Thiruvathira Kali/Thiruvadirai Kali/ A rice and lentil fudge; Gluten free

  We are going to bid farewell to 2012 and waiting for 2013 to step in. It was really a good year for me, I got my prince in January, my daughter turned 3 in May and she started going to Mothers day-out. She also started to talk, show off all her art work from school, and loves to imitate me in the kitchen, and loves to go out shopping. She also loves playing with her brother (he is 11 month). We have to plan for his big birthday this January. She also has the tendency to be friendly with all the germs at her school and loves to distribute it to everybody at home, and then we all end up going to her pediatrician and our gregarious doctor.
Thiruvathria festival was on 28th of December. Thiruvathira is a Hindu festival celebrated in the southern Indian state of Kerala and Tamil nadu on the full moon day of the month of Dhanu (mid-December to mid-January) or Margazhi. In Tamilnadu it is celebrated at as Ardradarshan and in Kerala it is celebrated as Thiruvathira, both are related to lord Shiva. Usually my mom would wake up early in the morning on that day, and after having a bath she would makes this sweet called Kali and make offering to lord Shiva. Then we would go to temple, according legend on this day, both God Shiva and Parvathi took Ardha-Nareeshawara (half male, half female form) form. If you are able to visit temple on that day, your married life is supposed to be fruitful also your wishes will be granted. My mother-in-law makes Koova Payasam/Arrowroot pudding and ezhukari kootu/7 vegetable curry as an offering on this day. However amma only makes this sweet. I want to end this year with a sweet post.
I was planning to make this for a long time, but never got the chance and my hubby was ready to take care of the kids, and hence this time I was able to make it. Since I didn’t learn it from my mom, I made according to recipe from Ammupattis thoughts blog. did made changes too.I like her; she cooks more like my mom. To make this sweet, I first roasted the rice and then powdered it. Split yellow pea is another ingredient which needs to cooked and then added to roasted rice powder.

 This dish is sweetened with jaggery, and flavored with cardamom and ghee.

 In the traditional dish there is no add-on like cashew or raisins. But I liked to add to my version.

  I made it and it was tasted tested by my prince and princess and both of them skipped their lunch as a result. I was so happy with the result that I called my dad and told him that I made Kali for this Thiruvathira and everybody loved it. Here is the recipe, and hope you would like it too!!

                                                         Print recipe from here

Thiruvathira Kali/A rice and split pea sweet

Adapted from Ammupattis thoughts blog

Prep Time    20 minutes

Cook Time    35 minutes

Serves    6 - 8

Ingredients:
          3/4  cup Raw Rice
          3 tablespoon Split yellow  pea /pasiparuppu
           1 1/4 cup Jaggery
           1/4 cup grated coconut
            3 cardamom powder
           1/2 tablespoon Ghee

          Garnish  it  optional, I used

          10   Cashew nuts
          15   Raisins
           1 teaspoon ghee

       How I made

          Wash the rice well and dry. Roast the dried rice to a light pink color and once it is cool to touch powder it.

          Cook the split pea with 1/4 cup of water (Easy way is to pressure cook the split peas for about 2 whistle, 15 minutes). Melt the jaggery in 2 1/2 cups of water and strain to remove dirt and sand particles.

         In a large thick bottomed pan pour the melted and strained jaggery and boil. Add the cooked dal and grated coconut and cardamom powder. When the mixture starts boiling, reduce the heat and add the roasted rice flour, little at a time, stirring well all the time. When all the rice flour has been added, keep stirring well until all the water has been absorbed and rice flour is well cooked. Add the ghee and mix well and remove.

            In a small kadai add   ghee for garnish and fry cashew nuts and raisins, for about 2 minutes

   Then add this to cooked rice -split pea sweet mixture. Mix everything so that combine well.

Enjoy

Variations:
                                You can skip cashew nuts and raisins if you want traditional way of recipe.

