And if the party is hosted by me, then definitely I like the food more the next day.
Probably the effort that goes into it (even if its just a tad bit of effort), just puts me off my food the day its made.
If anybody else is cooking, then I don’t mind the food that day- in fact even at its worst I love food made by others! C’mon what’s there not to love about it- some one else has taken the effort, someone else is going to do the dishes, someone else has to worry about it being tasty. All that always adds to the taste.
“I beg your pardon, I never promised you a rose garden. Along with the sunshine, There’s gotta be a little rain sometimes.”
So I screwed up! Who doesn’t, I say! I think mistakes are important to not only learn but to accidentally tread onto something you might have overlooked. This is my story of how my mistake turned into something really good!
I had planned to make cupcakes for this week’s Office Thursdays. Since we were out of town on V’s birthday (which was on the 9th), I wasn’t able to bake a birthday cake for him. For the uninitiated V loves carrot cake (carrot cake and my mango kulfi are the only two desserts I have seen him asking me to make). So, I thought I’ll make carrot cake cupcakes – V would also get to eat them plus he can take some for his office!
Now, when I was in India, my mom had made these whole wheat carrot cupcakes. My mom always made an amazing carrot cake but she got this equally good recipe for whole wheat carrot cake from a sweet lady namedSanu. I loved the whole wheat versions- more so because they were whole wheat! So I decided to give this new recipe a try.
I do not know what went wrong- was it too much baking soda, or was it too much oil or did I fill the pans too much- but the cupcakes fell and then they crumbled when I tried taking them out. Some survived, but most didn’t.
Now, I could have sat there- mourned the disaster. I could have wondered, sitting with my cake crumbs and could have analyzed what I did wrong. But I didn’t. Instead, I made these- White and Dark Chocolate Dipped Carrot Cake truffles! And, boy, were they a treat! While making them, this is what I realized and here I am sharing life’s lessons learned from a failed recipe! 🙂 Read More →
The very talented Amanda of Amanda’s Cookin started The Secret Recipe Club (or TSRC, here on) a while back. I know! Doesn’t it sound so cool and fun! Well, it is! The idea behind TSRC is simple. Each participating blogger is assigned one of the other participating blogs (much like a Secret Santa). No one reveals whose blog they have, they just visit, pick a recipe, and make it! My assigned blog this month was Suz’s Thru The Bugs on My Windshield.
Now, the moment I clicked on Suz’s blog, I knew what I wanted to make. Because the first recipe itself caught my eye! Now, I have to tell you, recently I have this craving for everything coconut. The list includes coconut chocolates, Indian dishes with coconut like the Kerala cauliflower dish I recently made and Pina Colada (yes, alcohol can never be left behind, can it!). So when I saw Suz’s recipe for coconut banana bread which was topped with coconut lime sauce (coconut lime sauce- who can resist that!) , I was sold.
Coincidentally, Suz tried this recipe for her last month’s TSRC blog hop. Well, Suz and I get attracted to the same sweet things, I guess! Besides this recipe, Suz who lives with her Mountain Man, has a lot of other good recipes that I am tempted to try and have bookmarked, including her Chicken Asparagus Penne Pasta salad, her never-fail Pie crust and Amanda’s Cantaloupe Quick Bread. Do check her blog out, guys (she makes her own homemade vanilla extract- yup, she is that good!) I did a slight variation to the recipe. Though I would have loved to try the recipe with bananas, my stomach just can’t digest it anymore. It’s sad, really, it is, especially at times like these! I used to love banana bread and to have coconut in it, ah! How good would that have been! Sigh! Well, some things you just can’t help, can you. So, instead of banana, I thought of using zucchini. The substitution worked really well, more than what I expected. The only problem, I feel, some might have is that since I took out the banana, some of the sweetness also went away with it. V found the sweetness perfect, and with the glaze you don’t miss the sugar, but if you like your stuff sweet, you should up the sugar amount. Another reason why the sweetness might have been off the mark was that I did not realise that my stock of sugar was low, and found out only when I started mixing everything up.
Now, not that I need a reason to make Pina Coladas, but this was a perfect time to make some! So, there I was, sipping my Pina Colada and biting into my take on Suz & Krista’s coconut banana bread, with this song playing on my mind.
Yes I like Pina Coladas
And getting caught in the rain
I’m not much into health food
I am into champagne
I’ve got to meet you by tomorrow noon
And cut through all this red-tape
At a bar called O’Malley’s
Where we’ll plan our escape.
I am a leftover girl.
