Vacation, Food and a Thanks

Life was going to get pretty hectic from September so a relaxed vacation in the State of Blueberries, Lobsters and the beautiful Acadia National Park was thought as the perfect rejuvenator. It however was so intoxicating that it left us longing for more. Does this happen to you? You go on a vacation thinking of coming back all refreshed instead you are left pining for more

The trip re-instilled my faith in my little daughter, she is now a confirmed foodie. I had my doubts when she used to pick on her lunches at school or when I had to run around her making she sure she drinks her milk. However in this trip I saw her face light up on the mere mention of food when she visibly was not getting any enjoyment while we waited for hours perched on an overlook waiting for the sun to set.
It is another thing that in that hour she made me go to & fro between the car and where her dad was sitting numerous times but discussing the menu helped.
However I must also give it to her that she very eagerly complied when we couldn’t make up our mind on where to eat and what to eat and switched ever so often.

Bar Harbor, Maine has a quaint but very thriving downtown and a wide choice of restaurants. A stroll along its streets every evening was a pleasure in itself. There are many fun places to eat at.
No Indian place though, any takers? The Asian places are not good either, The Thai place "Nakrom Thai" was dilapidated, we just packed Satay & white Rice for S who was pining for some and fled. The only Chinese place wasn’t much to talk about either.

Some of the good restaurants that we thoroughly enjoyed were,

Jeannie’s – For Breakfast. Open only till 1:00PM in the noon, this cheerful, bright place serves only breakfast. The sunny interiors surely brightens ones day. Breakfast choices are typical Omlettes, Toast, Sausages, French Toast, Pancakes the works. I tried a spicy salsa omlette, definitely not spicy but hearty altogether.
Toasts are served with their home made rhubarb jam.

Morning Star Bakery – A small quaint bakery in one of the by lanes. Very Hippy style. Loved the Lemon Tart with fresh blueberries though never found it again on day two or three. They bake their own bread and the bread is good. They also offer boxed lunches which are a good option if you want to have a quiet lunch on top of the Cadillac Mountain or any of the picnic areas in Acadia. I liked the Curried Chicken sandwich and also a certain cilantro cheese spread. The scones were a bit dry though

Maggie’s Classic Scales – Excellent place for dinner. The food was so good that I do not have a pic to vouch for. I had Lobster crepes smothered in some French wine sauce. It was phenomenal. D had a salmon paired with basmati and he loved it. The atmosphere was very good too, very homely and full of life.

Rupununi – I fell in love with the name, the name of ariver that runs through British Guyana in South America. Again the outside sitting was very pleasant on a summer evening. I had Lobster sautéed in parsley & Butter. I didn’t want to hammer out my Lobster so I chose the Lazyman’s Lobster where they shell it and serve. It was pretty good.

We also went to some more places, a Mexican one and another Fish Place but they were ok. The Mexican one was good enough and served very good Mojito which I couldn’t even finish, so I asked if I could take it back to the hotel. Of course they didn’t allow :D but I loved their mango salsa and the creamy mango sauce.

These gorgeous beauties arrived yesterday evening. That they were delicious is to say the least, they were so very good that the whole family was floored. Thank You for the sweet treats !!! It was very touching to get these even though I couldn't be a part of the friendship bread chain, and should have actually got some mustard reeking bombs:D

Easy Breezy Dessert

Back from vacation but more about it later, first let me get the dessert out of the system

This was a dessert I learned early on after coming to this country. Those days my unending quest of befriending Bong people had got me a few friends (remember this) and a larger number of acquaintances. Now as is the custom among Bong people staying in far away land, a meeting as in getting together is synonymous with eating and that too in good measures. There was so much good eating and too many acquaintances that my very shallow foodie hubby would even weed out acquaintances based on their culinary skills.

So after months of eating excellent meals at several homes, I realized it was time that I did my part before people started gossiping about “How a you-know-who girl never invited us back and blah, blah, blah…”

I did not have very many culinary skills at that point and even fewer cookware so cooking a meal for about 18-20 odd people was a challenge. In fact even now with more cookware and somewhat better skills, cooking for that many people still plays havoc on my nerves. I always look around for good recipes that can be made in large quantity with ease and not too much preparation.

This is when I came across this easy breezy Fruity Mango Dessert recipe, posted by some Bengali on a Bengali website. It is quick, easy and definitely delicious (considering all the yummy things that go into it). Many thanks to the first person who created it and also to the person, whose name I don't remeber, who posted it.
I have made this several times and have moved the ingredients around. Here I will give my version and also specify the original recipe.


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Mango Dessert

What You Need


Serves about 16-18 people if paired with ice cream or cake

Mango Pulp (available in Indian Grocery stores) ~ 1 can
Plain Yogurt ~ 12 oz (Recipe said 32oz)
Sour cream ~ 8 oz (Recipe said 16 oz)
Fruit Cocktail Can ~ drain the syrup and get the fruits from a can or use fresh cut bite size pieces of fruit
Raisins & Nuts ~ for garnish (optional)
Condensed Milk ~ 3/4th of a 14 oz can (Recipe used sugar)

How I Did It

In a blender whip together mango pulp, sour cream and yogurt to a smooth consistency.
Add condensed milk and whip again.
Drain all the juices from the fruit cocktail and add to the whipped dessert
Garnish with raisins and nuts.
Put it in the refrigerator to cool. Serve chilled.

Serving Suggestion

Though it tastes absolutely great if had on its own, I often serve it with Plain Vanilla ice cream if it is summer. Else I also serve with some home baked cake as seen in the pic.




