Microwave Milk Peda

Hope you all had a wonderful Diwali!

I made these pedas and i took the recipe from Lazzat and it was easy and yummy. I followed the recipe with very slight moderation.


Ingredients:
Milk powder - 2 cups
Sweetened condensed milk - 1 can (14oz)
Butter - 3 spoons
Cardamom powder - 2,3 pinches
Saffron - few strings
Unsalted Roasted Nuts (of your choice) - to garnish.

Method : Take the butter in a microwave safe bowl and melt it for a minute. Add the milk powder, condensed milk, cardamom powder and crushed saffron and mix well. Heat in the microwave for approximately 5 minutes stirring every minute. You should heat it till you get a slightly crumbly texture as it will harden up little more when it cools down. Let it cool.

Apply some ghee to your palms and roll them and flatten them. Garnish with nuts.

I did not have the patience to wait till it cooled down so i could not get the perfect shape :-( Also, it tasted great but i could still smell the milk powder slightly, probably because i used a different brand this time as i did not find Nestle milk powder. That didn't stop me from eating them though :-)

Along with this i made Ribbon Pakoda and Channa daal payasam for diwali, but i dont have a good pic of ribbon. Will post the payasam soon.

Sending this to Sweet Series

Not a recipe..Just some nice thoughts

I got this in a mail and loved these :

• Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
• You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagreements.
• Don't compare your life with others'. You have no idea what their journey is...
• No one is incharge of your happiness, except YOU.
• What other people think of you is none of your business.
• However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
• Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will..stay in touch...
• Forgive everyone for everything.
• Remember you are too blessed to be stressed.
• The BEST is yet to come...BELIEVE!

Mani Kozhakkatai / Ammini Kozhakkatai

Lot of people call this Ammani kozhakkatai and i find that name funny, so i will stick to what we call it at home. Mani means beads and they kinda looks like beads and my grandpa's nickname was mani, so i like it this way :-) This is my favorite snack and it's healthy too.

My grandma and mom used to make it with remaining dough after making Modakams and Uppu Kozhakkatai for Vinayaka Chaturthi. It was my favorite so i used to ask my grandma to make it frequently for us as evening snack and i used to help her in rolling those mani kozhakkatais. When i shared my memory with my first son, he got all excited and said he wants to roll it too and he helped me with it. With that, we also invited some trouble. My little one wanted to join the fun and as we were rolling the kozhakkatais, he was busy squashing them and making them flat. We still managed to make a decent no. of kozhakkatais and both my boys loved it. I have decided to make it often as evening snacks for them.

For the dough :
Rice flour - 1 cup
Water - 1 cup
Salt - as required
Red chilli powder - 1 spoon (optional)
Oil - 1 spoon
To grind :
Urad daal - 1/2 cup
Green chillies - 3
Hing - a pinch
For the seasoning :
Mustard seeds, hing, urad daal and curry leaves.

Method :

Dough :
Boil water. Reduce the heat and add the rice flour, salt and oil and stir till you get the dough like consistency. Remove from heat, cover and let it cool. Apply oil to your hands, add the redchilli powder and knead well. Now roll the dough into small balls. Steam them in Idly cooker or Pressure cooker without the weight for 7-10 minutes.
For Mani kozhakkatais,
Soak urad daal for about an hour. Grind it into thick paste with greenchillies and hing.
Place this paste in idli plates and steam for 10 minutes. Once it cools, crumble it.
Heat little oil, add mustard seeds, curry leaves and hing. Once the mustard seeds pop, add a spoon of urad daal and fry till golden brown and add the crumbled urad daal mix and salt and saute for couple of minutes or till well cooked. I like it when they are brown and have the roasted look and cook till i get that. Add the mani kozhakkatais and mix well and cook for another minute or two. This was an instant hit with my kids.

Sending this to Srivalli's Kid's Delight

Navarathri Wishes and Sundal Recipes

Happy Navarathri to y'all. I am so surprised that i'm posting this on time ;-)
Ok ok let me tell you the truth...these recipes were in my draft since last navarathri!! :-O
Better late than never..

Navarathri always brings some good memories. My dad's house they did not have golu so my mom followed that and did not keep Golu till my niece was born :-) For those who do not know what a Golu is, check this link. This 3D Golu is something new. Usually it is just 2D. My mil keeps Golu every year, so i follow that tradition and keep a teeny tiny Golu here. I dont have any golu dolls here and i just use the ones i have and set up a small golu.