I am linking this sweet to Hearth and Soul Blog Hop hosted here 

 

Hearth and Soul Blog Hop. 132/ 12/31/2012

Hearty Welcome to another edition of Hearth and Soul blog hop.  This is  last Hearth and Soul Blog hop  post for this year. I am happy to be part of this wonderful blog hop.  We are looking forward to a delicious, healthy, recipes as all as health related information which helps to energize our body.

We welcome posts that are shared in other events.Recipes should include healthy ingredients and can be old or new recipes or posts. Articles on real food, slow food, foraging, herbal remedies, local food, sustainable food, organics, gardening or any healthy eating information written in a positive and loving light are also welcome.

All the hosts at Hearth and Soul care very deeply about this blog hop, and make an group effort to be sure that every post is commented on. We also Pin and Tweet many of the entries. You don't find this with every blog hop, and in exchange for our efforts, we respectfully request that you include a link in the actual blog post you are sharing back to one of the hosts, either by worded link or using our badge. It is not enough to link using a communal blog party page. People rarely click on these links and it is unlikely they will find the Hearth and Soul hop using these sort of pages.

Among last week Hearth and Soul hop, few recipes requires  special mention are

1. Double mint Holiday bark from Premeditated leftovers
2. Corn and Spinach Salad from Food Maza
3. Avocado French toast from  Sahasra Recipes 
4. 11 best Healthy Holiday  Christmas drinks from Greenthickies

Follow   Hearth and soul blog hop at 

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and Twitter

Please link  to any one of the host sites,

Alea of Premeditated Leftovers

April of 21st Century Housewife

Penny of Penniless Parenting
Elsa of  Elsa Cooks
Judy of   Savoring Today

and me

Swathi of Zesty south Indian Kitchen

One link per week, please-Must include a link back to one/any of the host sites (through worded link or badge) in individual post, not on sidebar…although we love having links on your page, as well (this benefits all of us). You will be sent a gentle reminder if no link is added to your post, we understand that sometimes people forget…but if it becomes a regular occurrence, (even though we don’t like to do it) your post may be removed. It’s just not fair to those who do take the time and show the grace to link back.-Try to link a post that you think fits into the mission. You don’t have to link up every week,link up when you can.

Please feel free to grab the Hearth and soul blog hop badge, that will help to spread the word.

Immune Juice: A juice that helps to increase immunity

Hope everybody had a wonderful Christmas and enjoying the rest of holidays with fun. Waiting for New Year to starts with great enthusiasm. I don’t think I am keeping any resolution, usually my resolution will always remain a resolution and not even get one day will be executed.  With two kids, even finding some time to have a little exercise is not easy task.  How about you? Will you able to keep to as few of your New Year resolution. I admire those who keep and successfully finish New Year resolutions.

Here the weather is getting to a freezing point and I have to wait and see how my plants are affected by this temperature change. Usually few of them would die and some would come back every year. Last year, the winter was mild and it didn’t affect our plants. But this year freezing temperature is here during Christmas holidays. One good thing is we are staying home most of the time, and venturing outside very rarely. As a result my hubby and daughter are watching almost all the available movies in   home, Netflix, also from You Tube. His motto is if print in You Tube is good, he will watch it, even if no other person will watch that movie even in theater. One movie in our local language called Cinema Company, trust me I have to applaud the actors in that movie for their horrible acting. I think poor husband deserve a best patience person of the world award for watching this horrible movie.  But we also saw an Iranian movie “A separation”. Trust me it is a great movie; actors are living in front you not acting. If you can get a chance try to see it, it is a great movie, it got best foreign movie award at Oscar 2012. My daughter will give him company for lots of movies; I skip most of time as I am doing something else.

