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Aloha Pasta Salad!
Aloha! We had a wonderful week at Hawaii during thanksgiving. It was also my daughter's first birthday. There is so much pressure on parents now a days to make your kids birthday special - don't you think? There are all these theme based parties to host, games and entertainment to provide during the party, theme based tablewares, buy perfect gift to the birthday kid, favors to trade for her friends and cakes to order..... the list of chores is endless. And for a kid who goes to daycare, repeat all of that for a daycare party - phew, just thinking about it was taxing enough. But still, we wanted to make it special being her first - something she will look back years later through the pictures and fondly cherish, so after days of mulling over we decided that a quiet beach-side cake cutting in the beautiful islands of Hawaii with Mommy-Daddy was a perfect plan for the special day! Not to mention Mommy-Daddy also needed a celebration for surviving the first y…

Happy Holidays!
This has been a very special year for me. This year I cherished so many moments of my daughter's first year and all her subsequent firsts - her first smile, her first crawl, her first solid meal, her first word ("no" - can you believe it!) to her first wobbly step! When we welcomed 2012 last year, she was this tiny little newborn tightly swaddled in a blanket and look how grown up she is now, no more like a baby but almost like a little girl! The Mom in me is so proud and happy yet also silently saddened by how fast the time seems to be running. Just for a while I want to freeze the time and enjoy her baby days just for a little bit longer... I am so not ready to let go of her newborn smell or her gummy grins! hey, may be that should be my wish to Santa.. :) 2012 is always going to have a special place in my heart... but I know the next year will be equally happy and adventurous in it's very own ways and while I am not quite ready for her tod…

Roasting chestnuts...
(If you have never roasted chestnuts before, I highly recommend giving it a try this holiday season! Sure, there is some work in roasting and particularly shelling part, but what better way to spend your holidays chatting with friends or family camped in front of fireplace shelling and snacking on these delicious chestnuts.. give it a try if you can - it sure won't disappoint you. This post one of my very early 2009 posts; I had forgotten I wrote this until recently I was reading through my earliest posts and came across "Roasting Chestnuts" and had to re-share it again - 'tis the season after-all!) Come December all of my car's FM radio preset channels seem to be falling pray one by one to the ever pervasive Christmas music. Now I love the holiday tunes and enjoy them most of the time, but there just isn't something right when I am driving to work burdened with an impending end-of-year deadline and the lady on the radio is cheering hap…

Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato Soup
Winter has finally made it's appearance loud and clear. For last few days temperatures have been steadily dropping, evenings are chilly, mornings are frosty, my hot cup of chocolate is just that much more warming to body and soul - and that means one thing in our household, lots and lots of soups! On many winter days our quick lunch is a pot of soup with some thick crusted sourdough bread brushed with olive oil and broiled at high temperature with just a rub of a fresh garlic clove. Throw in some salad (my favorites are couscous with butternut squash and dried cranberries salad or quinoa salad  or a simple greens salad topped with some fruits and nuts dressed with an easy olive oil red wine vinegerate) and it's a perfect meal any time of day.. The recipe below is a slight adaptation of an old recipe I had posted earlier (but no new photos this time - what with a warm aroma of soup and garlic bread wafting your way sometimes all you can do is eat!)…

Banana Nut Muffins
The weather Gods have been quite unpredictable recently. It seems we can not quite decide whether to take that leap forward into chilly fall evenings or lapse into those gorgeous bright sunny summer days. I do not mind either. Rainy days like this week is just another excuse to spend hours cuddling with my little doll while the kitchen fills up with a wonderful heartfelt aromas that only bakers can rejoice :) I was home early today and spent most of my early evening reading a book I have been planning to finish for a long time (Sister of My Heart - good read, not exceptional but very catchy). The weather was getting cloudier by the hour but once in a while sun would shine through the tiny pockets between the clouds basking the surrounding yellow hills with a warm glow. It was so tempting to just give up the book and take a nap for a while or just stare outside mindlessly. I lost count of how many times I refilled my coffee cup after two. Just as I was fi…

Summer Lentil Soup with Garlic Bread
It is such a tick-off when you start feeling under the weather right on the eve of a long weekend... not to mention the _ last _ long weekend of the summer and the one where you had plans for beach picnic and doing tourist-y things in San Francisco. But that is exactly what happened - right around Friday afternoon was when I started feeling some early onset of cough and sore throat. Not very surprising considering the little one was coughing on and off sporadically last few days. Before I became a Mom I used to wonder how grown-ups can have cold and cough multiple times a year, unfortunately now I know only too well how the chain of germ breeding ground moves from sharing toys to hugging Mommy & Daddy :) Anyway, after my third cup of coffee on Saturday morning (all to sooth an itchy throat), I decided to make a large pot of hot soup - and that too my favorite soup, the one I always turn to  for comfort on cold winter nights or whenever someone in family ha…

