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Saturday, May 2, 2015

Recap of "Fire up your Oven' Marathon

It's time for the recap of 'Fire up your Oven' blogging marathon, as I mentioned in my last post. As the title suggests the marathon was related to baking and there were no sub-themes to follow as such in this event. I kept on planning and re-planning about what to bake for this marathon and tearing loads of pages in the process. Even the monthly organizer on my kitchen wall was filled with recipes instead of our schedules, much to the amusement of my family. At some point, I had decided that at least half of my recipes will be savory, at least there would be a dozen Indian based recipes and I use all purpose flour as much less as possible. And there was the rule that I stuck to that the cooking was to be done entirely in an oven except for sauce making. I therefore went on looking for such kind of recipes which were easy enough to cook on any given day, took less time to prepare and enjoyed by my family. Somewhere in the middle, the idea of going with the weekday themes stuck and it sounded fun.
 
Before posting the recap let me give you a glimpse of what happened in the background while preparing for this marathon and also post some disaster pictures along with the successes. I pretty much knew beforehand what I was going to cook for most of the days. However I didn't end up with what I envisioned for Thursday and Friday themes. I ended with more cookies under teatime theme either because I didn't have time to bake stuff or I ended up with cloudy days with no light to capture those what I baked. Luckily I had baked more cookies than needed for this marathon and so I had a reserve of cookie posts in my drafts that got used for 'Thursday Teatime' theme and also for 'Fun Friday' theme as the plans went haywire. 

I would say that the only planning that went off the track was with the 'Fun Friday' theme as I was planning to post breads under it. Actually my planning for this marathon started with a tiger bread recipe that I had bookmarked more than a year ago. I started with so much enthusiasm only to be left disappointed when the experiment turned a dud to my surprise. The tiger bread didn't look that scaly and besides it was good enough to break either my teeth or my head. No wonder it ended up in trash, one of the few baking disasters of my life. I am not giving up on this bread and have to go around looking for a good recipe.
And then a delicious tasting sweet pretzel bread didn't turn out perfect looks wise when it had risen some more (on the right side) while baking. Thanks to me for the impatience I showed while shaping the bread and didn't heed to my husband's advice of shaping them into small, individual sized ones. My kids didn't bother about the shape and loved it. I know there is a next time to get it perfect.
 
And here is a watermelon bread which lost it's green color under that brown crust, after baking. I was as excited as a child while shaping this bread but alas, I ended up with this.

And towards the recipes that got published here. Some of them were new to me and some are made regularly in my kitchen. I tried baking the vadas and the besan cookies for the first time during this event, which have become my recent favorites. And of course there were some family favorites like the okra fry, zucchini crisps, chakli and naan pizza. If not for the 'no stovetop cooking' idea, I would have not tried those spicy and yummy dry samosas. And there was the double decker scone which I finished all by myself. Overall, I had fun running this marathon along with fellow bloggers and it was an exciting journey.

Now it's time for the recap of the marathon, the recipes that got published. The recipe titles are above each image and click it to get to the link of the recipe.

Monday "Meals"





 
 
Tuesday 'Treats'





'Veggie' Wednesday 

Eggplant Pizzas







Thursday 'Teatime'



 
 

'Fun' Friday

 


 

Saturday 'Snacks'






 

6 comments:

Srivalli said...

Suma, it was one wonderful edition! I had enjoyed so much, esp your weekday menu..it's so fabulous. Infact I will borrow this idea all credits to you..:)..all the dishes look so wonderful together and on your posts that you didn't share, hope to see improved versions on those!

Priya Suresh said...

I loved the sub themes u picked for each day and enjoyed thoroughly all ur posts Suma.

Varada's Kitchen said...

I like how your recap gives us a peek behind the scenes into the prep phase. I enjoyed your themes and bakes.

Pavani said...

What a wonderful collection of baked goodies Suma. Your themes were very interesting :-) I have bookmarked quite a few of your recipes to try.

Usha said...

That watermelon looks great and hoping you would posted that soon. Your weekday themes were interesting and enjoyed all your bakes for this marathon

Kalyani said...

Just saw the recap (I know, its late!!!) as I was browsing some recipes from ur blog that I had bookmarked ! It was indeed a great BM that u dished out ! have bookmarked some more now :)