News

31st March, 2008

If you have any gift shopping to do (or fancy treating yourself!) don't forget our lovely apron; we're very proud of it:

Pictures of recipes! - 7th January, 2008

If you cook anything from this site which does not have pictures, please take some digital ones and send them to us via the contact link above. If they are suitable, we will add them to the recipe, with your name as contributor!

If you have any more shopping to do (or some gift money to spend on yourself!) don't forget our lovely apron, launched a couple of months ago! We're very proud of it:

HAPPY NEW YEAR! - 30th December, 2007

All of us here at Mamta's Kitchen join together in wishing our visitors a very happy new year. Here's hoping that 2008 is a great year for all of you!

If you have any more shopping to do (or some gift money to spend on yourself!) don't forget our lovely apron, launched a couple of months ago! We're very proud of it:

14th November, 2007

When you are doing your Christmas/ Hannukah gift shopping (or for any other occasion!) please don't forget our recently launched Mamta's Kitchen Embroidered Chef's Apron!

HAPPY DIWALI TO ALL! - 7th November, 2007

When you are doing your Christmas/ Hannukah gift shopping (or for any other occasion!) please don't forget our recently launched Mamta's Kitchen Embroidered Chef's Apron!

HOW GORGEOUS IS OUR NEW APRON? - 15th August, 2007

We are delighted to be able to offer for sale our very own Mamta's Kitchen Embroidered Chef's Apron.

Made by a catering industry clothing specialist, this apron is made of heavy-weight 100% cotton. The corners are reinforced for strength and the anti-tangle ties are long enough to cross behind your back and tie around the front, should you prefer. We particularly like the generous width and length which provide more protection than other aprons we have tried. Even with the (beautifully detailed) embroidery, the apron can still be machine-washed at 40 degrees.

KAVITA'S RAISING MONEY FOR CHARITY! - 23rd April, 2007

New Home - 25th March, 2007

Happy New Year! - 30th December, 2006

We have crossed the one Million mark! - 21st November, 2006

Today is a very special day for all of us here on mamtaskitchen. We have reached a milestone, we have crossed the one million mark of visits to this site since we started! I would like to raise a toast to all of you who have visited us and made us a success. And, a very special toast to my daughter Kavey and her husband Pete, without whose hard work and support, this site would not be here today. Thank you all!

One Million Visitors! - 14th November, 2006

Eagle eyed regulars may have noticed that our hit counter on the home page is very close to recording 1 million visits to Mamta's Kitchen since the website's creation in May 2001. We hope you'll join us in a toast to all the wonderful meals that have been cooked up around the world using Mamta's Kitchen recipes and help us reach the next million hits.

Enjoy the site and do pop into our forums to and drop us a note of your thoughts and stories about the site - have you cooked any special meals using our recipes for example?

Eid - 23rd October, 2006

Eid Mubarak to all our Muslim visitors! Have a great day.

Happy Diwali and Ramadan Eid Mubarak - 16th October, 2006

21st of October 2006

We wish a very happy Diwali to all our visitors. May the light of Diwali lamps spread peace and goodwill on earth.

May you have a happy, healthy and prosperous life with your family and friends!

Best wishes form all at mamta's kitchen!

Read about Diwali in 'Upcoming festivals' section.

Feel free to leave your own Diwali message on the Forum.

We have a winner! - 2nd October, 2006

Congratulations to Mrs Patricia Courtney of Malvern, England who is the winner of the Spices of India Gourmet Spice Basket!

The Gourmet Spice Basket contains Asafoetida powder, Curry Leaves, Fenugreek Leaves, Black Cardamom, Panch Puren, Tamarind concentrate, Pure Butter Ghee, Gram Flour, Turmeric, Birds eye Chillies, Ground Coriander, Cumin powder and Garam Masala and will be delivered directly to Mrs Courtney's door.

We hope you enjoy cooking up a storm of Mamta's Kitchen recipes, Mrs Courtney!

In the meantime, you can learn more about Spices of India by clicking on the Advice link at the top of the page and selecting Suppliers.

Competition Closed – Winner TBA Soon! - 22nd September, 2006

The entry period for our fabulous competition has now closed.

One lucky entrant will soon be receiving a fabulous Spices of India Gourmet Spice Basket direct to their door!

We will shortly be filtering out all the correct entries before randomly drawing a winner who will be announced right here on (or before) the 14th October. Good luck!

