We're back!

We will be traveling abroad in just a couple of days (SO EXCITED!). So we will be writing on here whenever we can, hoping that we may occasionally have Internet access- it's not a guarantee. I'm excited to try new food and visit new places and see family too. It's been too long and I've been so busy with work that I've not had time to think about it. Anyways, here's what we've been enjoying lately-

Strawberry cheesecake shake- tastes surprisingly exactly like cheese cake- a rare treat ( I'm trying not to think about all the cals I've consumed). 

If I can remember correctly this was the white chocolate mocha. Loved the cookie!

Tricolad cake with hot chocolate- perfect for the rainy days we've been having!

If you can't already tell I have a big sweet tooth. I've been doing a lot better with my eating compared to before though ;) . But not so great with the fitness. I'll get to it, I promise myself (future new year resolution).

Hopefully the next post will be from a new country with something completely new and exciting. I can't wait!

R

A long awaited delight!

Hello there! I'm glad to be back with my craving of butter chicken and naan satisfied. Last sunday we lunched at Khazanna in Village Market. They have the best gravy for butter chicken, which makes it the best butter chicken I've had. Haandi makes a pretty great butter chicken too.
 I once had 7 naans at Khazanna because of their gravy, a record for me and an indication of how good their gravy is. I could eat it everyday. Yumm... It's just the right amount of creamy, the color is luscious, and i'm salivating right now thinking about the flavor. It's like an explosion of Indian goodness. I would definitely give it the strongest of recommendations.

Pizza was also consumed, the standard Polo pizza from Pomodorro, an all time favorite for my family, and a slice of a veggie pizza for my mom. Pomodorro is a mean pizza making machine. The taste never fails and their quality never wavers.

Finally we topped off our meal with a signature cold chocolate from Tiramisu. Now I didn't enjoy it as much as their hot chocolate but dang! it was good. It was a chocolate slushie with a dollop of heavenly whipped cream on top, and I love whipping cream. Definitely a good way to cool down in this heat.

I'm eagerly waiting for the temperatures to drop (it's as hot as it was in the beginning of the year! what happened to winter's coming?!) so that I can treat myself to a hot chocolate. With whipped cream of course!

~Priya~

hello, once again

So it's been awhile since there was a blog post put up here. To be completely honest I got tired and lazy in December and then January rolled around and so did a new year in medical school, and along with it all the joys and stress, so eventually this blog reached really low on my priority list, in fact I don't think it made it on the list at all.. But now i'm on holiday, I start the third year of university next January, and all I really want right now is butter chicken gravy and naan -I say gravy because i'm not a big fan of the chicken part-and since there's no way i'm getting that, i'll just settle for bread rolls, which are essentially bread and potatoes mashed together along with finely chopped onions, herbs and seasoning of course, and then fried. It may not sound appetizing but it's comfort food.

I would put a picture but I just had the last bite so there's nothing left but a ketchup smear on my plate.

Hopefully my next post will be about butter chicken gravy and naan, but for now I leave you with a divine almond croissant from Art Caffe.

~Priya~

What I ate today: healthy edition Day 2

Sundays are sort of like our cheat days, but not really, we wake up half an hour later for our walk, and choose an easier exercise for the day, we chose tae bo. What hasn't changed about sundays is the food. It's always good.

After having holidays for 5 months, my food intake increased exponentially. In university I had 3 meals a day and one snack during physiology or biochemistry,now that i'm home I have more snack times, and not the best kind of snacks to be honest, but my sister and I are really trying to change that situation.

For breakfast yesterday I consumed my all time favourite cereal that just came back on the market after years. Its called Chocolate Pillows. It was called Chocolatey Squares before. Now when I love a cereal, I really get hooked on to it. I remember the last cereal I loved was Frosty Stars, and it had marshmallows in it which were space themed! I ate that cereal for over 8 months straight and at times, twice a day, till I could no longer find it in the shops. So I am looking forward to my time with this cereal. They're pretty much square puffs with chocolate in the center, and the chocolate melts in the most scrumptious way in hot milk.

                                      

My sister had oats with some freshly cut strawberries and cinnamon sprinkled on top, and a cup of steaming raspberry green tea. A good power kick for the morning.

She had a couple of eggs as a snack later on.

Lunch was out and we ended up at gymkhanna. My sister had some hot and sour chicken soup for starters which she said was even better than Ching's soup (I talked about this soup in my udon post) ! so i'll be trying that next time.

I had a masala papad/papadum. I love these. It's super thin,crispy and disc shaped. It can be made of different flours, and then it's covered with some salad and chaat masala. delicious!

We also had some lovely vegetable spring rolls.

Butter chicken and naan arrived for the main course.

