“Try the dual flavor vanilla & chocolate cereal or this new variety of cereal in the shape of Planet & stars…and this one….” Phew..shopping for children’ food could be  so distracting than compelling due to endless choices in the same. These myriad choices do make life easy for busy moms with almost no cooking, quick & fuss free breakfast options in the market. But in the bargain I feel we loose on the natural and healthier foods and food products which were available a few years back.

Cereal was certainly not our bowl of breakfast in the growing years during late 60s and early 70’s. And then when plain cornflakes was first introduced in India it became a fashion statement and was welcomed with open hearts in many homes.

“Crackers can be addictive!”  Hmm.. never knew till I baked these Flax seed wholewheat crackers for myself. Ragi, Millet, cornmeal, oats and Quinoa in the pantry pushed this super food to a corner. After a long hibernation that packet of shiny brown Flax seeds finally moved out from my refrigerator. And when I was thinking to bake something with my tiny treasure, got a call from mom.

“And please make it 100 plus cookies’ added hubby dear hurriedly. “We have been browsing loads of scrumptious recipes on your wife’s blog for long but nothing has come to us, is she really making all those that we see in the pictures, sir?” was the query from one of the co-workers from his office which made me go for this marathon baking session. When your reputation as a food blogger is at stake numbers hardly matter

After pondering over the quality vs quantity of the numerous recipes I had in mind, I zeroed upon these Lemony Shortbread.

A lot has been going around with school working in full swing for children and the AFBHLS series on Lite Bite. My drafts which are already brimming with recipes and pictures is what I count on when there is less time to bake. Cookies are the most easiest of goodies which could be baked with very few ingredients in a shortest possible time.

I baked these Peanut butter wholewheat cookies at my mom’s place on her demand, to impress her neighbors who were eager to meet her food blogger daughter! She watched me baking these cookies and called her friends for evening tea. I could not get chocolate chips there and replaced the same with a handy Fruit & Nut Vochelle chocolate bar. And needless to say these peanut butter cookies made me a star of her colony

I like to add plenty of fresh fruits in my baking which could be very intimidating at times, as the extra juices from the fruits could easily ruin the texture of the baked goodies. And if it is a cookie in baking quest it becomes all the more difficult to get a perfect crisp and crumbly finish with fresh fruits in it. Muffin Top cookies is the perfect answer to it! A cross between a muffin and a cookie these baked goodies are soft & chewy due to high liquid content of fruit mix in them.

It has been long since I baked cookies, the last I baked was Almond & Ragi or Finger Millet cookies which has been liked and tried out by a few blogger friends. And when I joined the secret recipe club on Amanda’s blog and was given Tami’s blog to choose my recipe from, it took me no time to select a cookie for the same. I got this lovely Chocolate & Peanut butter cookies from her blog which she tried from Amanda’s blog.

Baking is a great way to enjoy certain food ingredients which otherwise never make to our dinning table too often. Most of the days the meal is either veggies with lentils & chapattis or rice recipes with accompaniments. Some of these wonder foods hardly get included into my menu, unless I shun my laziness and make or bake something out of them Ragi or finger millet is one such food ingredients, I love to bring it to my table often. And this time this humble grain Ragi got transformed into these crisp and scrumptious cookies with an extra dose of chocolate chips. These cookies added as a quick dessert last night with a generous spoon of Nutella spread over them.

A light and colorful dessert is both a gastronomical and a visual treat, and the Coconut Milk Panna Cotta I made this weekend fits the bill. The coconut milk & strawberry jelly in it makes it very refreshing and a colorful dessert. If you can extract fresh coconut milk which I am sure I can’t, then you are in for a heavenly treat! I made this Panna cotta from Daring Bakers kitchen with my pack of ready to use coconut milk.

I reduced the cream portion and added thickened yogurt for Panna cotta and also switched to palm sugar to make my Oats and almonds Florentine cookies. And the result was a much lighter and to some extent a healthy version of this exotic dessert.

‘Make hay when the sun shines’ And I did the same with the surplus almond meal I had. Baked almond & Oats cookies with it with the extra almond flour left after my first stint with the macarons . And I am in love with these healthy, chewy and nutty cute cookies with my hot chocolate drink in morning breakfast.

Drop cookies are my favorite and for sure some of the easiest goodies to bake. With no kneading, meddling with rolling pins, cookie cutters, refrigerating the dough, these are an absolute hassle free baked delights. Drop cookies have soft & chewy center unlike the normal brittle and crisp rolled out cookies. The dough for the recipe to make these cookies is slightly soft and can be dropped on the baking sheets directly with a spoon.

These egg less Strawberry Drop Cookies are perfect for pepping up a dull weekend, and with wholewheat and fresh fruits these are a real health bonanza. A treat when you have a desire to indulge in good food but are too lazy to make or bake