Jowar Laddu ~ Jonna Laddu
I did Shiridi Sai baba parayanam last Thursday and made these laddus as prasadam .One last item left over in my pantry cleaning job is Jowar Flour, looking at it I thought how about trying Laddu with it like the way we do with rava/sooji. I followed the same process as rava laddu by binding roasted flour and sugar with milk, they tasted great and the process is very simple.
Ragi Oats Egg less Pancake
Here is another recipe with my favorite combination of Ragi and Oats, my earlier post with these ingredients is Porridge and Idli. My little one likes pancakes , french toast and chapathi in her lunch box. So I always try different versions of pancakes and Rotis for her. No pre-prep is required for these Pancakes, so you can make them for breakfast on a lazy weekend or for kids lunch box . I tried egg less this time adding ground flax seeds mixed with warm water. For extra protein you can use egg white/whole egg.
Aloo Chole without Onion and Garlic ~ Garbanzo Bean Potato Curry
This is a vegetarian recipe without onion and garlic. One of my friend observes fasting for “Karthika Masam” (An auspicious month which starts the day after diwali ) during which he does pooja in the morning , fasts until he goes to temple in the evening and has only vegetarian light meals without onion and garlic. A common family friends of us planned for a weekend gathering and the lady had a challenge to cook a gravy curry without “onion and garlic” which goes with poori. I took it over and made “Aloo Chole” , replacing onion with boiled and mashed potato which gave it a thick gravy consistency .
Roasted Red Pepper Chutney
I bought a pack of red peppers from Costco for preparing salad. But later, I was not in a mood for salad, so changed my plan for preparing a dish with roasted peppers. To keep them handy, I roasted peppers and refrigerated them for couple of days. I was doing Ragi Oats Idli for lunch and instead of making traditional chutney, I wanted to use these roasted peppers, which were handy. Since I used roasted peppers, there was no obvious flavor or smell of peppers.
Ragi Oats Idli
Ragi Oats idlys with roasted red pepper chutney was our lunch today. I wanted to have idli with out rice, so tried ragi along with oats and it was just perfect. There are so many instant recipes with ragi oats in various blogs but I wanted to include urad for the protien content. Because of urad dal these idlies need to ferment like traditional ones. Since I live in cold climate, batter didn’t ferment properly, so I added Eno fruit salt just before steaming. As I wanted they turned out soft and pluffy and with the combination of roasted red pepper chutney they were awesome.
Oats Cornflakes chiwda ~ Indian Spicy oats muesli
When I have oats granola as a snack or read muesli recipes, I feel that it is a sweeter version of Indian chiwda, so I wanted to make this granola spicy and make it close to Indian chiwda. Recently I saw cornflakes mixture from one of my favorite blogger Sailu so I finally got motivation to make spicy granola as Diwali tea time snack. As the oats were toasted, they no more had the powdery texture while chewing. For those looking for oats recipes here is a munchkin for tea time.
Barley Sweet Pongal ~ Barley Chakkara Pongali
Before Diwali I was checking my pantry for grains and lentils which need to be finished before I take a long vacation to India. Barley, which I bought last year from Amazon caught my eye. I posted few recipes with this grain earlier like pesarattu, stew, adai and katte pongali. Recently I had rice chakkara pongali at my cousins place and thought of substituting rice with a whole grain. So for Diwali naivedyam I made chakkara pongali with Barley. My guests for Diwali said it was little different in texture, but tasty and of course healthy and guilt free. You can substitute barley with any wholegrain like brown rice , quinoa, cracked wheat or oats. I will post more recipes with this wholesome grain barley.
Chocolate Peda
Happy Diwali readers. I am back with festive recipes for Diwali after a long break. The very first microwave sweet dish I learnt when I came to US is milk peda using condensed milk and milk powder which is pretty simple with 3 main ingredients. Recently when I made milk peda for Shirdi Sai Baba pooja, I got an idea that with the same recipe I can make Chocolate Peda just by adding chocolate powder and make kids crave for this dessert. So I tried this recipe for my Diwali pot luck which is an instant hit. Its pretty simple and quick sweet dish which can be made for poojas, parties, festivals or baby showers.
Ugadi Pachadi
Ugadi is the first day of telugu new year. On this festival we prepare different food items like pachadi, bakshalu and pulihora. One thing which is done only on this day in every house is Ugadi Pachadi, which consists of shadruchulu – 6 tastes Sweet ( Jaggery/ banana/ grapes/ sugar cane juice), Sour ( Tamarind), Bitter ( Neem petal), Tart ( Mango/Jeera) , Hot ( Chillies/Black pepper), Salty (Salt). These different tastes signifies different facets of our life in the year ahead and in a way prepares us to face all of the challenges equally. Ugadi is also supposed to be starting of Spring.
Whole wheat banana walnut cake
Whole wheat Banana walnut cake is something I prepare when ever I have ripe bananas at home and this happens quite often :). I share this cake with my friends and they call it as Swathi’s cake, Thanks for the compliments . Idea of this recipe came from Indira’s carrot cake and I made few changes to original recipe by adding eggs and replacing half of all purpose flour with whole wheat flour.