

• Warm the water/milk. Transfer to a large mixing bowl. Dissolve sugar. Add yeast and set aside for 10 minutes until yeast is activated.
• Add 2 cups of flour and the salt to the yeast and incorporate. Gradually add the rest of the flour and incorporate into a dough. Add the oil.
• Knead for 5 minutes until the dough feels smooth and elastic. Transfer to a kneading surface if needed. Cover and let the dough rise to about double its size – about 1-2 hours.
• Deflate the dough.Divide into 3 parts. Incorporate the herb,,cheese and garlic into the three portions and roll into logs. Shape in a braid. Cover and let rise for about 1 hour. Place in preheated over. Bake at  200 C for 15-20 minutes or until golden in colour.
• Brush with butter after removing from oven.

And now for the pictorial guide..

1.Get your ingredients together. Measure and keep ready.

2. Heat water. Make sure the temperature is just right. Put in the measured quantity of yeast and allow to stand for 8-10 minutes. All the yeast shoudl dissolve.

dissolving yeast-stage 1

dissolving yeast-stage 2

dissolving yeast-stage 3

3. Add the flour to the yeast water.  Add it in portions and mix well.

While using a spoon is a neater way to work, its not always the most practical! At some point you will have to make to kneading the dough with your hands.  Its just quicker and more efficient to work that way.  Instead of using a bowl, you can move your dough to the counter- you’ll have more space to work that way. Spend at least 5-7 minutes kneading the dough. Towards the end of the kneading process, the dough should collect together and should not be sticky.

The ready dough should look something like this-

4. Transfer to clean bowl and place in a warm, draft free place and allow the dough to rise to double its original volume. This should take about an hour.

dough- before 

dough -after

5.Remove the risen dough from the bowl, transfer to a lightly floured working counter and punch down. Divide into three equal portions.

Flatten each of the three portions and spread herbs,cheese and garlic. Fold in the sides and roll into three slim logs. Its easier to braid if the ends are thinner than the centre of the logs.

6. Pinching together the ends of the three,begin braiding the bread.

 

When you reach the end, pinch together the ends to seal. You can also make braids with 5 or 6 logs, but thats a little complicated for me, so I stick to 3 logs. You can look at youtube videos below to figure out the braiding.

7.Transfer to a greased baking try and bake till golden brown.

The final product

Crumb shot

Here are some simple tips that might help you when you begin. I have made errors in practically all these categories at some or the other time!

• Measurements- Baking ,including baking bread, is all about measurements. If you have that wrong your whole recipe goes for a toss. Recipes will either mention ingredients in weight or by cup measurement depending on which country the recipe came from. Some websites allow you to move from cup measurements to the metric system and vice versa. It’s a good idea to invest in a set of measuring cups and spoons. For some reason I couldn’t find measuring cups  easily here. I had to hunt for them like crazy but now that I have them, life is easier. J  If you are using recipes that measure ingredients in the metric system, a kitchen scale will come in handy. But I have found the regular kitchen scales that we get aren’t precise so measuring small quantities can be a struggle.
• Yeast- This is what makes your bread rise so its important to get your hands on a good quality yeast. Fresh yeast gives infinitely better results but in my experience its hard to find a shop that sells it. If you can locate a shop that does, great, else stick to dry active yeast. Its easier to find in the market and has a better shelf life. In my experience yeast stays better if you keep in an airtight container after opening the packet and use it within a month or so (inspite of what the instructions on the packet may say).  I don’t think there is one universal brand available across the country so you’ll just have to make do with whatever band you get in your city. We get a brand called Bluebird here. It makes the yuckiest custard power, but it’s yeast is pretty ok.
• Sugar- This is food for the yeast to feed on and multiple. You can easily substitute it with honey.  If you have powered sugar handy, used that instead of granulated sugar. No great reason behind this, just that it dissolves faster in water!
• Water- is used as a medium to dissolve the yeast. Make sure you water is not too hot, else you will kill the yeast. The best test for temperature is to dip a finger. The water should be warm and you should be able to comfortable dip your finger in. If you are using wheat flour as a substitute for all or part of the all purpose flour in the recipe, you will require a higher quantity of water.
• All Purpose Flour- If you look at the recipes in the blogworld, you will find people mention all sorts of specifications about APF, protein content being the most common. If you know of such a sophisticated store that provides you maida with details of nutrient content, go ahead and buy it, if you like. I have always used regular maida that you get at all shop and got decent results.
• Wheat flour-  is the healthier option than maida. You can substitute all or part of the maida with atta (and increase the proportion of water too). All wheat bread tend to be heavy  and all maida breads are unhealthy. So in my view a 50-50 percentage works best. The resulting bread is light and nutritious.
• Patience- You cant make bread in a hurry. You have to allow it ample time to rise. If you are in a hurry and set the bread to bake prematurely, you;ll get a heavey bread. So begin the process of brad making only when you know you have sufficient time. Wheat breads take longer to rise than APF ones.

