Love and Calories!!

In this fast paced life of ours, how many of us really wished for a good quality time to be spent with  our spouses and family?? Aren't you all not bored of the same routine day in day out? We slog the whole week at work and wait for the weekend to arrive only to go out shopping at some money fleecing mall monsters, get tired, eat a quick meal from there, if time permits go for a movie and come home tired and later go off to sleep. There goes your weekend and the next morning, the same old rat race begins. That special moment with your spouse or children never happened. My friend had asked me once, whether my husband and I talk over coffee when we go out. As a diplomat I am, said to her, we don't make eye contact when there is any kind of food kept in front of us. We give our full attention to it. We laughed it off, but she really wanted to know that, are they the only odd ones out here. No, they are not!!  Last Friday, I decided to be at home (our usual friday dining out

Cupcakes - those little sweet treats are everybody's favourite and have usually seen them so beautifully displayed for almost all occasions. Every one's reaction when they hear or see Cupcake is... "Yummmm"! But is not the case with me. I have never fancied cupcakes in my life. You must be thinking, "C'mon now...Don't like cupcakes?? you must be kidding!!  but the truth is, I never was a fan of these little cute things. But I just love the look of it. Those different creative frostings  on top makes it so special and good looking. And the effort made by the bakers are seen just by looking at the creative topping. For the love of baking alone, I tried to bake some easy cupcakes to start off.  This recipe will be very useful for those who have never tried to bake cupcakes before (just like me) and are now interested to try their luck in baking some. I prefer chocolate to sugary icing and that is the reason why I baked some Devil's food Cupcakes.

 Andhraites (People of Andhra Pradesh, South India) love their eggplants/brinjals so much that I have seen all my Telugu friends make something or the other with these lovely violet vegetable. Stuffed, steamed, fried, sauted, chutney, gravy, they will have atleast one of these things done with their eggplants. One such recipe is this one which I got from one of my Telugu friends. I got this recipe about 4 years ago but never tried until recently. Not a good looking dish, I must admit but it tastes absolutely delicious. And it is healthy too as the baby eggplants are steamed all the way.  Ingredients: 10-12 baby eggplants For Stuffing: 1/4 cup chana dal (kadala paruppu/bengal gram) 1/4 cup whole coriander seeds  4-5 dry red chillies 1 tsp cumin seeds 1/2 tsp fennel seeds  8-10 curry leaves 1 tsp oil  Heat oil in a frying pan and roast the above "stuffing" ingredients for 2 minutes until they release their flavour. Remove from heat and allow it