Sesame Sweet Roti

I tried sweet sesame roti from VegInspirations, it was so tasty!

Ingredients:

1 cup wheat flour

1/2 cup sesame seeds

Channa Dal/Pottukadalai - a handful

Jaggery - as per taste[I added 3 tbsp]

Oil

Method:

1.Dry roast sesame seeds, pottukadalai and powder it, the texture should resemble bread crumbs. Keep it aside.

2.Make a soft dough with the wheat flour like chapathi dough and keep covered for an hr or so. The more time u leave the rotis will be super soft!

3.Make lemon sized balls and flatten them into a small circle.

NOTE:While flattenning, make sure u dont press too much in the middle where the filling has to be added.

4.Place about 1 tbsp of the powdered mixture in the center of the rolled out dough and fold the ends of the dough over the mixture covering the mixture so that it gets sealed well.

5.Roll out this dough again into a slightly thick pancake sized circle.

6.Heat tawa, drizzle oil, place the rotis and cook on both sides till light brown. Serve hot!!

And I m sending this to Priyas cooking with seed event

Low fat Cumin Cookies

Though this is my second attempt baking in my new OTG, it was so much of fun & excitement. I was sitting next to the oven throughout the 20mins of baking, peeping through the glass door :)

The recipe is from here But I modified a bit....I used 1/2 cup wheat flour with 1/2 of APF added pepper powder, still the cookies turned out soo gud. The next time I'l try it fully with wheat flour. So here is the recipe of the cookies that impressed everyone at home.

Ingredients:

• Maida/All purpose flour - 1/2 cup
• Wheat flour(atta) - 1/2 cup
• Pepper powder - 1/2 tbsp
• Cumin seeds - 1 tbsp
• Baking soda - a pinch
• Salt - to taste
• Sugar - 1/2 tsp
• Oil - 3 tbsp
• Milk - as reqd to knead to a stiff dough (I used 1/4 cup)

Method:

1. In a bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, sugar, salt and oil. Add the milk and knead to a stiff dough till its not sticky.

2. Roll the dough to about 2mms thick, but this didnt work out for me as I cudnt roll it evenly so what I did was to press it in the roti maker, this way it was easy and quick!

3. Using a cookie cutter cut into round shapes, I used a lid to cut it. Now bring together the remaining scrapings, roll out again and repeat the process till the entire dough gets over.

4. Pre heat the oven at 180 deg C for 10mins. Grease the baking tray, arrange the cookies and place the tray in the center of the preheated oven and bake for 20mins.

5. Remove the cookies from the oven, allow it to cool and then store them in air tight containers.

NOTE:The actual recipe says 20-25 mins but mine got baked in 20mins so keep an eye after 20mins.

They were crispy and little crunchy......The pepper & cumin flavour compliments each other well, making it perfect to munch during tea time!

Garlic Yogurt Sauce (Beluli Thambli)

Wanted to clear some of bookmarked recipes and this came to me at first sight. I had bookmarked SJ's garlic yogurt sauce long back and had totally forgotten abt it. I tried and it was a nice combo even for plain rice - a mix of chutney and raita it is...totally luved the taste!

Ingredients:

Curd/yogurt - 1 cup

Grated coconut - 2 tbsp

Garlic cloves -2

Jeera - 1 tsp

Red Chillies - 1

Salt to taste

Oil - 2 tsp

Method:

1.Heat oil in a tawa. Add garlic and saute till it turns light brown.

2.Now add the red chillies and jeera saute it for 3mins.Roast coconut for 2mins and allow it to cool.

3.Blend the above with 1/2 cup of yogurt to a fine paste. Add the remaining yogurt to the paste, salt to taste. Mix well.

4.Serve with hot rice. This will go well even with rotis and pulav's!

But I cudnt resist myself so drank half of it myself before I served them with rice :)

Chakarai & Paal Pongal Recipe (Sweet & Milk Pongal)

First of all, Happy Pongal to all my readers & friends! I was not planned to click/ post this pongal recipe hmm.......yes was kind of lazy. Amma just finished cooking and thats when hubby insisted/convinced me to click, he usually never bothers even to peek in when I m clicking but yesterday he gave many ideas, also came forward to click few pics and the below first pic is by him. These are again going to be on my personal fav click list! :) Now quickly jotting down the recipe from amma for future reference!

Chakarai Pongal - Ingredients:

• Raw Rice - 1 cup
• Moong dhal - 1/4 cup
• Coconut - 1 tbsp [optional]
• Jaggery syrup -3/4 cup
• Cashews - few broken and fried in ghee
• Raisins - few fried in ghee
• Milk - 1 cup
• Ghee - 2 tbsp
• Elachi powdered - 2 tsp

Method:

1. First roast moong dhal and keep aside.Add water 3/4th of the size of the pot, then 1/2 cup milk and leave it to boil in the pot.



2. Rinse rice with water then add it with moongdhal in the rice pot. Add some water ,such that the rice is fully immersed.



3. Now add remaining milk and mix well.Allow rice to cook till mashy and add coconut.



4. After the rice is cooked well, add strained jaggery syrup and mix well.Now add coconut and keep stirring in low flame till it becomes thick and combined well. Add ghee, raisins, elachi powder at this stage, and garnish with cashews.Serve hot!

Ven Pongal - Ingredients:

Rice - 1 cup

Moong dhal - 1/4 cup

Coconut - 2 tbsp

Cashews - few broken and fried in ghee

Milk - 1 cup

Method:

Follow steps 1-4

5.Switch off flame, after rice is cooked well and is thick.Garnish with ghee fried cashews.Serve hot.

