Kathrikai rasavangi

Bookmarking kathrika rasavangi recipe from Menu Today.

Mom and k thought it rocked :)

Krishna Jayanthi 2009 -- Semiya payasam

Ingredients: Semiya:Milk:Sugar 1:3:1 ratio
Elaichi powder 2 teaspoons, broken cashews and raisins - a handful
Ghee 2 tablespoons

Heat ghee in a kadai and add the cashews to it, wait until they turn golden, add raisins and remove when they soak up the ghee. Keep aside. Add semiya and roast until golden brown. Set aside. Add 2 cups and let it boil, add semiya and stir. Reduce flame to medium-low and make sure semiya doesn't stick to bottom of kadai. Once semiya is almost soft, add sugar and mix well. The whole process should take about 25-30 minutes. Add elaichi powder and mix. Garnish with cashews and raisins. Add Allow to cool. If semiya payasam becomes too thick, add milk as desired and mix.

Maanga pachadi

Mom's recipe that I tried for Tamil New Year's Day this year and it came out pretty tasty!

2 raw mangoes - cut into rectangular slivers, 1/3rd (of mango) the quantity of vellam (jaggery), curry leaves, 3 green chillies chopped, mustard seeds, grated ginger, gingelly oil, salt.

Add water to just cover the mango slivers and pressure cook for 5 whistles. In a pan add the cooked mango and water, melt the jaggery in it and keep stirring on high-heat for 5-10 minutes until the mixture thickens to a suitable consistency.

In a separate smaller pan,splutter mustard seeds in a few teaspoons of gingelly oil, add it to the mango-jaggery mix, add curry leaves, grated ginger and salt on top.



Some interesting tit-bits I picked up about manga-pachadi -- it's usually made on Tamil New Year's Day and it is supposed to have 5 tastes in it - sweet, pulipu (tangy), karam(spicy), kasapu(bitter -- from neem, in my case from karuvepila) and ginger taste (what is it called? Or perhaps from the salt) so your entire year is filled with these flavors. Cool stuff.

Karadayan Nombu Rava Kesari.

Another quick recipe that I got from here. I had this tin of organic sweetened condensed milk that I wanted to use up before I drank it all on my own and hence this sweet :)

I should have done a better job ketting the kesari mixed in and then it would have turned a delightful yellow like in the original recipe. Anyhow, k liked it :-)

Quick-fix quinoa and veggies - postpartum meal!

Thanks to a~, I ventured into the realm of the unknown -- quinoa (pronounced keen-wah)!
It is one of the current super foods, I say current because you know how it is with super foods -- broccoli today, gone tomorrow!

This post is all about super quick means because when you are a new mom and are juggling things until help arrives, every second is precious!

Anyway, the procedure to cook quinoa is super simple (thanks again to a~):

Measure one cup quinoa and one cup water (a bit more if you like), pressure cook for 3 whistles. Chop an onion, two green chillies, grate an inch-sized ginger. In a tablespoon of oil, splutter mustard seeds, fry onions, then add ginger and finally add the quinoa and toss a few times and you are done! Garnish with lemon.

The next item on the menu today is the quickest way to cook vegetables when your baby naps :p
The vegetable can be potatoes, brinjal, zucchini, squash and onion, etc. The method is always the same. Chop the vegetable into any sized pieces (Yup, you read that right), coat an oven-safe container with olive oil, add vegetables, sprinkle a generous amount of black pepper, Italian seasoning, add salt in the end and drizzle some more ahem...EVOO :) Don't ask me why I picked Italian seasoning and not say oregano/rosemary in particular. There was this huge bottle of Italian seasoning staring me in the face and so off it went into the dish! Bake in oven at 400 degrees for 30 mins, mix once and bake for 10 more minutes. That's all. Baby's up, time to play!

Oh! And here is a neat picture of the poha that k always makes (used to make...although I think a~ made this one). He is all into proper presentation as you can tell :)