Category: News and Updates

Navratri, or “Nine nights” is a festival which marks the onset of autumn. It is celebrated in different ways all over the country. It is a festival of worship, dance and music. For 9 days, women dress up in beautiful clothes and jewelry. Many people keep a fast for Navratri. Some suggestions for this auspicious time period include: Laucki kheer, sabudana khichdi, sabudana vada, kuttu Ki Puri, and stir fry arbi.

Laucki Kheer Sabudana Vada Sabudana Khichdi (Spicy Tapioca) Kuttu ki Puri (Buckwheat Flatbread) Spicy Arbi Tarrow Roots

 

For this month’s contest, I am looking for any type of recipe using melon fruit as the main ingredient.  The specific rules are the following:

• It can be any type of Recipe (dessert, salad, drink, etc).
• Melon should be main the ingredient. Examples of melon include watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew, and others)
• I will be judging on creativity and presentation.
• It must be vegetarian and also egg-less.
• Please submit only ONE recipe.

Here are some recipes I already have on my website using melons:

• Chilled Melon Soup
• Arugula and Melon Salad
• Watermelon Cooler

In general I will only consider recipes that I feel are complete in regards to ingredients, measurement, and instruction. From there I am looking for creativity and a recipe that my viewers would enjoy to prepare on their own. I will be judging on overall recipe and presentation also.

Below is my checklist:

• Be Creative!
• Ingredients should be listed with measurements.
• Method must be explained clearly, so it’s easy to follow.
• Please include your NAME along with the recipe (as you would like it to appear).
• Search the web for ideas. There are many resources available.
• Please send me a detailed recipe to contest@manjulaskitchen.com
• You must also send original picture(s) of the recipe – do not simply grab a photo from the web. Otherwise your recipe will not be considered for entry.
• The deadline is June 27th.
• The winner will be featured on the homepage with the new recipe and a link to their website (if available).

1st Prize: $100 gift certificate from Amazon.com
2nd Prize: $25 gift certificate from Amazon.com

**Anyone can join this contest**

Mother’s Day is coming up this weekend! For this month’s contest, I would love to hear what makes your mother so special to you. What is your mother’s favorite vegetable recipe? Share some valuable cooking lessons she has taught you over the years. Feel free to share anything else about your mother.

Please post your answers on the discussion forum topic: Mother’s Day 2014 that I have created. The winners will be selected randomly from all the forum post entries. Below is my checklist:

• You will not have to email me anything this time. You can simply leave a posting on the Mother’s day forum topic.
• If you are creating a new account for the forum, please enter your email address in the profile so that I can contact you after the contest is over. Don’t worry, your email address will not be public (only I will be able to see it).
• The deadline is May 31th.
• The winner will be featured on the homepage and a link to their website (if available).

1st Prize: $100 gift certificate from Amazon.com
2nd Prize: $25 gift certificate from Amazon.com

**Anyone can join this contest**

Thank you for sharing your stories about what makes your mother’s so special to you. I really enjoyed reading all of them. Here are the winners this month (randomly chosen):

Congratulations to the winners and all participants.

For this month’s contest, I thought a fresh fruit salad would be a great way to start the spring season.  The specific rules are the following:

• Fruit Salad can consist of any type of fruit.
• You may use vegetables in the salad, but fruits should be main ingredients.
• Salad must be served with a homemade dressing. Be sure to include recipe for the dressing.
• I will be judging on creativity and presentation.
• It must be vegetarian and also egg-less.
• Please submit only ONE recipe.

In general I will only consider recipes that I feel are complete in regards to ingredients, measurement, and instruction. From there I am looking for creativity and a recipe that my viewers would enjoy to prepare on their own. I will be judging on overall recipe and presentation also.

