Strawberry Santa

Christmas is just around the corner and I am already in the freaking holiday spirit. So, in the spirit of holiday season I had this itch to do something creative.I always wanted to try strawberry Santa but its hard to find good strawberries during the Christmas season, well at least in Chicago.This year after long hunt I finally found them and totally enjoyed making these ultra cute,super easy Christmas treats.

Chocolate Zucchini Mini Cupcakes

Chocolate Zucchini Mini Cupcakes

PREP TIME : 30 - 35 Mins    
COOK TIME : 25 Mins  
YIELDS : 35 - 40 Mini Cupcakes (12 Cupcakes)

Dry Ingredients

1 And 1/2 cup of  All purpose flour

1/2 cup Hershey's Cocoa Powder

2 cup White Sugar

1 Tsp Baking Soda

1/2 Tsp Salt

2 Table Spoon of Grounded Flax seed

2 Tsp Cinnamon.

DIY Painted Tote

Ranjani is traveling to India next week (Lucky!) and she said she has little space left in her suitcase! (unfortunately I can't fit in ). I planned to send something from my DIY collection for my Mom and MIL. Something about Fall makes me want to decorate tote bags. I found a pair of plain tote bags in my craft bag. I thought a hand painted tote would be a perfect little gift and this trendy bag will have them saying "no thanks" to plastic bags. So if you want to decorate a tote bag and go green, I am here to help you.

Tomato Facial Scrub

Do you know that tomatoes can be used as an invigorating scrub for face.It has antioxidants that protects skin from sunlight and UV rays.It also slows down aging of skin. This scrub can be prepared in no time and it gives your skin the life it needs.I am sure tomatoes are used in our kitchen almost everyday. Take 5 mins of your time to attend to your skin's need :)

Masala Paniyaram

Kuzhi Paniyaram is a popular Chettinadu dish. It's one of my favourite breakfasts. My mom does this dish very often which I miss it now and then :( I have tried my version with vegetables and spices. This paniyaram is perfect for breakfast, snack or dinner with thakkali chutney. The batter for paniyaram should be accurate or else you will not get a soft and crispy one.Lets get started :)
 

  

'No Sew' Tote Bags

What is more trendy than carrying these cute tote bags for shopping, to school or work, to a picnic or any day-out for that matter !! No bag can ever keep your act together better than these tote bags. 

Would you be surprised to know that you can make these terrific bags at your home ???? 

Or how surprised would you be if we tell you that you can make these with no sewing at all !! 

Yeah, you are right ! The first DIY project to be featured is 'NO SEW TOTE BAGS'. 

The bags shown above was created by me and my friend, Ash in less than 30 mins.

Are you excited?? Here we go...

Spicy Vegetable Sweet Corn Soup

I enjoy a cup of sweet corn soup at the Indo-Chinese restaurant, so I have posted my version with a little bit of spices. I do this soup often for my hubby as he likes to try different kinds of soups. This recipe is not complicated and it’s very easy to make. I think everyone will like a warm cup of soup in this cold weather . Kids usually don’t like vegetables but they would love this healthy soup. Now let’s go to the preparation.

                                             Serves: 4
                                      Prep Time: 4 mins 
                                Cooking Time: 25 mins 

Ingredients

Sweet corn	3 cups
Onion (fine chopped)	1 medium
Tomato (fine chopped)	1 small
Cabbage (fine chopped)	1 cup
Carrot (cut into small cubes)	1 cup
Frozen peas	½ cup
Zucchini (cut into small cubes)	1 cup
Corn flour	1 tsp
Lemon	1/2
Green chilies (fine chopped)	2 nos
Cilantro (fine chopped)	2 tbsp
Pepper powder	½ tsp
Salt	As needed

To Temper

Oil	2 tsp
Bay Leaf	1 no
Cloves	2 nos
Cinnamon	1 inch
Fennel Seeds	½ tsp
Whole Pepper	1 tsp

Preparation

•  Soak the frozen sweet corn in hot water for a 5-10 mins , then divide the sweet corn into two halves. 
• Grind the first half of the sweet corn (approximately 2 cups) with little water to extract juice out of it and use the rest of the sweet corn (approximately 1 cup) to the soup. 
• Mix corn flour with little water and keep it aside to mix it with the soup at last to give a thick texture.

Method

• In a pan heat oil, now add bay leaf, cloves, cinnamon, fennel seeds and whole pepper, and then when it starts to split add onion, fry until it turns  transparent or pink color.
• Now add the chopped tomatoes, add little salt so that it gets mashed. After tomatoes are cooked, add all the vegetables and a pinch of salt.
• Once the vegetables are cooked, add green chilies, extracted sweet corn juice and cook in the medium heat for 5-6 mins.

• Add little salt, pepper powder and corn flour mixture to the cooked vegetables and allow it to boil for 5 mins.
• When the soup starts to boil , add lemon juice and put off the heat.
• Now hot and healthy sweet corn vegetable soup is ready to serve. While serving add croutons to the soup as it gives a nice flavor and taste.

Tips

• Green chili gives a different flavor to the soup, if you don’t want it can be omitted. 
• I added vegetables like cabbage, carrot, frozen peas, zucchini but you can also add beans, cauliflower, broccoli. 
• You can have this soup as appetizer for lunch and dinner along with toasted bread.
• Zucchini is a low calorie vegetable which is a good source of vitamin A, folate and potassium. The other name for zucchini is summer squash. You can also add yellow zucchini to this soup.