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.

So thats it Folks...
With Love,

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Karuppu Kondakadalai Sundal / Black Channa Sundal | Festival Recipes

I am making some kind of sundal for our evenings these days. A bowl of warm sundal with a cup of hot cardamom tea is becoming a perfect tea-time for the dipping temperatures here. Moreover amma has asked me to give some boiled legumes to the kid on a daily basis and so its becoming a regular atleast for his sake. I already have a healthy collection of sundal recipes in the blog and found it to be missing this basic kondakadalai sundal.

Amma says that the black version of the chickpeas are best when compared to the white version and so I usually make this sundal. This is a diabetic friendly dish and if you are giving it to elders then ignore the tempering and just stick to plain boiled chickpeas. Makes it all the more healthy. But if its for the kids, the tempering is necessary as it adds flavor.

~*What U Need*~ Karuppu Kondakadalai / Black Channa - 1 cup Grated Coconut - 2 tbsp Salt - as needed To Temper: Oil - 1 tsp Mustard - 3/4 tsp Red chilli - 2 Asafoetida - 1 pinch Curry leaves - 1 sprig How I Made it: Soak channa overnight and pressure cook it with salt and water for 4 whistles or till soft. Drain water and set aside. Heat oil in a kadai and temper with mustard, red chilli, hing and curry leaves. Add the grated coconut and fry till lightly browned. Add the cooked channa and stir fry till dry. Transfer to serving bowl.

Serve hot!!! Healthy guilt free snack ready.

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(Amma Cooks) Sweetened Aval Pori Mix | Easy Festival Recipes

With everyone getting geared up to celebrate Vinayagar Chathurthi (people in the other side of the world would have finished your celebrations but here we have just started with it), we (me and amma) thought that we could share some easy neivedhiyam recipes here. The first one was the kondakadalai sundal which is easy to make, diabetic friendly and a must for Vinayagar Chathurthi neivedhiyam. Next is this, a simple mix of aval, pori, vellam and kadalai just like a trial mix. All you need to do is measure, mix and serve. As simple as that. Its diabetic friendly too as you are not using sugar here and makes a simple tea time snack. I love this a lot and amma makes it a point to make this for every festival, not only for vinayagar chathurthi.

~*What U Need*~ Aval/Poha - 1 cup Roasted Channa dhal - 1/4 cup Pori - 1 cup Grated Jaggery - 1/2 cup Cardamom powder - a pinch How I Made it: Mix everything with a spoon. Flavor with cardamom powder.

Serve as neivedhiyam!!!

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Vinayagar Chathurthi Recipes 2013 | A Compilation

We have quiet some recipes related to Vinayagar Chathurthi celebrations at our site and so we thought a compilation would help you to plan better. We have split them into Sundals, Snacks, Laddoos, Payasams and Kozhukattai recipes, take ur pick.

Happy Vinayagar Chathurthi Wishes to all our readers.

                 Peanut Sundal                                          Channadhal Sundal                                Masala Kadalai Sundal
  

              Kabuli Channa Sundal                                   Medhu Vadai

 

            Coconut Rava Laddoos                             Nei Rava Laddoos                             Ellu Urundai

  

            Moongdhal Payasam                 Semiya Payasam with Jaggery           Simple Semiya Payasam

  

            Ellu Kozhukattai                             Sarkarai Kozhukattai                             Paruppu Kozhukattai

  

            Paal Kozhukattai                                             Pidi Kozhukattai                             Verkadalai Kozhukattai

  

  Oats Pidi Kozhukattai                 Ragi Kozhukattai

 

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(Amma Cooks) White Channa Sundal | Kondakadalai Sundal | Vinayagar Chathurthi Recipes

When I moved to the U.S. one thing that I missed other than family, relatives and native food, was my amma's food. I miss her biryani, her nei choru, her nilgris chops and everything cooked by her. I miss her a lot. Its not that I don't like this place, I do like it, its neat, its lavish and moreover it completes my dream. But end of the day when you sit back, you don't have anyone around to have some coffee talk. A steaming hot cup of coffee, some murukku, 7.30 serial in Sun TV with your family is what I am talking about. I deeply miss it.

I was so disappointed on thinking that I would have to stop the Amma Cooks series which has been going on for a while in my blog. But thanks to my amma, I asked her to send me the clicks of the dishes that she makes so that I can get them published here and she wholeheartedly obliged. So you are gonna see some easy and yummy recipes from her. There is not gonna be any pictures with greatly styled food(...okay mine are not great too), just a single image that was taken using a P&S, but its "hers"... So lets start off with a simple sundal recipe for Vinayagar Chathurthi...

