Badam Halwa

Ingredients:
3 cups of almonds
2 to 3 cups of sugar
6 tbsp milk
4 tbsp ghee
Little saffron
1/4 tsp yellow food color - optional
1 tsp cardamom powder

Preparation:
1.Soak the almonds in warm water for 1 hour. Remove the skin.
2.Put almonds in blender with a milk. Blend them into a paste.
3.Heat 2 tbsp oil (or ghee) in a non stick pan. Add almond mixture in it and sugar. Stir continually on low flame. Don’t even stop for minute, otherwise it will burn.
4.Add saffron, cardamom powder (and yellow color in it.)
5.When it starts boiling then add 2tbsp more ghee. Cook for at least 25-30 minutes. Remove from heat when halwa is not sticking with pan anymore.
6.Garnish it with saffron.

Note(Tips) :

You can add more sugar and saffron to suit your taste.Or you can substitute sugar with artificial sweetner for diabetic patients. Don’t cook it longer than the desired time(20 to 25 mins). It will turn dry. This stays fresh for 2-3 weeks in fridge.You may wanto take little portion and microwave it and servethem warm.

Nutrition Facts about Almonds:

Almonds are a unique food in that they are among the best whole food sources and the best nut; these are packed with mono unsaturated fatty acids (MUFA) and most of that is oleic acid one of the two good fats responsible for lowering LDL cholesterol and rich source of vitamin E (containing 24 mg per 100 g) in the form of alpha-tocopherol. Almonds are low in saturated fat and, are cholesterol free. In addition, almonds are an excellent source of magnesium, copper, manganese, riboflavin (B2) and vitamin B, contains a healthy mix of essential micro-nutrients—vitamins and minerals. Almonds are also a good source of phosphorus and calcium, which are important minerals for bone health.
Almonds are the best source of protein providing 6 grams in one ounce, nearly as much as in one ounce of red meat. Also, research shows that the protein in almonds is high quality and highly digestible.

Source about nutrition facts on almonds :whfoods.com

Vazhaithandu Poriyal (Banana Stem Veg Curry)

This is one of my favourite dish which belongs to the healthy food category! Banana stem (Vazhathandu) is a vegetable that is known to have medicinal values especially in the treatment of kidney stones.Its rich in fiber so its a diet food; Good for weight reduction.Since its fiborous it adds bulk and hence we may consume less. Unfortunately we don't get vazhathandu here in the US.Well now since im in india i was able to get this and thus posting the recipe here.

Ingredients :

1. Banana Stem - 1 cup

2. Cooked Moong dal or Toor Dal - 2 tablespoon.

3. Salt to taste

4. Grated Coconut - 2 tsps

5. Turmeric Powder

Ingredients for Seasoning:

1. Onion - 1 small (chopped)

2. Mustard Seeds

3. Urad dal

4. Curry leaves

5. Broken Red Chilli

6. and some oil.

Preparation: Take a pan and add some oil and add the above ingredients for seasoning.

2.Cut the Banana stem longitudinally and soal them in diluted buttermilk to prevent them from getting oxidized(darkened). When ready drain the cut Banana stem from the buttermilk and add a little bit of water (about 1 cup) and add some salt and turmeric to this, as seen in the picture below.

3.Let it cook for a while about 10 mins. Now add the seasoning to this and give it a stir.

4. You may add the grated coconut to this now and stir them again.
5. And finally add the cooked dal to this and stir fry the veggie again for a minute or two.

6. Garnish with curry leaves and serve it with either roti or rice with sambar.

Hotel Sambar

Ingredients:

Toor dal (pressure cooked) - 1 cup

Tamarind water - 2 cups orTomato (puree) - 2

Purple shallots - about 6 to 10

Any vegetable. Here i have used brinjal/eggplant.

Curry leaves

Asafoetida

Corriander

For hotel sambar masala paste :

2 tsp chana dal

2 tsp whole coriander seeds

1/2 tsp black peppercorns

1/4 tsp cumin seeds

1/4 tsp methi seeds

2 dried red chillies (or to taste)

3 tbsp freshly grated coconut

[Dry roast these and keep it aside.]

5 or 6 purple shallots

1 medium sized tomato

[add few drops of oil and roast these ingredients above and add them to gether into a mixer]

Preparation:

1. Mix the cooked toor dal with some salt, turmeric, sambar powder or chillie powder . You can either add fresh vegetable at this point or can stir fry it along with some other ingredients and add it later.

2. Now add the ground sambar masala paste to this. Bring it to a boil on medium flame. [Let the mixture boil gently for a while. It should not be too watery nor too thick.]

3.Heat the oil in a pan and season it with mustard seeds.Add shallots or regular onion and curry leaves and any vegetable; stir fry for two minutes.And add them to the sambar.

4. At this point you can add either tamarind water or tomato puree to the sambar for added flavour. But its purely optional. Also donot forget to add asafoetida . Let it simmer for a while & set it aside.

