My Scrawls

Hope everyone enjoyed the Makarasankaranthi/Pongal

Dear son Aanand is growing pretty well. Can’t believe he is 3 months old now! Time just flies away. The other day we were chatting with Panaji (great grandmom) via webchat. She mentioned that as the babies reach their milestones, its a customary that we prepare few dishes so to mark their achievement, enjoy and feel proud about it. It seems somas is prepared when the babies turn to their sides. Why somas? God only knows Probably it resembles a child lying on his sides… (he he pardon my vague idea…) Aanand accomplished this milestonse long back, within couple of weeks since he was born. Here I share the somas recipe and my happiness as a proud mother with you all.

Somas recipe | Kajjikayalu

Ingredients:

Maida: 3 cups
Rava (Sooji): 1 cup
Pottu Kadalai (Roasted bengal gram) powder: 1 cup
Desiccated coconut (Copra) : 1 /2 cup
Sugar: 1 cup
Cardamom powder (Elachi) : 1 tsp
Cooking oil : To fry the somases
Somas presser (Shown in the figure) : one (This is optional)

Preparation Method:

• Puran preparation for somas:
  • Grate the copra.
  • Mix pottu kadalai powder, sugar, grated copra and elachi powder. keep it aside
• Roast rava and powder it.
• Mix the powdered rava with maida.
• Add water and prepare a dough (Just like we do for making puris).
• Make small balls out of the dough and roll it (small ones as puris).
• Place the flattened dough on the somas presser.
• Keep the puran and close it.
• Remove extra dough protruding from the sides of the somas presser.
• Now remove the somas from the presser and deep fry it.
• Delicious somas is ready to relish.

If you do not have a somas presser, follow these steps:

Wish you all a very merry Christmas! This is my 75th post in My Scrawls I wanted to try something sweet to celebrate the occasion. Dear reader Chitra had asked me about this recipe. She had kindled my taste buds and I wanted to taste it very badly! Why not celebrate the 75th post with sweet hayagreeva…. So tried the recipe and it came out great! Sharing it with you all

Hayagreeva Muddi

Ingredients:

Kadalai paruppu (Bengal gram): 200 gms
Jaggery: 300 gms
Khus khus (poppy seeds): 3-4 tsps
Copra (desiccated coconut): 50 gms
Cashews: few
Cardamom powder: 1/2 tsp

Preparation Method:

• Pressure cook kadalai paruppu and drain the water completely.
• Dry fry poppy seeds till the raw smell goes off.
• Cut copra in to small pieces.
• Mix jaggery in 1/2 cup water and allow it to boil.
• Add cooked paruppu, poppy seeds, coconut to the boiling jaggery syrup.
• Mix well and remove from the stove top.
• Fry cashews in ghee.
• Add the fried cashews and cardamom powder to the hayagriva.
• Serve hot or cold.

Belated Karthigai Deepam wishes to all. Thirukarthigai has always been very special to me. I love this festival of lights! I take immense pleasure in decorating our house with kolams and vilakkus. This year, the fun of this festival doubled, as Anna (my dad) celebrated his 60th birthday with his newborn grandson. I baked vanilla cake (Dad is not a fan of chocolates). Both mom and dad loved this special treat.

Eggless vanilla Cake

Ingredients:

Butter: 1/2 cup
Cooking oil: 1/2 cup
Maida: 2 cups
Baking powder: 2 tsps
Sugar: 1 cup
Vanilla essence: 2 tsps
Milk: 1/2 cup

Preparation Method:

• Melt butter.
• Add sugar and vanilla essence to the butter and mix well.
• Sieve maida and baking powder.
• Add the flour mixture with butter, oil and mix well by adding milk.
• Preheat the oven to 450F.
• Transfer the dough into baking dish and bake the cake at 450F for 20 mins or till its done.

Hope all enjoyed the thanksgiving holiday! Am recovering pretty well and have slowly started to fall back into the routine. Dear sister Sri had visited us and stayed here for more than a month. She had a nice time playing with her newborn nephew. She helped a lot to cope with my postpartum! (Really thankful to you dear ) I wanted to bake something special for her before she left to India. I searched the net and found this recipe in Sanjeev Kapoor’s site. I had adapted the eggless chocolate cake recipe and tried muffin instead. It was a great hit! Eggless muffin came out soft and super tasty.

Eggless Chocolate Nuts Muffin

Closer look at the softy muffins

Ingredients:

Dark chocolate: 100 grams
Butter: 1 cup
Maida: 2 cups
Baking powder: 2 tsps
Sugar: 1 cup
Vanilla essence: 2 tsps
Milk: 1/2 cup
Almonds,Walnuts (Chopped): 1/4 cup

Preparation Method:

• Grease a Microwave proof dish and melt butter and chocolate in a microwave proof bowl in the Microwave oven.
• Mix the melted butter and chocolate well.
• Add sugar and vanilla essence to the chocolate mixture and mix.
• Sieve maida and baking powder.
• Add the flour mixture and mix well by adding milk.
• Add nuts and mix.
• Preheat the oven to 450F.
• Transfer the dough into muffin tray and bake the muffins at 450F for 15-20 mins or till its done.

By God’s grace and the blessings of all those near and dear, our baby boy was born on October the 14th 2009 at 6:53 pm. Baby Aanand (our bundle of happiness !) and me are back home at Aanand Nivas (our new home) and doing very well. Had a safe normal delivery and a wonderful birthing experience

My little handsome man is keeping me busy 24X7 Have lots to brag about our darling cutie! Would post them as and when time permits