~*What U Need*~ White Channa/Kondakadalai - 1/2 cup Coconut - 2 tbsp Salt - to taste To temper: Mustard seeds - 1 tsp Urad dal - 1/4 tsp Red Chillies - 2 Curry leaves - few How I Made it: Soak channa overnight and pressure cook until soft (4-5 whistles). Heat oil in a pan, and temper with mustard seeds, urad dhal, red chilli and curry leaves. Add a dash of hing powder. Add the cooked channa and mix well. Add coconut, stir well and remove from flame. Serve warm!!!

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Peanut Kozhukattai / Peanut stuffed Rice Flour dumplings | Vinayagar Chathurthi Recipes

It was only when I was going through my picture folder did I realise that I had not posted the kozhukattai recipe that I had prepared and clicked on Vinayagar Chathurthi. So with no further delay, I picked up the desired pictures, trimmed and processed them and started putting together the post. After completing the body of the post (that includes the 'What u need' and 'How I made it' section), I sat to type the intro part and I was just staring at the screen... 5 minutes passed... no words... 15 mins passed... no words.. I was literally at a loss of words... Didn't know what to put up and here I am typing blah...blah...blah... I know all of you would have been in this situation many a times. I really take my hats off to all those bloggers who write paras and paras for every other post. Oh yeah, and now I have got a stupid intro to my post ;P

Okay there is no good intro to this post as I think my brain has come to a stand still and I cannot think of a proper story, let alone say any meaningful words to pen down. So not wanting to bore you anymore, lets move on to the recipe. I made this for Vinayagar Chathurthi and so as you can see this post is two weeks old. I missed posting this and I don't know how it slipped my mind too.

Psssttt... Try how much, I am not able to make the perfect kozhukattais till date. Either the pooranam seeps out or the outer covering breaks open... I am trying to master the technique. Till then bare with my mangled kozhukattais.

~*What U Need*~ For outer dough Raw Rice - 1 cup Water - as needed Oil Salt For stuffing Peanuts - 1/2 cup Grated coconut - 1/2 cup Jaggery - 1/2 cup Cardamom Powder - 1/2 tsp Ghee - 2 tsp

How I Made it:
Dry roast the peanuts to golden brown color. Cool and de-skin. Grind the roasted peanuts into a coarse powder and set aside. Melt the jaggery with little water and strain to rempve impurities. Return to a non-stick pan and when it starts to bubble up add coconut and peanut powder and mix well. Cool till it thickens. Allow it to cool and roll into balls.

Soak rice and grind to a smooth mixture adding as little water as you can. Heat a kadai, add the ground rice to it and keep stirring without forming lumps and till for a solid mass as shown below. Remove from flame, grease your hands with ghee, add a few drops of ghee over the dough and knead till you get a smooth and non sticky dough. Take a ball of the dough and flatten it as thin as possible. Place the stuffing in the middle and cover it from all sides towards the middle and shape it as desired. Place them in a greased idly plate and steam for 10 - 15 minutes.

Serve hot!!!

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Semiya Payasam / Vermicelli Kheer | Vinayagar Chathurthi Recipes

Semiya payasam is one of the easiest to make.. Roast, add milk, boil simmer, serve ~ in that order and you have a creamy dessert to gulp down. Serve it hot or cold - it tastes best both the ways. Amma always makes payasams with coconut milk ~ thin and thick both are used and that is how I had payasams right from my childhood. But you know extracting cocnut milk from grated cocout is a tedious task (that goes without saying) and so back home semiya payasam was made only on festive days or when asked multiple times.

And so to me payasams were never complete without adding coconut milk to it. So when I cam across semiya payasam recipes which used only milk, I wanted to give it a go and made it on Vinyagar chathurthi for padayal. It was light, creamy and rich and has become my quick fix recipe for my payasam cravings.

~*What U Need*~ Semiya(Vermicelli) - 1 cup Boiled Milk - 2 cups Sugar - 1/2 cup Milkmaid - 4 tbsps Cardamom powder - 1/2 tsp Cashews, Raisins - 2 tsp Ghee - 1 tbsp

How I Made it:
Heat ghee in a nonstick pan, add cashew and raisins and fry till puffed and golden brown. Remove and set aside. In the same pan, dry roast vermicelli until slightly golden brown.

Then add milk and allow to boil until the vermicelli turns soft. Add sugar and milkmaid. Allow to simmer till the milk thickens.

Add toasted cashews and raisins, cardamom powder and switch off.

Serve hot or cold.

So thats it Folks...
With Love,

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