Office Fashion Malfunction??!!??

The luxury that we females enjoy, compared to men, is the wide variety in options in wardrobe. Yet, we end up being so wrong on so many occasions.

The most misused item of female clothing, as per me, would be skirts. Although the most amazing piece of clothing, it’s also the most abused. We don’t really tend to think of the fact that skirts not just have to be of your liking, but they also need to hold the practicality of the place being worn at.

And the perfect places to see these malfunctions are in office. So I came across two females, while walking up to fetch a coffee and both were wearing skirts, which as per me were oh so wrong. While one wore a canvas khaki casual skirt on nice satin formal shirt, other wore a short hemline tulip skirt with sequenced work.

While waiting for my coffee to brew up, I just wondered to myself that if the khaki skirt girl exchanged her skirt with the tulip skirt one, she would look perfect for a party. And if the tulip skirt girl wore the khaki skirt, she would still be so wrong.

End conclusion of this coffee pondering?? That some women need help when getting dressed for office, or maybe they can just buy pencil skirts, they are perfect for office and do wonders to your figure.

 Oh and my office definately needs a better coffee machine.

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Chocolate cookie

When I think about baking, the name cookies give me fright. I was under the impression that cookies require more of baking knowledge and a perfect combination of oven temperature and cookie batter.

But being the stubborn idiot that I am, I decided to catch this cookie bull by its horn. And to my surprise, I learned that cookies are easier and less time consuming than my beloved cakes. The feeling was of pure ecstasy when in front of me was a jar full of crispy, yummy cookies waiting to be eaten.

Here is my story (read ingredients and method) of success

Ingredient

• 125 gm unsalted butter
• 85 gm powdered sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 125 gm all purpose floor
• 1 tbs dark coco powder (even normal coco powder will do)
• Few chocolate chips for decoration



Method

• Put your oven on a pre heat on 180° C
• In bowl mix butter, sugar and vanilla essence till sugar has been mixed and mixture turns a little fluffy.
• Add flour and cocoa powder and mix into dough.
• Make small balls, of around one tsp quantity, of cookie balls.
• Place it on greased baking plate and press them slightly to give a flatter shape.
• Place a chocolate chip of your liking on the top for decoration; you can do without them as well if you want.
• Put the tray in the pre heated oven for 12-15 min
• Take them out, and let them cool. Cookies will be moist when you take them out of oven, you need not worry because they will grow hard and crispy as they cool down.

Your cookies are ready to be consumed by the cookie monster living inside each one of us 🙂

Happy munching and share your experiance with me, so I know how you liked them 😉

Perfect art of ribbons and papers

Hmm….As any other human on this planet, I love to receive gifts. For me it’s the equation of

More = Merrier

But then again, I love to give gifts just as much. Pampering your loved ones is so nice; especially the smiles you see on their faces before they open the gifts, coz after they open the gifts, at times u see a deep reflection of disappointment.

So when I get someone a gift, I like to take the extra effort of wrapping it on my own. In my family, ironically, no one else seems to have that kind of urge, which sometimes make me wonder if I share the same gene pool.

Many people find the art of gift wrapping a task. They wouldn’t mind standing in the store for minutes and hours to get things wrapped, rather than spend few minutes wrapping it on their own.

I find it easier to just take a good wrapping paper, fold it around the gift, and tie a nice colorful ribbon on top. It not just makes the gift more personal but even adds a bit of chic look to it.

As I say at times, if you have to give a gift, do it with a class 😉

This is just a quick clip of a gift i wrapped

A quick fix up

There are times when we wish to eat something yummy, something soulful and sinful. But we don’t really feel like going into the long lengthy preparations. Those are the times when our lazy self overtakes the chef side of us and we either stick to something not so amazing for our taste buds, or we switch to something that can be eaten in three easy steps of pick the packet, cut the packet and eat.

If only there was something like taste quick fixes.

