Cupcakes and coffee

go together like vanilla and frosting...isn't this cute! From girlzlyfe.com

Do blondes have more fun...?

Or are brunettes sweeter? You decide with these ultra cute cupcake tshirts from Girlzlyfe.com (there's more to come from them in a moment!)

Tag and Awards

Kreative Blog Award :

I am very happy to receive this kreative blog award from Padma, Vineelasiva, Ramya, Dolon, Uma, Pinky. I am very thankful for passing me the award..
Rules :

1. You must thank the person who has given you the award.
2. Copy the logo and place it on your blog.
3. Link to the person who has nominated you for the award.
4. Name 7 things about yourself that people might find interesting.
5. Nominate 7 other Kreativ Bloggers.
6. Post links to the 7 blogs you nominate.
7. Leave a comment on which of the blogs to let them know they have been nominated.

One Lovely Blog Award :

I am very happy to receive this award from Uma And Vidya. thank you so much Uma and Vidya.. Thanks for encouragement.



I Love Your Blog Award & Tag :

Uma have passed me I love your blog Award and Tag.. Thank you so much dear for your tag and awards.. :)


Tag :

1. What is your current obsession?

Blogging

2. What are you wearing today?

Chudidar

3. What’s for dinner?

Bittergourd Curry

4. What’s the last thing you bought?

Bangles

5. What are you listening to right now?

Manasuna mallela malaloogene from Malleeswari movie ( telugu )

6. What do you think about the person who tagged you?

She is very talented and creative.... I love her recipes.

7. If you could have a house totally paid for, fully furnished anywhere in the world, where would you like it to be?

My hometown

8. What are your must-have pieces for summer?

Cotton Salwars

9. If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour, where would you go?

No idea.

10. Which language do you want to learn?

Kannada and Hindi

11. What’s your favourite quote?

You can dance anywhere, even if only in your heart...

12. Who do you want to meet right now?

My Grandmom

13. What is your favourite colour?

White, Black and Blue

14. What is your favourite piece of clothing in your own closet?

All my cotton chudidars

15. What is your dream job?

Fashion Designer and Classical Dancer

16. What’s your favourite magazine?

None..

17. If you had $100 now, what would you spend it on?

Not Sure.

18. What do you consider a fashion faux pas?

Comfortbul

19. Who are your style icons?

None.

20. Describe your personal style.?

Traditional & Simplicity

21. What are you going to do after this?

Go to sleep

22. What are your favourite movies?

Telugu Classics

24. What are three cosmetic/makeup/perfume products that you can't live without?

I don't use cosmetics

23. What inspires you?

Music.. Music.. Music

24. Give us three styling tips that always work for you:

Simplicity, Decent dressing and smile.

25. What do you do when you “have nothing to wear” (even though your closet’s packed)?

None.

26. Coffee or tea?

both - only in the rainy season

27. What do you do when you are feeling low or terribly depressed?

pleasant music makes me happy..

28. What is the meaning of your name?

Hari Chandana means Golden color sandalwood and Moon light..
Hari Chandana is one of the five divine trees found in paradise. And Harichandana is a gotram of Lord Balaji.

29. Which other blogs you love visiting?

I Love all the blogs.

30. Favorite Dessert/Sweet?

Poornam boorelu

31. Favorite Season ?

Winter

The rules are:

Respond and rework – answer the questions on your own blog, replace one question that you dislike with a question of your own invention, and add one more question of your own. Then tag eight or ten other people.

I would like to share this awards and tag with..

1. Srilakshmi

2. Kittymatti

3. Valarmathi

4. Suparna

5. Ganga

6. Gita

7. Kalaivani

8. Hema

9. Raaji

10. Rekha

Please accept. Once again Thank you all for your lovely comments and wonderful support... :)

Panda nom noms cupcake

Two of my favourite things in the world...pandas and (of course) cupcakes, united together in the art of squishyfox via Etsy. 

Cute overload!

Image courtesy of squishyfox.

