Budding blogger : Rosh

Meet Rosh of Chef Al Dente in the budding blogger series

She says - 

A Food Technologist by profession, I started taking a keen interest in cooking after my marriage since my husband is a foodie and I wanted to please him with my culinary skills. My mother is an amazing cook and I think her talent has rubbed on me a little so it was not a very rough start though I still believe there is lot more I need to learn! Piscean  by birth, I am a very imaginative, compassionate and sensitive being. I  love anything and everything that motivates me creatively. At the same time I am also very lazy so was not sure if blogging would work out well for me. But right now I enjoy sharing my creations with my blogger friends and have found a new passion in food styling and photography. More than cooking that is what interests me now and I am very keen on improving these skills.

The idea to start a blog was planted in my head by my husband. I was skeptical since I did not see myself taking photos and writing posts about the dishes I cooked everyday. How wrong was I! At present this is my favourite hobby and I look forward to blogging. I love to cook dishes that are simple, less time consuming yet tasty. That would be my mantra in cooking and this is reflected in my blog. I also believe that you eat with your eyes first; no matter how tasty the dish, if it fails to please your eyes there is very little chance that it will reach your tummy. So styling food and making it presentable is also something that I strive to achieve and I am still progressing gradually on my learning curve; drawing inspiration from what I see around and also from my fellow bloggers. The day I manage to take a stylish and professional food photograph would be the day I would consider my blogging skills truly redeemed. And miles to go before I sleep...

Budding blogger :Geeta

Meet Geeta of Sun Moon and Potatoes in the budding blogger segment.

She says-

"Cooking is at once child's play and adult joy. And cooking done with care is an act of love." -
Craig Claiborne, Kitchen Primer

I am Geetha from ‘Sun Moon & Potatoes’. I am a passionate cook, mom to a little boy and a Regulatory Affairs Executive by profession. My mom and grandmother are expert cooks. I always loved the food they made; but I never thought that some day, I would be trying to recreate them in my kitchen to perfection.

My journey of culinary adventures did not start until I came to Dublin. When I used to take lunch into work, most of my Irish colleagues would be very curious about Indian cuisine. I loved the fact that they wanted to know more about Indian cooking. The endless questions never bothered me and that’s when I realized my passion for cooking. It’s at the same time when my darling husband (who is a big foodie himself) also encouraged me to set up a website and share the recipes with the world. He took it upon himself to set it up for me once the name was selected and here it is... just over a year old now.

Now you must be wondering... but why the name Sun Moon and Potatoes?? The name signifies that every element of the earth seeps into the dishes I conjure up. This could be a hearty potato creation or an opulent, extravagant recipe of seafood paella. I use this space to express my uninhibited joy of living, cooking and loving.

My speciality is cuisine from Kerala but I love to try all types of recipes. When someone asks me for a specific recipe, I can never wait until I try it out in my kitchen. My main aim is to make delicious recipe quickly and with the least ingredients possible or alternatively, with readily available ingredients. As soon as I have cooked something, my hubby is ready with the camera to take some shots, before he can dive into the food. I always look forward to his comments about the recipe.

So now I would like to welcome you all to my world www.sunmoonandpotatoes.com – feel free to explore, express and experiment.

I would like to say a big thank you to EC for introducing me on the Budding Blogger series.

Budding blogger : Lani

Meet Lani of Fig and Walnut blog in the Budding blogger series

She says -

My name is Lani, I am a cooking teacher in Australia and have just started my food blog, Fig and Walnut. I love all types of cooking, and want to share my recipes with the world! I have lots of multicultural influences in my cooking - my family is greek, my partner is Sri Lankan, my step family is Italian - cooking is in my blood. I travel to different places around the world every year to find new influences for my cooking - last year I travelled to Malaysia and China and learnt some great new recipes. This year I am off to the deep south in the USA to learn some Cajun and Creole recipes, and to Sri Lanka to pick up some short eat recipes and perfect my curries! Subscribe to my email newsletter for some exclusive recipes, or to my feed to get all my latest updates.

Fig and Walnut showcases my cooking ideas, recipes, restaurant reviews, and general food chatter that I have collected on my travels and through my work as a cooking teacher for the local council. I have a passion for baking and love to experiment with different types of breads, cakes, sweets and pastries. I am also largely vegetarian so my blog includes a special Vegetarian and Vegan section where you can view all my meat and animal product-free recipes. Though for the meat lovers I do have recipes with meat! I also often recommend meat substitutions for the vegetarians who would like to try my meat recipes.