Win! In the Mamta’s Kitchen Competition! - 4th August, 2006

Breaking News! Mamta’s Kitchen’s have forged a relationship with online food supplier, Spices of India. To launch our partnership we join forces to offer you the chance to win a Spices of India Gourmet Spice Basket.

The basket is crammed full of the essential ingredients of Indian cooking and will certainly unleash the Indian cook in you!

Sending us photographs? - 15th June, 2006

Many of our kind readers have offered to send us photographs of our recipes (during preparation stages and when finished) for use on the site.

Launching a photography prints website - 17th May, 2006

I hope regular readers will recognise the names of Kavita & Pete Favelle - Mamta's daughter and son-in-law - as we developed and maintain this website and enjoy interacting with some of you over in the discussion forums.

Apologies for recent outage - 3rd May, 2006

Our hosting company had a major outage and took a disappointingly long time to get things back and running - infact the other site we host with them is still not available. Please let us know if you have any difficulties accessing any part of the site or notice any oddities... we think this site has come through unscathed but might have missed something.

4th May: Another brief outage (unannounced) while our hosting company fixes the same problem. I'm starting to wish we'd never moved!

Thanks!

Pete & Kavita

Back to normal! - 30th March, 2006

The transfer is now complete, and we're running on our new host.

A Small Disruption - 30th March, 2006

Over the next few days, we'll be in the process of shifting the site over to a new hosting company.

While this shouldn't be noticeable for most of our users, we will have to disable a few features during the actual transfer (specifically things like forum posting) to make sure we don't misplace any data in the process.

I'll update this message once everything's finished.

Pete the Webmaster

Photographs needed - 10th January, 2006

Please remember to take digital pictures of the dishes you cook from this site and send them to me via contact link. If they are better than mine (mine are quite bad usually, so it will be easy), we will post them with the recipe, with your name in credits - Mamta.

Happy New Year! - 28th December, 2005

We wish all of you a happy, joyous and peaceful 2006. May all your wishes come! Let.s hope that; There is peace and understanding between all nations and peoples on earth. There is no desire to justify anger, hate and terror, whatever one.s beliefs and motives. We treat others with respect and learn to understand their pain and fears. We have generosity of spirit, kindness, love, patience, and mercy in our hearts. We allow hope to flourish once again.

The year will no doubt bring a few disappoints for all of us. Let.s hope that we will accept them without bitterness and blame to others.

Naye Varsh ki Shubhkamnayen (Hindi); Naya Saal Mubbarak (Urdu); Nave sal di Mubarak (Punjabi); Shubho Nabo Barsh (Bengali); Nutan Varshabhinandan (Gujarati); Naveen Varshachy Shubhechcha (Marathi); Prosit Neujahr (German); Xin Nian Kuai Le (Chinese); Bonne Annee (French); Godt Nytt?r (Norwegian); Gott nytt ?r (Swedish); Antum salimoun (Arabic)

Mamta, Kavita and Pete

PS Please remember to take digital pictures of the dishes you cook from this site and send them to me via contact link. If they are better than mine (mine are quite bad usually, so it will be easy), we will post them with the recipe, with your name in credits - Mamta.

Merry Christmas and Season's Greetings! - 6th December, 2005

Not only is December the month when some of us celebrate Christmas, Hannukah or Bodhi Day it's also a month where many of us enjoy many cultural winter traditions too.

Here in the UK we decorate our homes and offices with holly, ivy and mistletoe whilst hanging candles and ornaments on beautiful fir trees. Whilst these things have come to be associated with Christmas in recent times they didn't all originate with Christianity and are actually much older - some of them come from ancient Norse traditions associated with the Yule festival, others have been handed down from pagan/ fruid winter solstice celebrations, others still are likely to be Roman Saturnalia traditions and some may even come from the ancient Egyptians who were one of a number of ancient cultures that worshipped evergreens.

As winter often brings snow it's also the time to build snowmen, have snowball fights and make angel shapes in the snow before rushing back inside to warm ourselves on wonderful winter favourites such as thick, hot soups, casseroles and roasts!

Our Christmas food habits have similarly diverse origins to our other traditions and take much from other parts of the world. These days a traditional Christmas dinner includes roast turkey and stuffing, roast potatoes and vegetables, bread sauce, cranberry sauce and gravy, followed by Christmas pudding with brandy butter. Yet only a few decades ago goose was far more popular and further back still roast boar, swan and peacock graced the tables of families who could afford them!

