15 Marbles

Moments.Musings.Memories. ❤️Gathering little marbles from ordinary days and keeping them for our memory jar. ❤️

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  • My Signature Saffron Granola

    [In a hurry?] Jump straight to the Recipe

    💕You can always come back for the story 💕

    Last Diwali, I was looking for a homemade treat to add to my gift hampers.

    Life was particularly chaotic at the time and, apparently, my response to being overwhelmed is to become wildly overambitious and give myself another project. 🙄

    Because obviously what a person with too much to do needs… is more to do. 🙄🙄

    I didn’t have the physical or mental capacity to make traditional Diwali sweets, and most store-bought sweets tend to get passed around and regifted anyway.

    Besides, almost everyone I knew seemed to be trying to eat a little healthier.

    So I thought — granola!

    Homemade, easy to package, something people could actually use for breakfast, and considerably less ambitious than making boxes of mithai.

    But it was Diwali.

    Plain granola wasn’t going to do.

    And to me, nothing says celebration quite like saffron.

    So into the granola it went.

    And there you have it — my Saffron Granola. ❤️

    Recipe

    The Base

    • 2 cups rolled oats
    • 1 cup mixed nuts — almonds, walnuts, cashews and pistachios
    • ½ cup mixed seeds, including sesame seeds
    • ¼ cup chia seeds
    • ¼ cup coconut flakes
    The flavours
    • 15–20 saffron strands
    • A sprinkle of nutmeg
    • A sprinkle of rock salt
    The Wet Ingredients
    • ½ cup coconut oil
    • ¼ cup maple syrup
    After Baking
    • Raisins
    • Cranberries
    • Chocolate chips — however much your heart tells you ❤️
    Method

    Preheat the oven to 160°C fan-forced.

    Combine the oats, nuts, seeds, chia seeds, saffron, nutmeg and rock salt.

    Add the coconut oil and maple syrup and mix well until everything is evenly coated.

    Spread the mixture over a lined baking tray and bake for 30-40 minutes, stirring around halfway through( depending on how toasty you like your granola) – I bake for around 40 minutes.

    If you’re using untoasted coconut flakes, add them for the final 5 minutes so they don’t burn.

    Allow the granola to cool completely before adding the raisins and cranberries.

    And only once it is completely cool, add the chocolate chips — however much your heart told you to use.❤️

    This one is perfect for gifting — or just for everyday breakfast. ❤️

    I love it over yoghurt and fruit, but the slight sweetness of maple syrup and the crunch of baked nuts and oats also make it the perfect 3pm pick-me-up with a cup of coffee.

    Bonus: That delicious saffron-and-toasted-nuts aroma floating through your kitchen and home 🤌🏻😍🤤

  • What we are eating this week

    Here’s this week’s meal plan: pretty simple, pretty basic — and more importantly, what they requested! 😃

    The husband loves his desi food, so there’s always the staple daal-rice or a sneaky curry ordered from one of our local tiffin places (NOT Uber Eats!!!).

    Also all the cooking happens in the evening after work, so quick and healthy is the end-goal.

    Just aiming for happy faces, one meal at a time.

    P.S. Meal plan by me. Pretty graphic courtesy of ChatGPT because mine definitely did not look like this. 

    P.P.S. What’s on your menu this week? Do you meal plan for the week, or take it day by day?

  • Food Blogger I Am Not… Food Hacker, Maybe!

    I love cooking. And M.O.S.T. things I cook turn out delicious.

    There. I said it. 🙃

    When I first started blogging, I shared recipes too. Part of the reason was that I wanted to record my mum’s recipes and make them last forever.

    There was just one problem.

    I am an intuitive cook.

    Measuring ingredients is tedious. Watching the clock is tedious. Stopping midway through cooking to remember exactly how much of something I just threw into the pot? Very tedious.

    A dash of this. A splash of that. Taste. Add something else. Taste again.

    That’s how I cook.

    And that is why I share so few recipes. When I have to measure and document everything, it takes me twice as long to cook and somehow makes the whole thing less fun.

    For me, at least!

    I’m looking for a solution. Maybe talk-to-text while I cook?

    “Adding a dash of this… splash of that… no idea how much that was…” 😂

    Watch this space.

    Ms A helped me make modaks over the weekend and I showed her one of the little hacks I generally use.

    She told me that one day some millennial mum will probably share the same hack for making perfect modak petals one day and she’ll stumble across it.

    I told her, “Remember, you saw it here first!”

    Here being our kitchen. 😃

    But I digress. As always.

    Food blogger I am not.

    Food hacker? I am. Or at least I try to be.

    In my quest to become an awesome cook like my mum, in my motivation to cook my family’s favourite things, and in my desire to feed them healthy, home-cooked meals, I’ve found my own way of cooking.

    It needs to be quick. Nutritious. Low effort enough to account for my time and energy levels.

    And preferably delicious.

    And when they go back for seconds, or I hear the spoon scraping the bottom of the pot, or someone tells me, “It’s perfect” – even when, in my head, it isn’t quite perfect…

    That makes it all worthwhile.

  • Work me … home me … still me !

    I am on leave today and have the music going, candles burning, some granola in the oven and, as I potter around my messy kitchen, I have come to a realisation.

    I don’t like working from home.

    Yes! I am the odd one!

    My home is my sanctuary and I want it to be the place where I relax, not where I carry the stress of deadlines and anything else work-related.

    At the same time, work is my escape from home. You know, the place where I drink my coffee hot without getting distracted… coffee that someone else made for me.

    Work is where I get to dress up and be just me. Not the mum, not the wife. Just me!

    When I first started working and the kids were younger, one of my favourite things about going to work was simply talking to adults! 😂 After spending so much of my time in mum mode, work gave me a different kind of space.

    I joke that I have two personalities – the work me and the home me.

    Work me only needs to worry about her work, her food and her own needs. Home me, of course, cannot switch off and makes it her purpose to look after everyone else’s needs too.

    Maybe they are both me, just different versions of me.

    But I digress…

    I don’t enjoy working from home.

    I miss the banter with coworkers. The constant conversations that I then use my earphones to drown out.

    Yes, I know. I have a confusing personality. 😂

    I find myself being more productive and active when I’m in the office than when I’m at home.

    Home is where I want to be creative. Potter around. Cook. Clean (I know – I am shocked too!), read, laze around.

    So, I find myself choosing more office days than most people I know.

    And then, when I feel burnt out or tired, I take time off to relax.

    Well… not really relax.

    Apparently I relax by doing chores and finding things to keep my hands busy. 😂

    Cross-posted on the 15 Marbles blog and Substack, because some thoughts belong in both places.