 

 

Devil’s food cake

I got bored of Nita Mehta so I moved to Sanjeev Kapoor. (Homecooked, do you hear me? ) Its amazing how both their books are called Bakes and Cakes. I tried out the Devil’s food cake a few weeks back and it turned out really well- spongy, soft, with a good dose of chocholate. The cake was great but the pictures I took weren’t.  The cake was hot out of the oven and I was too tempted to resist taking a bite, thoughts of taking  a picture completely forgotten. I also had to cut it into pieces to take it to my aunt’s to serve as dessert so the pictures were taken almost as an afterthought.

The cake was well appreciated by all in the family  and most of it was polished off after dinner that night.  Testimony to the powers of chocolate, I think!

Ingredients

• 11/2 C maida/all purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 tsp soda bicarb.
• 60 gms butter
• 1C powdered sugar
• 2 eggs
• 60 gms cooking chocolate
• 1/2C milk
• ½ tsp lemon juice
• 1 tsp vanilla essence

Method:

• Pre heat oven at 180deg.C and grease a 9 inch baking tin
• Sift flour with b.p, soda bi carb,salt and keep aside.
• Cream butter with sugar till light and fluffy. Add one egg at a time, continue beating. Melt the chocolate in 1/2 C of boiling water. I did this on a double boiler. You can use any cooking chocolate you have handy-I used Selbourne. Cool slightly. Stir into the egg mixture.
• Fold in the flour mixture, milk, lemon juice and vanilla essence toll well blended. Adding the lemon juice will cause the milk to curdle but dont bother about it. In the end it all mixes well and produces a great cake!
• Pour into a prepared tin and bake for 25-30 mins.

Brocolli-zucchini casserole

Here’s another one in the “lets bake healthy” campaign- a simple vegetable casserole.

Ingredients:

• 1 head of broccoli(medium in size)
• 1 zucchini (medium in size)
• 1 small onion
• 4-5 pods of garlic
• 1 small tomato
• 1 ½  -2 C of milk
• 1 ½ -2 tbsp wheat wheat flour 
• 1 egg(hard boiled)
• 2 cubes of cheese(grated and totally optional )
• ½ C bread crumbs
• A little butter
• Salt and pepper to taste

 Method:

• Wash and chop the broccoli and zucchini. Finely cut the onion and garlic.
• In a non stick pan, heat ½  tsp oil. Sauté the onion and garlic in the hot oil till lightly brown. Add the cut broccoli and zucchini, add salt, cover and cook till tender.
• To make the white sauce, stir in the wheat flour/aata in a cold cup of milk. You will need to add a little more that  if you want a thicker sauce. This consistency works fine for me but please use your discretion to get the just-right- consistency for your sauce. Pour the milk in a saucepan and cook it till it thicken. Add salt and pepper. Allow to cool slightly.  If you are using cheese, add it to the sauce at this stage.
• Add the cooked broccoli and zucchini to the sauce.
• Pour into an oven proof dish. Place thin slices of tomato and the hard boiled egg over the sauce and vegetables. Cover with bread crumbs. Dot the bread crumb cover with butter. Bake in the oven at 180 deg.C for 10 -12 minutes till the bread crumb cover in nice and crisp and the tomato slices cooked.
• Serve with soup and bread.

