Soulful Creations

with juicy ripe mangoes, anyone? The ones in the picture are not juicy ripe mangoes- my dad thought the picture looked better with cut spicy mangoes. But the photo credit goes to him, as I amidst my mango devouring days in Chennai, I forgot all about the camera and this blog- now can ya blame me?   Of course, a quintessential Tam Bram (only when it comes to food though) that I am- I love my thayir sadam and; I love to have my thayir sadam with the golden beauties when they are in season. Something about sour yogurt and sweet mango combination- just feels right every time.   This time I had at least 4 different varieties- the ones in the picture are Haapoos or more lovingly known as alphonso, farm fresh and were being taken away for ripening. This was on our way back from Lavasa , Pune.  I had amrapali (mom bought them for me from Bhubaneswar), langda in Pune and one another varitey I do not remember the name- not that I care too much for names when I am eating them! ...

I love Thai sticky rice with mangoes and I make sure I order it every time I am in one of the Thai restaurants. Finally I decided to make it my way and the inspiration or I guess the impetus was finally removed by the IAVW: Thai event hosted by Priya of Akshayapatram. The "Its a vegan world" was introduced by Vaishali of Holy Cow (love her blog!). Here is my contribution to this event Ingredients 1 mango, sweet not too fibrous preferably! 1 cup sticky rice (I used unsweetened sushi rice) 1 1/2 cups water 1/2 cup unrefined sugar, reserve 2 tbsp 3 tbsp molasses 2 cardomom pods, crushed 1 cup coconut milk, reserve about 2 tbsp for garnish 1 tsp vanilla extract Whipped cream and toasted seasame seeds for garnish Method I took a lazy approach 1. Soak the rice in cooking water for about 10 min. To the rice add the cardomom, sugar and molasses. Cook the rice in a pressure cooker (If you don't have one, you can cook the rice in a cooking pot with a tight fitting lid), l...

For a long time I have wanted to give these pancake mixes a try (don't ask me why because they are quite easy to make from scratch also!). Anyway, I bought this beautiful buckwheat pancake mix- all it had was the stone ground buckwheat and some levening agents (can't remember which brand). I did not the follow the package instructions word for word. I added more milk than it required and some spices too. I also added some diced mangoes (about 3/4th of a cup). The pancakes were then topped with some powdered sugar, homemade chocolate whipped cream and syrup. The result was beautiful and as usual I made too little of it- left us hungry even after about 3 pancakes each.