Event Announcement - Love Lock with Sweets

Music is the food for love, lets play on!
Sharing is the food for love, lets share with each other!
Love is the food for love, I Love you!

Wonder, that you see a verse in my blog? I just recollect myself into 4 years back. And the day, December 6th is arriving soon! The day when he came to my house. The day he swept me away! The day my whole world changed! A day to remember, relish, and cherish forever...

Ours is a typical arranged marriage. After horroscope matching, looking into each of our pictures the families decided to meet each family on an auspucious day. Although, am an outspoken person I am quite defidend talking with men. He was very frank, outspoken, gentle and ofcourse smart! He was waiting for my reply. We exchanged our mobile numbers. Just waiting for my call, and he has to leave to bangalore. I know I liked him, but I took my time to respond. Also I did not want to delay. It was so uncomfortable to speak out that way to him. So I called him, and I accepted to him. It did happen, and only great things happen ever since then...

I want to celebrate this occasion with you all dear bloggers with an event. This is my first event,

Love lock with sweets.

Masala Vada

A very healthy snack made regularly in my mother's home. The dhal content is very good for our health. When my chithi makes it, we used to put away our work and just sit beside her in the kitchen and munch as and when the vada comes out from the hot oil. Hhhmmmm, so yummy, one more, one more, and it goes on!
And back to my home here, I have tried her version of the Vada and sundu comes to the kitchen to munch one after the other.
This time I stopped him right away, just for a simple silly reason. I have to click some nice pictures for my blog! He is just waiting for the session to get over and there he comes for a bite!
The recipe calls for,

You need:


Thoor Dhal - 2 cups
Channa Dhal - 1/4 cup
dry red chillies - 10 pieces
Ginger - 1/2 inch chopped finely
Curry leaves - Few
Onion finely chopped- 1/2 Cup (Optional, it is must for masala vada)
Salt - To taste
Hing - A Pinch
Oil - For Frying the Vadai,

Mix all the dhals and Soak the dhals in water for about 2 hours. As we do not want to make a paste. We want to coarsely grind to get nice crunchy tasty vada. After 2 hours filter the water and keep the dhal for about 30 mins.
Keep 3 table spoon of the dhal separately in a bowl and grind the remaining dhal with salt, red chillies and a pinch of hing without adding water. Add the above ground mixture with the 3 table spoon of the dhals in a bowl along with onion, ginger, and curry leaves. Heat the oil in a kadai and once the oil is hot, make small rounds of ground dhal and press it flat and fry it in the oil. Fry it in medium low flame.
Once the Vadai becomes reddish brown color take it out in a bowl with a paper towel to dry the oil and serve hot.
Serve hot with chutney of your choice.

Oats Upma

After 8 months, I'm having Oats Upma. I was in India for kuttan delivery. He was 6 months in my tummy. This time I want to eat healthy and also variety of foods. During pregnancy, I used to have oats upma or cereals in the morning, rice in afternoon and rotis in the night. This gave me a chance to have varied grains with vegetables in a day.
Well, since then I have prepared oats upma only now. It is my most favorite. It hardly takes 10 mins to cook.

You need:
Oats - 1 cup
Onion - 1 small chopped
ginger paste - 1/4 tsp
green chillies - 2 slit open
curry leaves few
turmeric powder - a pinch
hing powder - a pinch
salt to taste
oil to saute
Water - 1/2 cup
To Tamper
Mustard seeds
Urad and channa dhal

Soak the oats in water for less than a minute, like how you do for poha. Just soak and then drain the water away completely.
Heat oil in the pan, tamper mustard seeds. Roast the Urad and channa dhal until golden color. Add the chopped onion. Once onion is saute till golden brown then add curry leaves, ginger, chillies, hing and turmeric powder. Now add the oats and bring the flame to minimum. Close with a lid. Keep it for 5 - 8 mins. Oats upma is ready to be served.

Serve hot with chutney of your choice.

Kala Jamun

Celebration time in our home! Its four years completed! Just cant believe that my sweet silly girl completed her four! Years are passing away so quick!
I just remember those nostalgic childhood days with my childhood friends, Saraunya, Priya, Archana and Jyothi. How our talks and chit-chats have changed? Just love to share with you all. How me and Priya used to escape from everyday studying, then talk about silly school stuffs and the way our parents talk and how we responded back to them! It dint stop there, then we had so much of girly girly talks in the besant beach board walk.
The Milky way ice creams, chats, etc etc... just countless. And now we talk about how our kids are growing and how to be a more patient mom like our moms. So many hows, before you count them and wonder, you will step into the next milestone in your life. Isn't this true?

