Costa Rican Refried Rice & Beans (Vegan Recipe)

Cinco de Mayo (5th of May) is on Monday and I wanted to post a quick and easy recipe to make on that day. I found this recipe in Viva Vegan cookbook that fits the bill perfectly. If you have cooked rice and beans, then this recipe is a breeze to make.

Each Latin American country has its own version of Rice and beans. In Costa Rica and Nicaragua, it is called Gallo Pinto -- which literally means 'painted rooster'. It is a delicious mix of precooked rice, beans that are refried with extra vegetables, herbs and spices.

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Banana Yeasted Sandwich Bread

Blogging Marathon# 40: Week 1/ Day 1
Theme: Yeast Breads
Dish: Banana Yeasted Sandwich Bread

We are back to the regular weeking marathons this month. It has been quite a roller coaster ride exploring the dishes from all the Indian states. So I'm taking a short break from Indian food and decided to bake some yeast breads for the first week of Blogging Marathon# 40.
My husband bought me this Bread maker recently. He wanted to buy one a while back, but I was resisting the idea -- didn't want to clutter the kitchen with another appliance. But when it went on sale couple of months ago, we went ahead and bought it. Since then we have stopped buying bread unless it is absolutely necessary and I bake about 2 loaves of bread every week.
But what I found out was that the bread baked in the machine is rather unsightly -- awkwardly large and has a gaping hole in the bottom. I couldn't even pull myself to take a picture of that monstrosity -- don't get me wrong, it tastes amazing, but it is just not camera ready (you know what I mean.. right!!!!)

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A-Z Culinary Journey through Indian States Recap (Indian Food Odyssey Recap)

Indian Food Odyssey is a culinary journey through the Indian states and selected union territories. It has been quite a journey, I have to say, that I thoroughly enjoyed taking. A lot of Googling, Wikipedia reading went into this. Here's a recap of the 30 dishes I made for this series:

Andhra Pradesh -- Madatha Kaaja:

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Kanchipuram Idli & Kara Chutney (Breakfast Thali from Tamil Nadu)

The month long mega marathon is still lingering in the air and I have quite a few posts in the drafts that I made and could not post. So here we are with a breakfast mini thali from Tamil Nadu that I wanted to post for Tamil Nadu, but changed and did this Chettinad Vegetarian Biryani.

Kanchipuram idli has been on my to-make list for a very very long time. I think I saw the recipe in a Telugu newspaper many many years ago and it stayed in my head, though it wasn't until very recently. I jotted it down for Tamil Nadu, but with the winter lingering around a little too long, I wasn't sure if the batter would rise. I waited till it started to get a little warm again to make the idlis. It took me 48 hours for the batter to ferment and the idlis turned out fluffy and delicious.

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