lazy sundays...

Lazy sundays bring Lazy moments. however  while at ammas lazily I might add I watched 5 ingredient fix The recipes are super easy to make... Yet as Claire Robinson went on convincing me that I HAD TO BAKE THIS MUFFIN, I was thinking BARF! I.HATE.BANANAS!!! BLEURGHHH!!! so what goes well with bananas >>> YAY CHOCOLATE!!! Everything chocolate is a WIN in my book!

Ingredients

• 4 ripe bananas
• 1/3 cup honey
• 1 stick unsalted butter
• 1 large egg
• 1 3/4 cups self-rising flour (incase you don't have this, use same quantity of flour + 1tsp baking powder + 1 tsp salt)
• Milk Chocolate - I used ritzbury chocolate and cut it up in to chunks
• 1 tsp vanilla 

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper muffin liners.

Peel the bananas and add to a large bowl. Add the honey and mash the bananas with a fork until very liquefied but still a little lumpy.

Melt the butter in a small saucepan or skillet over medium heat. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the milk solids have turned a nutty golden brown.

To the brown butter, add about 1 cup of the mashed banana mixture and whisk to combine. Cook for a few more minutes until a darker golden color is achieved. Add to the remaining mashed banana mixture and whisk to combine, then whisk in the egg, add the chocolate and vanilla. Fold in the flour, in 2 batches, with a rubber spatula, until just combined; do not over mix. With an ice cream scoop, evenly divide the batter among the muffin tin cups.

Bake in the center of the oven until golden brown and the tops spring back when pressed, about 25 minutes. Cool for 5 minutes in the pan, then transfer the muffins to a rack to cool completely. Serve warm or at room temperature.

TADAAAA!!! the muffins are done!

 

 

What were you up to this weekend?

 

xoxo

D

nomnomnomnom the husband has already requested for it... which is a first because he's super health conscious and would die before munching away on something unhealthy/carby/sweet/ etc!

Pavlova you say?!

Hello world... :D 

Sorry we've both been quiet for the past few days... (MONTHS) its been a busy couple of weeks (months).... 

But I've been baking and cooking and freezing and frying and icing :D 

so I was bored one day... what do I do when I get bored and fidgety ?! I bake!!! Made a pavlova. Came out quite well I must say (at least since it was my first time eva)

The recipe was adopted from Donna Hay. Quite easy really!!!

Pavlova

• eggwhite (approximately 4 eggs)
• 1 cup (220g) caster (superfine) sugar
• 2 tablespoons cornflour (cornstarch), sifted
• 2 teaspoons white vinegar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• I used a small pack of anchor whipping cream.. which works fine.. you can even use the kothmale heavy/double cream.  
•  You can use any fruit you want. I used mango and passion fruit ( added a wee bit of sugar to cut the tartness)

 How to Make... in a few easy peasy steps!

• Place the eggwhite in the bowl of an electric mixer and whisk until stiff peaks form. 
• Gradually add the sugar, whisking well, until the mixture is stiff and glossy.
• Add the cornflour and vinegar and whisk until just combined. 
• Shape the mixture into an 18cm round on a baking tray lined with non-stick baking paper.

 

•  Reduce oven to 120°C (250°F) and bake for 1 hour 20 minutes.
• Turn the oven off and allow the pavlova to cool completely in the oven.

•  Whisk the cream until soft peaks form. Spread over the pavlova with fruits you pick.

Serves 8–10.* You’ll know when the meringue is stiff and glossy because the mixture will have tripled in volume and stands up when the beaters are lifted.* The low heat puffs up the meringue while the long cooking time dries it out to give you a lovely crisp shell.* Store your pavlova, undressed, in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days.

Quick tips for the meringue

●Make sure the eggs are room temperature before you start whisking.
●Make sure there is no water in the bowl you use to make the meringue.
●only top the pav with fruits and cream just before serving.
●If its left over, don't worry just keep it in the fridge. Will stay unspoilt for 2-3 days (with fruit topping)


Let me know how it comes out!!

xoxo
D 

YOGASTIC!

Yogastic is happening this Saturday morning and it's completely FREE.

If you're not there to experience the awesomeness of yoga (free yoga at that)...you're just lame.

:I

Event page here!

Pusswedilla

Ok, so I'm a sad little Pusswedilla noob. But BY GOD that play was awesome!

Such good acting and great lines and flow. The only complaint was that it was a little but too long, and at one point there were close to 12 people on stage at one point, masking each other and looking really awkward and distracting.

I really don't know why I haven't checked it out earlier and I fully understand the crazy long lines during the ticket rush.

I guess its just comedic relief to all the crap happening in Sri Lanka, put forward in a lighthearted way. Its like we're laughing at our own downfall, with not much we can really do about it.

