Ladled

My encounter with  swirled white chocolate  chips was in a flourless brownie made with beans. 

Today I attended a birthday celebration. The cynosure was a  fresh fruit chantilly  cake. Layers of cake with layers of fruits. Fresh fruit tastes great when cut and even more if it comes with some sauce. But there are times when apples taste better uncut. Have you realised how a fruit triples in size when you cut it? It seems its a few bites and then into the trash with what little can be let to cling to the core. But when the knife comes into the picture, 'divide and rule'.. not so easy. I had some  chicken tikka masala  today and I ought to learn to make it. For some reason the gravy of chicken tikka masala and paneer butter msala, runny with tiny fried onions reminded me of  animal style fries at in n out burger . I also had lamb in mint sauce curry. Yesterday I made salmon curry in tamarind sauce and fried onions. Grilled Salmon over rice was the first dinner that I had in US at Ramada Inn when I got stuck at an airport. My friend told me about asparagus sauce on 

Recently I wanted my parents to try rotisserie chicken. But whats available is too bland for them, so I decided to make a curry of it. I liked the taste but it also seemed like omelette just like how chicken gyros from Pita heavne had tasted.

Taken by  Moulded Snow Flaked Cake , I gathered it along with  Taiyaki  (only after biting into I realised that it had a stuffing - custard) and  tapioca mung bean cake . Before getting them billed, I just asked of the layers of each. The assistant said that the snow flaked cake has mung bean and durian in it. He asked me if I had it before. i told him that I heard of it. He asked if I liked to sample the fruit before I buy the cake. I am glad he did. When I smelled the fruit it was like cashew nut fruit and worse. A fluffy coffee milano. Tapioca Mung bean cake on the left.

creamy-chana-masala aloo gobi with boiled aloo

Mini Green Tea Puff cake and another pastry from Desir bakery Wow wat an idea. A great cake inside a flaky crust layer on layer on layer...

With  a name like  kaleidoscoops , you will enter the store and ask the assistant for whats their special. And she says we dont have any today. while all you want to know is whats their best and you think how hard can it be to figure it out from the tags and the actual icecream there. We tried the  Caramellow . It was icy. The only problem is you have to wait for your sweet drink to melt a bit. Arizona's heat can be put to some use. Once liquified, it tastes sweet and icy cold. Their display had little cones of icecream as a party platter. They had some tiny buckets with candy and decorations. Some icecream pies and icecream cakes.

One morning while struggling to pretend that fat free Philadelphia cream cheese tasted ok on Safeway freshly made bagels which was more like soft bread, my eyes fell on Village baker . A nondescript signboard but got me curious enough to find out more about it. As I walked in, I found the decor of the place with thin wooden logs match the color of the bread. there's a huge bread artifact that'll make you enquire if thats real. The goodies that I found on sale were cinnamon rolls and another with its tag on the side. i managed to step a little into the zone of the cashier and read it as scones but they looked like fashionable scones. If you can imagine a stuffing in the center baked as bread and then cut out. I asked the cashier for the place's best. It being morning, he had to pick from pastries. "Chocolate Brioche". Dark brown. From the looks of it, it didnt seem like the clouds would break after I bite into it. I pulled apart bits for my family to try. It

At Little Thai Kitchen, Flagstaff I tried Bangkok noodles. And once again I became a pro at ordering dry dishes. Luckily it came with two small cups of peanut sauce. If not for them, I would have had a bland dinner while my husband would be enjoying his favourite pad thai. The Bangkok noodles are thick but thinner than Udon noodles.

And we did it again. There's a vanilla yogurt cup in the fridge, god knows doing what. Its going into Vanilla yogurt pancakes with Banana Maple sauce I made Vanilla yogurt pancakes from this recipe as it promised thinner pancakes than the first one. I wanted to make strawberry compote , Orange compote and the banana maple syrup sauce from the first recipe. While cutting strawberries, I tasted some slices and thought against adding sugar. Then I thought I will mix all the three fruits together. Finally I just made it with strawberries but it so needs sugar. PS: Looking for the 'original' and dismissing 'low fat' and 'fat free' he ended up choosing to ignore 'Vanilla'.

Imart Samosa - had minced chicken filled in it, was not the original prism shape but it was ok. Chicken karahi - well spiced. Chicken Biryani - It tasted wholseome but had way too much grease in it. The chicken was not marinated with the spice. Lamb Korma - As soon as I opened the box, it would smell of pickle. Tomatoes have been cooked well to add to the gravy. Chicken Korma - I expected the same gravy as above. Instead it had caramelized onions and tamarind gravy. Tandoori wrap - The tandoori wrap tastes good. What a break from doughy naan. The grilled chicken bits with the yogurt sauce and tomatoes was a nice filler. Lahori fish fry - The fish had whole coriander seeds on the top. A dish that I would recommend for days you need a snack with a pack.

Found an excellent recipe for Chocolate cherry charlottes I am going to use dried apricots and coffee soda.

In the last post I forgot to mention that while I was searching for recipes with nonfat dry milk, the carton itself had 4 recipes of which 2 sounded very interesting. This is a similar recipe for Popover oven pancakes . I had a guest coming home at 10.30 and around 10:03 I started it. The pancake puffed and made it to the table in good time. The pancake had a custardy/pudding look to it like eggs baked in oven. I meant to take a photo but I was in a hurry to serve it. There's a recipe for banana bread too that I will make someday.

Cream cake and mango topping from last post taste great. I had trouble eliciting cake from the pan.Referring to the fault list of cakes, 'waiting too long' seems to be the reason.But even timing it for the second layer didnt work. So the whole thing has sort of become a trifle . If you are wondering how so without whipped cream - since our base is cream cake which uses heavy cream, no cream left in the pantry for whipped cream. The gathering that I am going to has few people who do not eat eggs. I have been looking for recipes with non fat dry milk. I saw the packet in the pantry when I went for sugar. There were some eggless milk cake recipes. While earlier I would have made the cake without contempt, freshly wounded from the pan sticking cakes, I chose Walnut Burfi . It was a breeze to make but I might have ended up with Burfi Walnut. Recall these walnuts should have gone on to the 'Farmer's cake'. Anyways, in the process I found a recipe to make whipped topping

In writing they say, form increases creativity. that is when you have a restriction of rhyme or pattern, you will come up with better lines. Similarly when you have an ingredient that you have to use, its like hitting a jackpot if you can come up with a good recipe. I have heavy cream remaining from the 'farmers cake' debacle. I have mangoes from Costco which are awaiting their turn to become mango shake. Cream cake is a good way to use up the heavy cream. And mango topping is the way to hit the spot. No reason why this couldnt go in between the layers too. I am amazed that there are still many kinds of cake unknown to me. I mean 'cream' as the show runner.

Gyros at pita Heaven tasted like omelette. My husband felt the same. They are really thin, so well fried.

I had Saithe at IKEA today. Its the fishy kind of fish. Thick. The ginger thins are really thin. Cream cake looks so pretty.

Recently I had chicken pachadi. It tasted great. Need a recipe. Got the recipe. after trying it, will provide it with permission.