Sweet Pongadalu with Coconut

Ingredients:

Raw rice - 1 cup
Grated coconut - 1/2 cup
Cardamom pods -5 tsp
Grated jaggery - 1 1/2 cups
Wheat flour - 1/4 cup
Oil for deep frying

Procedure:

• Soak raw rice for 1 -2 hours.
• Drain the water completely and grind the rice first in a mixie.Then add little water, grated coconut, cardamom pods and grind it to a smooth paste. 
• Add grated jaggery to it and mix well till it dissolves.
• Then add wheat flour and mix well .The batter should be of dosa batter consistency, so adjust accordingly by adding the flour.
• The batter need not ferment, you should make pongadalu immediately after grinding it.
• Heat oil in a small kadai, keep it in medium flame, take a small amount of batter in a small ladle or ice cream scooper and drop it gently into the oil. One pongadam at a time is preferred. 
• When it puffs and float on the oil, turn over and cook the other side also till golden brown(refer notes if it is not comes out in the correct shape). Drain the oil using a slotted ladle and take it out from the kadai. 
• Repeat the same process for the rest of the batter.
• Sweet pongadalu is ready to be served. It can had as a tea time snack.

Notes:

• If it sticks to the pan when the batter is dropped into the kadai, then the batter is thin and need to adjust the consistency by adding little wheat flour.
• If the pongadam gets squeezed and rises up rather than puffing up in the middle and flat on the edges then the batter is thick and need to adjust the consistency by adding little water of 1 tbsp at a time. 

Eggless Wholewheat Dates Cake/Cupcakes

Ingredients:

Dates - 18 to 20 (preferred seedless)
Milk - 3/4th cup
Sugar - 3/4th cup
All purpose Flour/ Maida - 1cup (or) Whole wheat flour - 1cup
Oil - 1/2 cup
Baking Soda - 1tsp
Cashews/Walnuts/Pecans/Almonds - 1/2 cup (chopped) use any nuts you have.

Procedure:

• Soak dates in warm milk or just microwave for 5 mins till warm so that the dates turn soft enough to grind.
• Add sugar and along with the milk and dates into a blender and grind it to a smooth paste.
• Take this in a large mixing bowl. Add oil and mix.
• Sieve together flour and baking soda in a separate bowl.
• Add the flour 1 tsp at a time and mix well with a spatula.
• Add nuts and mix well. Do not over mix it.
• Preheat oven at 350F. Bake the cake in a greased oven proof dish for 35-40 mins or till the knife inserted in the cake comes out clean. (or) Pour the batter in the cupcake molds. But it takes only 20- 25 mins to cook the cupcakes.
• Cut it into pieces and serve the cake. For cup cakes transfer them onto the cooling rack and serve when cool.

This cake is more yummier the next day.

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.

Dry Fruit Laddu

Hi friends!!!! So how was ur weeknd??? After a long weekend break and a fresh start for the month here is my recipe starting with a sweet.... :)
So i think everyone had a great time with all the trips and all.... Now got the time to visit and come with more and more recipes i think.... So today's recipe is my sisters recipe that she prepared recently. Here we have used some dry fruits that are readily available at home and no need for any special purchase.

So i think everyone is very tired with the trips and needs some energy now... ;) Dry fruits are good for health and it gives energy, also a good way to make our kids have some energetic food in this form. Almonds are the nuts which eliminate the bad cholesterol from the body and dates increase the hameoglobin levels in our body. So the whole family can have these laddus. Try it once buddies!



Ingredients:

Dates – I cup (seedless)
Almonds – ½ cup
Cashew nuts (kaju) – ½ cup
Raisins – ¼ cup
Sesame seeds – 1 tsp
Ghee – 2 tsp

Procedure:

• Deseed the dates and grind them in little pieces.
• Fry the almonds , cashew nuts and raisins in the ghee.
• Now add the dry fruits along with the ghee and 1 tsp of sesame seeds with date pieces. Mix them well.
• Now make them into small balls or laddus.The yummy and healthy easy laddu is ready.

