Quick and Healthy No-Sauce Pasta

A healthy and easy one-pot meal with vegetables and chicken

I had posted a quick and easy pasta recipe (on my Instagram and Facebook page) which grabbed quite a few eyeballs and some friends asked me about it. “Why is this dish not up on your blog? It looks fantastic! We need easy and quick recipes like this.” And if I know myself, I am always willing to help others. So let’s jump right into the recipe of this super easy no-sauce pasta dish.

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My first painted planter

My very first painted plant pot. This is how it looks from indoor.

As I have mentioned in ‘About Me’ I like painting. But I have not mentioned my love for gardening.I have been gardening and self-learning the do’s and don’ts for three years now and have accumulated quite a few terracotta and clay planters. This spring I decided our patio needs a makeover. And I wanted to achieve that by indulging in what I am obsessed with now – painting terracotta planters or pots.

Where there is ‘Carnaval’, there is Food!

(This post features Carnaval San Francisco, 2015 held on 23rd and 24th May)

Carnaval San Francisco is a celebration of diverse cultures through a two-day long festival that showcases  art, music and dance of multicultural communities that represent cultural heritages of Brazil, Mexico, Panama, Guatemala, Bolivia, Peru, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, Africa, Trinidad and Tobago, Colombia, Cuba and more. As a matter of fact, it is the largest celebration of it’s kind in the West Coast. 

Strawberry Mini Muffins Recipe

You must be wondering, “This is not a mini muffin! Why has she titled this ‘mini’ muffins when she made regular ones? Why would she do that?!” Think no further. Read on. You will know why.

Monday Magenta ~ Cherry Blossoms Acrylic Painting on Canvas

It’s Spring!

I like flowers. Not to the extent that I want everything in floral patterns but in small doses, yes. But I was awestruck at the pretty-ness of Cherry Blossoms when I first saw them! I think it is the only flower design which I will not mind having on my table covers, plates, curtains, as wall photos etc. (Or maybe, that’s not such a good idea after all, I can imagine the look on AB’s face if he came home to see his house look like a cherry blossom festival. Hmm.) Anyway, moving on. Now, how did cherry blossoms turn my ‘Monday blues’ to ‘Monday magenta’? We will see..

The Ganesha Series

Sneak peek. More pictures below..

Here’s presenting my Ganesha Series, which also happens to be the first set of art I did for my home. It is close to my heart and I hope to add on to it in the future and, hopefully, when I have a ginormous wall. (Imagine how many Ganesha paintings could fit there!)

Tandoori Chicken

Tandoori Chicken for the Indian camper’s soul

My husband loves camping. Come March, AB (why write the name as one initial when you can have two?) is deep in research, looking at all the camping sites available nearby. He cannot imagine letting go off spring and summer without going for at least one camping trip. California, fortunately, has tons of really good places for this, depending on what sort of camper you are. I play no role in planning these trips, but, of course, the food. We cannot simply grill some hamburgers or hot dogs, put them in buns and eat them with chips and coke for dinner (although they are perfectly viable options), camping food should be something we would like to look forward to, right? So this post is dedicated to the Tandoori Chicken I made for our last weekend’s camping trip. Tried and tested before, we absolutely love this tandoori preparation as it involves a charcoal grill. 

Caramel Flan

Flan – easy to prepare and luscious to eat

This is my first food post. And what is it on? But of course, dessert. 🙂
Coming from city of Kolkata in India, sweets surround our lives. There is a sweet shop in every nook and corner of the city, some are big-wigs in the business while others are small scale shops. People eat sweets as a snack, as dessert and of course if you invite guests to your house you will inevitably receive a box-full of sweet treats. In short, everyone Loves their sweets! We will go into the Bengali favorites in later blogs but for now let me tell you this about this strange yet real person who grew up amidst all this sweet-eating frenzy but never for once developed the very Bengali sweet tooth. Me. Yes. I am the anomaly. It’s not ‘dieting’. I never diet. My threshold of sweet consumption is two squares of 70% dark chocolate (if that makes sense) and maybe one ‘Bancharam’ sweet (Calcuttans, you will know this). But an even stranger thing is I love making desserts, Indian or Western.

Ganesha Canvas Painting – Part Two

The reds and orange have been blended in very well without evident orange streaks. I preferred soft blended background for this.

Having painted two, I did not really know how many more I wanted to complete my Ganesha series. Looking at the number of canvas panels left and the perfect wall in my house (where I envisioned them to be placed on) I settled for four. Four seemed a good number, even number, I thought. I can place the pictures however I want, rhombus, square, diagonal straight line etc. Now, with all these in my head I started my third one.

Ganesha Canvas Painting – Part One

 

A religious shrine or room is common in many Indian homes. We had a number of deities in our home shrine in Kolkata but ‘Gonesh thakur’ ( as Lord Ganesha is called in Bengal) surprisingly was not there. But a beautiful terracotta Ganesha and three smaller ones (also in terracotta) sat pretty in our living room as decor. As much as Lord Ganesha is worshiped with pomp and pleasure in some parts of India (as in the festival of ‘Ganesha Chaturthi’), the powerful and popular Lord of Success, with the body of a man and a head of an elephant, has received a great reputation as a piece of home decor and art as well, being created in different pieces of stone, marble, terracotta, clay and of course on walls as paintings.