Saffron Trail

healthy vegetarian cooking

Lists, Notes from Nandita

Top 10 Recipes of 2015

Best recipes from 2015, top posts on Instagram and a little recap of the year for my readers – Wishing you a terrific 2016! <3

2015 was an amazing year for SaffronTrail.com, a year I got my blogging mojo back.

126 posts, all cooked, written, photographed and posted by yours truly! I feel an amazing satisfaction just looking back at that number.

March 2016, I shall be completing 10 years as a food blogger (!!) and I’m promising myself that the blog is only going to get more awesome, with all the love and attention it’s going to get from me.

That’s a bird’s eye view of the blast of a time I had on Instagram, where I’ve got loads of love from food lovers. Psst…Saffrontrail on Insta hit 10,000 followers a week ago.

There was the epic lunch cooked by George Calombaris, the move to Cucumbertown, my association with Ping Network and getting back on the video bandwagon, my talk on blogging at two prestigious blogging conferences (Indiblogger & Blogadda), being invited to cover The Economist Summit , and so much more!

I’m giving myself a good pat on the back for managing to keep the blog going despite having a hectic year working with brands and clients!

Ahem, come on! We all need to be proud of ourselves once in a while 🙂

So here are the top 10 posts on SaffronTrail from 2015:

1. Mysore Rasam – Who would have thought that this simple rasam recipe, my childhood favourite, would have so many people drooling and rushing into their kitchens to make it for themselves and their family! Rice + ghee + Mysore Rasam = Contented burp!

Recipe for Mysore Rasam – Karnataka Cuisine

I'm of the opinion that piping hot Mysore Rasam &amp; rice can solve most of life's problems. You've come to the right place. Get the recipe here.
www.saffrontrail.com

2. Pesto Trapanese – An authentic Sicilian Pesto recipe made using tomatoes, almonds and garlic, I’ve never seen it in the menu of an Italian restaurant and it’s SO good! My readers loved this recipe for an unusual pesto that you can make even when you don’t have a ton of basil on hand!

Penne with Pesto Trapanese – A Sicilian Recipe

While basil pesto is the most well known pesto, every region in Italy makes pesto with freshly available local produce. According to Lidia Bastianich, the Italian cuisine expert, the word pesto comes from the verb 'pestare', which means 'to mash'. This means you can pretty much mash up any fresh ingredients to make a pesto, and toss it along with pasta, vegetables or chicken and you have a dish ready right there
www.saffrontrail.com

3. Aloo Paratha – Getting back to basics with this ultimate paratha, loved by one and all (well, almost!) and the secret ingredient that keeps the parathas soft for hours! Well, you gotta click through and read the post to find out more 🙂 There’s also a video in there for those who want to see how it’s made.

Recipe for Aloo Parathas – Potato stuffed Indian Flatbread

Alu paratha or potato stuffed Indian flatbread is possibly the most popular stuffed paratha. I have never met anyone who did not like a hot alu paratha straight off the tava, served with a cube of butter that melts in the heat of the paratha to make a small pool of fatty goodness to top the carb ind
www.saffrontrail.com

4. Besan Cheela with Paneer Bhurji – A breakfast that is a fine balance of delicious and healthy, and that’s the SaffronTrail benchmark after all! No wonder, you guys lapped it up!

Besan Cheela stuffed with Paneer Bhurji

If you are from the South of Vindhyas, cheela / chila is not a much heard of term. It is a staple North Indian breakfast dish. To put it in simple terms, it is like an instant dosa made using besan. However unlike adai, which is a lentil based dosa preparation, cheelas are much thinner and crepe lik
www.saffrontrail.com

5. Flaxseed Molagapodi – Turns out, South Indians are not the only ones who love molaga podi with idlis and dosa. Add a superfood like Flaxseeds to the mix and you’ll never go back to insipid store bought molagapodi again!

Flaxseed Molaga Podi | Spiced Flaxseed Lentil powder

Flaxseed Molaga Podi | Spiced Flaxseed Lentil powder
www.saffrontrail.com

6. The Brownie post – Everybody Loves Brownies! The compilation for National Brownie Day was a huge hit. Yeah, I get it that Saffron Trail is a healthy eating blog, but what’s life without the occasional indulgences. In this post, there’s a brownie to suit every palate.

Bake a Brownie – 7 Delicious Brownies on #NationalBrownieDay

BROWNIE Close your eyes and say this word – Brownie. There's something about this word that just so happy, edible and deliciously edible at that, right? I don't know if I have said this on the blog before. But it's a joke I like to repeat again and again. I mean, what's the use of a good line if
www.saffrontrail.com

7. Dhabewali Dal – When it comes to Indian cuisine, Punjabi food wins, all the time! As much as that makes me feel bad for the other wonderful cuisines of our country, I keep thinking about what makes Punjabi food so.damn.popular! Is it because they were the most visible on restaurant menus across the country (albeit, not in their most authentic form), so people could get to taste them? Or is it because of the simple hearty flavours, as found in this Dhabewali Dal?

Recipe for Dhabewali Dal – Punjabi mixed lentils

To be honest, I've never eaten in a 'real' dhaba. But yes, I can claim to have eaten in a few mock dhabas, starting with Pritam da Dhaba at Dadar (Mumbai) in my childhood with Amma and Appa. It was one of the few restaurants we would eat out at. I remember staring at the side counter of their open
www.saffrontrail.com

8. Baingan Bharta – Who knew that an eggplant hating me would  have this curry on my top favourites list? It also turns out to be a reader favourite, and one of my most pinned recipes on Pinterest. Smoky, spicy and perfect for a winter lunch with some parathas and sliced onions, hmm…heaven a plate indeed!

