Dahi Bhendi/ Bendakaya Perugu kura

Ingredients

 Dahi bhendi recipe

Okra/Bhendi/Bendakaya  - wash, clean, dry and cut in big chunks. Fry is oil and keep them aside

Oil for tadka

Jeera

Garam Masala - 1 spoon 

Turmeric 

Red chilli powder

Curd/Dahi/Perugu 

Tomatoes

Cashews - handful

Onion - finely chopped

Besan  - to get thickness (1 spoon or so)

Salt to taste

Method of preparation

- Take a kadai, and add couple of spoons of oil. Add the cut bhendi and fry them until they slightly changed color or until they leave the sticky feeling

- Beat curd and keep it aside.

- Grind the tomato's, Cashews together into a fine paste

- Take a pan/kadai and add one spoon or two spoons or oil to it. Add Jeera and finely chopped onion.

- Once the onion are fried add the tomato cashew paste to it and cook for couple of minutes until raw smell is gone. Add turmeric, red chilli powder, salt, garam masala to it and mix together

- Add Besan to the gravy and let it cook for a minute here. 

- Add the beaten curd now and cook uncovered for couple of minutes. The oil will start to ooze out once the gravy is ready. 

- At this point, add the fried bhendi to the gravy, cover and cook for a minute or two at max and take it off the flame. Your yummy curry is ready.

Boorelu/Bobbatlu - Traditional way

Going with traditional how to do boorelu here.I never knew that they were made like this I saw my masi making it on the Ugadi. I will share how the poornam (Stuffing inside the boorelu) is made in another seperate post. but here is the way to make boorelu. 

Method of preparation:

Add the whole wheat or roti mix with more water than required and add the oil to it. Our final product should look like below.

Apply oil to your hands and make a small flat round out of the dough made above. Add poornam ball in between and wrap the ball with the dough flattenned. It looks something like below.

Here is another picture of the poornam bals with couple of balls ready to make boorelu or bobbatlu.

Take a zip loc or any plastic cover. Apply oil over it. Take one dough covered poornam and press gently with your hand until it is round like shown below.

Heat the tawa/pan/penam and put little oil or ghee on it.Add the boorelu flattenned on it. Make sure you turn side after a minute or two and that side should almost be done. you will know when they are done by their color and smell.

Here are some virtual boorelu ready for you to taste. Enjoy!!!!

Paramannam (Chakkara Pongali) - Instant recipe

This is the recipe which I find easy to do whenever I want to eat or to put naivedyam (prasad) to god and I do not have time to do the long procedure of paramannam (also called chakkara pongali).Instead of cooking rice in milk as the traditional method says, I use cooked rice(which will be ready most of the times).

Ingredients
Cooked Rice - 1 cup
Milk - 1/3 cup
Jaggery - big chunk may be lemon size twice or more
Neyyi/Ghee/Clarified butter (1 table spoon )
Cardammom powder (optional and little bit)
Saffron (optional and little bit soaked in milk)
Dry fruits - like cashews, golden raisins or pipstachios, roasted in ghee/clarified butter

Method of preparation
Take a small pan, add ghee and roast the dry fruits in it. keep them aside, so that we can add them at the end of the recipe. Take a small kadai, and add the ghee to it - almost 1 table spoon (you can use less also). Add cooked rice to it and the milk. Mix the rice mixture until the milk is soaked in a little bit and careful not to make the rice/milk stick to bottom. Once the milk consistency is thick or absorbed by rice, add the jaggery to it. At this stage, keep stirring as the jaggery melts with the heat and gets mixed up with the rice nicely. Add the rest of the stuff like, saffron milk, cardammom powder, dry fruits. Turn off the heat and can serve hot. or you can cool it down and serve cold.

NOTE:
(1) If you are serving cold, then I would recommend adding more milk to above.
(2) If you like the Paramannam to be little liquid, I would suggest adding more milk to it than recommended above. I like the paramannam to be a little dry, same as the rice, so I use less milk.
(3) Some persons like the paramannam to have little moong dal in it too . If you wish to have it, soak the moong dal in hot water for a minute and cook it in microwave. Add the same when you add rice and voila!!!