Below is my checklist:

• Be Creative!
• Ingredients should be listed with measurements.
• Method must be explained clearly, so it’s easy to follow.
• Please include your NAME along with the recipe (as you would like it to appear).
• Search the web for ideas. There are many resources available.
• Please send me a detailed recipe to contest@manjulaskitchen.com
• You must also send original picture(s) of the recipe – do not simply grab a photo from the web. Otherwise your recipe will not be considered for entry.
• The deadline is April 27th.
• The winner will be featured on the homepage with the new recipe and a link to their website (if available).

1st Prize: $100 gift certificate from Amazon.com
2nd Prize: $25 gift certificate from Amazon.com

**Anyone can join this contest**

I really enjoyed reviewing the recipes for fruit salad. All were great, but a few really stood out to me. Here are the winners this month and the top five entries. Congratulations to the winners and all participants:

Congratulations to both of you!!

Thank you to everyone else that also participated in the contest:

• shruti soumya panigrahi
• Shruti Soumya Panigrahi
• Sonia
• Hidemi Walsh
• Neha Brahmkshatriya
• Kaleena Soorma
• Vaishali Leuva
• Deepali Rohan Zamad
• Mithra Minnu
• Aarti Sharma
• Utsavi Patel
• Padmini Pappu
• Rangadevi Dasi
• Shobhna Sachdev Dua
• Rehana Khambaty
• I Ramya
• Priscilla
• Saranya Anand
• Sravanthi

• Rameshwari Bansod
• Ben Diaz
• Rajendar Aitha
• Swati Shukla
• Pooja Bansal
• Asha Kiran Ranganathan
• Himshika
• Prachi Agarwal
• Palak Gupta
• Prerna
• Juhi Goel
• Dipti Joshi
• Ruchi Agarwal
• Nibedita
• Esha Kothari
• Vandana
• Natasha
• Aaron Scheinman
• Srividhya Gopalakrishnan

Holi is a very special holiday.  It is the one holiday that everyone I know gets together.  In India, all social restrictions and gaps are forgotten as people of different backgrounds celebrate together.  A bonfire is typically prepared the night before Holi. The next day family, friends, and neighbors play together with specially prepared colored powders. These powders are called Gulal and colored water is playfully splashed on each other as well.

I love the spirit of the Holi as it brings back a lot of fun memories from my childhood. This year Holi is on Monday, March 13th.  We will get together and celebrate with friends and family for sure. We celebrate Holi at home a little differently and play with colorful silk flower petals instead of Gulal. It’s easier to use soft petals when you are playing inside the house! My grandchildren, of course, enjoying playing Holi with colorful gulal and water!

Celebrating Holi is fun, but we need delicious food to accompany the celebrations!  This year we will be doing a pot luck dinner with our friends.  The theme is “street foods”. Everyone will bring their favorite “street food” to enjoy.   I am beginning my preparations as we speak! Unless the house is full of the sweet aromas from the dishes you cook, it doesn’t feel like Holi.

This year’s menu will be:

Thandai

Carrot Khanji, (these are special Holi drink)
coming soon

Samosa

Dahi vada

Chole Kulcha

Pani Puri

Papdi Chaat

and for dessert:

Rasgulla

Meethi Mathri

Alex (my husband) wants me make a special easy-to-eat salad using cucumbers, carrots, bell pepper, tomatoes and cottage cheese.

I will post more picture after Holi.

I hope you enjoy Holi this year.  Enjoy this colorful festival and take out your water gun.

HAPPY HOLI!

This month, we celebrate Holi, which is the festival of colors. During this festival, the host generally offers dry snacks to guests. So the contest this month is to create any type of Dry Snack/Appetizer recipe. The specific rules are the following:

• It can be any type of dry Snack/Appetizer
• I will be judging on creativity and presentation
• It must be vegetarian and also egg-less.
• Please submit only ONE recipe.

In general I will only consider recipes that I feel are complete in regards to ingredients, measurement, and instruction. From there I am looking for creativity and a recipe that my viewers would enjoy to prepare on their own. I will be judging on overall recipe and presentation also.