Keeradosa Avakaya ~ Keera / Cucumber Pickle

Ingredients :

Baby cucumbers/ keera : 2
Salt : 3 tsp
Red chilli powder : 4 tsp
Mustard powder : 4 tsp
Fenugreek powder ( optional ) : 1 tsp
Peanut oil : 4 table spoons
One full lime juice







Method :

Wash the cucumbers and dry them with a cloth. Remove the seeds and cut into small pieces..Add all of remaining ingredients. Mix thoroughly with a dry spoon. Take them in a porcelain jar and set aside for 24 hours.. Serve with steamed rice and a dollop of ghee.

i say happy you say birthday.

isaac's birthday was so much fun! so much fun i thought it was mine at times. i planned and planned his gifties out perfectly. first and foremost, the beach cruiser!! on thursday night we went out with my parents to happy sumo and guess what was waiting for him when he got home...the jaguar! lets be honest, it was kind of a gift for myself as well as isaac, but now we can ride our bikes together!

looking suave on the jag.

off he goes.

on friday, ike's bday, we both took work and school off and played all day. we slept in and i woke up before him and very quietly made him a surprise breakfast. then we made our first trip to our pool!
this is where we live. and swim.

ike with his favorites, otter pops and the sun.
then we were off to park city! it just so happened that g love and special sauce, one of isaac's favorite bands (and now mine) were playing at harryo's in park city on his bday! such a gift.
we love pc. before this we went shopping at the outlet mall and each got a little giftie! i love bdays.
the party place.

after dinner i had to have a treat so we made a quick stop at cow's for ice cream. delicious.
ryan and erin celebrated with us, we love them.
kalai opened for g love. you go kalai.
g love himself.

sooooooooo amazing and talented. this was one of my favorite concert ever. we were so close we touched his hand!

on saturday morning we headed up to fairview to continue the birthday fun. we met isaac's parents for lunch and had a yummy meal.
our new friends!one of the cupcakes i made him. isaac picked these flowers for me while i was napping!

after my long nap isaac and i took a picnic over to our favorite garden. we had capri suns and everything.
bday boy.

on sunday we went to my parent's house for dinner and to have one last bday party.
for ike's final surprise i re-created his favorite dessert from outback steakhouse. vanilla ice cream rolled in toasted coconut + warm brownies + hot fudge + strawberries = pure bliss.

it was a fun weekend to say the least. this boy is spoiled don't you think.

Vegan cupcakes take over Hove

I never thought I'd say this but after reading about Heather Mills' new vegan restaurant VBites in the Guardian I simply MUST visit ...

There will be a wave-shaped bar, and a sushi-type mini conveyor belt which will spin vegan cupcakes around during the day and vegan tapas at night

yummy! cupcakes on a conveyor belt...how fab and much tastier than raw fish!

Thanks to VBites for the pic of their yummy looking cupcakes. 

The worlds largest cupcake

One foot tall, two feet wide, taking fifteen hours of cooking, seventy pounds of cake batter, sixty pounds of icing and fifteen pounds of fudge filling - amounting to  130, 000 calories - gives you the worlds largest cupcake as verified by the Guinness Book of World Records in the Minneapolis Mall of America at the weekend.

The cake was made by cakes.com and you can see a video of it on You Tube.

Cakes.com gave away 4,000 free cupcakes for the event, and arranged for the world record-breaking cupcake to be sent to a local pig farm where the residents are used to disposing of edible garbage!

I have a feeling by the worlds largest cupcake they mean one solid cupcake that was baked as a whole item, rather than the larger big cupcakes which are formed of many cakes (like the one in Covent Garden last week, and this whopper from Merengue Bakers (above) which costs $400 and feeds 210 people..wow!)

Cupcake cuteness

Need somewhere to store your jewels and trinkets? Then look no further than the cupcake trinket boxes and stand which you can buy here. There are 5 little cupcakes on the stand to keep your goodies in.

Good enough to eat

I spotted these in the Femail section of the Daily Mail today and thought I'd share the cupcake cuteness - click the pic to see them in their full glory! I think the cakes are from Primrose, or maybe Lola's but there's no credit so can't be sure! 

