Recipe of the month: Taushe Bhakri (Cucumber Rotti)

Continuing my exploration of regional Indian dishes, today’s find is a Konkani  speciality called Toushe Bhakri or Cucumber Rotti. It is an easy to make, light on the tummy, traditional breakfast dish. Even better, it comes together with ingredients you probably already have sitting in your kitchen.

Somewhere along the way, I have had to accept that I don’t quite have the time (or bandwidth) to blog the way I once did. I'll admit that it is a bitter pill to swallow. Having said that, the urge to keep at it hasn’t gone away. I still find myself saving recipes I stumble upon, usually with a quiet conviction that this one will be the one that brings my blog out of its coma! And that is exactly how I found the recipe for this dish. I had never heard of it before, which immediately piqued my curiosity and it seemed like the kind of dish that would work perfectly for our busy household of six.

On an unrelated note, it does make me a little sad to see traditional blogging slowly fading into the background. Nobody really has the patience for it anymore because everything nowadays needs to be quick, snappy and instantly consumable, doesn't it? 😢 Even recipe videos have a shelf life of a few minutes before people start losing interest. Attention spans are shrinking at an alarming rate, and instant gratification seems to be the rule of the game. To avoid disappointment, I am not holding on to hope that my Generation Alpha daughters will read my elaborate blog posts. By now, I am quite convinced that I am an old soul at heart. I have little interest in keeping up with technology. I have never approached content creation as a means to an end. Podcasts, vlogs, audiobooks, YouTube shorts have never really appealed to me. I still believe in the power of writing, in documenting lived experiences, in taking the time to say things from the heart and in today's day and age, not having an AI chatbot say things for me that I am perfectly capable of saying myself! (no matter how unpolished it may sound 😝). But my thoughts aside, the fact that my blog still gets a reasonable number of views is reason enough for me to keep showing up here.

Coming back to today's recipe - this was (for the most part) a hit just as I thought it would be. My husband didn’t quite take to it, but that is due to his long-standing dislike for cucumber in the cooked form. He is one of those people who prefers the vegetable raw. Fair enough I'd say. The rest of us really enjoyed it and I can easily see this dish working just as well with zucchini. I served the bhakris with homemade butter (so good), coconut chutney, chutney pudi and pickle. It complemented everything very well. 

To those of you who still take the time to visit my blog, read my ramblings and try my recipes, thank you from the bottom of my heart. You are the reason I'm still here 💜

Baker's Corner: Blueberry Lavender Cinnamon Rolls

I'm not going to make any excuses for now showing up here. It is what it is (sighs). On a more positive note, a personal goal for me this year is to get back to cooking, baking and blogging which still rank among my greatest passions in life. I have some brand new amazing cookbooks that I brought with me from Singapore to India during our relocation but I'm ashamed to admit that I haven't opened a single one yet. That has got to change 😛

A bit of background on how this blog post came about - last month, we played Secret Santa at work. Somehow, I ended up being in charge of organizing it which was mildly amusing because I had never played the game before (surprising no?). In the beginning, I naively assumed that  it would involve picking a name, buying one holiday gift, and calling it a day. How mistaken I was! 

What followed was gifting guidelines with a designated WhatsApp group and weeks of multiple mini gifts, tricks, clues, stealth tactics, mysterious collaborations, in depth handwriting analysis, decoy Santas, dress code, dramatic reveals and what not! I can confidently say that I get all the nuances of the game now and I promise to be a force to reckon with the next time it rolls around 😂

My Secret Santa (who turned out to be a dear colleague who I work closely with) gifted me a handmade recipe book along with several other thoughtful goodies. Knowing my penchant for baking, she had included a collection of beautiful dessert recipes with detailed instructions, all carefully handwritten and paired with hand drawn illustrations. Needless to say, I was deeply touched by the time, effort, and sentiment that went into it 💜

One of the recipes that caught my attention immediately were these Blueberry Lavender Cinnamon Rolls. My daughters noticed it right off the bat too. If you have gone through my dessert gallery before, chances are, you would have come across my blog post on Cinnamon Rolls. You may have also correctly deduced that I  am a sucker for cinnamon in general. I truly dig the stuff. 

Lavender, however, was completely new territory for me. It was the only ingredient I did not already have on hand, and I was genuinely excited to try it.  A browse and click on Amazon led to its arrival on my doorstep two days later. 

This recipe is very easy to follow and uses ingredients that are (mostly) readily available. It does require two rounds of dough rising (proofing), which takes some time, but I promise it is worth the wait. The rolls turned out soft and pillowy. The gentle floral notes of the lavender complemented the fruitiness of the blueberries beautifully. The sweetness of the glaze was balanced by the salt in the rolls and the slight tartness of the berries. The cinnamon took a subtler role while still providing its comforting warmth.

I did not follow the recipe from the book exactly. I made a few minor adjustments based on my own preferences and intuition as I went along. For a first attempt, the taste and texture of the rolls felt just right. I made two batches, took one to work for my colleagues who all gave it the thumbs up. The second batch I kept for my family. My girls have been thrilled to see it make an appearance in their snack box and now they are asking me to make it for all their friends 😆 I did not feel the need to tweak the recipe further, so I am sharing it here just as it is for all of you to try.

Wishing you all a very Happy New Year 2026 💫

I will try my best to show up here more often (and I really mean that!).