Vaangi Bhaat

Ingredients:

Rice - 2cups
Vankayalu/Brinjal - 1/2 kg or 8
Onions - 1/2 small
Chillis -2
Jeera - 1/2 tsp
Mustard Seeds - 1/2 tsp
Oil - 2tsp
Salt to taste

For powder:

Chana dal- 3tsp
Urad dal- 1 1/4 tsp
Ground nut - 8
Sesame seeds - 1/2 tsp
Curry leaves - 10
Dhaniyalu/Coriander seeds - 1/2 tsp
Red Chillis -3
Dry Cocunut powder - 2tsp
Turmeric - Pinch
Salt pinch
Hing - pinch

Procedure:

1. Cook rice in 3 1/2 cups of water in pressure cooker and transfer it into a bowl.
2. Add 1 tsp oil, salt and let it cool.
3. Heat a small skillet and to it add chana dal, urad dal, red chillis, ground nut, coriander seeds and dry roast them on low flame. 
4. When they are lightly brown in color add all the other ingredients mentioned in powder section and switch off the flame. 
5. Let it cool and make it a powder and store it in an air tight container.
6. Cut brinjal into long thin slices and add some oil and salt to it and keep it aside.
7. Heat a big skillet to it add oil, mustard seeds, jeera and when they start spluttering add thinly sliced onions and chillis and fry till brown in color.
8. Add the brinjal pieces and let them cook til they are slightly soft. Do not overcook.
9. Now add 4tbsp of the powder to the fried brinjals and mix well.
10. Add the cooked rice the mixture and mix well. Cover it with the lid and cook for another 5 mins and serve hot with raitha.

Ravva Laddu

Happy Dasara to all my friends and Family. As this is the season of Navaratri specials i just wanted to share at least one sweet with you all. This is one the favourite sweets to the Goddess so i made this sweet this year for Naivedhyam. This is one of the dishes that i made during these 9days and wanted to share with you all. Yet more to come in my next posts.

Ingredients:

Goduma Ravva - 1cup
Grated Coconut - 1cup
Ghee- 3tsp
Cashews- few
Grated Badam - few
Kiss Miss(Raisins)- few
 (i took 1/4 cup of each dry fruits as per our taste)
Sugar - 1 cup
Milk - as needed

Procedure:

• Heat ghee in a pan and fry the cashews and kiss miss till light brown in color and keep aside.
• In the same ghee pan add the goduma ravva on low flame fry them till light golden color and take aside in a bowl.
• Now in the same pan without any ghee add the grated coconut and fry for 5 mins and add this to the goduma ravva bowl.
• Add the fried dry fruits, elaichi powder and sugar to this mixture and mix well. 
• To this add some cold milk 1tsp at a time and mix well till they are lightly wet and good enough to make balls.
• Now make round balls when it is lightly hot only. Because if it is cold it will become hard and when cold serve.
• You can store them in refrigerator for 2 weeks to enjoy fresh ravva laddu.

Tips:

1. Make sure that you do not fry the ravva on high heat. Because it changes the color very easily which makes it taste very bitter. 
2. Be careful while adding the milk to the mixture at the end. If you add more milk it will avoid us to make balls  easily and will be sticky to hands.
3. You can add any of the dry fruits of your choice to this recipe.

Oats Cookies

Ingredients:

Quick Oats - 1/2cup
Oats Powder - 1 cup (I grinded the oats into powder but did not buy it outside)
Maida/All-purpose Flour - 1 1/2cup
Brown Sugar - 1cup
Eggs - 2
Vanilla Extract - 1tsp
Butter/Oil - 1cup
Baking Soda - Pinch
Pinch of salt

Procedure:

• Preheat oven to 350° F. 
• Beat together butter and sugars until creamy. 
• Add eggs and vanilla extract; beat well. 
• Mix flour, baking soda and salt together and keep aside. 
• Add this flour mix to the above mixture and mix well.
• Slowly stir in oats powder. 
• The mixture will be like the chapati dough. 
• Make round balls and little flat at the middle and keep them on the cookie sheets.
• On top of the biscuits add some oats and press it a bit.
• Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until golden brown. Cool 5 minutes on sheet and serve.

Daddojanam (Andhra Style)/ Curd Rice

I generally have this Daddojanam or Curd rice in temples but never tried it at home. But in one of the festivals time i did not get much time to make pulihora so i made this curd rice for the first time by asking this recipe from one of my friends and frankly saying it was not that great that day. But later with some changes to the recipe it was a big hit. First time i mixed the curd in hot rice and also used little curd, and the rice consistency to what it got cooked is also not cooked to the right amount. So to avoid all these mistakes in my second attempt i made some modulations and it came out yummy. But please do remember to follow the right amount of ingredients while doing the recipe to get the perfect Daddojanam.

Ingredients:

Rice - 1cup
Curd - 5cups
Cashews - 1hand full
Chana Dal - 2tsp
Urad dal - 1tsp
Mustard Seeds - 1tsp
Curry leaves - 15
Jeera - 1tsp
Green Chillis - 2
Ginger - 1/2 inch piece
Red Chillis - 2
Asafoetida - pinch
Oil - 1tsp
Ghee - 2tsp
Coriander Leaves - hand full
Carrot - 1/2 cup grated
Keera/Dosakaya - 1/4 cup(optional)
Salt to taste

Procedure:

• First cook rice with 1cup rice and 2 1/2cups water in a pressure cooker and remove it out and let it cool and  keep aside.
• Now make a paste of green chillis, ginger, jeera and salt together.
• Heat ghee in a pan, fry cashews till light brown colour and keep aside.
• In the same pan add the oil(or ghee is fine), chana dal, urad dal fry for 2 mins till light color change
• Add red chillis, mustard, jeera, curry leaves added and fry for 2 mins on low flame. 
• Now in this add the green chilli paste that we made above and a pinch of hing. 
• Now we get an aroma of the hing mixed with all the ingredients.
• This mixture is now mixed into the rice and also the cashews, grated carrot(half of the quantity), grated keera, salt is also added to rice. 
• Add the whipped curd into the rice and mix well till all the ingredients are well mixed.
• Now garnish it with the carrot on top and serve it cool. 

Points to remember:

1. Make sure you mix all the ingredients only after the rice is cool. Otherwise if you add it when hot then it may become hard after it gets cool. So better to add in when cool.
2. Use only fresh curd rather than sour one. Because after sometime it may change the taste to sour, so if we use sour curd it becomes more worst. To avoid this add little more salt too.
3. To get the గుడి(temple) style daddojanam add whole pepper corns instead of green chillis.