Chicken with Prosciutto Spinach Cream Sauce

This is a delicious and very rich tender chicken accompanied by a prosciutto and spinach cream sauce.





INGREDIENTS:



2 eggs

1 cup milk

2 cups Italian seasoned bread crumbs

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon paprika

salt and pepper to taste

1/4 cup vegetable oil

4 thin-sliced skinless, boneless chicken breast halves

1/2 cup white wine

1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

1 pint heavy cream

1 teaspoon minced garlic

1 1/2 cups diced prosciutto

3 cups chopped fresh spinach

1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese







DIRECTIONS:



1. Beat the eggs and milk together in a small bowl; set aside. Stir the bread crumbs, garlic powder, paprika, salt, and pepper together in a separate bowl.



2. Heat the vegetable oil in a skillet over medium heat. Dip the chicken breasts into the egg mixture and press into the bread crumbs, shaking off the excess bread crumbs. Cook the chicken breasts in the hot oil until golden brown on both sides, no longer pink in the center, and the juices run clear, about 6 minutes per side. An instant-read thermometer inserted into the center should read at least 165 degrees F (74 degrees C).



3. Remove the chicken breasts from the pan, set aside, and keep warm. Pour the white wine into the pan; bring to a boil while scraping the browned bits of food off of the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon. Increase temperature to medium-high and stir in the flour. Cook and stir until the wine has reduced to half its original volume, about 1 minute. Whisk in the cream and garlic and bring to a simmer. Season to taste with salt and pepper; cook and stir until thickened, about 8 minutes. Stir in the prosciutto, spinach, and mozzarella cheese; cook and stir until the cheese has melted and the spinach has wilted. Pour the sauce over the chicken breasts to serve.via

happy birthday hubster.

we just got home from isaac's birthday celebration and i can't wait to tell you allllll about it.

best night ever.

happy birthday ike man.

2-3!

i love birthdays, even when they're not mine...

i love you isaac!

Venna Vundalu - Butter balls

Today is my sister Abhi Nandana's birthday. I have prepared this Andhra traditional recipe for my cute sister's birthday.. It came out soo delicious ... Here is the recipe.

Ingredients :


Maida : 1 cup
Rice flour : 1/4 cup
Sugar : 1 cup
Oil for deep frying
Butter : 25 gms
A pinch of cooking soda




Method :

Mix maida with rice flour Butter & cooking soda. Add warm water, make a soft dough. Cover it with a wet cloth and set aside for 1hour. Shape the dough into small balls. Cover the dough balls with a wet cloth for 5 mins. Heat the oil for deep frying. Fry them on low flame till light brown in color. Let it cool completely. Mix the sugar and water. The amount of water should be just enough to soak the sugar. Make a thick sugar syrup of 3 thread consistency . To test the sugar syrup, place a drop on the plate. The drop should remain as it is i.e., it should not spread. Remove from the flame and add all the deep fried balls in the sugar syrup and mix very fast. Stir.. Stir.. Stir.. and continue to stir for a few mins.. Let them cool completely... Ready to Serve.. :)

we're famous!

well, our photographer matt clayton is...

he has been featured on some popular blogs lately and our pictures are always used!

i'm so flattered they picked us, he has so many good pictures.

thanks brynne for pointing them out to me!

see our pictures here and here.

beachers.

beach cruisers + husband + hawaii = awesome.

seriously.

day 5 of our honeymoon was a relaxer. the day before we drove all over the island so we slept in, hit the beach, and rented some beach cruisers to ride around honolulu. it was sooooooo much better than walking, hawaii gave me some nasty blisters.

i was real excited about the bikes. and check out the bell. we kept dinging dinging dinging all around town and when we wanted someone to move we dinged. i would have been sooo annoyed but we kept doing it anyway.
just me.
on the beach! with beach cruisers! a real dream come true.
we biked our way over to keo's and had some yummy fish and chips.
we found this magical boardwalk and rode all around honolulu dinging at people.
did a little shopping here. spot ike in this picture and notice all the other folks. something must have been interesting...
our hotel!! the rainbow tower. so fitting.

only one more day left of the honeymoon to document!
its like leaving hawaii all over again...