Maavu Ladoo with nuts

This is a healthy snack recipe specially for kids as it is made from whole wheat flour and nuts along with ghee. This post is specially for my friend Shalini who asked for some snack recipe for her son.

Ingredients:
Whole wheat flour - 2 cups
Sugar - 1.5 cup (depends on how sweet you want)
Nuts - 1 cup (I used almonds and cashew)
Elaichi powder - 1/2 tbsp
Salt - a pinch
Ghee as needed

Jangiri/Jhangri

I never thought making Jangiri would be easy. We used to get Jalebi in Indian Shops but I was missing our own Jangiri with the amazing aroma of rose essence. So I decided to make my own one. So I watched a number of videos on YouTube to know how exactly it is done. To my wonder, it was just simple with few ingredients. You just need Urad dal and sugar syrup and some oil to deep fry them. Well I made it finally today. It didn't turn fluffy, may be because i ground the batter in Mixie. Preparing the batter in wet grinder allows more aeration to it and also makes it fluffy. I used normal cover to press them into the oil. It would also work with squeeze bottle/Piping bag used for icing.

Rava Ladoo

I made this rava ladoo for Gokulashtami today. Even if I have made it so many times before, I felt like it came out perfect this time.

Ingredients:
Rava - 1 cup
Sugar - 1 cup
Cardamom - 3 or 4
Ghee as needed

Method:
Dry roast rava till it gets roasted. Powder rava once its cooled.
Powder the sugar along with cardamom.
Take all the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl.
Add ghee and make the powder into small balls. Enjoy :)

dry roast rava

powder rava and sugar

add ghee

make them into small balls

enjoy these rava ladoo.. :)

Rava Paniyaram

This paniyaram is a solution to your sudden craving for something sweet. This is easy to make and the ingredients are readily available most of the time.
Ingredients:
Maida - 1 cup
Rava - 1 cup
Rice flour - 2 tbsp
Jaggery - 1 cup (you can replace with sugar)
Salt - 1 pinch

Method:
Mix all the dry ingredients first, then add the jaggery and enough water to make to a dosa batter consistency.( I made a jaggery syrup to remove impurities, so just used the same)
Heat oil in a pan and once the oil is hot enough, pour a laddle full of batter into the oil, wait for a min, it will raise and come above, then flip the other side.
Keep the flame in medium to cook the paniyaram perfectly. Do the same with rest of the batter.

take all dry ingredients

add jaggery syrup,sorry missed some steps

paniyaram ready

Gulab Jamun

I am a big fan of gulab jamun. I crave for it frequently. The first time I made it using pre-mix, it was a total disaster. Nothing wrong with the mix, I didn't know to make it properly. But today, I didn't even have any instant mixes to do it atonce. I found this recipe in my treasure book (book I used before for noting down my fav recipes). I finally made it today. Yey it was so soft and yummy too. So here is the recipe. I have added step by step pic as much as possible.

Ingredients:
Milk powder - 1 cup
Maida/all purpose flour - 2 tbsp
Sooji/Rava - 1 tbsp
Baking powder - a pinch
Milk - 1/4 cup
Ghee - 2 tbsp

For Sugar syrup:
Sugar - 1 cup
Water - 3/4 cup
Cardamom - 3 to 4 (powder it with some sugar for fine powder)
Almonds - to garnish

Method:
1. Take all the dry ingredients in a bowl. Give a quick mix. At the same time, get the sugar syrup ready. I didn't look for any thread consistency. I just waited till the sugar dissolved and simmered for 10 mins.

2.Then add Ghee to the mixture and mix it. It makes it a crumbly mixture. Then add milk little by little to make it like a chapathi dough. It should be soft.

3. Keep it aside for few mins. Then roll them into small balls whatever size you want.

4.Deep fry them in oil. The flame should be low. Don't turn it hard as it might break. Try to get even color.

5.Drain out the excess oil.

6.Drop it immediately into the sugar syrup. The sugar syrup should be warm.

7. Garnish with almond and pistachios. Allow to soak for atleast an hr. I like to refrigerate it :)

Wheat Atta Ladoo

This is a quick and easy to make dessert. When you have guests at home in a short notice, this recipe helps you a lot. This is a simple recipe with very few ingredients.