Below is my checklist:

• Be Creative!
• Ingredients should be listed with measurements.
• Method must be explained clearly, so it’s easy to follow.
• Please include your name along with the recipe (as you would like it to appear).
• Search the web for ideas. There are many resources available.
• Please send me a detailed recipe to contest@manjulaskitchen.com
• You must also send original picture(s) of the recipe – do not simply grab a photo from the web. Otherwise your recipe will not be considered for entry.
• The deadline is March 26th.
• The winner will be featured on the homepage with the new recipe and a link to their website (if available).

1st Prize: $100 gift certificate from Amazon.com
2nd Prize: $25 gift certificate from Amazon.com

**Anyone can join this contest**

I received a lot of entries for march – it was great to see many newcomers. There were many good snack ideas and I enjoyed reviewing all the entries. Here are the winners this month and the top five entries. Congratulations to the winners and all participants:

Congratulations to both of you!!

Thank you to everyone else that also participated in the contest:

• Sushma K
• Shruti Soumya Panigrahi
• Rani Acharyulu
• Rachna Jaiswal
• Mrs. Home Maker
• Anubhav Rastogi
• Carol Gomes
• Aayushi
• Robbie
• Hidemi Walsh
• Donna Windham
• Saijusadanandan
• Lislawren
• Sagarika Sadhukhan
• Shikta Mishra
• Laxmi Cirisanagandla
• Asheera ershad
• Zanobiya
• Swathi
• Priya Ramesh
• Sriya Saha
• Bhagyashree
• Vidhya
• Sana Hurzuk
• Vrinda Mahesh
• Bhama Narayanan
• Kajal Nagpal
• Andrea Taylor
• Melanie Booth
• Manoj Kumar Pal
• Pooja Srivastava
• Kalpana Patnaik
• Palak Panchal
• Babitha

• Rameshwari Bansod
• Rehana Khambaty
• Barbara Baseggio
• Saranya Anand
• Durga R
• Bishnupriya
• Rozy Jain
• Amrita Sasane
• Sonika Maheshwari
• Priyanka Jain
• Sahaana Chandran
• Akshata Ghatikar
• Prachi Agarwal
• Jaya Chaubey
• Priscilla
• Vaishali Agte
• Shweta Soni
• Bhavani madhu
• Sumees Culinary
• Padmini Pappu
• Pallavi Nahata
• Chitra
• Sandeep
• Rakhee M
• Piyusha Pilania
• Vinita Dhaka
• Shilpa Kanthalia
• Sapna Mehta
• Mitoshi Saha
• Swathi Poondla
• Aarti Sharma
• Teena
• Suresh Choudhary
• Amit

For the contest, I thought something sweet this month would be nice as Valentine’s Day is coming up. All you have to do is a share a recipe photo of any one of my dessert recipes on facebook that you have made at home. Please tag my Manjula’s Kitchen Page on the photo. Alternatively, you can also email the photo if not using facebook.

Two winners will be selected randomly from all the submissions.

Below is my checklist:

• Take a photo of any one of my dessert recipes and share the photo on facebook (be sure to tag my Facebook page).
• If you are unable to use facebook, you can also email your photo to contest@manjulaskitchen.com. Please send your name along with photo.
• The deadline is February 28th.
• The winner will be featured on the homepage and a link to their website (if available).

1st Prize: $100 gift certificate from Amazon.com
2nd Prize: $25 gift certificate from Amazon.com

**Anyone can join this contest**

All the dessert recipes that you submitted looked great. Thank you for participating and sharing them with me. Here are the two winners that I selected at random from the entries. Congratulations to both of you.

1st Place: Harish Arora (baklava Roll)

2nd Place: Aarti Sharma (Gajar Ka Halwa)

Thank you to everyone else that also participated in the contest.

To start off the New Year, this month’s contest to make a variation of my Samosa recipe. For example, you can create different outer shapes and change the inside filling content. A good example is Samosa Pinwheels recipe. The specific rules are the following:

• You must do a variation of my Samosa recipe.
• Examples of variations include making different shapes and inside filling.
  