My previous career was as a filmmaker so I love to populate my blog with lots of photos of my recipes. I am based out of both Melbourne, Australia and Phoenix, Arizona, USA throughout the year so my recipe base will  never run dry!

Budding blogger : Lakshmi

Meet Lakshmi of Laxmi's Samayal in the Budding blogger series

She says -

I am Lakshmi senthilkumar. I am a happy house & I love cooking. I am the queen of my kitchen. I love my kitchen and cooking. I feel so happy when my hubby and my family enjoy my food and eat nicely. I have a great passion of cooking, I started this blog to share my recipes with my friends. Food should be shared with everyone. Nowadays in nuclear family its not possible. Now I am going to share my recipes with everyone through my laxmi’s samayal blog.I am from tamil nadu. In tamil samayal means cooking.I have posted lot of tamilian recipes. i am very happy of it. We can feel all are close to each other and sharing there foods as family. All visitor of my blog are in my family. My motherinlaw always says cooking doesn’t finish after cooking. It gets completed only after serving it with smilin! g face. Its true whatever it is serve it with smiling face will give extra aroma to your food. I invite every with a great smile to my blog..

Budding blogger : Anamika

Meet Anamika of Taste Junction in the Budding blogger series this week

She says -

Hi, I'm Anamika, an Indian by birth and soul. I am an advertising professional on a sabbatical, busy raising my 2 year old hyperactive son, while travelling and moving countries with my husband, and in the process setting up new place to live everywhere I go.Though a foodie for as long I remember, yet the comforts of being with family rarely brought me to kitchen. It was only when we moved to Dubai and had to live and cook independently, that I was thrown into the deep waters. Thankfully so, because it gave me something to cherish, to enjoy. I love to see the expression on the face of my son, husband and family and friends (in that order) when they enjoy my meal. Presently I'm in Bahrain and getting used to the slower life out here.

Taste Junction is my way of exploring the changing styles of a modern Indian kitchen. It would have not just lovely Indian recipes, with focus on North Indian (that's where I am from), but would share some tasty dishes from all over the world. And that's why the name Taste Junction, a meeting ground, a melting pot of different flavours and aromas. But baking would form a great part of it, for sure since that's my current love.

While getting my way around in the kitchen, I'm also trying to learn the ropes of photography, food photography. I really like to see well photographed and well written posts. Yes I like a bit of writing too, samples of which you can see on my page - Scribbles. Other than that I'm a regular simple girl, who likes to travel, shop, read, eat chocolates, get gifts and basically all the simple pleasures of life.

Though all my blog posts & recipes are dear to me, yet I would like to share few of my favorites with you . Chocolate lava cake, Tomato Tart, Chocolate shortbread fingers, Hyderabadi baghara baingan, Spinach spaghetti and Waldorf salad. Hope you like it too!!

Budding blogger : Hrishi

Meet Hrishi from Hrishi and Sharang's kitchen in the Budding blogger series

He says-

I have been a foodie for as long as I can remember. My mother is a fabulous cook and fueled my passion for food from a young age. She is a successful food entrepreneur in Kolhapur and is famous for her Kolhapuri bakarwadis and all sorts of sweet and savoury items.I grew up in a environment consumed by food products and preparation, day and night. So cooking was as they say, "In my genes!" I have lived in Kolhapur, Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, New York and finally settled in Canberra. I love to experience the local cuisines and to bring in the native ingredients in my cooking.

Two incidents prompted me to set up my blog. In 2009-2010's Masterchef series, one of the final contestants was an Indian and viewers were left with the impression that Indian cooks have a very limited repertoire. That same week, when I picked up our son from the daycare, he said "I love Australian pasta....not Indian dinner". Both these incidents presented me a unique challenge. Over the next few months, I experimented with the cuisines and gradually changed our son's perspective. This blog is not a journal of those experiments, but my way of documenting information for my son.We want our son to know about his heritage and pass on the stuff we have learned for everyone. I also want to make a statement that Indian cooks can cook a lot more variety than just curries!!

I write at www.hrishi.com.au and the blog set up, videos etc; is my wife Mitra's labour of love. I work in the field of Intellectual Property and somedays work can be very hectic, but I try to post something at a regular interval. Over time, I hope the blog and my son grow up together and if he comes back to any of the recipe videos, my task will be accomplished. In the meanwhile, if you have the time, please stop by and tell me how I am doing. Can I do anything better on the blog? I'd love to hear from you.

Thanks & I hope to see you around.

Budding blogger : Uma

Meet Uma from Uma's Kitchen Experiments in the Budding blogger series..