 Notes:

This is the first time I tried making white sauce with atta instead of all purpose flour and I have to admit, you can hardly tell the difference. There is a minor difference in the colour of the sauce but other than that you cant even tell you have used atta. I don’t know if eating 2 tbsp of atta instead of maida makes any drastic difference to your health status, but it does feel  good to be doing something in the name of good health!

 Make sure you peal the zucchini before you cook it. If you don’t, it will lend a bitter taste to your dish and you will not  like that! I learnt this  the hard way.

There is no denying that adding cheese makes the dish richer and tastier.But I have also realised that omitting the cheese doesn’t make  any great difference. The casserole tastes fine even without the cheese.May be the sauce isnt as creamy as it is with the cheese, but in the larger objective of consuming less calories, whats a little creaminess, I ask you?

What vegetables you add to the sauce is totally up to you. After discovering the success of the “atta sauce”, I have made many variations of this casserole- with corn, spinach, paneer, with cheese, without cheese, with bread crumbs and without.

After making white sauce with atta, next on agenda- attempting a cake with aata!

Gujia- celebrating Diwali the weight control way!

I shouldn’t take any credit for this recipe.  The original recipe I got off  Anita’s blog and the idea to tweak the recipe came for my mother. I only provided the labour that churned out the gujias.;)

I associate gujia (or karanji as it is called in Maharashtra) with Diwali. Its a popular mithai on Holi too but my grandmother used to make it on Diwali so in my mind Diwali=gujia.  Of course as a child I was only interested in eating the gujia and never bothered to ask her what she put in it or how she made it. All iIknew was it had khoya(or mawa) in it and it was fried.

I have eaten shop bought gujias in Bombay and all of them have a good amount of coconut. I admit, living in this city has changed my tastes. I actually like coconut in my food now!  I don’t think my grandmother ever put coconut in her gujia.Which self respecting north Indian would, I ask you? But I  now like the flavour and aroma of coconut so when I read this recipe on Anita’s blog , I had to try it out.  I tried a small batch with the recipe exactly as it apprears on her blog. The gujias turned out nice but I found the maida cover wasn’t as crisp as  my grandmother’s used to be.  May be I had done something wrong while kneading the dough or frying the gujia. My mom tasted a gujia and  first suggested I reduce the amount of oil in the maida. A few seconds later she came up with this brilliant idea- “Why don’t you bake it?” We are on a weight reduction /maintenance programme at home and the festive season is really taking its toll. Its nice to keep saying no to all the mithais and dryfruits  that come your way but every once in a while your resolve  shatters shakes and you want to reach out to that kaju katli. Baking the gujias would use much lesser oil that deep frying so I set out to give baked gujias a try.  If we can make baked samosa, why cant we make baked gujias?

If you want to make gujias the traditional way head over to Anita’s blog.  I am sharing here the baked version of her gujias.

Ingredients:

for the cover-

• 1C maida
• 2tbsp ghee
• a pinch of salt

for the stuffing-

( I basically follow Anita’s recipe proportions, just reduce it to get 1-1 1/4C of total ready  stuffing)

• 1/4 C khoya
• 1/4C sugar
• 1/2C dessicated coconut
• 4-5 elaichis/cardamom pounded
• 1/8 C chopped dry fruits

