A little over a year has passed since we started out on this venture, a wonderful journey . Over this year we have learnt and shared a lot along the way about the world of blogging. Over this time we have spoken to many people  with regards to the blog and what we are trying to achieve, and the one thing that keeps on coming back is, are there any recipes for single people or students? So we got thinking and decided to add a section where there will be a list of store cupboard ingredients and some simple meal ideas on how to prepare in advance so that you can have a wide variety of world cuisines.

Like me, the majority of us who start off on our careers, university is the first steps to looking after our own health and well being. Along the way we have many cooking disasters and find new tastes.

As I have grown have grown up, my eating & cooking habits have changed a great deal. However one thing that has remained is a need to ensure the food is healthy or tweaked to have, say, wholemeal flour instead of plain flour. As I have become a mother I am more aware of this need to ensure a healthy balanced diet which is good for the mind  & body. There are so many things which are inter-related and connected. We forget what an important part food plays in our life, to keep us fit, healthy & well. So with all of that in mind I am adding another dimension to our blog, please feel free to send me your recipes to try out and add to this or any other section of our blog. Our main aim is to share our passion and love for good vegetarian food for all to enjoy

In recent years there have been many studies looking at how food improves our intelligence and well being. I myself borrowed a book from the library on this very subject, because I want to give my son the best possible start in life. Also being vegetarian I wanted him to have all the necessary nutrients and vitamins needed to grow and develop in life. Actually it does not matter how old we are – all age groups should try and maintain a well balanced diet, one which incorporates all the food groups in every meal. It is vital that, from children to when we become young adults (students), we take the responsibility of  looking after our own well being and food is a very important part of it.

Now that I think about it and look back, when I was away at university, I just cringe at the thought of what I used to eat  as my dinners (a packet of jaffa cakes) and my cooking disasters !!! I remember one time I really fancied having an Indian snack called pawa bateta (flattened rice & potatoes), so I made the correct portion for 1 person but then added the spices for 5 people. That is how I learnt to cook for the family, so … we live & learn. So bearing that in mind and a conversation I had with my cousin, thanks to her ground work, I thought of adding a basic store cupboard list as well to help students, single or couples along the way to make a multitude of cuisines, from these standard ingredients. For example, I use kidney beans for my traditional curry, Mexican, soup, salad, Italian, and Jambalaya rice, so the one ingredient can be used to make 6 different types of meals. So the correct store cupboard ingredients are not only good value for money, but at the same time the ingredients should provide meals filled with vitamins and foods which nourish physically and mentally. Below is a list of what I feel would be good to have from which as mentioned you can make many different vegetarian meals.

I came up with this recipe as I really wanted to incorporate some dried fruit with a normal / traditional barfi. I also wanted to try and make a healthy sweet, using natural sugars from the fruit and very little ghee. Traditionally Indian sweets are full of calories because of the amount of sugar and ghee that are used, so I wanted to create some thing which used the bare minimum of these ingredients. The other criteria I was trying to fulfil is to make a simple, easy and quick recipe. I chose apricots because of their taste and texture, not to mention the health benefits. Dried apricots are an excellent source of iron, vitamin A, high in fibre, potassium and low in fat. Apart from perhaps warding of cancer, heart disease and protecting eyesight, apricots also help increase the immune system as it is a good source of iron, which is essential for the renewal of red blood cells. These cells oxygenate the body, helping to stop feeling lethargic and tired. This is essential especially as the cold weather is setting in and days are starting to get shorter, we need to have feel good foods:)

Having decided on the fruit I started thinking about how to encase it and what other  ingredients, if any, to add. So I visualised the colour of the fruit and what other colours would go with it and what shape to give it etc. I just wanted to use the ingredients I had at home at the time. So I added some chocolate chips (which I now feel can be left out) and thought I would coat it with the barfi mixture with added flavour of cocoa. The triangle shape came about because this summer one of my husband’s aunties had given a gadget to make shaped mithai, which I wanted to use so that is why the shape is a triangular. The gadget is essential a V shaped long metal strip with a less than 90 degree bend along its length. Although the final shape I ended up making was by pressing roll of the mixture by hand into a triangle shape, so the strip of metal did not help in making the final shape. Everyone who has tried this sweet/mithai has loved and enjoyed it, so I am glad I thought out of the box and experimented with this sweet for diwali.

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We made Weetabix Barfi for my son’s Diwali & Eid party at school. Making food should be fun, especially when doing it with children. I love recipes where my son can enjoy making it and at the same time he is learning all the time yet he thinks it is fun, because for a change I am letting him play with food We worked together as a team and he really enjoyed crushing the weetabix and biscuits, then mixing all the dry ingredients together. Learning about texture, size and how to measure ingredients together, are just a few of the things we talked about as we were making this easy sweet dish.

I have adopted this recipe to our taste from ‘The Ultimate Collection – A Vegetarian Cookbook’. The taste is a cross between a cereal bar and an Indian sweet.  I wanted to try this recipe as it seemed like an interesting mix of ingredients and felt kind of healthy because of the use of Weetabix, hence we made it as one of our Diwali sweets this year. In case you don’t know, Weetabix is a popular breakfast cereal – more info at Wikipedia here. It also goes by the name of Weet-bix.

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I came across this sweet dish about 4 to 5 years back. The name was very unusual for a sweet dish -  Kesar means saffron and Mani in Sanskrit means gem. The taste was a combination of a few traditional sweets, a crunchy yet melt in the mouth texture all at the same time. Ever since then I wanted to try and make it at home, but I had no-one to teach me or tell me all the specific ingredients.

As I have mentioned before, I recently got a couple of recipe books from Kenya, ‘ The Ultimate Collection – A Vegetarian Cookbook’ and ‘Exotic Flavours – Cuisine With Class’. I looked at the recipe given for Kesar Mani from each book and then decided to try it out. The ingredients from both books were similar, so I combined their ingredients and had a go. The first attempt needed a little extra sweetness and some more spice I felt. So I tweaked the recipes slightly and came up with the version below.

I had made this dish over the summer for one of my husband’s friends for his wedding, but I thought it would be good to post it on Radiance Recipes now when people would make or like to try out new sweets for Diwali. This is a good sweet to indulge in for those special occasions.

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