Boondi Laddoo

Ingredients
Chickpea flour - 2 cups
Sugar - 4 cups (or adjust to your sweetness level)
Oil/ Ghee for deep frying
Dry fruits (like cashews, golden raisins, almonds) - upto your tastes

Method of preparation
Mix the senagapindi (chickpea flour) with water and mix it continuously for 5 minutes atleast. This process is to ensure that no lumps are formed.

On the stove, add  sugar and add very little water until the sugar is dissolved.

Set aside the mixed batter (no lumps aside for 5 minutes).

On another stove, heat up the oil/ghee. I used oil.

In a boondi jhalni, slowly pour one laddle of batter and spread, so that the boondi drops fall in the hot oil.

Make sure the boondi turns a little golden and it is crunchy. You can test it, by taking one in hand and try to squish it.

Drain the boondi in a paper.

Now add half of the paakam (sugar syrup) along with the dry fruits. let the sugar syrup sit on the stove (turned on) for some more time until sting syrup is made. Once the syrup is ready then add it to the boondi mixture.

Mix all the boondi nicely and start making round laddoos with it.

Once the laddoos are ready, store it in a air tight container.

Healthy Cookies

This is a recipe from a friend of mine. Thank you Deepali for sharing the recipe. This is easy to make cookies and healthy too. So you try it and let me know how it is. :). Just make sure that the time you put the cookies in oven is not too much otherwise they turn out too crispy.

Ingredients

1 cup soft butter
1 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup powdered milk
1teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs ( you can use 1 cup buttermilk or egg replacer also, I used egg replacer )
1 1/3 cup rolled oats
2 1/3 cup wheat flour ( I use chappati flour)
1/2 cup chocolate chips / raisins


Method of preparation
Mix all the ingredients till vanilla extract. Mix them together till they blend in and then add the rest of the ingredients and mix to make the dough. Bake at 350 degree f until slightly brown. It often takes 10-15 mins but depends a lot on size of cookie. Turn them over after 10 mins and let them cook for another 5 mins.

Try it and enjoy the cookies !!!!

Banana Bread (Eggless)

 This is a recipe which my cousin Hema gave me long time back. As I am not a banana lover nor banana bread, I never attempted it. This time I really wanted to do something with those riped banana's and there goes my experiment. It turned to be good. Simple easy recipe from her.... here it goes:

Ingredients

1/2 cup oil or use 1/3rd cup applesauce ( I used oil)

1 cup white sugar 

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

3 very ripe mashed bananas 

1-2 teaspoons pure vanilla

1/4th cup walnuts roasted

Method of preparation

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Lightly grease a loaf pan.In a large bowl, cream the oil  and sugar and add vanilla. Sift in the flour, baking soda and salt. Blend in the mashed bananas. Stir in the nuts and pour batter into prepared pan.(dust with butter and flour ). Bake in preheated oven for 60 minutes, or until it tests done with a toothpick.

Kalakand

This is another recipe from Hema (Cousin). I tried it yesterday at lalitha puja at my co-sister home and it came out well. Except for the quantity was small... I am happy that it all got finished. So here goes the recipe I did and mostly from Hema.

Ingredients
Milk - 1/2 gallon (for making Channa/Paneer)
Milk - 1/2 gallon [I used half and half for making my life easy. Use less milk if you are using half and half or thick milk(from my experience). If you are using regular milk, then use 1/2 gallon].
Sugar - Equal amount as paneer made from step 1.
Cardamom powder - 1/2 spoon or depends on your choice


Method of preparation
1) First step is to prepare channa or paneer. To do that,  take a deep vessel and bring the milk to boil. Add little lemon/vinegar for milk to break. Do not turn off heat, but keep stirring for few more seconds. This will make the fat content of milk and water to seperate out.  Drain the water and squeeze the extra water. I strained it using a thin strainer and made it stay for few more minutes and that let the excess water also out.