Ingredients:
Wheat atta - 1 cup
Nuts - 1/2 cup any choice
Sugar - 1 cup or less
Ghee - as needed
Elaichi or cardamom - 3 or 4

Method:
1. Dry roast the wheat flour on low flame till you get a nice aroma.
2. Powder the sugar and cardamom into a fine powder.
3. Coarsely grind the nuts of your choice and melt the ghee.
4. In a mixing bowl, mix the flour, nuts and sugar and by slowly adding the ghee, roll them into balls.
5. Let the balls stay for a while and serve it.

This is a health snack as well as we add nuts and make it with whole meal atta. Enjoy!!!

Carrot Halwa

This was my guest post for "Shyama's tastes". Thought of sharing it for my readers too. Making carrot halwa was my long time dream. Finally I made it and here is the recipe.

Ingredients:

(Serves 2)

Carrot	3 or 4 cups grated
Sugar	½ to ¾ cup
Milk	2 cups
Condensed milk(optional)	3 tbsp
Cardamom	4
Nuts(almonds,cashew,pista)	3 or 4 tbsp
Raisin	2 tbsp
Ghee	3 tbsp
Salt	A pinch

Method:

1.       In a heavy bottomed pan(I used pressure cooker bottom) , heat a tbsp of ghee and fry the nuts and raisin and set aside.

2.       In the same pan, heat rest of the ghee and add the carrot gratings and fry for a second. Then add 2 cups of milk and allow the carrot to cook.

3.       Keep the flame on low or medium. Once all the milk has evaporated, add condensed milk, sugar, pinch of salt and cardamom(I powdered sugar and cardamom in a mixer).

4.       Keep stirring till it gets a bit dry and consistency as of halwa. Garnish with nuts and raisin. Serve warm. Happy eating

  

Notes:

·         If you are adding condensed milk, reduce the amount of sugar you are adding.

·         Adding raisin is also optional. Some people may not like it in halwa.

Milk Peda

This was the guest post by my long time buddy Saranya Bhubesh who is my best friend ever since we were in school. She got a passion for cooking and a person to experiment. What else is the qualification to become a better cook.(lol). I am happy that she accepted to make a guest post for me when I asked her. And here is the first one from her kitchen. Enjoy!!

Ingredients required to make this 3 minutes Milk Peda are listed below.

Ingredients	Quantity
Milk Powder	1 Cup
Condensed Milk	100gms
Butter	2 Tablespoon
Ghee	1 Tablespoon
Salt	Pinch

1)In a microwave bowl, first melt the ghee and butter together. This is done to add taste to Peda as well as to grease the microwave bowl to make the Peda's non sticky.

 

2)Once the butter and ghee are melted, put the Milk powder and condensed milk together and mix it well.

3)Microwave this mixture for 1 minute. After 1 minute remove the bowl from microwave and again stir the mixture.

 

4)Again microwave the mixture for 1 minute and after that take out the bowl and stir it.

5)Now add a pinch of salt to this mixture and again microwave for 1 minute.

6)Now the mixture is cooked well and it should be of the consistency of making peda.

7)Yummy Peda is ready.
8)You can make the peda's in ur desired shape using shape cutter or make it as balls.
9)If you are not diet conscious, you can even decorate the peda with pista or badam.
11)If you dont take out the bowl and stir it for every one minute, mixture will get burnt. So be sure to take out the bowl for every one minute.
10)You can make upto 20 balls of peda in the quantity mentioned.

Pooran Poli / Sweet poli

Poli is my all time favourite. Love it with paal payasam. I came across this recipe ingredient at the back of a pack we got in shop today. Then came home and was looking for the recipe online. I saw a few recipes, mixed up everything and final outcome was a modified one. And I got a thumps up from my hubby for the taste.

Ingredients:

All purpose flour/Maida	1 cup
Salt	A pinch
Water	Enough to make the dough
Channa dal	1 cup
Sugar	¾ cup
Elaichi powder	2 tbsp

Method:

1.       First step is to prepare the stuffing. Pressure cook the channa dal with a pinch of salt. Once the pressure is released. Mash it well. Keep it on low flame and add the sugar and elaichi powder. It might become a little watery as the sugar melts. Keep stirring on low flame so that it becomes like chapathi dough. Allow it to cool.

2.       Next make a dough with maida and water along with a pinch of salt like that of chapathi dough.

3.       Next take a small ball of the dough and spread it like chapathi. Take a small ball of the stuffing and place it in middle. Cover it with the dough and make a ball again.