We'd love to hear about traditional celebratory meals in your part of the world so do please drop into our forums and let us know your national/ regional/ local/ family or personal favourites!

All of us here at Mamta's Kitchen would like to wish all of our MK regulars a wonderful festive season and a very happy new year!

Kavita, Mamta & Pete

Winter is here! - 15th November, 2005

Winter has finally arrived here in south of England, with temperatures of 10?C/4?C! We had frost on Sunday, our first this winter. My beautiful buzy-lizzies (impatience), chrysanthemums and dahlias that were still full of blooms, died overnight. I spent a busy morning tiding up the garden yesterday!

Thanks to international trade these days, vegetables and fruits of summer are available almost all the year round. However, those amongst you who are gardeners, will have a store of traditional winter fruits and vegetables. Swedes, turnips, carrots, beetroot, parsnips, salsify, sweet potatoes, artichokes, celeriac, onions etc. are excellent in soups, roasts, pickles, curries, pies. Apples and pears make great desserts. I love soups for lunch during winter, often making them without oil, cooking vegetables in a pressure cooker and then blending with a stock. Crumbles/pies made from apple and other fruits, are also family favourites. I am experimenting with low sugar/sugar free versions, let.s see how they turn out! If you have and sugar free dessert recipes that you would like to share with the rest of us, please send them to me via the contact link. If they work, I will be happy to add them to this site under your name.

Best wishes to you all :-)!

Mamta

10th November 2005 - 10th November, 2005

Best wishes to all the Sikhs world over, on the auspicious occasion of the birth anniversary of Guru Nanak ji on the 15th November 2005.

7th November, 2005

Eid! - 2nd November, 2005

"Eid Mubarak"

Diwali - 31st October, 2005

Happy Diwali.

Lots of love to all of you.

Mamta

Please support the MS Society - 11th October, 2005

Hello everyone

Autumn is here! - 1st October, 2005

It looks like summer has finally left us. Autumn is one of the most beautiful times of the year in the Western hemisphere. Leaves on the trees are turning yellow, brown, rust, red. Autumn produce is filling the shops in UK. Apples (Cox's, Bramley, Russet, Discovery and Worcester), plums (Victoria, Damson, Gage), many soft fruits (pick your own in the garden centres or in the wild)) and vegetables are at their best right now. Wild mushroom picking is also good fun, but know the varieties well, before you eat them. I hope you have dried your herbs by now! It is a good time for making preserves and freeze your own produce. Those of you who have their own vegetable patches, have fresh potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic etc. from their garden to pick, store and preserve. Chillies are also nearly ready to pick. Tomatoes must be nearing the end now. Remember green tomatoes are very good for making chutneys and cooking with vegetables, fish and meat etc. Collect chestnuts to roast on winter fire.

Some of you must be making your own jams, jellies, crumbles & pies, chutneys, pickles, bottled/frozen fruits-some in alcohol, cider and beer. If you have any great recipes for preserving/freezing/drying and you want to share them with everyone else, do feel free to send them to me via the Contact link. Remember, they must not be copied from anywhere. All good recipes will be added to this site, with your name.

Have a great Autumn!

Love

Mamta

23rd September, 2005

I have cleared up the backlog of email queries from my .kitchen. mail box, I am sorry if the delay in replying in recent days has inconvenienced some of you.

I have a question for you all: Is edible Silver Leaf/Chandi Varak suitable for vegetarians?

The issue of Leaf/Chandi Varak being vegetarian or not, is quite interesting and relevant to most vegetarians, specially Hindus. We Indians have a sweet tooth, as have our Gods! Sweets are used extensively in prayers, offered in temples and eaten as desserts and snacks in all Indian homes. Most shop bought sweets are covered with a thin layer of silver leaf, not only to enhance their look, but also because silver is supposed to have medicinal properties.

It is said that silver leaves are traditionally made by beating small blocks of silver between 2 layers of the cattle intestines, until each block becomes paper thin. The reason intestines are used is because they are elastic and do not tear during intense beating.

The question is whether they are still made this way, using the intestines of cattle? Are the vegetarians eating silver leaves without realising that it is not .pure. vegetarian? Does anyone know for sure what the truth is? Who has a definitive answer? If you have any information on the subject, other than what is available on the internet already, do join in the discussion on the Forum.

Mamta

16th September, 2005

Thanks for your support for the fundraising for Katrina victims.

