Ragi Almond Cookies | Ragi Biscuits and MERRY CHRISTMAS

Its not going to be a white Christmas for us here. Its going to be chilly but not white like last year. We have been blessed with a beautiful weather this time but we do miss that white blanket. It just doesn't feel Christmassy. I have been cranking up my oven every single day for the past one week and pounds of butter are disappearing into cookies and cakes. I am done with all of my work, fruitcake has been baked and soaked with few coatings of rum, presents are wrapped and set under the christmas tree, cookie has been laid out for Santa though we don't have a chimney and we are all set to enjoy tomorrow. WISH YOU ALL A MERRY CHRISTMAS and let there be joy every day. Here is a simple and healthy cookie recipe for the day.

~*What U Need*~ Sprouted ragi flour - 1/2 cup Whole wheat flour - 1/4 cup Almond powder - 1/4 cup Unsalted butter - 1/4 cup Icing sugar - 1/2 cup Baking soda - 1/8 tsp Vanilla essence - 1/2 tsp Milk - 2 tbsp How I Made it: Roast ragi flour on a low flame till the raw smell goes off. Let it cool. Beat butter and powdered sugar till light and fluffy. Add vanilla essence and beat well. Sieve together ragi flour, whole wheat flour, almond powder and baking soda. Add it to the butter mixture. Knead well. Add 1 tbsp of milk to make the dough pliable. If it is quite dry add another tsp of milk and work. Once it is ready, take 1 heaping tbsp of the dough and press between the palms and shape it like a cookie. Arrange the cookie on a parchment paper and bake in a preheated oven at 350 F for 15 to 20 minutes.

Serve with tea or coffee.

So thats it Folks...
With Love,

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Ragi Ammini Kozhukattai

At times I become a health freak like roasting cauliflower in the oven for tea time or baking sweet potato fries for that hunger pangs or steaming some dumplings for snack. Ragi is not my favorite cereal but I know that its healthy and I need to include it in my diet atleast once a week. And I do that consciously. Mostly in the form of ragi puttu or ragi malt but at times I like to experiment like adding a cup of ragi flour when making chapathis or adai and sometimes something that is totally different like this. These are healthy, tastes yum and kids will totally love popping 'em into their mouth.

~*What U Need*~ For Dough (makes 20-22 small balls): Sprouted ragi flour - 3/4 cup Water - to knead Salt - to taste Gingely oil - 1 tsp For Tempering: Urad dhal - 1 tbsp Channa dal - 1 tbsp Grated coconut - 2 tbsp Red chilli - 1 Asofoetida - a pinch Mustard seeds - 1 tsp Curry leaves - 1 sprig How I Made it: Take ragi flour in a wide bowl. Boil water, salt and oil in a pan, start with 1/4 cup. Add it to ragi flour and mix with the help of a wooden spoon. Make sure there are no lumps. Close and set aside for 5 mins. Grease your hands with oil and make small balls. Steam cook for 10 mins on medium flame. Remove and set aside. Heat 2 tsp oil in a kadai and temper mustard seeds. Add urad dal, channa dal, broken red chilies and curry leaves. Saute for 2 mins, add grated coconut. Add asofoetida, cooked kozhukattai and salt to taste.

Serve hot.

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Ragi Kozhukattai | Steamed finger millet dumplings

I am not on a clean eating spree nor I am not on a diet plan but I like to include healthy foods atleast two times a week for our breakfast. And ragi is the first option... One reason being my MIL makes homemade sprouted ragi flour in kgs and packs them for me and so it is always a pantry staple at home. The second reason being ragi is preferred to kambu a.k.a pearl millet by the family. So reason enough why two ragi recipes in a week!!!

We usually make ragi malt with jaggery or at times sour curd and salt when it comes to choosing ragi for breakfast. But seldom when we want something different we make this kozhukattais or this puttu. Last week we had some relatives who were in their late 70s and I didn't want to serve them anything fatty for their tea. Thats when we deicided to serve them these healthy kozhukattais. We used palm candy which is considered to be a healthy alternative to sugar and on the whole it was a filling and healthy snack.