I have one for me. Now I’m not saying that what I make is something that is as tasty as a gourmet meal well prepared, but it sure is something that makes me happy and keeps me away from those packet munchies.

One of my quick recipes is called 5 min corn-peas.

It’s basically a corn and pea salad, which taste best when served hot.

This is how the yumminess looks like, very colorful, just how I like it.

Ingredients

• Small bowl of corn ears
• Small bowl of peas
• One small tomato finally chopped
• One small cube of butter (optional)
• Dried Italian herbs (Parsley and Basil are my fav choice)
• Chili flakes
• Salt to taste
• Black pepper



Method

• In a microwave safe oven, put corn ears and peas and fill the container till the contents are submerged in water.
• Put the dish in microwave for 5-6 min to boil, settings would depend on your microwave. On general I put the content on micro high as per my microwave.
• Once our corns and peas are boiled as per our liking, take the container out of microwave and drain the water out.
• Add chopped tomato, Italian herbs, chili flakes, salt and pepper as per our taste and liking.
• Add the butter on top; if you’re on a diet you can skip this step.
• And lightly mix the ingredients till all is mixed and butter has melted.

Your quick fix of corn peas salad is ready and warm to be consumed.

P.S. – This is one healthy dish

Oh that whiff

I have a deep undying love for perfumes. I not just love to buy them, but I also love it when someone crosses me and is wearing a lovely perfume.

So the other day, I was wearing my favorite perfume Eternity to office. As usual it catches a lot of attention and appreciations from people around. One of my fellow female colleague is in the ‘make over’ mood these days and is goes around asking a lot of questions about clothes, diets, shoes etc. after smelling the perfume on me, she decided to buy one for herself too.

Today when I wore eternity, as a coincidence, she ended up wearing the same perfume. However, it did not smell nice on her. It gave out a very pungent spicy smell which I do not like in my perfumes. Boggled by the difference in smells of the same perfume, she asked why it does not smell the same. I had to tell her that perfumes change smell based on a person’s personal smell or oils.

The mistake that she made is very common when it comes to people buying perfumes. They smell the perfume on the smell cards, and do not try it on their skin and therefore buy it based on the smell they get. Most even buy smell simply because it’s popular.

Perfumes are costly affairs, therefore, my advice to everyone would be, try the smell on your skin and don’t get influenced on how it smells on someone else.

Where have all the Gentlemen Gone?

The way I think in the current world, and the way people behave in the 21st century, it gives me the feeling that maybe I am born in an incorrect era. I still look for gentlemen in men and ladies in females. And each time I go looking, I end up feeling all disappointed.

Simple manners that our parents had taught us so painstakingly seem to have warned off our backs. We are more of barbaric bunch of socialized humans than gentlemen wrongly called beasts.

Today was just another day when I was reminded of how wrong I am when I expect men to show a little decency towards women. It is kind of irritating when you open the door of you office to walk in and a guy walks out from the other end and does not even say thank you. Makes you feel stupid, like you were standing there to open the gates for him.

Makes me question, where have all the gentlemen gone?

Carrot Orange Muffin start

The New Year has started with a nice sweet entry. It was a big bang for me, which is completely ok as far as I go. But since it was a new year, I had to make or bake something special to herald this new beginning.

So I thought of making something which I had not baked before. What better way I say. And the end result??? This marvellous looking golden coloured delight called Carrot and Orange muffins. As you can see and guess, in the enthusiasm to make something new, I ended up with a little bit extra batter, which turned into my tea cake.

Im sharing the recipe in hope that maybe you would like to try it out too. In case you do, don’t forget to let me know how you liked it or didn’t.