Method-

• In a large bowl sift the maida and the salt. Rub in the ghee. Using small quantities of water, knead into a farily stiff dough. The dough shouldnt be so stiff that you cant roll it easily.Keep aside.
• In a kadhai (if you have a non stick, even better) add the khoya, coconut and sugar. Cook on slow heat for 7-8 minutes. Remove from fire. Add dry fruits and cardamom.
• Now for the not-so easy part. Make small balls of the dough(like we do for making chapatis, but make them much smaller), roll each ball into a circular disc, place the khoya-coconut mixture in the centre and fold the disc into half such that you get a semi-circular shape.  Its quite a tricky business to give the traditional crickly edge. I really struggled with this one.I have seen my grandmother do it a hundred times so I thought it will be easy. Its not.(Anita I have new found respect for you after seeing how neat your gujias are!) So I found a simpler way to do it. Once you have placed the stuffing in the centre and  wet the edge of the rolled out dough disc with a little water. Now when you  fold the disc into half, it will stick easily. You can use a fork to press down the edges and get some sort of a design.
• Line a baking tray with lightly greased paper. Place the  gujias on it.Bake at 180 deg.C for about 10 minutes, till the gujias take on an even golden brown colour.
• My gujias were larger in size than they should have been and I got 6 large gujias. If you make smaller, daintier looking gujias you should be able to get 9-10 pieces.

Notes: The baked gujias were a hit! They tasted really good and we indugled without guilt.

I made the khoya for the gujias myself. I suggest you dont do that, unless you are bored out of your mind or over ambitious as I strangely was that day. Making khoya is not rocket science so you can do it if you want to. But it is very time consuming.  You have to bring milk to a boil and let it simmer endlessly till it reduces so much that it becomes khoya. While the milk simmers dont forget to stir frequently. I used 1 l whole milk and got about 1 C of khoya. Though I am proud that I  was able to make the khoya at home, to be honestly  all that stirring was just very tiring. Next time I am going to buy it from some shop and make my life easier!

I could do with neater looking gujias but I am not cribbing. May be they dont look as good as they are supposed to, but they taste great! The neater look is only going to come with practice. For a first time effort, I am quite happy.

This  us a special post for two reasons-a- we’ve never done a Diwali post  on this blog before and -b- this post is  for baby A. You know who you are and you know you are special. Welcome to our world. You have no idea how much happiness, fun and laughter awaits you!!:)

Chocolate Souffle- in another avatar

We’ve done  chocolate souffle earlier here. And though that recipe was nice, this one is nicer!:)  I took this recipe from Bakingbites and made a few changes. Changes made have been written in  italics.

Ingredients

• 5 ounces dark chocolate (65-72%), chopped- I used a bar of cooking chocolate that I had home. I have no idea of what the proportion of cocoa was in it.
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 tbsp kahlua or brandy (or milk)- I used milk cause I had no brandy or kahlua at home.
• 2 tsp vanilla extract- I subsituted it with vanilla essence.
• 1 tbsp all purpose flour
• 4 large eggs, separated, at room temperature

Method

• Preheat oven to 375F. Thats about 190 deg.C
• Lightly butter 4 6-oz. ramekins and coat with sugar. If you dont have any fancy ramekins available, simply use a slightly tall katori, as I did.
• Melt the chocolate in a large mixing bowl and whisk together with sugar, kahlua ( or milk) and vanilla extract(or essence as in my case). The resultant mixture will be thick and pasty.Beat in the egg yolks one at a time and follow it with the flour.
• In a bowl, beat egg whites to soft peaks. Whisk 1/3 of beaten egg whites into the chocolate mixture to lighten it. Fold in remaining egg whites in two additions,  till the mixture is uniform.
• Divide evenly into prepared ramekins and wipe edges to ensure they are clean. This helps the souffles get an even rise. Place ramekins in the oven.
• Bake for about 15 minutes, until souffles are well-risen and set at the edges.
• Serve immediately.Makes 4.

There is no denying that there is a definite difference in the outcome between using cocoa powder and chocolate to  the souffle. Along with the extra calories, the chocolate lends a creamier, richer texture  to the souffle. But if this is an occassional treat, as it is bound to be, its well worth the surplus calories. The texture and taste is most certainly better than the one I got from the last recipe. I loved this souffle and so did everyone else at home.

There is no real trick to get the recipe right. You just need to beat the egg white till stiff- thats a slightly time consuming activity but really, its not rocket science! A little practice and you can get it right. If you like you could look up hints on beating egg whites at bakingbites.

I used whatever chocolate I had at hand. I dint(and still dont) know what proportion of cocoa it contained.May be a higher cocoa content chocolate would have made some difference to souffle, but I was more than happy with the result I got.  Like with all other hot souffle, you need to serve this as soon as you get it out of the oven. It tends to sink rapidly and you wouldnt want to serve a falt, sunken souffle.

