Almond Cashewnut Halwa

Almond Cashewnut Halwa is a rich comforting desert, enjoyed during the
winter. I used to buy it from local 'Halwai- shop'.The amount of ghee
they put in their halwa is bit too much though it leaves an amazing
taste in your mouth. So, I tried making it myself.

Serves 2- 3 people
Cooking time - 30 minutes

Ingredients:

Almonds (whole) - 3/4 cup
Cashewnuts - 1/4 cup
Milk - 3- 4 tbsp
Ghee - 3 tbsp
Sugar - 1/2 cup (or more if you prefer a more sweeter dish)
Water - 1/4 cup
Almond essence - 1 drop
Saffron strands - a pinch or Cardamom powder


Method:

1. Boil some water and soak the almonds and cashews in hot water overnight.

2. Peel the skin off the almonds.

3. Grind the nuts into a smooth paste adding milk slowly. A thick but
smooth paste is needed.Set the paste aside.

4. The next step is to prepare sugar syrup.Melt the sugar with the 1/4
cup of water in a pan.

5. Add Almond essence and Saffron strands or Cardamom powder as per
your preference. Saffron gives a nice creamy golden colour to the
halwa.

6. Let the sugar syrup come to a rolling boil.No need to wait for one-
string consistency.

7. Add the ground paste and stir well to avoid any lumps.Keep the
mixture in medium- low flame all the time.

8. Keep stirring this mixture so that it gets cooked.

9. Add a few tbsp of the ghee at regular intervals. Make sure that the
mixture does not stick to the bottom of the pan.

10. The mixture (and in fact the whole kitchen) should smell really of
saffron & ghee at this point.

11. The mixture will gradually thicken and attain a glossy- shiny appearance.

12. Take off Halwa from the pan and let it cool. The halwa will
thicken more on cooling.

13. You can serve the Halwa immediately and see a satisfied grin on
the face of your loved ones.

That means happiness guaranteed for you. You can also store it in the
refrigerator and Microwave the halwa when you are just about to
serve.You just cannot go wrong with this recipe. If the mixture seems
a bit runny , microwave or heat it up a bit more. If the mixture
becomes crumbly or grainy, add a little bit of milk and mix together
to get a nice halwa. It is that easy and literally melts in your
mouth.

" The best things in life are always dripping with ghee!!"

Sweet Appam for Karthigai Deepam

I love sweet appams any time of the day. So this year, I made these lovely delights and my 'Appams' turned out to be crispy and crunchy, just the way I like them. This recipe is from my Thathi. For those who prefer to eat soft 'appams', adding mashed ripe banana to the batter yields softer appams. My MIL likes to make the batter and leave it covered overnight preferably in refrigerator  so that the flavours infuse well. This results in nice soft and spongy 'appams'.

For the recipe you need:

Raw rice (pachha arisi) : 1 cup
Jaggery  pwd         :  3/4 cup
1 banana (ripe) : optional
Cardamom pwd : 1tsp
Coconut bits : 2 tbsp (slightly fried in ghee)
Ghee  : 2 tbsp
Oil to deep fry

Method:

Soak rice for 4- 5 hrs. Grind the rice along with jaggery into a smooth paste. Make sure to use absolulely clean jaggery. If you are not sure, dissolve the jaggery in some water, strain the jaggery through a muslin cloth and then use this liquid to grind the rice with. Add cardamom pwd, mashed banana, ghee and coconut.
Now the batter is ready. I prefer to make 'appams' immediately. So heat the 'appam kuzhi' pan or 'kuzhi panniyaram pan' to medium heat. Pour some oil into the 'kuzhis' and carefully spoon the batter into the individual moulds when the oil is hot enough. Be extremely careful as there are chances that the oil can splater. Allow it to cook for some time, and then flip it over to cook on the other side using the 'appam skewer'. The 'appam skewer' is readily available in Indian stores. Keep the flame uniform through the entire cooking process so that the 'appams' get cooked from the inside. Once done, remove from flame.

Happy Diwali...!! Kaju katli

This year , I made Kaju Katli and Rava ladoo for Diwali. For Kaju Katli, I adapted the recipe from saffronhut.blogspot.com, slightly reducing the quantity of sugar used. I have not used the 'warq' or silver foil which is normally used for decoration, coz I didn't have any!