A family member is currently unwell, your good thoughts would be appreciated.

Please note that we may be slower to respond to emails and forum posts than usual.

Thank you for your patience.

Kavita

Supporting Victims of Katrina - 8th September, 2005

Hi Folks

Some members of a photography hobby website (where Kavita is active) have decided to donate all profits from prints sold in the next couple of weeks to supporting victims of Katrina. The owners of the site have kindly stepped in and made it a) official, so that all sales by donating members are automatically included in the fundraiser and b) included their percentage of the profits also. That means ALL profits from prints go to charity. Only costs of prints and postage do not.

Summer Thoughts... - 19th August, 2005

I hope that you are all enjoying the summer while you can! Barbecues are in full swing. Hardly a day goes by when there is't an aroma wafting from someone.s BBQ, tempting us to do one of our own. Cool drinks and chilled desserts taste their best on a hot summer day. Fresh produce from the garden is in full swing here in England. This is the time to make preserves and jams, freeze surplus bounty from your gardens.

Birds love to eat sunflower seeds from the spent flower heads. So when you de-head the dead flowers, don.t forget to hang these out for them. It is fun to watch them having a bath in shallow water tray I leave out for them.

Do remember to send your best recipes, with picture where possible, specially recipes from different parts of India. If I can reproduce it, your recipe could be added to the site under your name. More recipe pictures are coming soon! Kavita and Pete are working hard in the background, to make the site even more user friendly. They will announce the changes as they happen.

Take care and love to all.

Mamta

Terrorist Attacks in London - 7th July, 2005

Based in London as I am, I just want to say a couple of things about the terrorist attacks in my city this morning.

Firstly, the sympathies of everyone here at Mamta's Kitchen are with the families of those who were killed by these attacks and also with all those who suffered injuries or were involved in any way with the awful incidents this morning. Mum (Mamta) sends her love and best wishes also.

Secondly, I'd like to thank all those friends, family and strangers around the world who are expressing support for Londoners and Brits at this time. Your sympathies and support are much appreciated.

Sadly, Londoners are all too used to living with terrorism, as we experienced threats and terrorist acts all too often during the worst years of IRA activity. Although we've had a short period of relative calm, what saddens me deeply is how familiar this feels.

Please know that whilst Londoners are keeping their chins up in public that we are very sad inside. It's important to us to give out the message that terrorists will not make us change our lifestyles, our daily routines or our outlook on life.

Peace,

Kavita (site adminstrator)

New Discussion Forum - 6th June, 2005

Historically, our discussion forums have been hosted by ezboard and not on this main site. Unfortunately, ezboard experienced some severe problems recently and the majority of our wonderful and rich archive of threads has been permanently lost.

We have taken this opportunity to move the discussion area over to the main site and you can reach it by clicking on the forum button at the top of every page. At the moment the forum features are very basic indeed but we hope to add functionality over time. Please let us know if you have any problems accessing or posting to the new discussion forum.

Thanks for the positive feedback on the introduction of recipe photos. It will take some time for us to add photos for all our recipes. If you have taken any suitable digital photographs that we may be able to use, please email us to discuss. Recipes with pictures are listed in the search results page with a small camera icon by the recipe name. We have also added a check box to the Search function so that you can find recipes with pictures more easily.

We're also pleased to hear that our readers are not finding the subtle advertising panels too intrusive. The revenue earned goes towards paying for the site.

A request for help from Mamta: If you encounter any problems with any of the recipes, please let me know. Although I edit and update recipes regularly, it's easy to miss errors. Your help is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Forum - 28th February, 2005

Our Discussion Forum is not fully available at present though it is possible to post new questions and comments. It is currently hosted by a provider called ezboard which has been attacked by a hacker. Sadly, it seems less and less likely that our wonderful and rich archive of threads will be restored. We are working hard on moving over to a new discussion forum which we will look after ourselves. Watch this space!

Thanks for the positive feedback on the introduction of recipe photos. It will take some time for us to add photos for all our recipes. If you have taken any suitable digital photographs that we may be able to use, please email us to discuss. Recipes with pictures are listed in the search results page with a small camera icon by the recipe name. We have also added a check box to the Search function so that you can find recipes with pictures more easily.

We're also pleased to hear that our readers are not finding the subtle advertising panels too intrusive. The revenue earned goes towards paying for the site.

