For Click

Sending this picture of the Rava Ladoos for CLICK - Stacks

Rava Urundai /Ladoos - Indian Cooking Challenge

Making these rava urundai's took me down the memory lane to the diwali days when we were kids.My mom used to make these every year during diwali, but the method used was totally different from this recipe.As Srivalli said its the other method by grinding the rava and sugar together. My mom grinds the rava in the mill few ays before diwali, and on the night before diwali she makes everything ready for us kids to make the balls.Its very difficult to make the balls with powder mixed with hot ghee.But we used to have fun while doing it.

After marriage I tried making rava urundai for a diwali get together and it turned out a disaster, more like 'kesari balls', you know what I mean :).

So making this sweet was really a challenge to me eventhough the recipe sounds so simple.

But it turned out great and I liked it.I omitted raisins and added some almond flakes along with less cashews. you may be wondering about the colour, but I dindt add any colours.

The semolina that I get in the local retail retail store over here is yellow in colour.

I made 12 medium sized urundai/ladoos out of this recipe

Recipe and method as given by Srivalli for ICC

Makes - 10 Laddoos of normal size

Rava / Semolina - 1 cup

Sugar - 1 cup

Ghee - 25 gms

Milk - 25 ml

Cardamom powder - a pinch

Cashew nuts - 10 whole nuts

Raisins - 10 nos

Grated fresh coconut - 25 gms

Method to prepare:

Heat 2 tsp of ghee in a kadai. Once the ghee is hot enough, simmer the flame and roast cashew nuts and raisins. Once the raisins balloon up, remove.

Then roast the grated coconut. Remove once done. Keep all these aside.Add the remaining ghee and roast the Rava till its well roasted and aroma starts coming out.

In a bowl, take all the roasted Rava, Nuts, Coconut and add the Cardamom powder.

Then add the sugar. Mix well.Then slowly add the warm milk into the bowl.

Check if you are able to gather as balls. When you find that milk added is enough to get you laddos, transfer it back to the kadai and cook in sim for 2 mins.

Mix well and then cover it and let it rest for 2 mins. Then immediately make balls or laddoos.

Notes:While roasting the Rava, make sure you have the flames in sim, else there is a chance of the rava getting over roasted.Its enough to add only the required amount of milk to get you form balls.

Depending on the rava and the sugar at times we may not use all the 25 gmsSince we add milk, its best to consume within 5 days of making them.

If you store them in fridge, you can have them for a week.The other version followed isThe rava after being roasted can be powdered using a blender. Add sugar to this and make a powder. Add a little ghee to this mixture and make small balls out of this.

Expecting more such recipes in the upcoming "Indian Cooking Challenge"

Tried and Tasted - Rajasthani Kadhi.

This months 'Tried and Tasted' is hosted at KitsChow and the blog she has selected is Meena's "Hooked on Heat". I have been following Meena's blog for a long and long time now .Its very hard to come out of her blog one you start browsing through her recipes.The amazing pictures and the simple recipe along with her long stories keep us hooked on. Hers was one of the blogs that inspired me start with my own and I came to know about the concept of food events through her event " From My Rasoi" .

That was my first participation in a food event .

Though I have tried many dishes from her blog, I made this 'Rajathani Kadhi' especially for this event for the second time.The recipe is very simple and yet very different from the traditional South Indian mor kuzhambhu and the North Indian Kadhi.

Changes I made :

I used 2 red chillies for tempering, and since I ran out of coriander seeds I used 1 tsp of coriander powder.

I hope you all try this out and enjoy.

Strawberry Cake and Muffins

It was raining strawberries at home last week. My toddler just started eating strawberries and he likes it a lot even if its soar.Just the fact that my son has started a liking towards these pinkish beauties made my husband go for loads of them.Yes, he brought home a whole bag of it.

The best part of it is that he didnt know that strawberries doesnt have a longer life even if its refrigerated. So two days later I started browsing for some recipes to use the left over fruit, and came across two wonderful recipes.

