Croque Madame Muffins (or my version of it)

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French cheesy-sauced eggs baked in toast muffins | The Novice Housewife

While I do have a recipe for this french lunch time snack of a bread muffin cup with a cheesy egg filling- to share today, I also have some news. The reason for my absence after my last post.

Two weeks back I lost my grandmother. Even though she was old and had not been keeping that well for years, the news of the death was unexpected. I was to visit her on the 20th and had my travel planned and tickets booked accordingly. Now I wish I had first come to her and then gone to visit my brother, but I guess that’s how it was supposed to be.

My grandmother loved and took care of all of us the best she could, and believe me she could.

For her, feeding us was the best way to show her affection, and she thought us polishing off everything she made was the best way we could return ours. And since most of my summer vacations during my school years were spent at my grandparents place, in two months of our stay it was a norm that my brother and I would at the least gain 10 kgs; the highest for me being about 18 kgs and and an increase in jean size from a respectable 27 to a not so healthy 36 inches. No doubt my grand mother was a great cook. I had plans during this visit to learn from her her chocolate ice cream (made from bottle gourd/ giya ), her sesame seed potatoes and her lip-smacking pickles. She had given me the recipes for all on the phone, but I thought I will ask her to show me once as well. But I guess that too was not meant to be.

Her recipe for dal paranthas is my go-to recipe when I can not think of anything better to make for V and me. And it will always remind me of her now.

Although growing up, my grandmother showed a slight preference towards my elder brother, once I was in college both of us became closer. The 6 months I spent trying to set up a baking venture, living at my grandparents place before I got married, got the two of us even more close. So when I got married she did not like that I was staying so far away and would constantly be worried and checking whether I was happy in the US, telling me that I have gone too far away.

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Whole Wheat Dinner Rolls

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Whole Wheat Dinner Rolls | The Novice HousewifeI had been eyeing this recipe for sweet buns on allrecipes.com for a while now. It had great reviews and I am always looking for new bread recipes to try. Plus it seemed easy to put together. And with such great reviews I was sure I will not be disappointed. And I was right, after about two hours of kneading, resting and baking, I had light and fluffy (and absolutely delicious) dinner rolls. I also got an absolutely drool worthy cinnamon swirl bread. And with my love for all things cinnamon I honestly cherished the cinnamon swirl bread more than the rolls. And that actually says a lot about the bread since the rolls were amazing without any additions!

The recipe makes 16 dinner rolls. I used half the dough to make 8 dinner rolls and the other half I used to make the cinnamon swirl bread. I do not have a recipe, but I followed the same instructions I do when I make cinnamon rolls. Rolled out the dough to a rectangle (keeping it 9 inch long, and as wide as I could with a thickness of about 1/4th inch) and spread softened butter on the rolled out dough, followed by a generous sprinkle of cinnamon sugar on top. I rolled the dough up and let it rise in my bread pan. To achieve the shape I have in the pictures, I cut the rolled up dough like you do for cinnamon rolls (but slightly thinner in thickness)  and put each cut part side by side in the bread pan. I wish I had pictures because I feel I might not be explaining this too well. If that’s the case, sorry!

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Couscous Salad with Chickpeas, Roasted Tomatoes and Boiled Eggs

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Couscous Salad with Chickpeas, Roasted Tomatoes and Boiled Eggs | The Novice HousewifeThis couscous salad with roasted tomatoes, cumin and garlic tossed chickpeas, and eggs covered in a cumin flavored yogurt dressing happened last weekend. I would have posted the recipe sooner, but my computer just kept playing spoil sport. I have finally upgraded the RAM, and now it seems to be working fine, and the internet which stopped working yesterday, is back on, so hopefully I will be back to blogging and sharing recipes with you again.

Its pretty difficult to write a post about cooked food because this salad was also my big send off to raw week. Which means while I am typing this recipe I have been on raw food for 4 days now. Remember the last time I went raw? I have it all documented here. This time I have been updating my instagram with my raw routine, so if you are interested in checking it out you can here.

Couscous Salad with Chickpeas, Roasted Tomatoes and Boiled Eggs | The Novice Housewife

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