Good stuff. 

Check them out on Al Jazeera

Eating, Sleeping and NOT surfing in Arugam Bay

You know what? So I totally went to Arugam Bay and it was fantastic. Fantastic in a rugged, you're-way-too-pansy-to-swim-in-my-waves kinda fantastic, because the surf season has just started and the waves are NOT...I repeat, NOT for swimming. You will either die by hitting your head on a sandbank (recently had happened to a foreigner we heard) or just really lose your shorts - whichever you do not prefer.

 So anyway, here's some things we did in A'bay...

Pass by the infamous Thanamalwila! It's a beautiful area really...very lush..and...green. Ahem.

Aaand after 5-6 gruelling hours of listening to 3 boys talk about cars and more cars, we finally ended up at The Hideaway in Arugam Bay. By far the BEST, most tasteful place in Arugam Bay, well worth for what you pay for. 

 

We got two wonderful upstair rooms which overlook their garden. The rooms were perfect with all amenities, bathrooms were super (this matters a whole lot to me!) but only downside was the mid-day heat which turned the room into boilers, mainly due to the asbestos sheets overhead!

Local flora and fauna...awww

 

We didn't eat much at the Hideaway due to the boys to girl ratio during our trip (3:1), and they obviously went for quantity and more quantity (more on that later)...but I did order breakfast on the last day and it was just OK for a good Rs. 800. Depends I suppose, what you're really after. But I was told by the lovely host and owner that they made an excellent rice and curry... 

SURF'S UP!

So more on quantity... 

Next we found an amicable looking fellow and said Hi, where can we find good curry then, and he pointed us towards The Beach Hut.

 

A nice hippy little place which smells a little too mildew for my taste serves us awesome paratas (I mean AWESOME PARATAS THAT MAKE YOU WANT TO WRITE IN CAPS) with killer pol-sambol and dhal curry for breakfast. Oh and that sugary sweet plain tea which makes you think of Mom. (Not my mom though, she forces uber-healthy food to all of us....but you get the drift.)

We also wound up eating there quite a bit during our stay. 

Here's lunch...not as great as breakfast though. Prawns were a little over-priced, doused in chillie-paste and set fire. Meh meh. 

There's another place called "The Green Room" on the landslide which had awesome seafood fried rice. Yum. 

 

Arugam Bay...beautiful....

We explored a few beaches too. Like Whiskey Point...where we met a Iranian kite-surfer who wanted to know where the best winds were. I connected him with Dilsiri... 

And Panama Beach (Paa-nama...not Panama Canal)... just isolated, wild, beach. Nothing more, nothing less.

And then we took a really random road to nowhere, which took us through a narrow ridge of road between a lake, Kumana National Park and paddy fields as far as the eye can see. The road ended in an area which had strange animal droppings, and where 3 tipsy men in sarongs popped out of nowhere ("after a party" apparently) and told us to move along as wild elephants and sloth bears apparently frequent the place. That's Sri Lanka man...I doubt any of us have even scratched the surface of it!

Back in A'bay, the late evening and night brought out the surfer boys and girls who roamed around looking for a bite to eat. We were told by friends to try Geckos, right opposite Hideaway. We missed their recommended home-made ice cream, but did have beer in tea-cups (in lieu of Vesak.. lol) and bland burgers.

The last day at A'bay had me pondering life on a hammock at the Hideaway while the boys hit the Beach Hut . We also managed to drop in at the Mihindu Maha Chaitya, a Buddhist temple where the princess Vihara Maha Devi was supposed to have landed after being sacrified to appease the gods when a tsunami had occured. I'm sure there's a lot of historical sites in the area which needs a little more time than 2 nights to explore.

Back in Colombo with the Vesak weekend coming to a close!

The boys are already planning another trip to the East coast. Can't wait...it's definitely something you gotta do!

xo
Dee

6 days and counting!!!

I changed my mind about food after reading just a few words, "you can not differentiate and justify that the animals on your plate and the ones in your homes are different..." for me, that changed the way I ate. This has nothing to do with religion, or health or diet, just that animals have a right to live too!

Going Vegan....

Is it doable? Well since of late (say around 6 months to a year) I've been juicing, green juice to be exact. Morning and night, It actually helps with weight loss, gives you clear skin, great bowel movement =D, you actually start to glow a little, You feel light, active, and the list goes on and on...

I've considered going vegan/veg a few times and I was a vegetarian when I was 15 to about my early 20's till I got chicken pox and then my mother insisted I took some protein i.e MEAT! for some people giving up meat is unheard of, like my husband. He would NEVER in a million years do so.

So i'm going to try to give up. again! TRY to convince the husband to do so too! Reasons to give up!!!lets see how it goes!!!


Vegan recipes for wanna be vege fooodies!