Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Godhuma Rava Payasam | Gothambu Payasam | Wheat Payasam

Sweets are one of those dishes represent special occasion, celebration & joy in our life. Today is my FIL's b'day & they are with us here to celebrate it. At first I thought of making some yummy " Besan Ladoo " & my thoughts jumped on to many options. Later my thoughts finalized this delicious payasam.
When I saw this recipe on "Kitchen Corner" blog I immediately bookmarked it & waited for right time to make it.I did some additional changes to recipe which turned out super delicious & got me lots of compliments.
In fact I was worried about my hubby who hates broken wheat in any form.But he just drooled it with no hesitation.. Pheww... I'm happy with the dish now.



Ingredients 
1 Cup broken wheat 
1/4 Cup moong dal 
1/2 Cup coconut flakes or grated coconut
1 Cup milk ( Used 1% fat milk)
1/2 Cup almonds
2 Tsp elachi powder
1/2 Cup sugar
1/2 Cup jaggery
2 Tbs ghee
2 Tbs chopped raisins & chopped almonds 


Pressure cook broken wheat & moong dal together. Meanwhile soak grated coconut & almonds in milk.Leave them for 30mins. 
Now grind soaked almonds & coconut along with milk to smooth paste. To that I added pressure cooked wheat,dal & grind it coarsely.
In a wide pan melt jaggery & sugar. Add the ground mixture to pan & mix it sweet mixture. Keep stirring it so that it won't stick to bottom. Cook for 5 mins & switch off heat. Now add elachi powder to payasam & allow it to cool. 




Heat a small pan with ghee along with sliced almonds & raisins. Fry them till almonds turn brown. (At this point raisins get a chewy effect & I love it.. ) Then add to payasam & mix them well.



Note (Very Importent):
1. You can use coconut milk instead of grated coconut.Grated coconut is just a replacement to coconut milk. 
2. You don't have to grind wheat & dal. I did it so that my hubby will not get that flaky wheat while having it. 
3. You can use just jaggery.. I'm used to half & half of jaggery & sugar. I like the taste of sweetness it gives.

 

Monday, March 19, 2012

Coconut-Oats Ladoo’s - Guest Post by Lubna Karim

Today I'm very happy to announce about guest post series "Something Sweet". For my first post I invited Lubna Karim of Yummy food  who is well known in blog world for her "Food Photography" series. She is here to share her yummy recipe with all of us. 


Narration by Lubna: 
This is my first ever guest post in the blog wold and I thank Sreevalli of Ammaji Recipes  for this. When Sreevalli asked me to do a guest post on her blog, she said she wanted a traditional dessert or sweet or cake for the post. With no further thinking, I settled with this recipe…as this recipe is sweet and traditional too….
Before going further into the recipe...I want to share something sweet associated with the recipe. I am not so very sweet/dessert loving person. I rarely make them…but my sweet little sister is a huge fan of sweets. She can munch on sweets at anytime of the day or even at night. It is only because of her…I try to learn new sweet recipes….. However they might turn out…she is the only one who appreciates, admires and relishes. Upon calling for help in making sweets….she does grating/mixing/frying…..and with much patience waits for me to complete the recipe…. So that she can attack on. 



Some days back when she was here, she had this urge to eat something sweet and I was in no mood to make something elaborate. So I thought of making this simple and gratifying sweet. When I told her what I was going to make…she jumped with joy and even got ready to help me out with scraping the coconut…such a sweet girl…As more than half of my work was done by her….it took very less time for me to whizz up these golden ladoo’s….before I start to shape the second one, the first one was already taken by her….saying….let me taste it….to that I can tell you if everything is in proportion or not..….Jshe was very happy to eat it off and she complimented me saying she has never tasted such yum ladoo’s…there are more tastier than the store bought ones….may be because you made them with love for me….with mouth filled with ladoo she planted a kiss on my cheek….my kiddo little sweet sis….Scroll down for the recipe…


Kobbari Louz/Kobbari Undalau/Coconut-Oats Ladoo’s:
The original or traditional recipe doesn’t include oats and nuts. It is purely optional. It is your choice to add or not to add. But the nuts will give nutty taste and texture to the juicy and chewy coconut ladoo’s.


INGREDIENTS:
2 cups of fresh grated Coconut
¾ cup Jaggery, grated
¼ tbsp. green Cardamom powder
4 tbsp Oats, optional (I used Quaker Brand Oats)
3 tbsp Dry nuts powder, see notes
Ghee, for binding


PREPERATION:
Dry roast oats on low flame, cool and grind to fine powder.
Combine grated coconut and jaggery in a heavy bottom cooking vessel and keep stirring on a low flame.
After sometime jaggery starts to melt and gets combine with fresh grated coconut, add cardamom powder and mix well.
Cook until the mixture starts to leave the sides of the vessel. Turn off the flame and add oats powder along with dry nuts powder. Mix well.
Leave it to cool for sometime and when the mixture is still warm, grease your palms with ghee and shape into ladoo’s of your desirable size.


Last but not least add your 'love' to make the dish 'YUMMY'. J

STORAGE:
You can store them for a week in an air tight container.

NOTES: For ‘Dry Nuts Powder’, I used 1 tbsp. of each cashews, almonds and walnuts. Tossed in microwave on high for 1 minute and powdered coarsely. You can even make a fine powder. I did coarse powder to get that nutty flavor.


To round off I would love to thank Lubna Karim for accepting my invitation to this event & for her prompt response too :)

 

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Carrot Cabbage Poriyal | Carrot Cabbage Stir Fry

Sometimes it takes very simple ingredients to blend into a tasteful recipe. This is one of those recipes which takes less time to cook & turns out yumm. I love trying cabbage with green beans,peas & carrots or even mixing all together. 
This month I was paired with Santosh Bangar of Santosh's Kitchen. She has lots of flavorful dishes & it was very hard for me to choose a single dish from them. I chose "Cabbage peas easy stire" & I did made some changes to it according to my taste.


Ingredients 
2 Cups chopped cabbage 
1 Cup chopped carrot
2 Green chilli's sliced in to half
2 Tbs curry powder
1 Tsp mustard seeds
1 Tsp jeera seeds
1 Tsp channa dal
1 Tsp urad dal 
2 Tbs oil
Salt
Curry leaves for flavor



Curry Powder
2 Tbs channa Dal 
2 Tbs urad Dal 
1 Tbs peanuts 
4 Red chilli's
Dry roast the above ingredients & allow them to cool.Grind them to a smooth powder.






Heat a pan with oil, channa & urad dal. Fry them till they turn light brown & add mustard, jeera to pan. Once the mustard starts jumping mix green chilli's & curry leaves to pan. Then mix cabbage,carrot & salt to pan.Close it with a lid & allow it to cook. Check carrots if they are cooked & then stir in curry powder.Cook for 5mins & switch off heat. 
Curry is ready to serve with rice or roti. 

 Note:
You can adjust the spiciness by removing green chili's.


I got a good critique from everyone who tasted it. So give it a try.. :)