4.       Again spread it like chapathi. Put on tawa and allow it to cook. You can spray oil or a little ghee. It tasted awesome and was all over within 10 mins

5.       The above measurement makes 4 to 5 poli.

Mothagam/Suzhiyam

                   This is MM's favorite.So learnt after marriage and made as a surprise to him on vinayagar chathurthi and made it recently a month ago too.Here comes the recipe.

Ingredients:

Green gram/cherupayar-2 cups(pressure cooked)

Jaggery-1 cup shredded(depends on how sweet you want)

Maida/All purpose flour-4 tbsp

Oil to deep fry

Method:

1. Take the pressure cooked green gram and mix it with jaggery.Make small balls out of it.Keep it aside to dry a bit.
2. Then mix maida in water and bring to idly batter consistency.
3. Heat oil.Drop the balls in the maida batter,make a cover like for it and then drop it in the oil and deep fry.Yummy suzhiyams are ready.

Rava Kesari

                    This is a simple sweet which almost everyone knew.. yet wanted to add to my blog :)

Ingredients:

Rava/Sooji-1 cup

Sugar-2 cups

Water-3 cups

Ghee-4 tbsp

Food color-any(optional)

Cashews and raisins-3 tbsp each

Method:

1. Dry roast the rava well.Make sure that u dont burn it.A nice aroma will come if its completely roasted.Keep aside.
2. Take remaining ghee in a pan and fry the cashews and raisins and keep this also aside.
3. In a heavy bottomed pan,Take required amount of water.(its in the ratio rava:sugar:water=1:2:3).Bring it to boil.Then add a pinch of salt and the food color and stir well.Then add in the roasted rava little by little and keep stirring.
4. Make sure that there are no lumps formed.Then add in the sugar.Here also no lumps should be formed.
5. Keep stiring on low flame.Then add in the roasted cashews and raisins.If you dont want to get hard solidified kesari,turn off flame when its lil watery.

Paal kozhukattai

Here comes the second fav recipe of Maama.. Its quiet a easy one to do too..

Ingredients:

Rice Flour-2 cups(roughly makes about 20 to 25 urundais)
Jaggery-1 cube (depends on the individual taste)
Thick Cocunut milk/normal milk-1 cup
Salt
Cardamom/elachi-3 or 4

Method:

1. Mix rice flour,a pinch of salt and hot water like that of chapathi dough form.Make small balls out of it and keep it aside.
2. Take a heavy bottomed vessel and boil water in it.When the water starts to boil,bring to medium flame and drop the balls into it.See that all the balls are immersed well or you can do it in 2 turns.
3. It roughly takes about 20 mins to get cooked.
4. At the mean time,Grate the jaggery,If you are thinking about impurities,you can take it as sarkarai paagu and add to the kozhukattai.
5. finally add the cocunut milk/milk and allow it to boil for a sec.Add in crushed cardamom.Serve hot.

Wheat rava laddu

Ingredients:
Kodumai ravai-1.5 cup
Sugar-3/4 cup
Ghee
elaichi-5 0r 6

Method:
1.Fry the rava and elaichi in a pan for about 20 mins till the raw smell goes away.Make sure that the rava doesnt get burnt.Its better to keep the flame on sim
2.Remove the rava from stove and allow it to cool.
3.Add the sugar to the mixture and grind well in a blender
4.Heat the ghee and add to them and mix well
5.Make small balls from the mixture and allow them to dry.Store in air tight container

Carrot Payasam

             This yummy payasam was made by Mano, my co-sister.We enjoyed having it.Hope you also enjoy trying it .

Ingredients:
Carrot-2 or 3
Sugar
Condensed milk-a tin
milk-1 cup
ghee-2 tbsp
cocunut-2 tbsb
elachi,raisin and cashews-some

Method:
1.Pressure cook the carrots without water for about 10 mins.need not put weight.And open and set aside to cool
2.Fry the grated cocunut in some ghee.and after it cools down.grind the cocunut along with cashews into a smooth paste.
3.after the carrot cools down,grind it also into a smooth paste
4.then take a heavy bottomed vessel and mix both the pastes together.keep the burner in sim.then add a cup of water,the condensed milk and milk and keep stirring.Fry the raisin in ghee and add to the mixture.
5.Allow the mixture to boil and add the elachi when it is boiling.Yummy payasam is ready!!!


I ll upload the pics soon.Do try and tell me your comments