For snacks yesterday we had some muffins, and lemonade. We make lemonade with a bit of cumin.

Hopefully we can keep up the exercise!

                                                                   -Priya-

What I ate today: healthy edition Day 1

My sister and I came up with a pact to try and get healthy, now that we have absolutely no reason not to. I'm having long awaited holidays after a long, tiring year. I basically studied and ate-we all know what the combination does fitness wise. I just couldn't afford to make health a priority at the time, although I did try take stairs whenever I could, and eat healthier options when I could-I just did little things to help me stay active.

I'm done with university now and finally have the time to start off my healthy lifestyle the right way.

We're really getting into it though. And one thing I'm so proud of is that we didn't wait for the new year, as I'm sure the majority of us do. We're going to try this for a week first. Basically being more active and eating somewhat cleaner and not giving up on foods you absolutely love-just having them in moderation. We came up with a meal plan for the week, so expect a new blog post everyday for a week and hopefully we continue with it. We aren't trying to lose weight though, just trying to be a lot fitter. I'm tired of panting every time I go up the stairs.

We started today with a 30min brisk walk followed by breakfast. I had oatmeal with a banana mixed in and cinnamon on top, plus some orange flavoured green tea. If you're not a fan of green tea then definitely try the flavoured ones, makes a big difference taste wise. I usually love ordinary green tea, but I only found flavoured ones at home by the London fruit and herb company. Pretty good in my opinion! 

The oatmeal filled me up for quite some while. I wasn't hungry again until about 11p.m. I had a half boiled egg (exactly 12 mins of boiling from experience) with some strawberries. 

For lunch we planned for a wrap. We used some sandwich ham slices and also a couple of chicken ham slices. Some lettuce, strawberries, bell pepper, onions, olives, gherkins, a little cheese of your choice ( we used simple cheddar and mozzarella), pepper to taste and honey mustard sauce (the highlight of my lunch).

Honey mustard sauce is pretty simple to make, and tastes absolutely delicious. 1/4cup of plain yogurt/mayonnaise, 1 tsp honey, 1 tsp mustard, 1/2 tsp lemon. Mix well and you've got a salad dressing! 

My mum is a pro at folding the wraps. She also helped us make the wrap covering itself. (I'll make a future post on how!).

Here's the final product. Instagram worthy! It tasted so much better than I'd expected and its easy to make. I loved the strawberries in the wrap too. A big hit with everyone at home. All in all, a great start to our get fit journey.  I feel like I will want to continue with it only if I enjoy in the food I eat, or else it'll be all the more difficult.

Afternoon snack-a slice of brown bread with chocolate peanut butter and my mums homemade coconut jam cookie. Tasted better than it looks.

In the evening we did a 25minute kickboxing workout. This workout was so intense but it felt so good afterwards. I felt quite proud of myself for getting through it. I haven't shed this much sweat in a while (no tears yet though!!).

For dinner I had some hot and sour soup with 2 frankfurters -yup, I'm back to my old non veg eating self with good reason. Had a banana for dessert. I forgot to take pictures of my dinner (too hungry I think).

I've had a super productive day today and I'm hoping to maintain it throughout the rest of the week, one step at a time and hopefully I make it to my goals. I'm glad my sister is in this with me, I need all the motivation I can get.

                    ~Risha~

What I Ate

Hello! Long time, no see. I thought i'd sweeten things up a bit here by drawing what I ate last Sunday.

The hot chocolate was from Tiramisu (obviously), the butter chicken and naan from Khazanna. I absolutely love the gravy of their chicken, once I start, I just can't stop! The cake was from cake city, it was surprisingly good, I've had some pretty dry cakes and some extremely sweet cakes from there, but this was good. The tea is from the London Fruit and Herb company. I've been crushing on their tea for quite a while now! My favorite being apple and cinnamon, and the best thing is they are caffeine free. I'll probably do a blog post on their tea soon. I hope you all have a great week ahead!

                                                                            -Priya-

Udon, the way I like it.

Hello folks! It's obviously been a while(as pointed out by my sister on multiple occasions).
 Udon is a thick wheat flour noodle, it is japanese, but i'm sort of a Rachael Ray in the kitchen, I just prefer a 10 minutes limit rather than a 30 minutes limit.
I use udon in hot and sour soup. As someone who prefers foods to drinks, I always have something to chew on with my liquids, in this case udon.
I boil the udon with some salt till it's soft and can fold in on itself.

While the udon boils I prepare the hot and sour soup, which is a packet soup from a company called Ching's, it is the only packaged soup I consume willingly.
I cut a few carrots and spring beans which I boil too, sometimes I sprinkle some herbs on top, and voila, a healthy lunch in less than 10 minutes!

                 
                                                                           -Priya-