Stuffed Mushroom and Spinach Pizza Bread | The Novice Housewife

Wishing all the readers of The Novice Housewife a very happy New Year and lots and lots of good food like this stuffed mushroom and spinach braided bread.

2014 was not too great blogging wise. I did not post as often as I would have liked to. I wasn’t  even able to visit my favorite blogs and see what my favorite bloggers were up to. I got 52 posts up which if you aggregate means one post per week, but in reality it was only the first half where I was active and the past few months hardly saw this space getting much action- maybe one post a month. In 2015, I want to change that.

A lot of new exciting things happened in 2014. It was a period of a lot of stress as well. A lot of decisions were taken, changed, re-taken and then stuck to, with a lot of apprehension. One of the biggest change was The Pink Cakebox (only after coming up with the name did I realize there was already a pretty famous pink cake box in US, which is pretty stupid on my part since being obsessed with cakes I should have known. But I went ahead with it nonetheless, since I couldn’t turn back- mine has THE and its in India so I am hoping nobody gets confused. Yikes!) More about TPC (The Pink Cakebox) in another post because I think it deserves a lot of of explaining to do. But yes 2014 was the year it came to existence (a dream five year in the making). You can keep up to date with that chapter by liking its facebook page or following me on TPC’s instagram.

That’s essentially was (and still is) what kept me busy most of 2014.

This new venture also introduced me to new people- and I realized complete strangers can be so helpful. The experience made me wiser, at the same time made me doubt myself on multiple occasions. But slowly I am gaining confidence and growing and learning with each order. The whole ordeal of the past few months has made me a much stronger individual. And I am very grateful to the people I have in my life- my family and friends who made me stick through it and picked me up when I was ready to give up. And I have needed to be picked up a lot of times.

I moved back to India also last year. Temporary for now. While V was busy with his MBA I needed to sort out my life and pursue my passions more seriously. 2015 will see how it all unfolds.

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Copycat P.F. Chang's Chicken Lettuce Wraps | The Novice Housewife

So I wont bore you yet again with I have been busy and apologize yet again for being MIA. I think thats just been so overdone on the blog lately. So let’s get past that and let’s concentrate on today’s recipe.

Lettuce wraps.

Chicken Lettuce Wraps.

P.F Chang inspired chicken lettuce wraps.

Crazy easy to make and super delicious to eat. A great appetizer for parties or if you are trying to keep a check on your weight then the perfect meal. Plus, they are gluten free. You just have to make them. Like pronto. Even if you are a vegetarian, it shouldn’t stop you, because you can easily substitute the chicken for tofu. Been there, done that. So I can assure you it works. And works well.

Copycat P.F. Chang's Chicken Lettuce Wraps | The Novice Housewife

The sudden urge to make lettuce wraps came by the other day when I went to Kylin, Chandigarh and ordered us some chicken lettuce wraps. They were good and they brought back wonderful memories of the PF. Changs lettuce wraps I have had in Phoenix. And the copy cat tofu recipe I made to take a potluck so that V would have something vegetarian to eat. They were so good that the meat lovers also had quite a bit of V’s dinner of lettuce wraps. Luckily I had made enough for everyone.

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motichoor halwa-025

motichoor halwa-007

After a long hiatus, (probably longest I have been absent from the blog) I am back today with a recipe. I know I have a lot of explaining to do, but I will leave that for another day. And even though I am back I am not sure whether the recipe I am sharing today can be considered a recipe. It also probably doesn’t fit too well in the GMT frame of things since its core ingredient is motichoor ke ladoo, an ingredient which is not easily available outside of India. But I just needed to post something. I have missed this space, but somehow I have not been able to find the time and the right frame of mind to post something. And that’s why instead of posting nothing for another GMT, I thought I’ll post something and let you all know that I am alive and so is the blog.

With the wedding season in full bloom here in India, our house is flooded with wedding invitations and boxes of sweets. I spent a week in Jaipur at a fun destination wedding and got back with me tons of memories and two big boxes of motichoor ke ladoo.

Moti is the hindi word for pearls. Choor means crushed. And that is what this indian sweet, favorite of many, is- tiny crushed pearls of gram flour/besan soaked in syrup and combined together to make round balls of sweet goodness.

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