A request for help from Mamta: If you encounter any problems with any of the recipes, please let me know. Although I edit and update recipes regularly, it's easy to miss errors. Your help is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

News update! - 23rd January, 2005

We're really pleased to announce the addition of recipe photographs to the site. Adding photographs will be a gradual process. If you have any good quality digital images of recipes from our website please feel free to email them to us. Recipes with pictures are listed in the search results page with a small camera icon by the recipe name. We have also added a check box to the Search function so that you can find recipes with pictures more easily.

Regulars will also notice that we have taken the decision to display advertising on Mamta's Kitchen. The money raised will go towards the cost of hosting and maintenance of the site. We hope you won't find the banners too intrusive. Please feel free to let us know what you think in our discussion forums.

News update! - 1st January, 2005

We're really pleased to announce the addition of recipe photographs to the site. Adding photographs will be a gradual process. If you have any good quality digital images of recipes from our website please feel free to email them to us. Recipes with pictures are listed in the search results page with a small camera icon by the recipe name.

Regulars will also notice that we have taken the decision to display advertising on Mamta's Kitchen. Any money raised will go towards the cost of hosting and maintenance of the site. We hope you won't find the banners too intrusive. Please feel free to let us know what you think in our discussion forums.

Season's greetings! - 24th December, 2004

Happy New Year to all of you! May 2005 bring peace and joy to all corners of the world.

1st October, 2004

Welcome to the new incarnation of Mamta's Kitchen! We really hope you like it! As you can see, we've made some design changes, including a new logo (designed by Kavita) and we've reorganised some of the navigation to make it easier to find what you need and to move around the site. We've also made quite a number of changes behind the scenes to make Mamta's job of adding and editing recipes, festivals and news articles more straightforward.

3rd September, 2004

Hi folks! It's Kavita here - Mamta's eldest daughter and website administrator. I'm going to ask your indulgence in bringing up something unrelated to cooking (or eating).

Are you into wildlife? - 23rd August, 2004

Hi folks! It's Kavita here - Mamta's eldest daughter and website administrator. I'm going to ask your indulgence in bringing up something unrelated to cooking (or eating).

Summer 2004 - 12th June, 2004

This family run Indian Cookbook is a living thing, constantly updated and refreshed, as some of you may have noticed already. There's a great selection of over 600 sumptuous recipes to choose from, something to suit each taste. New recipes are added all the time and old ones are updated. If you have any questions or things to discuss, visit our Discussion Board, via Forums at the bottom of the page.

I hope you are enjoying the summer, what is left of it! We have had some fierce monsoons and floods. I hope they will pass soon! For menu ideas, conversion tables, common ingredients and glossary of Hindi and English words, look under 'More Information'.

Aug. 30th is the Raksha Bandhan and birthday of both my daughters Kavey and Neet, Happy Birthday to them both!

Sept. 6th God Krishna Jayanti (birthday)

Enjoy the summer! - 18th May, 2004

This family run Indian Cookbook is a living thing, constantly updated and refreshed, as some of you may have noticed already. There's a great selection of over 600 sumptuous recipes to choose from, something to suit each taste. New recipes are added all the time and old ones are updated. Let's hope that we have another 'Indian summer' in UK this year and this site helps you to enjoy the bounty of nature that it brings with it. For menu ideas, conversion tables, common ingredients and glossary of Hindi and English words, look under 'More Information'.

Spring is here! - 3rd May, 2004

My daughter and son in-law have worked very hard in the recent weeks, to make several changes to the site. Most of the changes have been behind the scenes, to make it more user friendly. Thank you for being patient.

In UK, the spring is finally and truly here. Most of you must be busy in your gardens, with less time to spend in the kitchen. Soon it will be BBQ season. For many, it is already warm enough to eat outdoors. Here are some recipes for you to try:

Broken Links - 29th April, 2004

As some of you noticed, some of the links within the recipes weren't working. We've just gone through and (we believe!) fixed them all, so everything should be back to normal again.

Site Changes - 17th April, 2004

As you can probably tell, we've made a few changes to the site this weekend - a lot more behind the scenes, that should hopefully make things faster and easier to use. At the same time, we've moved to a new server that will stop the site going down everytime our ADSL line fails!

We'll be continuing to work on the site for the next day or two - all the recipes are present and correct, but there'll be one or two features that go into hiding while we shift everything across. Please bear with us.

Finally, as part of the changes some of the pages have changed name, so if you have any bookmarks now would be a good time to update them.