 We   as family always believed that juice is only made with fruits and not with any vegetables. However one day my hubby me showed this article in Daily mail newspaper online version.  This newspaper is mainly about actors and actress, where they are vacationing or not vacationing. One good thing about that newspaper they give everything in elaborate detail. In this article Kris Karr who was diagnosed with cancer ten years ago, controlled her cancer with diet. She has even written three cookbooks, and in this article, she has given a recipe for a Juice that builds immunity. I liked it as it require, green apple, romaine lettuce, cucumber, lemon and ginger. However my chef in me asked me to increase the flavor by adding little salt and black pepper.

I know apple is rich in fiber and vitamins A, B and C and also fight against Rheumatism, read more from here , cucumber is rich in vitamin B, and is 95% water so it helps in hydrating the body, cucumber is also known to contain lariciresinol, pinoresinol, and secoisolariciresinol. These three lignans have a strong history of research in connection with reducing risk of several cancer types, including breast cancer, ovarian cancer, uterine cancer and prostate cancer. Read more from here.  Lime is rich in vitamin C.  Ginger stimulates the digestive system and has for long been used as a natural treatment for colds.

I washed and cleaned cucumber, I don’t like their peels, so peeled and de-seeded them, chopped the green apple, peeled ginger piece extracted lemon juice, added salt and pepper. Put it in the blender and started blender. I was waiting for 2-3 minutes nothing happening, blades are moving but no juice. Then I decided to add water. Once water had joined the ingredient list, I was able get juice. It was really thick juice; if you want you can increase the water.

 At first I did a taste test I liked it, then asked hubby who is inspiration behind this discovery of juice, to do a taste test. He told it is delicious. For my daughter I added a 1/2 teaspoon of sugar so she was also able enjoy the juice. Try it, it is delicious, it will change your perception of vegetables in juice. 

Print Recipe from here

Immune Juice

Adapted from here

Prep Time    5 minutes

Cook Time    5 minutes

Serves    2

Ingredients:

1 green apples, quartered

1 cucumber

1.5cm piece ginger root

½ lime, peeled and quartered

4 romaine lettuce leaves

1/4 teaspoon salt or to taste

1/8 teaspoon black pepper

1 cup Water

Directions:

Peel the skin of cucumber and deseed and chop it into big pieces.

Peel the skin of ginger and add all ingredients into a blender along with water. Blend it well for about 5 minutes or until you get a thick juice.

Variations:

• Enjoy with or without black pepper.

 

Fruit Cake /Plum cake/Kerala style 2012

 Wishing all my readers and Friends a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

Hope everybody joined the family and friends for this Christmas. Day before yesterday we went out for seeing Christmas lights in the nearby zoo. It was really fun, my daughter toughly enjoyed for about hour. Little one was fine till the lights visit, and he started crying while the way back home.

Here on the Christmas Eve, even the climate is really good at around 79 °F and forecasters are predicting that we are going to get a rainy Christmas, while the majority of the country is going to get snowy Christmas. We are going to enjoy the weather, when it is good. How about you guys?

In India it is already Christmas day.  Christmas in India mainly people going to church and enjoying the best home cooked food, and would celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. Here also within in a few hours it is going to be Christmas and everybody would be ready to unwrap the Christmas presents and enjoy the delicious food.

Every year I try to make a Christmas delicacy from my home town, like plum cake/Rich fruit cake, Acchappam/ Kerala style Rosette cookies and Kuzhulappam/Rice flour cannoli.  I have finished cake till now. I need to make some rosette style cookies and cannoli. I think I will finish it by the end of the year.

However I made Finnish Christmas bread Joulimmpu, gingerbread cookies, chocolate brazil nut cookies and fruit cake ice box cookies.

For making the plum cake I used my new bundt pan gifted by my hubby. I added less alcohol and use more dry fruits, like, fruit cake mix, currants, dates, cranberries, apricots, nuts like, cashew, almond, Brazil nuts. I thought of using pistachio however drop the idea after seeing lots of chopped nuts in the end. This time I used Rum and increased baking powder and added baking soda. Soaked the dry fruits in ½ cup water and ½ cup Plantation rum for about 5 days and made this cake. It is delicious and soft. If you are looking for the hard fruit cake that is used for throwing, this is not the one.  I changed this fruit cake from the earlier version that is why I am writing it as one recipe. Here comes the recipe.