5. Garnish with chopped fresh coriander leaves and serve hot over plain rice, with any vegetable dish.

Pls follow the slides after reading the description above for easy understanding. Thanks.

Karakuzhambu

Ingredients:
Mustard - 1/2 tsp
Channa Dal - 1/2
tspJeera - 1/2 tsp
Onion -1 medium sized
cutgarlic pods - 4
Tomato - 1 medium sized
Curry leaves - a few
Turmeric powder - 1/4
tspJeera powder - 1 tsp
Dhania powder - 2 to 3 tsp
Chillie powder - 2 tsp
oil for sauting
tamarind water - about 1/2 cupgrated coconut (grind it with water to make coarse paste) - 1/4 cup
dry roast: methi seeds(1 tsp) & Peppercorns(1 tsp) - make it into a fine powder.
Any vegetable of your choice. Here i have used fresh sundaikaai.

Note:

Turkey berry is also called as ‘wild eggplant’ or ‘pea eggplant’. In Tamil it is called as ‘Sundaikai’.It is known for its medicinal value and is believed to be effective in eliminating stomach worms and improves digestion. It is rich in vitamins and dietary fiber.

you can get either fresh green ones or the dried ones which can be prepared by adding curd and let it dry in the sunlight.

Preparation:

Place a pan and add some oil. Add mustard seeds/channa dal/jeera/curry leaves and saute it for a while. THen add cut garlic, onions, tomatoes one by one after each one has been given a good saute .
Now, add any vegetable of your choice and give it a good saute again. After which add the dry masala powders and stir them and add few cups of water . Let it come to boil. Mean while we need to dry roast(or roast with few drops of oil) methi seeds & pepper corn and grind to make fine powder. Add the powder and then the tamarind water. Let it boil foe about 5 to 7 mins. finally add the ground coconut paste and set it off .

Pls find the following presentation , after reading the above description, and im sure it wil be clear enough.





Thanks for watching.

Egg bonda / Egg bajji

Egg bonda or bajji - batter , Ingredients :

Besan flour - 1 cup
Rice flour - 2 to 3 tsp
salt - accdly
Asafotedia - 2 pinches
Manchurian mix or Chillie powder - 1 1/2 tsp ( here i have used manchurian mix)


And the batter looks like this :

Ofcourse you cannot make egg bonda or bajji without eggs :D. Boiled Eggs :

Some like to make bondas/bajjis with whole eggs. I like to cut them into halves :

Dip these eggs into the batter and deep fry them. Here you go yummy bajjis :
Serve them with any kind of chutney or tomato sauce. Good to go for an evening snack.

Pudhina Thogayal / Mint Chutney

Ingredients:

Mint - 2 bunch
Corriander - 2 bunch (washed and cleaned)
Grated coconut - 1 cup (washed and cleaned)
a cherry sized tamarind soaked in little water.
Green chillies - 2
Ginger - 1 inch ( crushed)
Ginger - about 1/2 an inch slightly masked in mortar 'n pestel.
Asafotedia - 1/4 tsp

Oil - accordingly

mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp

urud dal - 1/2 tsp

Jeera -1/2 tsp

Asafoetedia - 1/4 tsp
Salt to taste

Procedure:
Take a medium sized pan, dispense 1/2 tsp of oil. When the oil is heated add the mint and corriander leaves and saute it for just few minutes and set it off. Now add the leaves, grated coconut, green chillies, ginger and soaked tamarind.
Into the mixer, goes all of the ingredients along some salt and grind them until slightly fine but not too fine.
Now take a pan add about 5 to 6 tbsps of oil and splutter some mustard seeds, 1/4 tsp of jeera, urud dal and transfer the contents of the mixer into this pan . Add some asafoetedia. Turn of the heat after 2 mins.

This is almost like a chutney but since we have added dals , it is supposed to be called as Pudhina Thogayal. Will taste yummy with white rice and rasam, especially during cough and cold, soothes your throat with its natural natural (herbal) medicinal property!

Greek-styled yogurt (or) Thick & Creamy yogurt

Most of us would be definitely wondering why the home-made yogurt would never turn out to be as thick & creamy as the store bought ones. The reason why the store bought yogurts are rich and thick is because the manufacturers add gelatin and other thickening agents which is not very healthy.

Ok, so what can we do to get thick yet low fat yogurt ? the answer is greek-styled yogurt. You also get those in stores.

Now, all you need to make a greek-styled yogurt is a Cheese cloth! and a bowl and your home-made lowfat yogurt.(You can get cheese cloth at walmart/target/kmart/ hardware store/fabric store. )

First set the cheese cloth on top of the bowl and tie is around with a string. Makesure you have enough space to hold the yogurt & that it doesnt overflow. Also make sure the bowl is tall enough to hold the water filtered from the yogurt. Gently cover the top of the bowl (covered with cheese cloth), with a cling paper. Let the cheese get set & drain all its water in the bowl, in your refrigerator overnight. This water drained from yogurt is called "whey" and is high in nutrients. So do not pour it. You can use it just instead of vegetable stock to make soups & gravies.