I made half the recipe and I got exactly two katoris of souffle.

Just when I had returned from my trip, I am all set for another one. This time I am headed to Mount Abu.Should be back in the blogging world by mid-week.

My experiments with ..

..the french roll. Not the truth. I am not evolved enough to exprement with that as yet. Bread will work just fine for me. At least for right now.

The basic french bread roll recipe that had featured on this blog sometime back, works like magic. If you follow the instructions and proportions properly, its what I would call a foolproof recipe. It was the first bread that I oculd make right and so it shall always be special to me. The only think I dint like about that recipe was the fact that it was all maida. Now I dont have that problem with the recipe either. I substituted half the maida quantity with atta and it gave me a nice, soft, wholesome bread that didnot have the heaviness associated with all wholewheat bread and was healthy too!

I made the 50-50 proportion bread twice- once it took the avtar of masala buns loaded with fresh chopped coriander, garlic, spring oinions and capsicum and was served with fruits and egg for breakfast.

The second avtar was inspired by the Foccacia we made earlier with the bread being topped with a good dose of black olives, garlic,capsicum and oregano.Both the breads turned out well but if you me my personal favourite, it would have to be the masala bun-nothing beats the flavour of fresh coriander and the quantities I added ensured each bite had ample quantities.

I am going to be away from the blog for ten days or so. I am traveling for work. Will see you guys soon!

Beans-cauliflower casserole

Typically when  I try to bake vegetables, which isnt often to begin with, I end up tossing them into a white sauce , grating a lot some sinful cheese over them and popping them in the oven for a few minutes. Thats why I like this recipe- it has an ample amount of cheese  but the sauce is tomato based. Quite a nice change from the over done white sauce , if you ask me.

Ingredients:

• 1/2C kidney beans/rajma soaked overnight
• 1 onions (chopped)
• 3 tomatoes(250 gms) -blanched, peeled and chopped
• 4Cfinely chopped cauliflower
• 21/2tbsp tomato ketchup
• 1tsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 C (150gms) grated cheese
• 1/2C cream
• 2tbsp oil
• salt and pepper to taste

Method:

• Pressure cook rajma in 2C water and 1/2tsp salt.Drain excess water after pressure cooking.
• Fry the onions and cauliflower  in a little oil till the onions turn golden and the cauliflower is cooked.Add salt and pepper.
• Add tomatoes,ketchup, sauce,rajma to the onion and cauliflower.Check for salt.
• Remove from stove.Add half the grated cheese and mix.
• Trasfer to a baking dish. Top with a mixture of the remaining cheese and cream.Add some salt and pepper to the cheese-cream mixture if you feel the need.
• Bake at 180 deg.C for about 20 mins.

Source: Nita Mehta’s Bakes and Cakes

Notes:  It doesnt get any more nutritious than this. You have a source of proteins and a source of vitamins and minerals. All you need  is to add a source of carbs (like may be from  brown bread) and you have yourself a fairly balanced meal. I had made this dish for dinner when I was home alone one day. The copious quantities I ended up making forced me to eat this without any accompaniments but I think a clear soup and a slice or two of bread would have gone well with it. The tomato base was a refreshing change from the white sauce. I dint have any Worcestershire sauce and so I skipped that entirely and I dont know how much difference that made in the overall taste- I am not particularly well versed with the taste of Worcestershire!Though pepper is normally a great seasoning to use, I found this dish slightly lacking on the seasoning front.I mean it tastes fine  but for the Indian palette, used to an over-dose of masalas, it was a little on the bland side. It might have been a good idea to add some garlic at the stage when onions and caulifower was being sauted and cooked.

Will wonders never cease?

Bakingbuddies has been awarded. Imagine that! Three wonderful awards bestowed upon us by Parita. I speak for Lakshmi and myself when I say this, Parita- we are mighty glad on receiving the awards. This is, after all, the first time our blog has received any award! A big thank you is therefore be very much in order.THANK YOU!:)

Now moving on to the tag. The tag and the awards are a package deal. Consider yourself  tagged people, if you make it to the award list! s. I am going to go with the rules exactly as mentioned by Parita.