She says -

I am Uma from Uma's Kitchen Experiments, an experimenter for 2 months old blog and a software engineer by profession. Recently I tookover the role-incharge for my kitchen after marriage.

Like many of you, I didn't know to cook much and all I knew was to cook something to eat for surviving when my mom wasn't available. Those days eating was my passion rather than cooking. Then, the day has come to cook for myself when I moved away from my home. I started very badly but after with the help of my mom, mom-in-law and granny, I learnt new recipes which are highly inclined towards South Indian Cuisine. I have also experimented few western recipes from my international recipe collections which I got from my visit to various other contries.

When I was reading throuh few cooking articles on the web, the idea of blogging struck me. Instead of just cooking, why not describe the method behind cooking in a blog, so that it is useful for other amateurs like me. Thus my blog was born. As I am new to the blogging world I thought of starting it with my mom and mom-in-law's recipe collection. So you can find more authentic South indian recipes and few western style recipes from my blog. Visit my blog. Record your feedback to improve my culinary skills.

I stumbled here from Indiblog and I was surprised to see my co-bloggers. Thank You EC for budding bloggers concept.

Budding blogger : Kalyani

Meet Kalyani of What's Cooking in the Budding blogger series...

She says --

As with most food bloggers out there, I too love eating and cooking dfferent varieties of food, primarily vegetarian and egg free , at home. Blessed with a foodie husband wasnt easy to manage, and although I have been cooking at home almost since high school , knowing about different culinary adaptations and flavours has been an interesting learning curve.

My blog - "Itsnotmadrasi" is named so to (to quote from my "About me" page on the blog) " is to record interesting (which can also mean basic) recipes for all of us to read and share based out of South India. And just to educate all those on the culinary sensitivities and differences in not just plate (cutlery style oscillating from 'so-thought' melamine to stainless steel pathram , etc) but also in palate.So depending on what ingredients were locally grown to seasonal veggies, the recipes were developed. With distances shrinking and migratory patterns of humans increasing in area to cross-community / religion marriages, recipes have evolved" Afterall, not all people south of the Vindhyas are Madrasis :-) I am basically from Bangalore but settled down in Mumbai over the past decade.

Budding blogger : Vardhini

Meet Vardhini from Vardhini's Kitchen in the Budding blogger series

She says -

Hi everybody .. This is Vardhini from VardhinisKitchen. I am a software engineer by profession and married to a wonderful person who has been supporting me and making my dreams come true. I have 2 kids who make my life even more worthwhile. Growing up I used to look at my mom in awe as she whipped up dishes in no time.

My culinary adventures started when I completed college and I used to prepare snacks every evening by following some book or the other. But still mom was the chef and she pampered us. Reality struck after I got married and came to US where I had to cook, which was when I realised the passion I had for cooking and food. After 10 years of cooking and trying out various cuisines, I now have my space where I will be sharing what I have learned. Hubby dear was the main inspiration for me to start the blog and what started out as a food diary for me has grown to be my passion.

I should say that I am overwhelmed by the way the blogging world has embraced me and by the responses I have received for the recipes posted. Thanks to all for encouraging me.

Being from Chennai, India I will be sharing a lot of southern dishes, but since I also love to experiment you will see dishes from various cuisines as well. I strongly believe that "anybody can cook" given the right tools and recipes and that is what my blog focuses on with step-by-step instructions along with pictures.

Thanks EC for introducing me in the "Budding Blogger" series.

Budding blogger : Kushi

Meet Kushi of A Girl's Diary in the budding blogger series

Hi, this is Khushi , the owner of the blog A Girl's Diary. Before 2009, kitchen was the last place on this Earth where I would step in. But everything changed with a touch of a magic wand, called Marriage. My journey began from that day to become a good cook.

I started learning how the spices blend with each other and do the wonder!! I started cooking for my husband which eventually turned into my passion and while going through several food blogs, I stumbled upon the idea of writing my own blog. I blog to share my happiness and creativity with others. Hope people will find these recipes useful and easy

to cook.

Budding blogger: Lavanya

Meet Lavanya of My Recipe congeries in the Budding blogger series

She says-

I am Lavanya, a software engineer for profession. I love cooking right from my childhood. But never did any serious cooking till I got married. Luckily, my husband appreciates everything I cook. He is a big motivation for me to start blogging.

I try to cook different kinds of dishes every time. I have a toddler, who keeps me busy. But I never compensate cooking for any reason. That is how much I love cooking.

I came into this world of blogging about a month back and have few entries now. But I am sure, I will keep updating as and when I get time. I am totally addicted to blogging now . It motivates me to try many new dishes and my husband absolutely loves it :-) .