In the morning you will have thick rich Greek style yogurt. Serve it up or spoon it into a container and store it in the fridge.

If you havent tried your Greek yogurt with walnuts and honey or a cinnamon and nutmeg you have definitely missed  something in your life for sure!!! My all time favourite is to just set the greek styled yogurt in a cylindrical (reusable) container and scoop it out ; sprinkle with simple unrefined cane sugar or top it with butterscotch for a rich & healthy dessert/snack. Pls try it out and let me know your comments . Thanks for reading.

Home-made flavoured & sweetened yogurt

Making a fkavoured at home is just the same as making plain yogurt (as in the previous post) with an addition of 2 simple ingredients below:

Things needed to make yogurt:

Starter yogurt
Milk (whole /2%/1%) but not the fat free milk.

Sugar
vanilla esscence - 1  tsp.

Preparation:

Heat up the Milk up to 2 to 5 minutes depending on the quantity. And make sure the milk is just luke warm. You may heat up the milk and bring to boil and let it cool to reach the luke warm temperature. The trick is to put your last finger in the milk and wiggle around to see if the milk is just slightly warm as a baby's milk and thats the correct temperature.

You may add required amount of sugar to the milk now and mix it well.

Now have 1 tsp of starter yogurt (very imp note: already set out in room temperature) for 2 to 21/2 cups pf milk. You may add the starter yogurt to the luke warm milk and whisk it to make sure its properly mixed.

You may transfer the content to several little jars. Close the lid

Now heat up the oven to 350 degree Fahrenheit, for about 2 to 4 m ins and switch it off completely.

Have a fleece or woollen blanket & wrap the canned jar which has the milk mixed with the starter yogurt. And put it inside the oven and close the oven.

Allow the jars to incubate and thus begin the process of culturing. Do not disturb the jar at all which may hinder the process of the yogurt culture, for about 6 to 8 hours depending on the place you are. Like if its a cold region then you have to wait for at least 8 to 10 hrs. If its a normal region you can just wait for 6 to 8 hrs.

Home-made Yogurt

How to make home-made yogurt :

Making your own yogurt really isn’t that difficult. If you follow some basic steps religously, then it should be a piece of cake. It was a few trial & error episodes with me andfinally happened to be successful. I have been making my own for a while. I thought i could share my tips here for you all.

Ingredients :
2 cups of Milk (wither whole or 2% but not the fat free)
1 tsp of starter yogurt ( Any store bought yogurt with active/live culture in it. If you read that is written in the yogurt tub , it would say something like "All Natural with active or live culture)- keep it beaten well without lumps. And it should be in room temperature.

Procedure :

Pour the milk i na container and put it either on stove top or microwave and heat it until just before it could boil and raise up . You donot have to leave it until the milk would boil and raise up the vessel. Allow it to cool for a while . When u put in your last finger into the milk it should be luke warm as a baby's milk , that would be the perfect temperature.

Add the starter yogurt to the lukewarm milk. and mix it well with an egg beater or a spatula.

Pour the milk in a container.

Since i live in cold place, i usually set up my oven for 5 to 10 mins at minimum temperature and put the container inside the oven wrapped with a blanker/towel. Now remember the most important thing is once you have set up the container in a place, you should not disturb it at all.

Leave it just for 8 hours and here you go , all natural and homemade yogurt!

Note :

Most important thing to be taken care of , while making yogurt at home is

1. Temperature of the milk

2. Starter yogurt with live/active culture. Starter yogurt at room temperature. well beaten without lumps. And just the right amount, say 1 tsps for 2 cups of milk.

why homemade is good over store bought yogurt?

Freshly home-made yogurt is filled with countless numbers of beneficial bacteria that help digestion and kill harmful viruses. The key here is fresh yogurt as compared to commercial store bought yogurt. The commercil yogurt that has been sitting on the shelves at the grocery store does not have the fresh active bacteria that homemade yogurt does.Therefore eat as fresh as you can. Have a healthy life.

Uppu urundai (or) Kara Kozhu Kattai (or) Steamed Spicy Rice Dumplings

(Yay i finally posted my own picture for this post!!!)

This snack is very popular in Madras and one of my recent favourite. Here goes the recipe:

Ingredients:
1 cup rice rava (broken rice) (or you can break it in the mixer as u like)
2 cups of water
2 tsp oil
1 tsp mustard seeds
1/2tsp bengalgram dal
1/2 tsp blackgram dal
Salt to taste
1/2 tsp ginger paste
Few curry leaves
2 red chillies cut into small pieces
1/2 cup Grated coconut

Method:
Heat oil, add mustard, bengalgram dal and blackgram dal. When it splutters,add the red chillies, ginger, curry leaves and water. Let it come to a boil. Now add the rice rava to it and cook for 2 mins. Allow it to cool ; Add grated coconut to this and shape them into tubes and steam them for about 6 to 7 minutes.Serve with chutney of your choice, sambar, mor kozhambu, or kathirikai kothsu.