2) Now take the milk (or half and half) and put it on the stove, let the milk become half in quantity. Keep stirring at very regular intervals because you do not want to have the milk stick to bottom.

3) Once the milk is thick enough or reduced to half, add the paneer made in step 1 to it. Now keep mixing and stirring until it is kind of solid or thick enough for making it as a pieces. Make sure you have the stove on high heat and stir rigorously to avoid the lumps falling on you.

4) Once the milk is almost ready , now add the sugar to it and mix it. This will be again a couple more minutes of mixing and once it is closely ready, turn off heat, add little rose water (optional) and cardamom powder to it. spread it in a dish and after few minutes, cut it into shapes you like. You can also make it into round shapes as laddoo and serve them in cup cake wrapper (Suggested by Hema).

Hope you try the recipe and enjoy the delicious taste....

(will post pics when I make next time, as I could not take some this time)

Mysore Pak

My husband loves the Mysore Pak which my MIL does. He used to always praise it a lot. Frankly the first time I tried out of frustration, it turned out hard like rock. But eventually I tried to learn from her on how to do them and the second attempt it was much much better and it even tasted like the Mysore pak which she does (better than the sweet shop version). She told me some tricks and tips which might help do it. Thank you to my MIL for this great recipe. I took pictures while she was making it and I tried to follow them when I forgot.

Ingredients

Besan - 1 cup

Sugar - 1 and 1/2 cup

Ghee - 2 cups (you might not use it that much, but better to get extra)

Method of preparation

Take besan and add a little ghee to it (around 1-2 spoons). Mix it up with hand as much as you can.

Take a bowl with high edges and add sugar to it. Add very little water (2-3 spoons,may be little more). Mix it with spatula (in between) until the sugar dissolves. ( This will take approximately 1 minute)

Once the sugar dissolves and is ready, you will see bubbles forming in the sugar syrup.

This is the stage you should add the Besan to it. If they form small rounds also, please do not worry about it. Just keep stirring and the besan and sugar syrup will mix like a paste. (This should take less than a minute)

At this point, add hot ghee to it. Little by little and keep stirring.

The mixture will rise up in the heating bowl. Add Ghee slowly little by little and keep stirring.

keep stirring continuously. Once the mixture starts leaving the ghee.Stop adding ghee and transfer everything into a greased plate or cake pan.

 After a minute or two, make the markings for the shapes with knife(or butter knife).

After the mysore pak is cooled down, remove the pieces and store them in a air tight container. You can also serve them immediately while they are warm too. The warm pieces melt in mouth like butter/cream. Enjoy !!

Note:A visual picture will help out make a good mysore pak.

(1) Make sure the besan is of good quality, otherwise mysore pak taste will not be good. I am not sure of how to test the besan quality but will post any help which I know soon.

(2) You can also add vegetable oil instead of Ghee in this. Taste might differ a little.

(3) Ghee should be warm/hot in the whole prcess. So you will be having two stoves on, one for ghee and other for the sugar syrup.

(4) Stirring continuously is the trick to make a good mysore pak. Also you need to know the exact timing on when to add the ingredients.

Coming up: Rava laddoo recipe from my counsin's aunt. This recipe will have the sugar syrup usage and consistency of sugar syrup and its testing on the level of it. The sugar syrup consistency made is really useful to make any kind of laddoo.

Semiya Payasam/Kheer

I have the photos and recipe ready since many days but because of my laziness I kept postponing adding it to the blog. But here it goes: I hope lot of people knows the recipe already.

Ingredients
Semiya/Vermicelli - 1/4 cup or a fistful
Milk - 2 cups
Ghee - 2-3 spoons
Sugar - 5 spoons (adjust sugar quantity depending on your sweet levels)
Dry fruits (Cashew/Raisins/Badam/charoli,chaarapappu) - a fistful or according to your taste.
Badam powder/Cashew powder - one spoon each (optional)
Elaichi powder - 1/4 spoon

Method of preparation:
Take ghee in a kadai. Roast the dry fruits and keep it aside.

