A Peek into my Life

I call this the "loaded" baingan bharta because it is loaded with tasty ingredients in addition to the traditional eggplant. My husband will never touch anything that has eggplants in it but he eats this bharta without any complaints. Generally people who do not like eggplants hate the seeds so I remove the seed clusters after the eggplant is roasted. It is pretty easy to do it. The seeds are generally attached to the stem end in clusters. I just remove those first after breaking the eggplant open. Loaded Baingan Bharta This bharta is loaded with roasted red peppers and tomato with mashed potato adding bulk and spring onions add the fresh herby taste. I infuse the garlic flavor in the eggplant by stuffing sliced garlic cloves into the eggplant. Ingredients: 2 medium eggplants 1 red bell pepper 1 tomato 4 small boiled potatoes 1 tbsp tomato paste 1 medium onion 5 spring onions 3 cloves garlic 1/4 tsp turmeric powder 1/4 tsp ch...

Bagels and cream cheese is such a classic breakfast. It is a great on the go breakfast. Quick and easy like spreading butter on bread except its spreading cream cheese on bagel. Making flavored cream cheese takes the breakfast to the next level. You do not need to spend extra bucks on buying flavored cream cheeses because making them at home is easier than whipping cream and as with anything homemade, it can be customized to your taste. The flavored cream cheese can be made ahead of time and refrigerated for a week. Honey Walnut Cream cheese This is our favorite kind of cream cheese. It is sweet enough for breakfast without being dessert-like. Honey gives it a complex sweet flavor which cannot be achieved with sugar. Walnuts add a nice crunch. I also add a little bit of yogurt to my flavored cream cheese to lighten it and make it more spreadable right out of the fridge. Ingredients: 3/4 cup cream cheese 1/4 cup yogurt *see notes 1/8 tsp salt 1 tbsp brown s...

Calling myself a real housewife, I thought I should do a "Day in the life of a housewife" kind of post. This Monday I could get a lot done and cut down on screen time. Maybe it was the start of the week enthusiasm. The most important thing I did was get an hour of exercise, first thing in the morning. I intend to do that everyday but the intentions do not always translate to action. The exercise gave me a refreshing jolt of energy and reminded me to stick with it, if only for the energy. My day in a list form. Exercised an hour. Get the daughter to brush, change and all of that morning routine. This takes at least half an hour with all the running and "I dont want to brush". Washed the garbage cans Breakfast time. Laundry time. A whites load, a colored load, drying, folding and putting it away. Takes atleast an hour. I let the daughter help with this.  Made chapati dough with the daughter mixing her own in a smaller bowl. Bath time and dealing with ...

When Nupur from one of my favourite blogs announced that she was hosting the My Legume Love Affair  event on her blog, I could not help but participate. Especially since I had already posted a great recipe featuring the star ingredient of the event : "legumes" (My category of legumes is beans :)) MLLA is a long running blog event which is on the 60th edition this month. That shows how much everyone loves their legumes. This event was started by Susan of The Well-Seasoned Cook and is now run by Lisa of Lisa's Kitchen . Lisa has an MLLA information page which also contains all the previous event round-ups with lots of legume recipes. REPOST starts. Last week, there was a picnic at my daughter's preschool. Everyone brought a dish to school and all the parents and children sat outside on blankets and had lunch. My daughter loved playing in the playground and eating popsicles and ice cream. She was not ready to leave. We had to carry her outside. I wanted to...

My daughter is a big animal (and bird) lover. I thought bird feeders are a good way to let birds into our balcony. The daughter gets to see them up close. The birds get good food. Win-win for both. I started looking up ideas for bird feeders. I wanted to recycle regular household materials. Because recycling is always good! I found a couple of ideas on the internet and promptly (not really! I hardly do anything promptly ) sat with my daughter to work on the bird feeders. Bird feeder using a milk carton This was an easy choice since we go through a lot of milk cartons. It would work great hanging from a tree in your backyard. But we don't have a backyard, we only have a balcony. I wedged the carton between the balcony slats. Materials: milk carton or juice carton x-acto knife acrylic colors wooden skewer duck tape Cut out rectangles on all 4 sides of the carton. Leave about 2 inches at the bottom of the carton to fill with bird seed. Let your baby go crazy w...