~*What U Need*~ Ragi flour - 1 cup Rice flour - 1/4 cup Shredded Coconut - 2 tbsp Palm Candy - 1/4 cup Water - 1/4 + 1/4 cup Cardamom powder - a pinch Salt - a pinch

How I Made it:
Mix the ragi flour, rice flour and cardamom powder. Add water to the palm candy and heat till it melts. Strain to remove impurities. Return to the pan and heat till it boils. Add the shredded coconut and cook for 1 min. Next add in the ragi flour and rice flour and cook till it forms a mass. Cool to room temperature, pinch lemom sized balls out of it squeeze to get your fingerprints all over the dumpling. Steam cook for 10-15 mins until non-sticky.

Serve with some flavored black coffee or karuppatti kaapi.

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Ragi Malt | Raagi Porridge| Healthy Breakfast Drink

Ragi or finger millet has a whole lot of benefits and using it in your daily diet is sure gonna help you. Ragi is high in protein, is an extremely good source of iron and calcium and a rich source of fiber and helps lower cholesterol level. It is one of the best food to be given to diabetic patients and it is said to cool your body. With all its nutrient content, it goes without saying that it is one of the many food suited for an expectant mother.

For years, amma has been making this drink for our breakfast. Its tasty, its filling and its healthy. We always use sprouted ragi flour and it brings added nutrients to the already healthy produce. She soaks ragi grains in water overnight, strain it the next day, wrap it in a neat cotton cloth and allows it to germinate for one day. The sprouts are then sun-dried for 2-3 days and then finely ground in the mill. This flour can be used to make drinks like this, ragi koozh, ragi puttu or ragi kozhukattais(recipe coming soon).

Coming to this drink, when I was expecting the huss made it a point that I had this drink twice every week. The only change that he made was skipping the sugar/jaggery and adding salt and beaten curd to the warm mixture. I have a glass of ragi malt every 2 hours till lunch and it sure helped me cope up with all that morning sickness. Also this was one of the three baby food that munchkins was introduced to. The doctor said it was the best toddler food and had all the nutrients that the kid's body needed. Now thats reason enough to have this right???

For years I didn't know why this drink was called ragi malt but thanks to google I found out the reason why. Any grain that has been sprouted, dried and then milled is called as malted grain and the process called malting... and so the drink ragi malt. Now thats information right... Malting a produce increases the nutrient content and brings out the best of the grain. And so is more good for your body. It takes time but is so good.

~*What U Need*~ Ragi flour - 1/4 cup Water - 2 cups, adjust to consistency Milk - 1 cup Jaggery/Palm candy/Palm sugar - to taste Cardamom powder - a pinch(optional)

How I made it:
Add ragi flour to water and mix without lumps. Melt the jaggery in 1/4 cup water and strain to remove impurities.

Bring the ragi+water mixture to boil and cook till thick and done. Add the strained jaggery water and cook for another 2 mins. Add milk, bring it a boil and remove from flame.

Serve warm!!!

** My Notes:
** U could use sugar instead of jaggery too
** Add water/milk to bring to desired consistency
** U can make the drink vegan by using almond/soy/cashew milk

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(Amma Cooks) Ragi Puttu / Steamed Finger Millet with Coconut

Its been a long time since I updated this space of mine with healthy South Indian breakfast recipes. So this time when amma made this ragi puttu, I took time to grab my camera and click a few pics.
I hate an elaborate breakfast.. And by elaborate I mean dosas or idlis and chutneys and particularly on weekdays or office days. A simple oatmeal or cereal with nuts and dried fruits makes a power-packed breakfast for me or on more lazy days, I put together a few fruits, dress them up with a simple honey-yogurt dressing and plunge the bowl into the refrigerator for half an hour. A cold salad on a hotty hot day is becoming a regular in my place especially for me. Add some lemon juice for a zing and the flavors sing to you.

Now salad and ragi puttu, come on gal, what are you trying to say. When weekdays call for a non-messy hassle-free breakfast, weekends are meant for waking up late and making something heavy for breakfast. Like idlis, sambar, chutney and vada and making do with that sambar for lunch. However be it, I never venture from my safe zone. Puttu and idiyappam have always been my enemies. Try anyway, I never get the texture right. They would be too dry or too sticky.