The first one was Aparna's Strawberry muffin.

The recipe was so simple I immediatly baked them. As she mentioned in her post I added some sugar to the berries before mixing as mine was very sour.But the muffin tasted really good with no trace of the sourness.

The next one was a Strawberry spring cake from Asha's Foodie's hope.

This recipe was already book marked by me when she posted it last month, waiting for some neglected strawberries, and so baked that wonderful soft cake the next day.

Over all the recipes were so good and welcomed by all , that I baked them twice.

Iam posting the recipes here for keepsake:

Strawberry Muffins:

Ingredients:

1 cup all purpose flour

3/4 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup granulated sugar*

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup chopped (not too fine) Strawberries

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup oil

1 egg (or flax seed substitute**)

1 tsp vanilla extract

Method:

Put the flours, sugar, baking powder and salt in a bowl and whisk lightly to mix well.

Add the strawberries to the flour mixture and mix to ensure they are well coated with flour.

In another bowl, lightly beat the egg/ flax seed substitute, vanilla extract, milk and oil together. Add this to the strawberry-flour mixture and gently mix together, in a folding motion, about 4 or 5 times. Do not over stir, or the texture of your muffins will suffer.

The batter will be lumpy and slightly floury.

Grease the muffin tins/ cups and divide the batter equally between them, so that each one is about 2/3rds full.

Bake at 180C for about 25 minutes till the muffins are done and lightly golden brown on top.

Cool for 10 minutes, unmould them and cool completely on a rack. This recipe makes 8 muffins.

Note : I used whole wheat flour completly for this recipe, and somehow my batter become a little thin , but my muffins came out just fine.

Strawberry cake

:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup ( 1 stick) softened butter,

2 eggs,

1 cup regular white sugar,

1 tsp vanilla essence,

1 3/4 cups plain flour,

1/8 tsp salt,

2 tsp baking powder,

2/3 cup fresh red ripened Strawberries pureed.

Method:

Preheat oven to 350F/190C.

Spray cake pan with no-stick oil or butter well and keep aside.

In a mixer bowl, beat the sugar and butter first until fluffy.

Add in the eggs,mix. Then add in the vanilla.

Sift flour and baking powder, add to the creamed butter mixture and mix again gently on low speed until everything comes together.

Now, stir in the strawberry puree, beat until batter is well mixed and evenly pink.

Pour into the prepared pan, tap on the kitchen counter to top get the bubbles out.

Bake for about 35 to 40 minutes in the preheated oven or until golden and skewer comes out clean form the center.

Take it out of the oven, let it sit for 5mins. Invert gently on the cooling rack.

When cool, sprinkle powdered sugar on top to serve or you can use Vanilla icing.

I served it with whipped cream.It was delicious.

Hence ended my starwberry saga for this season and No more for this year ! :)

Sending these Muffins and Cake to 'The Strawberry Feast' hosted by Happy Cook at 'My Kitchen Treasures'

Baked Salmon Cubes

I try to make salmon atleast once a week.Usually I whip up a quick curry to go with rice, but this weekend I wanted to have something very spicy for my brinjal and mango sambhar.Since my DH gives a big no to Fish fry, I baked the marinated fish pieces coated with tblsp of olive oil in the Oven .The taste was amazing and I did not miss my Pan fried fish at all. This is a must try recipe for those who love fish.

Ingredients:
2 Salmon Fillets cubbed.
1 tsp chilli power

2 garlic cloves chopped finely
1 tblsp Olive oil
1 tblsp lemon juice
1 tsp fennel seeds/powder (optional)

salt as required
Method:
Mix all the above ingredients and marinate for an hour(atleast a minium of 15 mins)
Preheat the oven at 250C

Place the Fish cubes in a tray lined with slightly greased foil.
Bake for 10 mins, and then turn the pieces and bake for another 10 mins .After this turn the fish pieces again, set the oven in the broiler mode and broil for 5-8 mins or until the colour turns to red.Depending on the oven the timings may vary. Just keep an eye on it so that the fish doesnt get burnt.
Make sure that its not broiled for a longer time as the fish will become dry and rubbery.