Cool Biscuit Cake

Thinking what this might be?????? Yeah me too thought a lot for this and kept this name...So at last finally my mind stopped at this name which is most apt one. I just tried something that is left over from so many days at home. I think this is the case with many people and will be left with just some. So can go with the recipe and enjoy the cool dish. You need very little items and can be made easily and a good snack for kids. Kids wil love these a lot.... :)

Ingredients :-

Biscuits - 1 small packet (Parle-G/ Marie biscuit pkt )

Kisses Chocolate - 10 to 12 (or any cadbury chocolates of ur choice)

Milk - 1cup Sugar - 1tsp (optional)

Butter paper - 1

Procedure :-

• Firstly melt the chocolates in a pan or oven and keep it aside.
• Then take one cup of milk (bolied and cooled). Dip the biscuit in the cup of milk and place it on the butter paper.(do not keep it for long in the milk else it may melt. So just dip and take)



• Now apply the melted chocolate like the cream which is prepared on the biscuit. Again take another biscuit and follow the above procedure for 4 to 5 biscuits.



• Now the biscuits are one above the other with chocolate applied the middle.




• Roll the pile of biscuits in a butter paper carefully and just pack it.
• Keep it in the freezer for 1hour. And take it out.
• Lastly slowly unwrap the roll. And cut the roll diagonally into pieces.
• Now you may observe the biscuit and chocolate in a zigzag way.
• Serve chilled to the guests.(If its kept outside then it may melt and does not taste that good). Really it’s a yummy dish.

Im sending this to Thanda Mela! by Srivalli for Cooking For all Seasons.

Peanut Halwa

Ingredients :-

Peanut - 1 small cup
Few Badam
Sugar - 1cup
Maida - 3tsp
Milk - 3tsp
Ghee - 3tsp (can add as more as u want :))
Water - 2cups
Elaichi - 7 to 10
small Pinch of red colour

Procedure :-

• In a pan dry roast the peanuts and badam for few mins till they turn light brown colour and take them aside.



• When they are cool add elaichi's to it and grind it into a powder (ok if some badam pieces are left over).
• Now take them into a plate, add maida, sugar to it and mix well and keep aside.





• Heat a pan add water, milk, colour and let it boil.
• When boiling add ghee and the powdered mix and keep mixing (else lumps may be formed) till it is mixed thoroughly without any lumps.
• Keep mixing and it will become a little watery(means the sugar is dissolving) you can see air bubbles coming out and then it starts thickening.





• Now as we are mixing it forms a thick lump and immediately dump it into serving bowl (it will become thick more as it is cooled) and decorate it with chopped Badam and pour some powdered mix (the one we prepared before) on top of it.
• Now when it is cool you can cut it into pieces and serve it.




• All the pain that you went through stirring vanishes as soon as you have a bite of the halwa. :)Believe me it melts in your mouth and cant wait to have a second bite of it.

Im very excited to participate in this as its my first event. Im posting this recipe to for MMLA edition #22 hosted by Ruchikacooks, originally started by Susan of The Well Seasoned Cook

Bread Sweet Pie

Ingredients:-
Bread - 4 slices
Sugar - 1 cup
Water - 1 1/2 cup
Ghee - 3tsp
Elaichi - 5
Badam and Cashews - as many u want




Procedure:-

• Heat the pan and add water and to it add sugar and let it boil till it is a little thick (letha pakam).
• Meanwhile roast the bread slices in a toaster and remove the edges.
• Cut the slices into four equal pieces and keep aside.
• Now heat the pan, add ghee and to it add the bread crunches jus for 2-3 mins and take it out.
• When the sugar syrup is ready then add elachi powder, bread pieces to it and take it out within 10mins from it. (otherwise bread pieces may get smashed and is not good for serving )
• Now to these slices as a topping add the roasted badam and cashew powder on it and decorate it with badam and cashews on each piece.
• You can pour some sugar syrup on top of it and refrigerate it for 1hour before serving.

Annavaram prasadam

Ingredients:-

Cracked wheat - 1 cup
Water - 2 cups
Milk - 1 cup
Jaggery - 1 cup
Ghee - 3 table spoons (the more you add ghee, the better it tastes)
Cardamoms - 3 no.
Cashews and Raisins - handful (for garnishing)



Procedure:-

• Heat 1 tsp of ghee in a pan and fry cashews and raisins. Set them aside when they turn brown in color.


• In the same pan add cracked wheat and fry for 5 mins. Set it aside.


• Add 2 cups of water to the pan, add jaggery and cardamom. When water starts boiling, add wheat and cook until it is 3/4th done.


• Add milk and let it cook till soft


• Add the remaining ghee and cook for 1 min.


• Garnish with cashews and raisins.