So whenever amma comes over, I ask her to make puttu-palam-pappadam and idiyappams with coconut milk. MIL had sent over some sprouted ragi flour which she makes and so amma made some ragi puttu for our breakfast. It is dense and is really heavy on the tummy and so you will definitely need to go for a nap if you are like me.

~*What U Need*~ Ragi flour - 1 1/2 cups Coconut (grated) - 1/4 cup Water - as needed Salt - to taste Sugar & Coconut - to serve

How I Made it:
Take ragi flour in a wide vessel and mix it with salt. Sprinkle water over the flour and mix, crumbling the mixture so that no big lumps form. Sprinkle water little by little to get the right texture which is, the flour should be wet to touch, should be able to roll into a ball with the fist, but should powder back when crumbled. Take the puttu kuzhal, add some amount of the ragi flour followed by coconut and again the wet ragi flour till it reaches the edge of the kuzhal. Steam for about 7-10 mins. Remove and serve warm.

Serve with banana, sugar and more grated coconut.

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Ragi Vermicelli Payasam

I had quarter of this packet of ragi semiya lying around my pantry for days together. When I made uppma out of 3/4th of the packet and I got not-so-good-kinda comments from Mr.A I was not interested to buy another packet of it. Left with ¼ packet which cannot be transformed into a dinner/breakfast for 2, I had no other option but to discard it with closed eyes. But then I didn’t have the heart to waste something healthy and useful and hence it remained safe in my pantry.

I was talking to A some days back about the soaring gold rates, some random talks, me asking for a gold ring and finally getting deviated to me not getting a bike for A. I don’t understand till date how if I ask him something always ends up with me not getting him anything (… and that ranges from an Optimus Prime Autobot action figure to a Yamaha Rz/ZZ/??* Bike) *refers to all the bike models coming up everyday and which is Greek and Latin to me.

Coming back to the conversation, though I was demanding something from him, my backend was processing all the leftovers in my pantry that had to be turned edible. Single Broccoli floret and iceberg lettuce gosh I have salad idea for dinner, 1 pomegranate – needs to be made into a refreshing chiller / or can I just make Oh god I just hate popping out the pom seeds, let that be where it is. Oh dear I still have that semiya packet. I hate converting left overs into dishes. You don’t have enough to make a dish out of it. That was when it struck, why not make a paayasam out of the semiya substituting the normal ones with the ragi semiya. Atlast I get to have my favorite paayasam and I use up the semiya packet… I got the thought say 2 weeks back, but then I postponed it so that I could make the dish for Gokulashtami and here is how I made it…

~*What U Need*~
Ragi Semiya – ½ cup
Water – 1 ½ cups
Milk – 1 cup
Thin coconut milk – 1 cup
Thick coconut milk – 1 cup
Sago pearls – ¼ cup
Cashew + dried grapes – 10 each
Sugar – 1 cup
Ghee – 2 tbsp

How I Made it:
Boil water and add in sago pearls. Allow to cook till the sago pearls turn completely glass with no hint of white. Next add in the thin milk of coconut and milk and allow to boil
Add in the ragi semiya and boil till the semiya is half done. Add the sugar and mix well and boil till the sugar melts in. Verify taste and if needed add sugar to taste. I didn’t do a taste check as I had to keep this pooja but 1 glass sugar was sufficient for the quantity mentioned above.
When the sugar has melted add first/thick milk of coconut, heat for 5 seconds and switch off the stove.
Roast the cashews and dry garpes in ghee till the cashews turn brown and the grapes puff up. Add this along with the ghee into the payasam and give it a stir.

Delicious and creamy ragi payasam ready!!! The flavor of raagi in paayasam was different to the regular ones but the dish was worth the effort.

My note:
After adding first milk of coconut, do not boil the payasam or it will curdle.
If the payasam become thick, either add hot milk or water with some sugar added.

So thats it Folks...
With Love,

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