A vegetable side dish is the norm with most Indian rice dishes. You can eat it on its own with Indian bread (chapatti or roti) or Indian pancakes (dosas). My favourite one was green beans and fresh desiccated coconut. We don’t have the luxury of fresh coconut in...
I love bliss balls. They are easy to make, quick, simple and leaves plenty of room for loads of creativity. My favorite ones are with a peanut butter and date base. You get the stickiness and the sweetness. Then I add a flour to bind these together, and then add any...
Ah…to make crackers that are crisp, that need so few ingredients, is nutritious and tasty…that’s what these rice crackers are. It’s pretty difficult to find cracker recipes without the need for gluten free flour. I’ve tried the chickpea one and I’m not a huge fan. So...
Chutney puddi (or powder) is a South Indian condiment served with idlis, dosas or mixed in with plain rice. You add some ghee with it. There are more than a 100 varieties of chutney puddi in Bangalore. I’m sure there are much more around other parts of South India. It...
I’m not a big fan of salads, so I like to make them chunky and mix all kinds of veggies, herbs, protein and fun stuff in it. This one came together today as a side to the chicken mince cutlets I made. The apple in the salad gave it a bit of sweetness and the...
Aunty Prema is my mum’s friend – she isn’t my mum’s sister though - we call everyone aunty in India! Everyone is like family. Every time we visited her, she would cook us some amazing food. I distinctly remember her bisi-bele-bath. This is a lentil, veggie and rice...
This dhal reminds me of holidaying at my aunt’s home in the hills in a place called Ooty. This was the place where the British went to when it got too hot in India. She would make this style of dhal and serve it with rice. She would bring out the steaming hot rice and...
I started making these oat bars last winter. I liked to wake up to a warm breakky already made for me (sometime J makes me something if he wakes up first). Maybe it was time to find something that was ready for all of us when we woke up? That’s where these bars come...
There are days I don’t feel like cooking. Or I fancy a change, or the kids want finger foods…these are the days of an impromptu picnic on the grass, or sitting around the coffee table and eating. It doesn’t have to be skimp-on-the-veggies-day though. So I thought I...
Garlic is one of my all-time favourite flavours. I think it tastes awesome in almost any dish (which is why I add fresh garlic in almost every dish!) If I'm ever stuck for inspiration, I first reach for the garlic. Garlic is an amazing medicinal food. There are so...
When I was little, I loved Cadbury's fruit and nut chocolate. The crunchy nuts, the chewy raisins...I don't eat Cadbury's anymore, but I wanted to recreate that memory and taste. The superfood chocolate bark was born. Toasted almonds and cranberries or rainsins in...
Easter is around the corner and I can smell a chocolate fest! My girls used Easter as an excuse to get me to make some chocolate. I’ve made eggs before, but never with the white and yellow middle – so I thought, ‘why not’? Thankfully, it turned out well on the first...
I’m a big fan of cashews now and I’ve been using them in recipes like pastas, steamed veg, Indian snacks, pesto, etc. I came across a recipe for cashew nut cookies, but they used processed sugar and flour which I didn’t want to use. So I tweaked it a lot and added...
Coconut chutney was always served with dosas or idlis in India when I was growing up. It was made with fresh coconut, roasted peanuts, fresh mint and coriander. I didn’t have most of these at hand. Also, I find organic peanuts in Australia very expensive. So, I used...
I began making my own muesli around 6 years ago. Since then, I’ve probably bought store bought ones around 5 times in total. I don’t think I will ever find one that will have all the things I want in it and be as inexpensive as mine is – organic, with all the nuts and...
Eggplant, aubergine, brinjal - it's all the same thing - the deep purple vegetable or fruit (it really is a fruit because it has seeds in it)! You either love it or hate it - there isn't really an in-between. However, I believe that anyone will learn to like anything...
Fermented brown idli and dosa batter Idlis and dosas are one of my family’s favourite breakfasts. We eat it at least twice a week. I make the batter once a week at least. What are idlis and dosas? Idlis are rice and lentil cakes made out of a fermented batter. Dosas...
I love the challenge of making new gluten free food. This morning I woke up with a mission to make something else besides dosas (lentil and rice pancakes), eggs, museli, buckwheat pancakes...or the same old things. So I decided to make these. With new recipes I find...