Romano beans sabji and A Year of Local Eating
It has been close to a year since I switched-over to buying and cooking local and seasonal produce. Mostly that means buying my week's fruits and vegetables at farmer's market and supplementing only as and when needed from Trader Joe's. One of the perks of living in bay area is that there is an Indian grocery store right around the corner - doesn't matter where you are! So its always very easy to hop into car and buy whatever you need at nearest supermarkets or Indian groceries. Most of the produce here though is shipped from miles away and has the dreaded high food miles . Right around when I was entering the second-semester of my pregnancy last year that I thought of making this big change in our lifestyles. Part of it was sustainable eating for ourselves and the environment we live it, part of it was supporting local farmer's community but the biggest part of it was changing our lifestyles so the new addition to our family would get …

Summer's Peach Cake
Well, hello again! Hope you are all doing great and enjoying the wonderful summer's bounties with your family and friends. This is my first summer as a Mom and it has been a blast so far - Sun Gods have been unusually good bestowing us with sunny but relatively mild perfect weekend picnic days; farmer's markets are overflowing with sweet peaches and plums and nectarines and my own tomato plant (which I had planted two summers ago and thus far thought to be dead) somehow miraculously propped up again start of the summer making my day.. So much for the life's little pleasures :) Needless to say we are treating ourselves to a whole array of delicious and super-sweet stone fruits from farmer's market this summer. In all the midst of the summer, one of our best friends are relocating across the country and I thought what better way to treat them than some home-made stone fruit cake. I rarely bake cakes. The last one I baked was six years ago - yes,…

Methiche laddo (Fenugreek sweets)
It was such a blessing to have my Mom help us out those first few post-delivery weeks! I think its the only time you have to be babied up while you settle into a rhythm caring for your own little baby :) While she was here in addition to the fresh lunches and dinners she also made a big batch of methiche laddo (fenugreek sweets). It is traditional in our region of India to gift fenugreek laddos to the new nursing moms.  Benefits of fenugreek for lactation are  well know . No one quite knows how it works but fenugreek is famous in many cultures as a milk-boosting herb. While fresh fenugreek leaves can be added to the daals and sabzis; the easiest way to get enough dosage of fenugreek for its lactation benefits is to either take fenugreek in capsule form or a better-tasting yummy alternative would be make these fenugreek ladoos which are made from powdered fenugreek seeds.  While fenugreek seeds or powder is easily found in Indian grocery stores; for those in…

Pumpkin cranberry muffins
I am on my maternity leave at present. My parents were here for the first 2 months with the baby and it has now been close to a month of three of us managing by ourselves. While there have been rare days with the baby fussing and crying and dishes pilling up in the sink; in general we are managing great - spending majority of the time cuddling and playing with our little girl, eating very simple home-made food everyday, resting whenever we can and housekeeping and cleaning as time permits.  Life is setting into a rhythm. I make fresh dinner daily and the leftover dinner serves as my lunch the next day - works great for me as I get to spend the whole morning with my little bundle without worrying about lunch logistics. My little girl naps in the afternoon.  After her nap I take her out to a stroll nearby; then we come home, she plays in her baby gym while I take a quick coffee break (gotta have caffeine!). Then we play together some more; spend time in the back…

Chocolate covered strawberry bride & groom & other treats!
Valentine's day is just around the corner and to a foodie like me that means chocolates, chocolates and more chocolates! I love how everywhere around this time one starts seeing the bouquets of beautiful roses, various chocolate treats and all sorts of beautifully wrapped gifts. Strawberries and chocolates are two of my most favorite things so its only logical that chocolate covered strawberries happen to be on the menu whenever I am in the mood for making something cutsie without a whole lot of effort. With plump fresh strawberries and white and dark chocolates, your imagination is the only limit when it comes to making designs for strawberry chocolates but here are some of my all time favorites (and something I have blogged previously here ) which sort of differ from the usual chocolate covered berries. These chocolate bride and groom are the perfect treats if you are in the mood for a more delicately worked strawberry designs and perhaps a perfect g…

20-minute lime-orange cookies
Wow, can't believe it has been so long since I last posted over here! For the past few months I have been a blog lurker, drooling over all the scrumptious recipes which have been making the rounds. Continuing to post was always on my mind but somehow or other different priorities took over. Never mind though, I suppose better late than never! There really is no excuse for being absent for so long - however time flies by so quickly! It seemed only so recently that I heard I was expecting and needless to say life's priorities took over and now I am a proud mommy of a month and half old cutie pie who is entertaining us all throughout the days and nights :) So many things change so unexpectedly with a little baby and the life as you knew before changes so utterly and completely - but you know what the best part is, every time she looks at you and smiles or holds your finger with her little fingers, you know for sure you won't be treading these mome…