Mutton Sukka Recipe | Mutton Chukka Varuval | Spicy Mutton Masala Fry Recipe

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas celebration and enjoying your holidays. We too had a good one. V is off this week, so its going to be a busy week, elaborate cooking, shopping and outing. Now coming to the recipe, Mutton Chukka Varuval/Mutton Fry, after a very long time I cooked mutton few weeks back. This is again my mom's recipe, very simple and easy to cook mutton recipe. Here I used little coconut paste for the varuval but you can skip coconut if you don't like but I recommend adding coconut paste, sure it give rich flavor and unique taste to the fry. Mom makes similar fry with chicken also.  Mutton Chukka is a spicy and delicious side dish that goes well with Biryani, plain rice and rasam and even with soft dosa. We had it with Chicken Biryani and raita. It was a filling and delicious weekend meal.

Julekake Recipe(Norwegian Cardamom Scented Christmas Bread) | Eggless Julekake Recipe | Norwegian Christmas Bread

I am wishing you all the blessings of a wonderful Christmastime & Happy Holidays. Enjoy the holidays with your family and friends. Now coming to today's recipe, For this Month's We Knead to Bake we are baking Julekake / Norwegian Cardamom Scented Christmas Bread. Julekake (or Julekaka/ Julekaga) is a rich bread flavoured with cardamom, and is traditionally served at Christmas in many Scandinavian countries. It is particularly popular in Norway and Denmark. This bread is more cake-like in texture, very soft rich and delicious bread. The bread is baked plain or is glazed with icing. Traditionally the plain bread is served warm at breakfast with butter or a Norwegian caramelised brown goat milk cheese called Gjeitost/ Brunost.

As the bread is rich and contains dry fruits I did not glaze them. Traditionally the bread is prepared with Citrus peel and flavored with Cardamom. But you can also use any dry fruits, raisins or red/green colored cherries to reflect the festive mood. Here, I used Dried cranberry and tutti frutti, but added in less amount. I prepared both Egg and Eggless Julekake version. For Eggless Julekake, I simply followed the same recipe and skipped Egg. The pictured ones are Eggless Julekake.
Both turned out soft and delicious, the Eggless Julekake was light compared to the egg version and tasted similar to the Honeycomb Buns/Khaliat Nahalwhich we baked last year.

Eggless Tutti Frutti Muffins Recipe | Easy Christmas Fruit Cake | Eggless Dry Fruit & Nuts Muffins

Here's another colorful and delicious sweet treat to try this Christmas, Eggless Tutti Frutti Muffins /Eggless Dry Fruit Muffins. I saw this soft, buttery and delicious Best Ever Tutti Frutti Muffins on Prema's Blog and tried it.  Muffins turned out super soft, flavorful and delicious. As we love tutti frutti a lot, this muffins are a treat for us. And also the addition of tutti frutti makes it more colorful, attractive and delicious. My kids loved this muffins a lot and half of them vanished in no time.
These tutti frutti muffins are one of the easiest and best edible gifts to share with your friends and family this Christmas. If you don't have tutti frutti, no worries just add any desired or available fry
fruits like apricots, cranberry, berry mix, candied orange peel or mixed nuts. These eggless muffins are loaded with richness of butter and perfect Christmas treat.

Shortbread Bites | Eggless Christmas Cookies | Easy Christmas Cookies Recipe

Today I am here with an easy Christmas special recipe, Shortbread Bites / Christmas Shortbread Cookies. Shortbread are kind of biscuits with mild sugar and rich buttery cookies. No eggs needed and just 3 basic ingredients is needed for a plain Shortbread cookies. Shortbreads are easy and simple to make, just mix butter, sugar and flour freeze the dough, cut out and bake. And are eggless and no fancy ingredients needed. If you are looking for some quick and simple Christmas Cookies recipe?! Then this Shortbread bites are one such simple cookie recipe that you can easily make it in big batch to share with your friends and family.

This Shortbread bites tastes similar to the Bakery style Venna Biscuits(white colored bite size biscuits). But shortbreads are mild sweet compared to that white venna biscuits. My kids loved it to the core. You can make it as a plain shortbread bites but the colorful sprinkles makes it more attractive and the red and green colors are perfect for the festive season. Now off to the recipe...

Chocolate Orange Shortbreads | Chocolate Shortbreads Recipe | Easy Christmas Cookie Recipe

Today's recipe is an easy and yummy chocolaty cookies with Orange punch. Orange & Chocolate is one of my favorite combo and love to bake anything in this combo. This Chocolate Orange Shortbread Cookies is one of my bookmarked recipes for this Christmas Baking. When Poornima of Poornima's Cookbook given me, Citrus Fruit and Chocolate as secret Ingredients for this Month's Shh Secretly Cooking Event by Priya, instantly this recipe came to my mind and tried it. As she gave me any citrus fruit option, I used Orange and cocoa powder for chocolate. The original recipe was Dark Chocolate Orange Shortbread but we don't like bitter or 90% cocoa, so reduced the cocoa powder to half and it was perfectly chocolate cookie.

Shortbread are kind of biscuits with mild sugar and rich buttery cookies. No eggs needed and just 3 basic ingredients is needed for a plain Shortbread cookies. Addition of cocoa and orange juice & Zest took this simple shortbread to an exotic bake and loved the aroma while baking. These Chocolate Orange Shortbread makes a perfect Edible gifts to Share with your friends and families this Christmas. You can cut it to your desired shapes, you can even use cutters/holiday themed cookie cutters.

Quinoa Black Bean Salad Recipe | Quinoa Black Bean Salad With Cilantro Lime Dressing

I am eagerly waiting for the Kids Winter Break that is starting from this Friday. I have scheduled each day an assignment with my kids along with their reading and kumon work. Wanted to enjoy this winter break usefully and creatively with my kids. Both my boys are also waiting for the school break, they wanna bake and cook with me. Little one has bookmarked few cookies from the Taste of Home cookies book and wanted to bake it for Christmas. Also, I bought some surprise toys (board games) and gifts for them. Hope everything will go as our plan.

Now coming to the recipe, Quinoa Black Bean Salad / Quinoa Salad. This is a salad cum meal recipe. You can have this salad alone for lunch or dinner meal, since it is loaded with beans, carrot, onions, spices, lime dressing and almonds for crunch. What else you need for a healthy, filling and delicious meal more than this. You can also make this Salad as a side along with grilled chicken breast or fish. A wholesome dish to enjoy anytime of the day. If you are a fan for Chipotle's Cilantro Lime Rice Bowl, then you will love this salad too. Here, I used Quinoa but you can use any millet, Brown Rice, Whole grain Pasta for a carb susbtitute in the salad.

Aloo Bhujia Recipe | Minty Aloo Bhujia Recipe | Easy Potato Sev Snack Recipe

Cold and Chill Winter Evening definitely needs some savory snack and hot beverages. At home every one likes savory snack for tea time. That too V likes deep fried snacks like Pakora, Bhaji, Vadai more than other snacks and now the kids also joined him, always wanted me to make some Deep Fried Snacks. Once in a while I do like to have some deep fried snacks but will limit with two or three. Today's recipe is my kids' favorite savory snack, Aloo Bhujia. I made this Aloo Bhujia for Diwali but I missed to post. This Aloo Bhujia is very simple and easy to make snack similar to Sev. It is prepared using Mashed Potato, Mint, green chili, lemon juice and spices. Also aloo bhujia does not take much time to cook and can be made in a jiffy if you have some boiled and mashed potato in hand.