Back to our recipe about the sweet I prepared for the birthday celebration. I sure was very gutsy to try something new for a whole lot of guests! It still was a hit, and now sundar takes one after one for his lunch as dessert.

Kala Jamuns are nothing but Indian cheese clad in sugar syrup and decked with shredded paneer or coconut. They are yet another delicious, delectable, appetizing sitting on the plate.

Kala Jamun are dark colored (almost black) gulab jamuns made from paneer and khoya and then deep fried and coated with sugar syrup.  Khoya is similar to Ricotta cheese, is commonly used to prepare many sweets and in some vegetable gravies. The major differences between Gulab Jamuns other than the appearance is the inclusion of Khoya along with Paneer.

You need:
Khoya - 2 cups
Paneer - 3/4 cups
Plain flour - 2-3 tbsp (all pupose flour)
Cardamom powder - 1/2 tsp
Milk to bind, approx 1-2 tbsp
Sugar - 2 1/2 cups
Water - 4 cups
Pinch of saffron
Few drops of rose essence

Shred the Khoya and Paneer and mix them well together.

Add the flour, cardamom powder, and mix them well. Use milk to bind them well. Make sure the dough you prepare is soft and tender. It should not be dry, else it will break when you fry them in ghee.

Now prepare the sugar syrup. Bring water to boil and add sugar. Bring to medium flame until the syrup reaches single thread consistency. To this syrup add the rose essence and the saffron. Make sure you keep this syrup warm or else it will crystalise.
Now make small balls, or to your desired size. Let the ball surface be as smooth as you can make them.

Heat Ghee in a frying pan - you will feel the difference by using ghee. This is the authentic preparation too! Once it is hot, reduce to low flame and gently drop the jamun balls in the ghee. Let it cook slowly. This will take some time, only then Jamun will get cooked in the inside. You will know once done, the below one will take some more time. It is half way through, we don't want half cooked.

 

It is very important that you cook in low flame. Now, once done transfer to the syrup immediately. More important thing is, the syrup should be maintained more than warm for the jamuns to absorb the sugar. What I suggest is, you keep them in a preheated oven or use a double broiler to keep them warm. 

I wanted to share the speciality and a silly sentiment attached to this sweet. Of all sweets my favorite sweets is Badhusha. I like Kala Jamuns when I was carrying Hasini. she had plenty of them right from my tummy. 

Back to our recipe,

Let this get soaked in syrup for couple of hours. You can taste one for testing, nice way to treat yourself before anyone does. This much soaking is more than enough. 

You can also make oblong shape or something different for kids.

Now, its time to crown the princess! Hmmm, garnish the Jamun. I like to garnish with a pinch of cream cheese or paneer.

 

Send this as entry to Srav's Cooking concept Festive food,

Capsicum in a spicy Curd gravy

Welcome to Mughlai Cuisine!

Mughlai food is characterized by rich and creamy curry. Mughlai Dishes and have a distinct aroma and taste of ground and whole spices.

Mughalai food invokes up visions of royal banquets, barbequed cooking slowly over the fire till it melts in your mouth, delicious dals and wonderful spices. Wouldn't you like to serve a meal like that? This is a very simple dish to prepare. It requires only the basic ingredients from your pantry. Especially this can be prepared on a lazy evening, you can prepare this in just 20 to 30 mins. 

You need:
Green capsicum - 250 gms (I used red and orange bell peppers only)
onion, finely chopped - 100 gms
tomatoes, finely chopped  - 2
green chillies - 4 to 5
curd - 1 cup
oil  - 1 1\2 tsp
salt to taste
coriander powder - 1 tsp
cumin powder - 1\2 tsp
red chilli powder - 1\2 tsp
garam masala - 1\2 tsp


Wash and cut the capsicum into small pieces. Slit the green chillies into halves. And now beat the curd well and set it aside.
Heat the oil in a frying pan. Add the onions and saute for a while till transparent, then add the coriander, garam masala, cumin powder and the capsicum. Cook this on a low flame till the capsicum is tender. Then add the tomatoes and chillies and cook for 5 minutes. Make sure all these are combined well before you add the curds.

Add the beaten curds and cook till the gravy is creamy and thick. Add the salt as much required.
Remove from the fire and keep covered for a while. Garnish with some green chillies and serve for rotis or kulchas.

Sending this to Radhika's Let's Cook Mughlai Cuisine


Thanks Radhika, absolutely a nice exciting to try other cuisines and more to that succeeding in preparing a tasty dish!