I was totally lost where to start introducing myself as a food blogger. Many thanks to EC for giving us this opportunity to introduce ourselves in her space. Please join my happiness through my blog and viit my space whenever you get a chance.

Budding blogger : Sonia

Meet Sonia of Dinner recipes from Sonia’s Kitchen in the Budding Blogger series.

She says : 

I am freelance writer with zest for creating some good food. I was born in Chandigarh and since the time I have had basic sense to understand I have only heard praise for my mother’s culinary skills.

She cooks some amazing recipes with simple ingredients available at home. No fancy colors or no fancy masalas. I think it is in the genes and I have definitely inherited some good food sense from her. Her advice has been that to cook good food you need to have patience and passion as she says in “Dil laga ke Khana banao” and it will come out good.

My venture into food blogging was by accident. I was working in Gurgaon while being married to a software professional. When my husband got a job in Boston, I started doing some freelance writing work to help with the finances and also to keep myself busy in the US. It is while doing the freelance work I got several assignments to write recipes for food blogs. It is then I got the idea of starting my own food blog and of course mom helped. She has this list of 200 odd recipes which she has sent to me and told me cook and write on those. I am sure it is like Mom’s challenge and encouragement to me.

Another plus with being a food blogger is that you can then make friends with some amazing food bloggers from India and other parts of the world that it is worth investing time and money into this.

Budding blogger: Chitra Manoj

Meet Chitra of Share my recipe blog in the Budding blogger series

She says -

My name is Chitra Manoj, mom of 2 lovely boys. My native is Nagercoil (which is in South tamil nadu, but very near to kerala ). Thus our family recipes are greatly influenced from kerala and tamil nadu. My inspiration was my grandma and I loved to assist her in her cooking at a very early stage. So she taught me many family recipes and tricks...and thus the journey began...After marriage since me and my husband love to taste different food, I started to search for new recipes and thus started following few blogs. This inspired me to create my own blog and I enjoy blogging .

The recipes in the blog are mainly from family and friend's recipes and some are inspired from other blogs I follow. I love to cook the traditional food and feel no other food satisfies our tastebuds like the food prepared by grandma and ma. Hence I try to keep the tradition alive.

Budding blogger : Shireen

Meet Shireen of Ruchik Randap in the Budding blogger series..

She says --

I am a SAHM (Stay-At-Home-Mom) with a passion for food. I love trying out new recipes and giving them a twist of my own wherever possible, but I often prefer to stick to the original recipe when I try it out for the first time..this gives me an idea of what the dish would have been like as conceived by its creator. Having learnt cooking pretty much on my own through experiments at every stage of my life, it was my husband's encouragement that helped me start my own food blog (Ruchik Randhap which means Delicious Cooking in Konkani) with the sole purpose of helping retain the culinary culture of Mangalore.

The little known town called 'Mangalore' is a beautiful pot pourri of cultures & languages, food & religions and people from Mangalore will swear by its authentic cuisine. No matter where a Mangalorean has migrated to, he will dream of all things Mangalorean. With globalisation closing in on many small cultures, this is my small effort to popularise Mangalorean cuisine and make the recipes along with the pictures accessible to all. Being away from my hometown, I have tried many a dish purely out of recollection of vision & taste as it was being prepared in my Mother's kitchen many years ago.

Budding blogger : Prathima

Meet Prathima of Indian recipes in this weeks Budding blogger series..

Hi, I am Prathima Shivraj, married to a loving husband Anand and live in Bangalore.

I am a food enthusiast who enjoys cooking for my husband. My interest for cooking grew before my marriage , My mom is my first Guru in cooking. Luckily I got chance to learn Karnataka items also by observing my mother-in-law's cooking and also from my husband, and now I am cooking all Telangana, Karnataka recipes for my husband.

This Blog is a humble attempt at sharing my passion for all things food and wanted to share easy, complex, traditional, tasty dishes that I cook.

Budding blogger : Reshmi

Meet Reshmi of Rasoi in the Budding blogger series..

She says --

Everyone has a personal reason for cooking and special people to cook for. For me, cooking is all about entertaining & that means enjoying delicious food with family and friends. And all that starts in "Rasoi".

I'm Reshmi, a student from Los Angeles, USA. I was born & raised in Bhilai, Central India. I have been to different parts of India, stretching from North to all the way to the southernmost tip. This gives me all kinds of reasonable authority on food. I'm not much into eating. Rather it is simply awesome to see people enjoy the food I have prepared & then to see a perfect look of satisfaction on their faces. That's it!!