Ingredients:

• 150 g – self raising flour
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• 75 g – caster sugar
• Finely grated 1 orange rind and juice
• Medium sized 1 carrot grated
• 100 ml milk
• 2 eggs
• 2 tablespoon fats/margarine
• 1 pinch nutmeg
• 5 drops orange essence (optional)
• Orange marmalade for glace

 

Method:

• Preheat your oven on 200˚ C (400˚ F)
• In a bowl, mix together milk, eggs, orange juice, margarine, nutmeg and essence.
• In another bowl sift together flour and baking powder, mix it with a spoon and add grated carrot and orange rind.
• Add the flour mixture to the liquid egg and milk mixture and mix until blended well. You do not have to beat it up till fluffy, like we do in the case of a sponge cake.
• Line your muffin bowls with muffin paper cases and fill the cases two-third with the mixture. Incase you are making a tea cake, grease or line in your bread tin and pour in the mixture.
• Cook in the preheated oven for 20-30 mins or till a skewer, when inserted, comes out clean.
• Once cooked, take it out of the oven and take the muffins and place it on a tray or wire rack to cool. You can let the cake be in the mould till it cools down a little.
• Brush the tops with marmalade and serve while its still warm and hot

 

End result 🙂

Fashion Dilemma



Every morning I am stuck with the same dilemma, of what should I be wearing today, or how am I supposed to mix and match this one.

From what I know from my friends, this is a common situation for most of the girls.

So when I opened up my eyes in the morning today, I visually scanned my wardrobe and finally decided to wear this:

Grey on Black is the safest bet you can make on this planet. And when accompanied with your regular denim, it just adds on to the smartness. Lucky part is that the color combination is so amazing, that you do not need to jump on the accessory bandwagon. So all I wore was my bracelet and a pair of small danglers.

I must confess, I did receive few compliments on this, including that of my mother, who on general is rather shy when it comes to giving compliments

Perfect cake victory

 

So I have tried on various occasions to come up with a perfect chocolate sponge cake. One that can make hearts melt and mouth water.

And at last I managed to make the miracle happen.

So this is what my perfect sponge cake looked like.

I realized that right amount of fresh cream + right amount of eggs = perfect sponge cake

Now I wanted to push my luck further and decided to go with creating a ganache icing for the cake and ended up with another star on my shoulder.

End result????

When I look at my own creation, I can’t help but feel proud.

Here is the recipe for the cake and ganache:

Ganache:

• 450 ml fresh cream
• 50 ml Liquid glucose
• 250 ml dark chocolate
• Sugar to taste (only if you chocolate does not have sugar)

 

Method:

• In a deep pan, mix cream and glucose till the mixture comes to boil.
• Add sugar in the mixture and take it off the heat. 
• Pour the cream mixture on the chocolate and mix till the chocolate has melted and texture of the mixture is nice, glossy and chocolaty. (yummy)
• Put the mixture in the refrigerator to set.

 

Cake:

• 250 ml fresh cream
• 250 ml sugar (make powder of the sugar once you have measured it)
• 250 ml all purpose flour
• 5 tbsp good quality cocoa powder
• 4 eggs
• one tsp vanilla essence
• one tsp baking powder
• one pinch salt
• one pinch baking soda (soda bi-carb)

 

Method:

• Put the oven to preheat on 200 degree
• In a bowl mix cream, sugar, eggs, and vanilla essence. Whisk the mixture till sugar grains have melted.
• In another bowl mix flour, cocoa powder, salt, baking powder and baking soda. Mix the dry mixture well
• Add the dry mixture to the wet mixture (cream mixture). Mix the mixture well.
• Pour the mixture in a greased cake mould and put it in the oven for close to 45 min or till well cooked.
• Set the oven to 180 degree
• Once your cake is done, take it out of the oven and keep it to cool.
• When it has cooled down, cut the cake from middle.
• apply a generous helping of Ganache.
• Place the top cover and apply another coat of Ganache.
• Make swirls on the top with the help of your finger and lick the left over ganache off your fingers

 

Tadda….. Your cake is ready 🙂

Welcome Cupcakes

Welcome to this diabolic blog. My name is Nina and this is my first attempt at starting a serious blog.

So what will this blog hold? This blog will be all about fitness, health, shopping, fashion, and food. In short it’s all about lifestyle.