Respond and rework – answer the questions on your own blog, replace one question that you dislike with a question of your own invention, and add one more question of your own. Then tag eight or ten other people.

1.What is your current obsession?

This one is obvious. Baking.But I think I need a new one now!

2. What are you wearing today?

A blue-green kurta and an off white churidar.

3. What’s for dinner?

Ask the mother. I dont normally cook dinner, she does. It will mostly be the usual dal-roti-sabzi.

4. What’s the last thing you bought?

2 litres of milk. Bought last evening on my way back home.

5. What are you listening to right now?

A bunch of people singing “Happy birthday to you” to their  very embarrassed looking colleague.

6. What do you think about the person who tagged you?

I love her blog. She  posts interesting recipes. And is what I would call a kind and considerate blogger. Ask the silliest questions, you still get your answers!

7. If you could have a house totally paid for, fully furnished anywhere in the world, where would you like it to be?

Somewhere in India where it is quiet, peaceful and green. Far from the city but not so far that I miss out on all the conveniences!

8. What are your must-have pieces for summer?

If  we are talking clothes, then skirts.

9. If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour, where would you go?

May be to the mountains in HP.

10. Which language do you want to learn?

Oh there are hundreds!! Lets start with my mother tongue! Besides that, Tamil would make it to the wish list as would  French.

11. Who do you want to meet right now?

The boss. No seriously. I have work I need to finish up with her and my appointment has got cancelled enough number of times already.

12. What is your favorite colour?

It keeps changing all the time. Sometime back it was pink. Now its blue.

13. What is your favourite piece of clothing in your own closet?

A sky blue chikan kurta.

14. What is your dream job?

This one is hard to answer. I terms of my profession, I think I am exactly where I would have liked to be. In terms of the present job, err, I could do better! But still, I think social work  is ,y true calling.

15. What’s your favourite magazine?

Not much of a magazine reader. I used to read the Reader’s Digest cover to cover a few years back. Havent really picked up a magazine since then.

16. If you had $100 now, what would you spend it on?

A holiday!!!!For sure!!

17. What do you consider a fashion faux pas?

I am no person to make comments on fashion. But there are somethings  people wear that I dont really understand. Skin tight jeans for example.

18. Who are your style icons?

Dont have any.

19. Describe your personal style?

Casual. And to come extent conservative.

21. What are your favourite movies?

Dont ask me this!! I am not a movie buff. At the top of my head I can come up with there-Golmal, The Sound of Music,Taare Zameen Par, Ghost,Dirty Dancing. Yes, I am out dated.

22. Give us three styling tips that always work for you:

Stylign tips? What are those?

23. Coffee or tea?

Depends on the mood, but its mostly tea.

24. What do you do when you are feeling low or terribly depressed?

Stop eating.Sulk. Howl.Talk it out.

25. What is the meaning of your name?

Its derived out of the word “mandir”

26. Which other blogs you love visiting?

Divya Vikram of Dil Se..

Siri of Siri’s Corner

Divya of Easycooking

Arundhati of My Food Blog

Anita of A mad tea party.

All of then are great blogs with wonderful recipes. And all the bloggers are awarded!:)

Psssst. If as a rule you dont do tags, feel free to chuck this one.

27. Favorite Dessert/Sweet?

Ummmm…Caramel custard.Edited to add: Halwa! How could I have forgotten to mention this!! Sheesh!

28. Favorite Season?

Dont look so surprise, I really do like the summers.

29.Which is your dream destination?

30: Which is your favorite international cuisine ?

Indo chinese and Italian.

Parita’s additional Question: Your favorite kitchen tool?

The beater!

And now for my questions

What is the one dish that you have tried and tried and still now managed to get right?

And no, you cant ask me to answer that question for you.A – because thats the rule of the tag and b-because my list would be so long, that it would have to be turned into a post by itself!