My interest in cooking started when I got married. I've spent the last two years in cooking and blogging about cooking as well. I love to cook every day something new for my better half.

On my husband's suggestion I got around to creating a blog that focuses on food, recipes and healthy diets. And to share my taste, research, experiments & findings, Rasoi was born. I love sharing all that I have learned. The sources of my recipes are - my mother, Internet, Magazine, TV shows, Cookbooks, friends and ofcourse, my own experiments.

All I want to say is "Cooking is a wonderful life"!!

Budding blogger: Uma

Meet Uma of Uma's Kitchen in the Budding blogger series this week

She says --

I am a home maker from chennai. I was intersted in cooking from childhood. Recently when i was browsing the net and looking for recipes I got interested in writing a blog myself. I thought it would be very useful for my daughters and others as well.

The recipes in my blog are all the ones that I have tried out at my home. Most of my recipes are the ones that I have learnt from my mother, mother in law and some of them from friends and other blogs. The recipes are all simple Indian vegetarian food.

I am trying to post lot of traditional recipes that we cook in our home as part of our day to day cooking. Of course I will be posting a lot of sweets and savories in the course of time cooked during each festival which would help lot of people who are away from home.

I am also trying out various recipes from other blogs and of course trying out recipes from across the world like Italian pasta,pizza,Chinese noodles and cooking it to our Indian taste.

Budding blogger: Raksha Kamat

Meet Raksha of Raksha's Kitchen in the Budding blogger series..

She says - 

I am a software professional with a full time job and a mother to a 2 yr old daughter. I believe that we should make time for ourself and our hobbies. I am born and brought up in a joint family of a cool place named Goa. A typical joint family comprising 25 people.

I never cooked food of any type before my marraige as my mom and aunts never allowed me and my cousins to enter the kitchen. A few days before my marraige I learnt a little bit of cooking and I noted down a few things. My mom was very worried as what will I cook and what will I feed my hubby.

Soon after marraige I got settled in the Silicon Valley of India - Bangalore. My hubby being a complete foodie always encouraged me to cook. Initially he helped me cook. At that time he knew cooking much much better than me. Gradually, I develped interest in cooking. I started reading lots of cook books and viewing Khana Khazana and other cooking shows on TV.

I used to experiment all that I learnt on my hubby and he never critised me. He used to become happy and his happiness encouraged me to cook better. It has been 5 years since I am married and I am proud that I learnt a lot of things and have become a very good cook. I started my food blog which is hardly 1 month old.

This new world of blogging has encouraged me to try out new recipies and to exhibit my talent. I also get to learn a lot of things from fellow bloggers. Cooking has become a passion for me since the day I started blogging.

Budding blogger : Shreya

Meet Shreya of Watermelon Wedges in the Budding blogger series this week..She says

I am a twenty year old who comes from a family which loves food. I have always loved food. I started cooking when my mother started working and to make dishes she wouldn't usually make. I baked my first cake at fifteen, and it was a success. Cooking calms me down. I like the concentration that goes into cutting vegetables, weighing and measuring ingredients. It makes calms me down. During exams I barge out of my room, go to the kitchen and whip up something to eat. It was during times like these I tried my hand at baking a casserole, making an egg stir fry and pasta.

My love for cooking and baking coincided with my start of a college education. Studying in Mumbai I now had a chance to eat more different kinds of food, and it has helped develop my palate. I notice ingredients now, which I never did before.

I got the idea of starting a food blog when a lot my friends started asking me for recipes. I believe it will help me share what I am learning about food. I am a fearless eater and cook. And am learning constantly.

Budding blogger : Beula Thomas

Meet Beula of Eaterspot blog in the Budding blogger series..

Eaterspot was born on a weeknight when my husband and I were talking about what to eat for dinner. We were just married, and I had relocated from the US to live here in NZ. Though I work full time, I enjoy cooking after I get home from work each day. I have always been known for having an overly full schedule, so when my husband noticed that I was not repeating a dish each night, he suggested I start a food blog. So on a Thursday night in March 2010 I set up Eaterspot.

The blog has recipes that have been part of the family over the years and there are also recipes that I try for the first time. We are non-vegetarians, however I think I have cooked up more vegetarian dishes for eaterspot. I am a foodie and my husband is now a convert too, so in my spare time I enjoy reading recipes and adding them to my collection.

In 2011, my husband compiled all of my 2010 blog posts (156 recipes) and put them in a book. His hope is that I go through the recipes and edit them if required and get a recipe book published soon. I post a few times during the week, and I enjoy getting feedback, so feel free to drop a comment or two when you get time :)