Recipe for Baingan Bharta – Punjabi roasted eggplant curry

A Punjabi style roasted eggplant curry to be had with parathas or rotis
www.saffrontrail.com

9. Lemon Coriander Soup – As a 70s kid, growing up in Bombay, the highlight of our growing up years was Indo-Chinese cuisine. Noodles, the spicy-sour gravy dishes, the manchurians with suspect fillings and the ‘triple schezwan’ fried rice. Oh yes, given a chance, I could still put my food snobbery aside (lol, no such thing here) and binge on a ‘veg manchurian with fried rice’ order 😀  Lemon coriander soup is a slightly more refined recipe in the Indo-Chinese scheme of things, another topper of 2015.

Recipe for Lemon Coriander Soup | Indo-Chinese Recipes

A simple recipe for a restaurant-like Lemon Coriander Soup, light and full of flavour! Get the recipe here.
www.saffrontrail.com

10. Pineapple Gojju – Very popular in Karnataka, a Gojju is India’s answer to the curry with the best balance of spicy, sour and sweet. This Pineapple Gojju recipe had people getting nostalgic, surprised and curious. It will make you reach out for a pineapple from the fruit aisle of the super market, just to try it out once and then many times henceforth.

Recipe for Pineapple Gojju – A sweet sour spicy pineapple curry from Karnataka

Pineapple Gojju is a delicious sweet, sour, spicy curry from Karnataka, made using pineapples, best had with steamed rice. Get the authentic recipe from Karnataka here!
www.saffrontrail.com

So that’s the top recipes round up for 2015. Hope you enjoyed reading it and inspired to try out something from this list.

I did a quick poll on Twitter and Instagram on what my readers would like to see on the blog in 2016 – and the top votes went for Global Vegetarian, Healthy Recipes and Healthy Baking. If you have any other category requests, do leave me a comment, so I can evaluate and incorporate it in my annual blog calendar.

You guys have an awesome New Year’s Eve. Wishing you and your loved ones the best of everything in 2016.

Here’s to eating well, staying healthy and making the most of life’s moments!

Lots of love and happiness❤️,

Nandita

by  
Leave a Comment

Leave Your Comments

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

AS FEATURED IN

AS FEATURED IN

Subscribe to our Newsletter

  • Gongura leaves or roselle growing in my garden- we just planted some of the stems from the store bought gongura and what joy to see them flourish into healthy plants. I have a Gongura Dal recipe coming up on the blog soon. I love gongura rice, tastes similar to tamarind rice because of the tanginess from the leaves. What are your favourite Gongura recipes? Do share!
  • Had some dough and stuffing leftover from the naan I made for kid's dinner last evening. So made one for lunch today. Also some moshurir Dal with tadka of ginger, green chillies and panch phoron in Jharna ghee, Aloo raw papaya brinjal Ghonto similar to the latest recipe on my blog but cooked it super quick in the pressure cooker for one whistle. Lunch came together in less than 20 minutes, fulfilling and tasty! A Bengali flavours inspired lunch today minus the Naan of course.
  • Usually I don't like to fool around with traditional recipes, so Bengalis on the house, please forgive me :) With the bounty of raw papayas, this is another recipe I cooked. Peper Ghonto, a dry curry made along with potatoes. Mustard oil, panch phoron, green chillies to infuse that quintessential Bengali flavour into bland raw papaya, this dish was deliciousness in every bite. And I plan to make it whenever I get my hands on green papayas! Link to recipe in bio or get it from stories.
  • Bought a kilo of the best Jamoons on Friday and now we have a couple of handfuls left. I remember that jamoon Tree outside our balcony window in Mumbai. June is when the Tree would be fully laden, just when schools would open and the monsoons were round the corner. The pavement would be stained with splotches of purple from the fallen and crushed fruit. I can close my eyes and transport myself to that time in childhood. That puckering of the mouth and the purple hued tongue that would be much fun to check out in the mirror. Such a fleeting appearance this fruit makes in the year, making us value it more! Do you have any jamoon recipes up your sleeve or do you just eat it as it is?
  • And that was #lunch Palak Paneer Peas Jeera Rice Pomegranate Raita Chana Dal Papad Loved the colours on the plate!
  • My 3000th post on Instagram 💚💚💚 Happy Father's Day to all the wonderful dads out there! I love making Palak paneer when i get hold of a fresh bunch of palak. On our way back from Cubbon Park, the Namdhari's at Indira Nagar was just getting stocked with fresh produce at 7.30am. We picked up spinach, asparagus, peaches, plums and some herbs, for the next couple of days. Since I had a block of Big Basket's newly launched organic paneer, I thought of making Palak Paneer for lunch. I've been following @chefharpalsokhi's recipe for this dish since quite a few months. It's on his YouTube channel and it makes the best Palak paneer (no tomatoes or their pesky skins involved). I do make a few tweaks like adding a spoon of besan to the dahi to keep it from splitting. I love how utterly green my Palak paneer is, mildly spicy and so full of flavour. Happy cooking session this morning! What are you cooking for Sunday + #fathersday special lunch?
  • Morning walk at Cubbon Park and then breakfast at MTR- I love this breakfast combo where you can have a little bit of everything, but their masala dose (slide for next pic) is the best! May be I should just stick to ordering that next time :)
  • Learnt this tip from a tweet @krishashok posted to make the most epic crispy potatoes, that too minimum oil, because air fryer! Life is not going to be the same again. Cubed potatoes boiled in water with salt and baking soda, drained, tossed in a bit of oil and airfryer at 200C for 8 mins. Yes, I know all about vitamins getting drained off in the water, which is why this is a one off thing. Please read entire description before leaving comments, thank you :)

Follow Me @saffrontrail