Now add semiya to rest of the ghee. Roast the semiya (this will make it cook faster and taste nicer). Add milk after the semiya is roasted.

Keep stirring in between until the semiya is cooked. Now add sugar. If the milk is at a stage of boiling, add dry fruits, dry fruits powder and elaichi powder to the payasam. Your payasam is ready to serve. You can serve it hot or cold according to your taste and timing.

Note:
1)You can get roasted semiya from store. In that case, you do not need to wait until the semiya turns brown or roasted. You can add milk after few seconds of adding the semiya.
2) Do not worry about the semiya quantity being added. After payasam is done, the mixture will solidify and you will feel like you have added more semiya. 

Navaratri Specials - Prasadams

Devi Navaratri Specials:

Day 1 - Crached wheet seera/Cracked wheet halwa
Day 2 - Seera/Sooji Halwa
Day 3 - Carrot Halwa/Gajar ka halwa
Day 4 - Corn flour Halwa, Pesaru pindi Laddu
Day 5 - Besan Halwa
Day 6 - Maida Halwa
Day 7 - Kesar annam
Day 8 - Moong dal Payasam/kheer
Day 9 - Mysore Pak

I will try to post the rest of the sweet recipes soon. My MIL makes Mysore pak very good, tasty and crispy version just as store bought one (sometimes even better than that). I will present the recipe to you all. I need to make it too to get out of my trial fever of mysore pak. So next post Mysore pak, a photo tutorial... coming soon.

Carrot Halwa

Ingredients
Carrot - 2 grated
Sugar - 5 spoons
Milk - 1/2 cup
Ghee - 2 spoons
Dry fruits - fried in ghee
Method of preparation
Take a kadai and add ghee to it. Once it is hot, add the cashews or dry fruits and keep them aside. In the same ghee add the grated carrot. Keep it on medium flame and keep stirring in between until the carrot in almost done. Because carrot is grated, it should be done much faster. Now add sugar to it. Mix it properly. Once the sugar is melted, add dry fruits and little milk. once the mixture thickens or at least if you see no more liquid then turn off heat and your Gajar ka halwa is ready to serve. I found this method to be fast, easy, yummy to do.

I have tried another recipe which is a little lengthier process (adding grated carrot in milk and then heat it until the carrot is totally cooked). We will get the same taste as compared to lengthier if we add Kowa at the end of the preparation. Good luck and let me know what you think of the shorter version of Gajar ka halwa.


Note
1) you can use khova instead of milk. Add it almost to the end.

Navaratri Day 1 - Cracked Wheet Halwa/Cracked Wheet Seera

On the day one of navaratri I made this cracked wheet seera. I never got it right till now, although I used to add 1;3 water for it. This time as I was making it I was praying to god that it should turn out good as this is a prasad to devi. Luckily and by god's grace it turned out yummy.

Ingredients
Cracked Wheet - 1 cup
Water - 4 cups
Sugar - 1 cup (can adjust the sugar according to your taste)
Ghee - 2 spoons
Cashews, raisins - fried in little ghee
Cardammom powder - 1/4 spoon

Method of preparation
Take a kadai or regular bowl and add ghee to it. Fry the dry fruits and keep aside. Now add the cracked wheet to it and fry until its slightly golden color. Put the water in microwave to heat up for a minute or two. Add the hot water to the cracked wheet. Wait until the water is absorbed and stir in between. Once the water is totally absorbed, add sugar to it. cook for two to three minutes and then add cashews and cardammom powder.

Bellam pongali /Gudd ka kheer /Jaggery pudding

This is my favourite now-a-days. After a couple of trials which were not successful, then came this yummy, easy, jhatpat pongal recipe. I have checked several sites for the recipe and tried to attempt to do it from whatever I remember is easiest and out came this one. Hope you enjoy it too. oh by the way, it is healthy too because Gudd/Bellam/Jaggery is rich in Iron.