Anyway, Now this Kaju katli reminds me of a beautiful incident that happened long long ago- say way back when my brother was a toddler. I still remember one of the Rakhi Days when he was hardly 5 and I tied a rakhi on his wrist and told him that he was supposed to "gift" me something. I still remember the plump little wide eyed darling of Amma and Appa asking me whether I liked "thakatai".meaning banana in the 'Baby's Dictionary'!!...I haughtily said no and just forgot about the ceremony in minutes. But brother of mine wearing a tiny "veshti" (moms think veshti is auspicious all the time) wrapped tightly around his round waist, fumbled and searched all his treasure ( a.k.a toys) and was thinking of the best toy to "present" me with.
At the end of the day my Chujju (that was his 'baby' name) came to me, trying to hide something at the back of his hands(though it was clearly visible), smiling constantly, showing his baby teeth triumphantly as if I never had baby teeth before!! His face and "veshti" was decorated with crayon and sketch pen marks. Seeing him drove Amma crazy and she was..." Ungalthe yaar antha colouryem sketch penneyum Kuzhandete kodukka sonna??".....Dad was blinking.... I didn't care much about the "coloured veshti" anyway and was more interested in the thing in his hands. The baby had a piece of paper with random drawings on one side like geometric shapes (this proves he was good in school) one plant like thing and a  living thing, probably an animal. And to our pleasant surprise, on the other side of the paper what I saw made me feel so happy and sad all together. Sad because I made our precious baby,who hardly understands the meaning of Rakhi, to get me a gift.

G-I-F-T

four clumsy letters on the paper, with a few corrections ofcourse!!

I must say you were very much creative to choose different colours for different letters. "This is the gift", he said.

Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies for Halloween

 

 

Oats are a good source of soluble fibre and many nutrients and thereby I try to include Oats in our daily meals. Store bought Oatmeal cookies are way too sweet for me, so I thought of making some Home- made cookies for the Holiday season. I threw a hand ful of dried cranberries which were long forgotten in my pantry.

 

 Alright, now for the recipe you will need.

 

Regular Rolled Oats (coarsely ground) : 1.5 cups

All purpose flour :  0.5 cup

Dried Cranberries  :  0.5 cup

Flax seed meal : 2 tbsp

Butter (in room temperature) : 1/4 cup

Sugar :  1/2 cup or less(I used 1/4 cup + 1 tbsp)

Salt : 1 pinch

Baking powder : 1/4 tsp

Baking soda : 1/2 tsp

Orange juice : 2 tbsp

Vanilla extract : 1/4 tsp

Egg White : 1 egg white

Milk : a few tsps

 

 

Method:

 

 Preheat oven to 350F for 15 minutes. Cream together the Butter and sugar until well incorporated. Beat in the vanilla, orange juice, milk, egg white. Add flour, flax seed meal, oats, Cranberries, Baking pwd, baking soda, salt and mix well. Spoon tablespoons of cookie dough on greased cookie sheets and flatten it with fingers. Keep 1 -2 inch gap between each cookie. Bake for 20-25 minutes or untill done. Keep a eye on the oven while baking.The house smells so delicious that I felt I was inside a giant Cookie!

 

Verdict:
Crispy on the outside, soft 'n' chewy on the inside. And the best part is when you start eating, you can't really stop. You want more n more of it and thats one good reason for never being able to stop how much you eat!!

 

Cookie fanatic!!

Besan and Oats Laddu

Ingredients (for 15-20 laddus)

Besan (gram flour) 1 1/4 cup
Rolled Oats (dry roasted & finely powdered) 1/2 cup
Semolina Flour (Suji) 1 TSP
Butter(softened) 1/2 cup
Sugar 3/4 cup
Cardamom powder 1/2 tsp


Procedure

Melt the butter in a wide mouthed heavy bottom pan.
Mix Besan and Suji. Roast this mixture in the butter on medium heat stirring constantly to prevent the Besan from burning.
Now, add the Oats powder. Make sure to keep the stove on medium to low heat and roast the mixture till it becomes light golden brown in colour.
You can smell the delicious aroma at this point.
Remove the pan from heat and add sugar and cardamom powder and mix well.

The mixture will attain the consistency of 'halwa'. Allow it to cool for sometime and use your palms to make small spherical laddus.

You can also decorate laddus with sliced almonds or cashews if desired.

For a healthier version, reduce the qty of butter and sugar

Brown Rice Laddu

This recipe reminds me of my days in college hostel where good food was rare.
My friend's mom used to pack a huge box of the laddus also known as 'ari unda',
almost every week and we had fun devouring the laddus. They taste amazing and are almost guilt free. so here goes the recipe.

Ingredients:

Brown Rice- 1 cup
Peanuts- 1/2 cup
Grated coconut- 1/2 cup
Powdered jaggery 1/4 cup
Cardamom powder - 1 tsp
a few tsp of ghee (optional)


Method:

Dry roast rice, peanuts and coconut separately and powder them. you can hear small popping of rice while roasting. This indicates that rice is getting roasted nicely. Melt jaggery in a pan and sieve the jaggery to remove the impurities. Mix the powdered mixtures and cardamom powder with the jaggery and allow it to cool so that it is warm enough to shape them into laddus using your palms. Ghee can be added if the mixture is too dry to hold as ghee helps in binding.

Lovely 'ari undas' are ready to serve. Store them in air-tight containers, preferably in refrigerator.