Today is my 3 and ½ year old daughter's first day at Pre-K, it is not official school yet, it is still a pre-school. But I find it an important date in my calendar, as it is the start of a new class with new teacher and new faces for her. Thanks to her PreSchool-1 teachers, Miss A and another Miss A. We will miss you. But we also look forward to the new beginnings, the slightly more responsibility, more independence in the new class and of course loads of fun.

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OnlineCookingSchools.net offers professional catering courses that can teach you how to cook in big batches and still maintain the quality of food.

Brown Rice Khichuri for JFI

It was a Friday.

Friday the 13th, no not the 13th actually the 10th, Friday the 10th

The rains were lashing the mountains, the wind howled around the cliffs, the ominous dark clouds hung around low, a precursor of the unknown future.

As the evening drew closer, mists rose from the sea and engulfed the land. Across the sea sounded a shrill whistle and then…


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...Nothing happened except for Brown Rice Khichdi in my pressure cooker.

The Khichdi man of the house aka D was in charge of the kitchen.

So when he said he wanted to make “Khichuri”(there is a recipe of khichuri down in that post) I thought why not, could send this on to JFI. To add a twist to the tale, I asked him to use brown rice and of course he flatly refused, declaring that Brown Rice does not a Khichuri make and some such fundae.

After much cajoling I asked him to browse the blogs for inspiration.

Some amount of time pass and Googling later, he finally declared he DID have a brown rice khichdi recipe, blogged by some Punju Scientist girl. Of course I knew it was none other than our dear Musical and her Khichdi.

So brown rice Mothaan di Khichdi was transformed to the Bengali Khichuri with Brown rice and also loads of other veggies like cauliflower, potatoes, tomatoes and what not. D followed Musicals' recipe (he says) but used green Moong and Red Masoor instead of Moth, he added veggies which is usually added to a bengali style khichuri, also he tempered it the bengali way. It was delicious to say the least.

There was no recipe though as Bong, non-scientist, guys do not note down measures while making Khichuri, such things are the domain of only Punju scientist girls

Next time he makes it, I will surely try to scribble and update this post for my own good.

This is my contribution for JFI-Rice hosted by my dear friend Sharmi of Neivedyam and of course created by Indira of Mahanadi

And now again Ta da...the Awards that have been raining like Poori-Bhaji in the blogosphere

Two of my dearest friends, Indosungod of Daily Musings and Sia of Spice Corner has sent two lovely awards my way. Thanks to both of you, you are the greatest. Thanks to Bharathy , I just saw she passed on one too. There is a downpour now it seems.

I would really like to pass this on to everyone who takes time to visit my blog, leave their comments, encourage me, discourage me and make me feel so much at home. But then most of you have already been awarded this for the wonderful bloggers that you are.

The Thoughtful Blogger Award is for “those who answer blog comments, emails, and make their visitors feel at home on their blogs. For the people who take others’ feelings into consideration before speaking out and who are kind and courteous. Also for those bloggers who spend so much of their time helping other bloggers design, improve, and fix their sites. This award is for those generous bloggers who think of others.”


I would like to pass this on to (names are in a random order)

Sups of Spice Corner
Shn of KitchenMishmash
Coffee of The Spice Cafe
Sra of When my Soup Came Alive
Trupti of The Spice Who Loved Me
Mallika of Quick Indian Cooking
Prema of PremasCookBook
Sharmi of Neivedyam
Pilgrim of The Shadowy Waters
Sunita of Sunita's World
Sig of LiveToEat

I would like to pass on this to these awesome bloggers who left behind a friendly trail but have been busy lately. This is a gentle nudge for them

Shilpa of Flog&Rosbif
Hema of VegConcoctions
Maheshwari of Beyond The Usual
Chandrika of Akshyapatra
Shivapriya of MyCookBook
Lera of Myriad Tastes

Now an award for bloggers who inspire, who make you cook when you don't want to, who force your hubbies to cook weird stuff, the Motivational Blogger award for Coffee and Musical (on the aside, I am doing this under duress). I would also pass this on to Jugalbandi because they really inspired me to blow up an egg in the MW today, I am doing it for sure.

Update: While I am online searching for good lobster places up North before I have even started the journey,and what do I do, but check Blogs.And so I see one more award comes my way from lovely Mandira whose blog was one of the few that inspired me into blogging last year.


Thanks Mandira and yes I do Think a lot, as in "Think what I am going to eat next"
I pass this on to bloggers who I think, think too if not about what they will eat but what others will eat

Asha of Foodies Hope
IndoSungod of Daily Musings
Nandita of SaffronTrail
Indira of Mahanadi
Roopa of My ChowChow Bhath


Since these awards are only for bloggers alone I am not able to pass them on to many non-blogger readers of my blog, whose comments really encourage me, it makes me happy if I have touched their lives in some way and I would really like to say a warm Thank You. I am no great cook, but I find happiness in food and through my blog I try to present a snippet of a life, memories, hopes intermingled with cooking. I want my daughter to have a childhood embroidered with smell of home cooked food so that she can have memories like this when she is alone out there in the world. And so I Thank all of you who take precious time to come and visit and let me continue weaving memories fragrant with the smell of food.

This is for all of you who cook and find joy in it (don't kiss me, kiss all cooks ;-))

Going away up North for a few days, see you once I am back with a easy breezy recipe for a dessert, and no it's not a custard

Trivia: Macrobiotics, meaning literally "big life," is a spiritual, nutritional, and therapeutic system that focuses on the interrelationship of mind, body, spirit, and society. Whole foods, such as brown rice, are central to a macrobiotic diet, and many of the first customers and owners of the alternative food stores were students of macrobiotics. Macrobiotic principles are Pan-Asian in origin, dating back several centuries