Ven Pongal and an Award

Hema (Adlaks) has passed me the inspiration award. Thank you hema, for thinking of me. I feel very happy and honored to receive it from you.


Now, to the ven pongal recipe. I love it for the simplicity. I wanted to send it for Rice Mela, but somehow missed it. We make this on the 1st day of Margazhi (a tamil month) and also for Pongal. I make some variation to it by adding vegetables to it while cooking the rice and daal. Makes it a one pot dish for kids and it's nutritious too. It's so easy to sneak vegetables like cauliflower or brocolli and my kids don't even find it. They don't touch these two vegetables otherwise :)

Ingredients :
Rice - 1 cup
Moong daal - 1/2 cup (or little more)
Black pepper - 1/2 spoon
Cumin seeds - 1 spoon
Chopped vegetables - 1 cup (optional) - Picture is without vegetables.
Cashews - a handful





Method :
Wash and cook rice and daal together in Pressure cooker.
In a pan, heat some oil (traditionally ghee is used :)) add crushed pepper and cumin seeds.
I grind the pepper as my kids and husband dont like to bite into pepper.
Fry for a minute. Add cashews and fry till they are golden brown. Add to the cooked rice and add salt to taste and mix well. Forkids, i add ghee just before serving.

Tastes yum with Gotsu or Sambar, Chutney or Puli inji.

As i mentioned earlier, i add chopped cauliflower and broccoli and call it CAB rice and my first kid thinks it's a funny name and eats it without any fuss. He asked me what CAB stands for and i said i just came up with a funny name and didn't mention the word Broccoli to him :D
The other vegetables that i add are peas and carrot.