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 :-)

Kozhakattai

Vinayaka Chaturthi kozhakattai - followed recipe from here :)

Now you know what to do with the leftover rice flour dough!

SriJayanthi Gulab Jamoons

I never could make gulab jamoons like this from even a ready mix. Mom gave me the following tips, am still not confident though :p

1. Use milk instead of water to mix with the dough
2. Be super careful with milk and dough proportions
3. Pour the sugar syrup when it's still a bit hot over the fried gulab jamoon balls

Gokulashtami Appam, Chithundai and Akkaravadisil

Appam for Krishna Jayanthi (recipe as before from the yum blog):


Chithundai and sweet butter (mom's recipe):


Ingredients: Jaggery (1 cup), coconut shreds (3/4 cup), ghee (1 tsp)

Melt jaggery, mix coconut over low heat with a teaspoon of ghee until it reaches a sticky consistency.

Akkaravadisal (mom's recipe):


Ingredients: Rice (1/2 cup), milk (2 glasses), jaggery (1 cup), raisins, cashew, ghee, cardamom powder as needed.

Cook rice in milk and smash to a paste. Melt jaggery, add rice paste to it. Season with raisins and cashew fried in ghee and add cardamom powder in the end.

Varalakshmi puja & Avani Avittam

Tried appam with my mom for the first time yesterday for Avani Avittam, not bad at all for a first attempt. Here is the recipe I followed. Thanks to the yum blog.

Thiruvadirai Kali & Kootu

Thiruvadirai falls in the month of Marghazhi and is auspicious for Lord Shiva. Thiruvadirai kali and kootu (thaalagam) are traditional dishes prepared on this day. My mom's recipe below.

Ingredients:
Vegetables - potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, beans, mochakottai, pumpkin, seppankizhangu, parangikkai (yellow squash)
Tamarind, red chilli powder, asafoetida powder, curry leaves.
To fry: Channa dal, coriander seeds, dried red chillies.

Add salt and turmeric and steam the vegetables in a pressure cooker. Fry the frying ingredients and powder. After spluttering the mustard seeds in oil, add a small quantity of tamarind water, red chilli powder to taste. Add the steamed vegetables to this and stir for sometime. Finally, add powder from previous step and asafoetida powder. Sprinkle curry leaves and mix.


Ingredients:
Broken raw rice, jaggery, ghee, elaichi powder

Heat the broken raw rice, add milk and water and cook the rice. Add jaggery (1.5 to 1 ratio with rice) to boiling water and stir until it melts and thickens. Remove rice from cooker and add it to the jaggery and stir. Add elaichi powder and ghee if needed. Serve with ghee.

Panagam

Copying this recipe here so I can consult it for the next SriRamaNavami :)

Ingredients
6 tablespoon gur, jaggery, or brown sugar.
2 pinches cardamom (elaiche) powder
1 small piece dried ginger
1 teaspoon lime or lemon juice
pinch of salt
2 cups water

Powder the gur and the dried ginger well. Take water and add the above powders and the cardamom powder. Add salt, and the lime or lemon juice. Stir well and serve.

Source: http://www.beliefnet.com/story/165/story_16514_1.html