Quickies Cocktail Challenge Update : I am pleased to announce that we've now received  3  very interesting entries! Thank you very much and please, keep them coming. Send as many entries as you like, just remember to get them in by midnight of  September 27 2010 (ET)  - we're looking forward to shouting out the winner and showcasing a fantastic line up of entries on September 28 2010 (ET)  !! What's your motivation? A gorgeous cookbook! (take a detailed peek here) And now on to the day's post...

I've been approached by friend and fellow foodie Lazaro Bernal about a guest post for his wonderful blog, Lazaro Cooks. Thank you Lazaro for the the thrill, the honour, and the privilege! How could I possibly refuse?

If you haven't already checked out his blog, please, go take a look. I cannot say  enough about it but I will say this, what Lazaro does is a labour of love and it shows in everything that he posts. I have found reading Lazaro to be an enriching experience. I hope you will too....

Roasted vegetables are a passion of mine. Soup is another. And none more so than tomato. I got bored with the usual traffic-stop red of regular tomatoes and thought a bright, sunny yellow would be a slightly unexpected and fun change. Hubby thought it was pumpkin soup and was slightly aghast at the ribbon of balsamic vinegar in his glass, until he took a sip. Then he was all smiles, and having drained his dry, asked for another shot.

Normally, when roasting just about any vegetable,  I would...

After the satisfying stodginess of the pot pie, I wanted something fresh and light. I'd been following and enjoying the fish related posts of a foodie friend, Biren, who does amazing Asian food, and my thoughts were turning to all the briny delights of the sea.

Providence was smiling down on me when I saw these plump, daisy fresh razor clams on a morning jaunt to the market. They were larger than the ones I'd eaten before and looked too tempting to pass by.

My mother, who is not as much a s...

After successive days of curry in varying shades of red, green, yellow and brown...here it comes, morning, noon and night, I really, really wanted something different. Hubby's apartment kitchen however, is kitchenphobic-bachelor-basic, with a fridge that holds marginally more than 3 bottles of water and doesn't even have an oven. It's lovely having the Indian Ocean in all its turquoise and cobalt glory outside every window here, in the Maldives, but I was really starting to miss my kitchen ba...

Looking at this, through glass, glinting in the sun, you may wonder if you’re about to eat a fruit salad or a heap of crimson and violet jewels. What a sight to wake up to! Wonderfully refreshing and cleansing especially on a weekend morning following a night of alcoholic and other excesses.  If you can’t get red dragon fruit, substitute with red plums, cherries or just double the amount of your favourite of the other fruit.  The smidgeon of alcohol this contains is my brand of “hair of...

As much as any one of us loves to cook, and may well on any given day, eat, live and breathe food, there will be times when when you’ve had all you can take of microwave imploded frozen pizza, greasy stoves, kitchen conflagrations and dirty dishes. Don't tell me otherwise; you'd be a fibber. My friend Luca has rather more of such days than most, and is the inspiration behind this feast of a sandwich, that gives every indication of appealing to more than just fungi fanatics or (more or les...

The double part refers to the mousse and the meringues both being chocolate. Don’t be put off by the relative length of this recipe, it really is easy and can be made hours ahead and even be stored for a day or two before final assembly. Once put together though, it must be eaten quickly as the delicate mousse doesn’t take long to deflate, out of the refrigerator and the meringues will quickly turn soggy once in contact with the mousse. The main attraction apart from how pretty this is wo...