This rice pudding is ammavaru's favourite. So another reason for me to do it friday's so that Goddess is happy at home :).
Ingredients
Cooked Rice  - 2 cups
Cooked Moong dal - 1/4 cup
Milk - 1 cup
Jaggery - 1-2 cups (depends on your sweet level). I used almost 1 and 1/2 cup
Ghee  - 2-3 table spoons (for frying dry fruits and mixing in pudding)
Cashews/ Golden Raisins - a fistful of both or as you like

Method of preparation

Take a kadai and add cooked rice, moong dal and milk. Keep it on medium heat and let it stay for 5 minutes or until the milk is nicely mixed up with rice. The rice might become a little mushy but it tastes yummy that way. Make sure you keep mixing the rice in between as the milk have tendency to stick to bottom and sides. Add jaggery at this point and mix properly. If you have large pieces of jaggery it might take long time to melt. So I would suggest, either grate it or mash it to small ones, so that you do not need to spend much time in front of stove.

Take a small bowl and add ghee (clarified butter) to it. Fry the cashews and golden raisins. Once the raisins take the ball shape and cashews change the color slightly, add them including the ghee to the rice mixture above. Mix it thoroughly and serve hot.

 

This is a very nice recipe for naivedyam/Prasad for Goddess Laxmi/Lalitha. As you hear in the stotras "Gudanna preetha maanasa". Hope the goddess likes it too.



Besan Laddoo

As the vinayaka chavithi celebrations are going on... we get to enjoy lovely food everyday with nice bhajans in the evening. One of those days, our relative cum friend Vani got this besan laddoo. So here goes the recipe as well as the picture of it.

Ingredients

Besan:  Cashew/Badam powder ratio should be 3 cups to 1 cup

Sugar - 4 cups

Ghee 

Water - less than 4 cups

Elaichi/Cardammom powder

Method of preparation

1) keep a kadai and add the sugar and water to it. This is make the sugar syrup ready. The sugar syrup which is ready should be of gulab jamoon syrup.

2) Take another kadai or pan and add ghee to it. Now add besan to it. fry besan until nice aroma starts coming or until light brown color. At this point add the cashew or badam powder.

3) Now add half of the the warm sugar syrup to the above mixture.

4) Remove from the stove and keep aside. 

5) Add elaichi powder and dry fruits at this point.

6) keep the remaining sugar syrup on stove until it becomes thick.

7) Add the thick syrup now to the mixture. Mix everything.

8) Now wet your hands with ghee lightly and then start making laddoos.

Dates and Figs Laddoo - a pictorial story

The following pictures are taken by my cousin Sreelatha. I will post the recipe soon. Thanks to her for all the effort. I did taste those laddoos and they are awesome. for those who long for sweet and want some healthy stuff, go ahead and try these laddoos, they are healthy too because there is no artificial sweetner or sugar in it.

A pictorial view:

In the making






Look at my nakhre...


Tasty twins

Here is the recipe for dates laddoo:
Ingredients
Dates 2 cups
8-10 figs
1/2 cup walnuts
1/2 cup almonds
1/2 cup cashews
4 tbps of dried cococunt
2 tbps of poppy seeds
1 tbps of Butter

Method of preparation
1. Cut the dates and figs into small pieces and cook in a spoon of butter, until well done.


2. Toast the nuts and poppy seeds and make it into powder to desired bite level (fine powder to little bits, its upto individual preference how coarse or fine the powder need to be).

3. Toast dates and figs also. After toasting them you can grind them to desired consistency.

4. Add the grinded dates, nuts, coconut and poppy seeds in a pan. Make sure you get the desired consistency for rolling the mixture into a laddoo shape.

5. Roll it some dried coconut after making laddoo shape. Your laddoos are ready to serve or eat instantly.

Note: you can replace coconut powder for rolling with some colored sugar or rainbow sprinkles for attracting kids or to look fancier. Good luck.

Thanks to sonakka for the recipe and photos in the post.