Eggless Banana Dates and Walnut Muffins

Banana bread being a regular outcome from my kitchen almost every week, I tried to give it a twist by adding some Dates and Walnuts to it. The taste of walnuts cuts through the sweetness of the dates in this recipe.I made this with whole wheat flour ( ground with husk ) which gave these muffins completly different taste and the texture was great too.

Ingredients:
2 cups whole wheat flour
2-3 rippened bananas

10 - 15 dates, seeded and chopped

1/2 cup of melted butter or 1/3 cup oil

3/4 cup sugar (I used brown sugar)

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup milk

1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts

1 tsp vanilla essesnce

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180C

Sieve the flour and the baking powder mix thrice.

Mash the banana's and keep aside.

Using an elctric beater or by hand beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, add the vanilla essence beat well.

At this stage add the milk in three stages alternating with the flour mixtue and stir well to combine.(do not beat).Fold in the mashed bananas, chopped walnuts and dates.

Fill in the muffin cup and bake for 20 - 25 minutes or till knife inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Note: Fill in the empty muffin cups with little water so that it prevents the top of the muffins from drying out .

Sending this as an entry to the 'Sugar High Friday (SHF)' event which was started by Jennifer of 'Domestic Goddess' hosted by Mansi of the Funs and the food blog.
The theme for this months theme is 'Fruits and Nuts'

Found yet another blog doing Plagiarism.

After reading Rekha's post about her pictures being hosted elsewhere, I did a search on one my most favourite picture 'Semiya Kesari' which gets the most hits in my blog.Guess what ! it ended up in the following blog.

http://dhivyaaskitchen.blogspot.com/2009/01/semiya-kesari.html

This is too much.How dare she. Even the recipe is the same.

here is my old link which was posted in 2006.

http://sumiskitchen.blogspot.com/2006/07/semiya-kesari.html

I thought it would never happen to me..but I understood that no one can escape from these awful things.My surprise is that this is a well known blog watched and commented by all us food bloggers.She has a comment section and I have commented there now.

Please check out if there are any of your pictures over here.

Now I have become a maniac doing google searches on all my pictures to see if there any other hypocrite over there.

Does any of you know the html code for blocking image copying...please let me know.Thats the only option I can think of right now to protect my already posted pictures.

Pudina Thogaiyal / Mint Chutney

This is one of my all time favorite from my mothers chutney list. Though I have tried many a number of times to make this, the taste is nowhere close to what she makes. She used to make this and bottle it for my father who travels often.The surprising part is that even though the recipe calls for a piece of coconut, the chutney will not go bad for about 8 hours (without refrigeration) which makes it an excellent partner for Idlies during day time travel. But the secret involved here is never use your hand whatsoever at any stage of preparation.

Since this months Jhiva an event started by Indira of Mahanadi is for 'Mint' what better than this delicious Mint chutney.

This months Jhiva is hosted by Ashwini of 'Spicy Cuisine'

Ingredients:

1 bunch of mint.

1/2 bunch of coriander leaves.

1/2 cup of urad dhal.

3- 4 green chillies.

1 small ball(marble size) of tamarind or 1 tsp of paste.

1 inch piece if ginger.

2 strips of coconut / 5 tblsp of shredded coconut.

Method.

Heat up a pan and fry the urad dhal.(do not add oil).

Once the dhal turns brown, add the chillies, ginger and tamarind and fry for few seconds( If using tamarind paste do not add at this stage).

Switch of the stove and add the mint and coriander leaves to the pan and give it a stir till the leaves shrinks.

Allow it to cool and grind it coarsely along with coconut by adding little water .

Tempering:

Normally for all chutneys , the tempering is added to the chutney.But in this case its the reverse.

In a pan do the tempering with mustard and urad dhal, and add the chutney to it.

Switch off the stove once the chutney starts giving out bubbles and ready to boil.

Serve it with Idlis, dosas, adai or puri's