My Scrawls

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

I love kadalai urundais (Groundnut balls). I have seen people using sugar syrup to make these ladoos. But I love to add jaggery (Vellam / Gud). I couldn’t find paagu vellam (dark colored jaggery) hence this pale color. Nevertheless the taste was gud!!

Kadalai Urundai | Peanut Ladoo | Chikki

Ingredients:

Peanuts: 1 cup
Jaggery: 3/4 cup
Elachi (Cardamom) powder: a pinch
Rice flour: little (to make the ladoos)

Preparation Method:

• Roast the peanut and remove its rind.
• Add 1 tsp of water and heat the jaggery in low flame.
• Be sure to add very little water (just 1 tsp would be enough).
• Keep heating the syrup till we get 2 string consistency.
• Remove from the stove and immediately add roasted peanuts and elachi powder.
• Mix it thoroughly.
• Apply rice flour on your palms and start making ladoos

I bought sorakkai (bottle gourd) for the first time. Tried sorakkai kootu and it came out very well. Here am sharing the sorakkai kootu recipe with u all

Sorakkai (Bottle gourd) Kootu | Sorakaya Kootu

Ingredients:

Sorakkai (Bottle gourd): 250 gms
Moong dal: 150 gms
Coconut: 1/2 cup
Coconut oil: 1 tsp
Cooking oil: 1 tsp
Curry leaves: few
Coriander leaves: few
Salt: to taste
Turmeric powder: a pinch

Masala items for the kootu:

Kadalai parappu (Bengal gram): 2 tsps
Red chilies: 5-6
Urad dal: 1/2 tsp
Methi (Fenugreek seeds): 1/2 tsp
Asafetida: a pinch

Preparation Method:

• Fry the masala items in 1 tsp of oil and grind them adding coconut and little water.
• Clean and chop sorakkai.
• Cook sorakkai and moong dal and keep it aside.
• Add the masala paste to the cooked veggie+dal mixture.
• Add turmeric and salt and allow the mixture to boil.
• Remove it from the stove (after few mins of boiling) and add curry and corriander leaves.
• Heat coconut oil and do seasoning with mustard seeds.
• Add it to the kootu.

The sorakkai kootu can be had with rotis and rice

Paruppu usili is my favorite. We call it maatoda in Tanjore Marathi. We can prepare the paruppu usili using beans, vazhai poo (Keliche poola), fenugreek (methi) leaves etc. Here is the kothavaranga (cluster beans) paruppu usili recipe.

Kothavarangai Paruppu Usili | Maatoda

Ingredients:

Bengal gram (Kadalai paruppu): 1 cup
Red Chilies: 7-8
Asafetida: a pinch
Oil: 5-6 tsps
Curry leaves: few
Cluster beans (Kothavaranga): 250 gms
Salt: to taste
Mustard seeds: for seasoning

Preparation Method:

• Soak the dal (Bengal gram) and red chilies overnight.
• Grind it into coarse paste (grind with the water used for soaking).
• Spread the dal paste in a bowl and pressure cook it without adding water.
• Clean and chop the cluster beans and pressure cook the same.
• Heat oil and do seasoning with mustard seeds, asafetida and curry leaves.
• Now add the cooked beans and saute it.
• Powder the cooked dal and add it to the sauteed beans.
• Add salt and keep frying till the dal turns crispy and slight brownish in color.
• Tasty kothavaranga paruppu usili is ready to relish