• It must be vegetarian and also egg-less.
• Please submit only ONE recipe.

In general I will only consider recipes that I feel are complete in regards to ingredients, measurement, and instruction. From there I am looking for creativity and a recipe that my viewers would enjoy to prepare on their own. I will be judging on overall recipe and presentation also.

Below is my checklist:

• Be Creative!
• Ingredients should be listed with measurements.
• Method must be explained clearly, so it’s easy to follow.
• Please include your NAME along with the recipe (as you would like it to appear).
• Search the web for ideas. There are many resources available.
• Please send me a detailed recipe to contest@manjulaskitchen.com
• You must also send original picture(s) of the recipe – do not simply grab a photo from the web. Otherwise your recipe will not be considered for entry.
• The deadline is January 26th.
  
• The winner will be featured on the homepage with the new recipe and a link to their website (if available).

1st Prize: $100 gift certificate from Amazon.com
2nd Prize: $25 gift certificate from Amazon.com

**Anyone can join this contest**

The holiday season is in full swing so this month’s contest is to make a holiday egg-less dessert recipe.

The specific rules are the following:

• The recipe must be a dessert recipe.
• You may use any ingredients for the recipe.
  
• It must be vegetarian and also egg-less.
• Please submit only ONE recipe.

In general I will only consider recipes that I feel are complete in regards to ingredients, measurement, and instruction. From there I am looking for creativity and a recipe that my viewers would enjoy to prepare on their own. I will be judging on overall recipe and presentation also.

Below is my checklist:

• Be Creative!
• Ingredients should be listed with measurements.
• Method must be explained clearly, so it’s easy to follow.
• Please include your NAME along with the recipe (as you would like it to appear).
• Search the web for ideas. There are many resources available.
• Please send me a detailed recipe to contest@manjulaskitchen.com
• You must also send original picture(s) of the recipe – do not simply grab a photo from the web. Otherwise your recipe will not be considered for entry.
• The deadline is December 29th.
  
• The winner will be featured on the homepage with the new recipe and a link to their website (if available).

1st Prize: $100 gift certificate from Amazon.com
2nd Prize: $25 gift certificate from Amazon.com

**Anyone can join this contest**

I hope everyone had a great holiday break and a very happy New Year. There were a lot of entries for December which were all really good. It was really difficult to narrow down the selection to five entries only. I wish I could select all the recipes, but here are the winners this month and the top five entries. Congratulations to the winners and all participants:

Congratulations to both of you!!

Thank you to everyone else that also participated in the contest:

• Haffa Bexi
• Melanie Booth
• aayushi
• Sowmya C
• Manjula
• Hidemi Walsh
• Priya Ramesh
• Roshna Nimil
• Priyanka Tyagi
• Sagarika Sadhukhan
• Nandy
• Smriti Bajaj
• Vinita Shukla
• Akhila Bhatt
• Vinaya Dani
• Babitha Costa
• Shruti Soumya Panigrahi
• Sarita Nagdev
• Rachna
• Asha
• Sapana Behl
• Bindu Rao
• Monika Aggarwal
• Sabeeha Siddiqha
• Sheela Belur
• Vrinda Mahesh
• Aakanksha Soni
• Jonnadula madhu

• Amber Saleem
• Bharti ben Patel
• Rangadevi dasi
• Currysutra
• Rajesh Karthikeyan
• Ami Patwari
• Juliana Palmcook
• Maya Vuppala
• Anamika Sachdeva
• Ayesha Banu
• Shannon Li
• Arthii Vijayakumar
• Zev Winicur
• Anu Saxena
• Rameshwari Bansod
• Dimple
• Seema Mehta
• Vedika Luthra
• Divya Ravindran
• Nisha Saraogi
• Sabina Biju
• Pragati Verma
• Sahaana Chandran
• Nibedita
• Dipti Joshi
• Saurabh Aggarwal
• Mir Ali
• Vijaya