My childhood friend R lived across our house and they celebrated Navarathri in a grand way. She used to wear Pattu pavadai everyday and her mom dressed her li'l sister as Krishna, Radha etc., everyday. I came home one day and threw a huge fit that we should have golu at our house too and i want to wear Pattu pavadai (Full skirt in pure silk) everyday too. My mom and grandma were surprised because i never liked pavadais. The next year they setup Golu at our house too and i was quite happy and satisfied and didn't care to ask after that. We never continued that tradition though due to one reason or the other.At our house, we celebrated Saraswathy pooja in a grand way. I always got some new outfit for Saraswathy pooja and my mom would decorate a arisi padi like a woman. She had nose and ears made out of wax and she would attach it every year to the padi and draw eyes with kajal and draw lips (not sure if she used lipstick or kumkum) and then fill the padi with rice and keep coconut on top of it like head and decorate it with chutti. I loved watching that. She had earrings attached to the wax ears and would put some necklace or chain too. It was a pretty sight. She used to invite all our relatives and neighbours for tambulam. It is a tradition in tamilnadu, to ask the guests to sing during navarathri. It can be an enjoyable experience or a torture depending on who sings ;-) My brother always stayed out of it... Me and my cousin V (who is a great singer) always made the best out of it..If it was good, we enjoyed it and if it was bad, it was no torture for us..we both would run to the next room and giggle to our hearts' content, much to the annoyance of my mom and grandma :D But, what we hated was, every house we visited they would make sure to take revenge on us and asked us to sing too. I was not as good at singing as my cousin,but i did pretty good when i sang with him. So, i hope no one ran inside and laughed at us :-) My cousin used to hate me for this for years because i always used to force him to go with me as i was scared to sing alone :) You can check out how talented he is here

Along with these things, navarathri always meant sundal. Sundal is a healthy snack for kids, rich in protein and very filling.I make it quite often at home. Here are three sundals and all sundals are made pretty much the same way except one that is sweet and i cannot stand it and i have never made it.. :-)

Here are some recipes with slight variations :
Quick fix Sundal :
If i forget to soak for sundal the previous night channa daal or peanuts come to my rescue. I prepare both sundals the same way.

Ingredients :
Channa daal or Peanuts - 1 cup
Green chillies - 3 or 4
Salt
Mustard seeds,
Urad daal, Curry leaves and Hing for seasoning

Method : Soak channa daal or peanuts for 1 hour. Boil it in water till it is cooked but not mushy. (Add salt in water for Peanuts)Drain the water. In a pan, heat little oil and pop mustard seeds. Add urad daal, hing and curry leaves and fry till the daal is golden brown. Add the cooked channa or Peanuts and add salt as required and saute for couple of minutes.

Thenga Manga Pattani Sundal or Marina Beach Sundal:

I love peas sundal, the Marina beach style - with coconut and raw mango pieces.
Ingredients :
Peas - 1 cup
Green chillies - 3 or 4
SaltRaw mango pieces - as required
Grated coconut - 4 spoons.
Mustard seeds, Urad daal, Curry leaves and Hing for seasoning

Method : Soak the peas overnight. Add a spoon of salt in water and boil the peas in water till it is cooked but not mushy. Drain the water. In a pan, heat little oil and pop mustard seeds. Add urad daal, hing and curry leaves and fry till the daal is golden brown. Add the cooked Peas and add salt as required and saute for couple of minutes. Add grated coconut and raw mango pieces and mix well and saute for another minute.

(Channa) Chickpeas Sundal - Method 1 :

Method 1 is same method as above. Substitute Peas with Channa, but you can pressure cook the channa in salted water.Rest is the same. You can add some grated coconut. It is optional.

Chickpeas Sundal - Method 2 :

Ingredients : Chickpeas - 1 cup

Green chillies - 3 or 4

Salt

Curry powder - 2 spoons

Mustard seeds,

Urad daal,

Curry leaves and Hing for seasoning

Method : Soak the chickpeas overnight. Add a spoon of salt in water and pressure cook the chickpeas. Drain the water. In a pan, heat little oil and pop mustard seeds. Add urad daal, hing and curry leaves and fry till the daal is golden brown. Add the cooked chickpeas and add salt as required and saute for couple of minutes. Add 2 spoons of curry powder and saute till the raw smell disappears. This is very spicy and yum and my favorite version :)

I am back with Oats Rava Idli

Hello everyone!! Sorry for disappearing all of a sudden. I was not planning to take a break and was thinking of blogging atleast once a week, but i just could not squeeze in any time. Usually when i take a break from blogging, i used to blog hop atleast, but i could not spend a minute on blogging or blog hopping. I really missed a lot of yummy recipes, yummy events and so on.
I hope i can get back to blogging (and blog hopping) now..atleast once a week.

Some of you have given me some wonderful awards and i truly apologize for not acknowledging them here. I am sure it's gonna take me some time to recollect all of them. I feel little lost now.

Hope you all are doing good and thanks for those who were checking on me. I will start visiting your blogs regularly too.
I thought i will start with a healthy, tasty recipe...

Oats Rava Idly :
Toasted Oats - 1 cup
Rava (Sooji) - 1 cup
Yogurt - 1 cup
Water - as required
Salt - as required
Mustard seeds, urad daal, channa daal, hing for seasoning
Eno salt - 2 spoons


Method :
Dry grind toasted oats.
Mix it with rava, salt and yogurt.
Add water as required. The consistency of the batter should be similar to idly batter.
Let it sit for an hour.
In a pan, heat little oil and pop mustard seeds.
Add urad daal, channa daal (Approx 1 spoon each) and hing and fry till they are golden brown.
Add to the batter.
Add 2 spoons of eno salt and sprinkle some water and mix well.
The batter will raise and look like fermented idli batter.
Pour them in idli plates and steam them for 15 minutes.
When you insert a skewer, it should come clean.

Tastes yum with chutney and/or moongdaal sambar.

I have included a closeup photo of the idlies to show how soft and fluffy they are.

They tasted very good too. I liked them better than the regular rava idlis and my kids loved them too.