NOTE :

Don't skip coconut here as its the only main ingredient that gives flavour to the pongal.

Any veggie gravy will get along with this very well, so when combined and had, no salt is required!

I usually prefer chakarai pongal as I have a sweet tooth! :)

Dates, Oats and Nuts Fudge - Its sugarfree!

Anudivyas nutty energy balls was on my todo list for long and I finally came out with this completely healthy and yummy fudge! The oats and nuts combo is packed fully with nutrients, fiber and protein.

Ingredients:

Instant Oats - 1 cup

Mixed nuts( I used almonds, peanuts and 2-3 cashews) - 1/2 cup

Dates - roughly 13

Milk - 2 tsp

Ghee - reqd to shape them

Cardamom - a pinch (optional)

Method:

1.Dry roast oats for 2-3 mins.Powder the oats separately.

2.Now grind the nuts to a coarse powder.

3.Grind the dates with milk to a smooth paste seperately [I added 2tsp of milk to bring it to a paste consistency]

NOTE : Dont use milk if you are planning to store them, mine got finished up in a day :)

4.Mix all the ingredients together and roll them into balls or make the shape you want!

Channa Biriyani

Adapted from Spicesetc this flavourful channa biriyani is filling for a meal and rich in protein and fiber. Modified the recipe a little to suit our taste.

I was happy to see each grain of rice seperated the way I wanted.......This is going to be my keeper for biriyani so I measured everything accurate and here goes the recipe from my kitchen:

Ingredients:

Basmati Rice - 1 1/4 cup

Channa - 3/4 cup [ I used the black one]

Ghee - 2 tsp

Oil - 2 tbsp

Cloves - 2

Cardomom - 1

Cinnamon - 1 inch stick

Onion sliced - 1 Big size

Tomato chopped - 1 (I used 1/2 for grinding and the other half for frying)

Red chilli powder -1/2 tsp

Salt

For grinding

Ginger - small piece

Garlic - 4 to 5 cloves

Green chillies - 1

Coriander leaves - 2 tbsp

Mint/Puthina leaves - 2 tbsp

Coconut - 1 tbsp

Tomato - 1/2

Method:

1.Soak channa overnight and Pressure cook it with salt till its soft(It took 9 whistles for me.). Set aside.

2.Rinse basmati rice,strain and set aside. Heat oil in cooker, Add cloves, cinnamon and cardamom one by one. Add onions and tomato and saute for few mins.

3.Add the ground paste, chilli powder, salt and fry till all is mixed well.Add basmati rice, fry for 2mins along with the mixture.

4.Add exactly 2.5 cups of water. Keep in high flame for 1 whistle, then keep in medium flame and pressure cook for 9-10 mins.

5.Now open, add ghee and cooked channa to the rice and toss gently without mashing it. Serve hot with onion raitha!

Hot Masala Tea / Garam Masala Chai

I am not much of a tea person....But this cold weather makes me crave for hot tea with some biscuits during evenings and I made this masala tea on one such saturday! And it was on a dull cloudy evening....Only when I was editing the pic my mother said the pic wud have been more appealing with the froth in the tea....not that patient to click it again so posting this itself.

Ingredients :

Tea powder - 2 tsp

Milk - 1 cup

Ginger grated - from 1/2 inch piece

Cardamom - powdered from 1

Cloves - 2

Sugar - to taste

Method:

1.Boil milk and add all the above except sugar to the milk.

2.Bring it to boil again.Simmer for 2 mins.

3.Filter and add sugar, ur masala tea is ready.Serve hot!

And did I tell u, finally I got my OTG(Oven Toaster Griller) so more baking experiments coming on my way.....stay tuned :) Happy weekend!!

Ragi is my favourite grain And I am sending my Ragi Kozhukatati and Ragi roti to JFI- Ragi

Wheat Sooji/Rava Roti

I had a great weekend......shopping, relatives home visit, lazying at home, friends comeover and a lot more.......that I find it very hard to get back to the usual routine....Have started waiting for pongal hols :) Hmm coming to todays menu, I made this sooji roti long back and it was lying in my drafts for around 6months, so pulled it out. Wheat Sooji/Rava roti, is instant it can be done just like that.....Most of my recent/future recipes will be quick...am so lazy and now blame it on work and the kiddo :) And am sure this wheat sooji roti will be a better alternative to rava upma!

Ingredients:

Wheat sooji/rava - 1 cup

Finely chopped onion - 1/2 cup

Hing - 1 tsp

Grated coconut - 2 tbsp (optional)

Finely chopped green chillies- 2 tsp

Finely chopped ginger - 2 tsp

Curd - 2 tbsp

Salt to taste

Oil

Method:

1.Dry roast rava on a medium flame, till it gives nice aroma. Keep aside and allow it to cool.

2.Mix all other ingredients to form a batter like idli batter consistency. Add water if its too thick, Let it sit for 15mins.

3. Heat tawa, drizzle oil and spread the batter on it (about 1/2 inch thickness).

4. Cover it with a lid and allow it to cook for 3mins. Turn it to other side and allow it to cook till its light brown.

5.Serve hot with the chutney of ur taste or chutney podi. I had neither of it so clicked with garlic pickle :)

Before I forget I received this award from Malar Gandhi of KitchenTantra long back....Thank you malar!