March 13, 2016 - A typical family cooking project: Rainbow Dosas

Rainbow Millet Dosa :
Amma/ Mom soaks millets & lentils overnight , Thathi / Grandma grinds it in the morning , Akka/ Elder sister's creative light bulb gets activated seeing the dough , Thangai/ younger sister agrees it's a great idea and then Appa/ Dad joins in the excitement and makes it along with the girls. The three of them then gobble it up with spicy tamarind chutney / pulikaachal.
Just another regular day in the Shankar household. 😁😁
With Shankar Ratneshwaran and Mahalakshmi Ratneshwaran

June 2, 2016- Cooking for Sports Co-Op party

To celebrate our end of the year party for our  HS sports co-op each family was asked to get something for the potluck. The girls voted in to make their own food and baked awesome tasting eggless banana banana bread and mini vanilla muffins from scratch and entirely by themselves - from recipe selection to decoration it was all their choice and work. I was strictly put on "advisory " and " no interference" mode.
Chief chef - Shruthkirti , assisted by Shreedhari.
Such a wonderful ending to an year of playing great sports. The girls wore their medals with great pride.

June 6th, 2015- Cooking for Sanskrit Bharathi party

Another batch of eggless banana banana bread and vanilla cupcakes but this time with strawberry preserve icing and raspberry topping made from scratch by Shruthkirti.  This time for our end of the year Sanskrit Bharathi party.
The interesting aspect was how she thought about what to do , to make the cupcakes inviting and attractive for the kids and chose the icing. It definitely clicked  as half the tray was gone seconds after the tray was on the table! The visual appeal was strong I guess.
The best part was when Shruthkirti shared a conversation with her friend where the friend asked her if she had eaten the cupcakes and was wondering aloud as to where one might have bought it? Much to the amusement of the maker! What a woderful ending to a year of learning Sanskrit and falling in love all over again with India and Vedic culture!
I'm starting to observe that Shruthkirti is enjoying cooking for an event where people outside her family get to eat. The real life aspect of it gives her a kick- she thinks about the event, who is going to eat her food, what will make it attractive and most importantly seems to get a real pleasure out of seeing people enjoying her food!  I'm grateful for having so many wonderful communities in our lives where people are eager to eat what my eight yr old cooks!!  With Shankar Ratneshwaran

Perfect cookies at last!

Chellu nailed this one right through this time! She attempted her regular cookies and got it PERFECT..ofcourse with me no where in sight. She also made different colored icing and spread it over the cookies. Dola was visiting with her kids and sister and Chellu's hands were itching to cook. I had asked her to wait till they left so that she could spend time with the kids. 

 As soon as they left she started to work and spent her entire evening and night making the cookies..That afternoon she had also attempted chapaatis and had made quite a few , well rounded chapaatis.

                                                      Icing making

 
 As you can guess the kitchen was covered with wheat flour from morning to night and I had  a BIG  chore of cleaning up that night.

Cooking with Kabir- strawberry jam ice and chocolate ice

Chellu's latest obsession has been that of cooking with her friends. She does that whenever some HSer kid visits or sometimes will round up a entire gang of kids from the playground and teach them something to cook.

They made strawberry jam ice and chocolate ice.

Strawberry jam ice: Crushed the strawberries and cooked it with powdered sugar till thick and then fill it in ice cubes.

Chocolate ice: Make cocoa paste and fill it in ice cubes.. The kids gobbled up all the ice before I got a chance to photograph it!

Cookies

Again an attempt at the age old cookies for Parth's birthday present. This was in addition to the chaklis she had made. So it was an entire day's cooking with two recipes back to back.

She decorated them with great care unleashing her creativity as usual.

Janmaashtami ( 2012) prasadam

Seen here are the girls making the prasadam with full vigour. Singing along with me and absolutely enjoying the process of rolling the cheedais.