Dingri Muttar Masala a.k.a Mushrooms & Peas in a Spicy Gravy

Mushrooms are versatile. They not only come in a whole slew of varieties, they can be used in myriad ways. Stuff 'em, incorporate them in sandies, blend them into a soup, stir fry them to perfection, use them as a pizza topping - the possibilities are limitless! Not to mention delicious!

Someone Loaves You - French Baguette!!

Wow!! Time sure does fly!! It has been eight days since my last post!! EIGHT WHOLE DAYS!!

This lag between posts can be attributed to a lot of things - my internet connection being on the fritz, having guests over a few days last week, and of course, last and NEVER the least, caring for my sweetheart now 3-month old son. But most of all, the internet connection issue. I mean, honestly, it is only then that I realized how reliant I am on the internet. For practically EVERYTHING. I use it for pretty much everything - I follow other peoples blogs, I check to see if someone has looked up MY blog, I read up about animal rights issues, I do research for the articles I write (oh, by the way, I write a 4-days-a-week column for a newspaper reviewing videogames - what fun! If you can get your paws on a copy of Bangalore Mirror, you should look it up sometime. If not, you can check it out here. :0)) , I chat with friends and family near and far, I Google senseless nonsense that really doesn't effect me in any way just to while away precious time,  yada yada, yada yada. I think you catch my drift!

My point is that the internet has now become an indispensable part of my life, in a way that I sometimes think may not be very healthy. Its almost like I use it in lieu of my brain every now and then, 'cause, really, its soooo much easier to get information out of!! The weirdest part is that I am sure a lot of you guys who are reading this will relate to it. So much of our lives has become 'virtual'. I even met my husband on the internet! I mean, I have 'friends' who I have never met, and interact only through this medium. Ok, alright. I think I have made my pointless point, and wasted enough of your time and mine!! :0) So, lets get on with the show!!

The Marvellous 6-Minute Microwave Cake!!

I've gone the microwave way for baking on more than a few occasions. Let's just say it was one of those "Try, try, till you succeed" type of things. Lets also just say I figured I never would succeed.

That's probably why, when I saw this recipe on Madhuri's (a fellow food-blogger) site, I was like "HA!! She must have a magic microwave! I need to get me one of 'em!" But, 'cause the itch to try, try and see if I could succeed was still lurking under my skin, I decided to scratch it by giving her recipe a go. After all, she proclaimed it would take just 5 minutes in the microwave (at this point there were MANY more 'HA!!'s sounding in my head)! That was the kinda time I could spare to prove a recipe wrong. Besides, it was also my folks 31st wedding anniversary. I needed a quick dessert item to celebrate.

Vegetable Stuffed Crust Pizza

My first memories of pizza was from when I was probably 4 or 5. We used to live in Bahrain, and there was this quaint little pizza place called Pick-A-Pizza. Just the mention of pizza would be enough to get my siblings and I into a frenzy. Daddy'd drive his three drooling runts there, and let us order the usual; usual only because there was only one vegetarian option! I remember the few things I loved about that place: the smell, the menu board (there were numbers against each pizza option, and if I remember right, we always ordered the No:5!), the anticipation of a yummy pizza, the high chairs, and Tina, the Manglorean girl at the counter. Since we were so little (read: cute), and visited so often, we soon became good 'friends' with Tina and the Sri Lankan Chefs. This meant free extra toppings, and sometimes even free pizzas! Since mumma and daddy didn't want to be indebted to these nice people, mumma used to make idlis (ya, thats what they said they'd like in exchange!) in bulk, and parcel them up for the drop-off.

Eventually, we left Bahrain, only to return a few years later. Fortunately for us, Pick-A-Pizza was still around, and still served the yummiest of pizzas. So we had another two lovely years of devouring yummy pizzas. When we left Bahrain for good, and moved to UAE, we were devastated, and all the pizzas from Pizza Hut, Pizza Corner, Pizza Inn, et al could not sate us like the good ol' ones from Pick-A-Pizza. The only other pizza that has come close to the Pick-A-Pizza yumminess is the deep-dish variety from Pizzeria Uno. Many years later, we visited Bahrain for a few days, and not only did we eat a couple of pizzas from our favorite pizza outlet, we also carried 8 large bad boys back with us to Dubai! YES! We actually brought back pizza from Bahrain! I bet those were the first few pizzas ever to get on a plane!