First grab the ingredients from pantry, chop the dry fruits and soak them in rum and water mix for 5 days.

 On the day of baking smear the nuts with almond essence and set aside.

 Make caramel syrup.

Sift the flour with baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices and set aside.

Separate egg whites and yolks and beat egg white and set aside.

Cream butter, sugar and add vanilla extract, egg yolks, orange juice and caramel syrup and combine everything. Then gradually add flour and mix everything. To this add dry fruits and nuts and finally fold in egg whites.

Transfer the batter to prepared cake tin and bake for about 1 hour at 350F.

Once cake is done allow to cool in the cake tin for about 45 minutes.

Then slice and enjoy. 

                                                          Print Recipe from here

Plum Cake/Rich Fruit Cake

Modified from my earlier recipe

Preparation time: Soaking 5 days + 2 hour

Yield: 15 serving

Ingredients:

Soaking

Assorted dry fruits cake mix (strawberry, papaya, kiwi and pineapple) (finely chopped): 1 cup

Raisins : 1/3 cup

Cranberries: 1/3 cup

Dates : 1/2 cup (chopped finely)

Dry apricot: 1/2cup (9 no chopped finely)

Dry Mango: 5 nos

Rum : ½ cup ( I used Plantation Rum )

Total dry fruit and ; fruit cake mix: 3 ¾ cup

I used  2 ¾ cup of this mixture for the cake

Nuts smeared with almond essence

Almond (Chopped finely): ¼ cup

Cashew (Chopped finely): ¼ cup

Brazil nut chopped : ¼ cup

Almond essence: 1/8 tsp

Batter

All purpose flour : 2 cup

Butter : 15 tablespoon( less than 1 tablespoon from 2 sticks)

Granulated sugar: 1 1/3 cup

Salt : ¼ teaspoon

Egg yolk: 3 at room temperature

Egg whites: 3 at room temperature

Baking powder: 1 teaspoon

Baking Soda: ½ teaspoon

Orange juice: 1/3 cup

Vanilla extract: 1 teaspoon

Caramel syrup

Granulated sugar: ¼ cup

Water: 1 tablespoon +1/2 cup

Lemon juice: ¼ teaspoon

Spice powder

Caraway Seeds: 1 teaspoon (powdered)

Powdered nutmeg: ¼ teaspoon

Powdered Cinnamon: ½ teaspoon

Powdered cloves: ¼ teaspoon

Powdered cardamom: ½ teaspoon

Powdered ginger: ¼ teaspoon

All spice powder: ¼ teaspoon

How I made:

Chop all the dry fruits including nuts into small pieces and soak them in Rum for at least one day advance. I soaked for them for 5 days. Smear the nuts with almond essence and keep it aside.

To make caramel syrup take ¼ cup sugar and 1 tablespoon water in heavy bottom pan and heat it until sugar melts and change cherry brown color. Add few drops of lemon juice to prevent crystallization of sugar. It took about 7 minutes for me. Transfer the pan with sugar to kitchen sink and immediately add ½ cup of cold water (Be careful with this step, otherwise serious burn can results) for easy cleaning. Keep aside and add only cold caramel syrup to batter.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter the bottom of a10 inch Bundt pan  then butter and flour the pan.

Sift together flour, salt, baking powder , baking soda and spice powder in a bowl and keep aside.

Separate egg whites and yolk. In a bowl beat egg whites using a hand mixer until you get white peaks and keep aside.

In an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar together on medium speed, until everything mix well and incorporated. Add egg yolk one at a time to sugar butter mixture and mix well. Then add vanilla extract , orange juice and caramel syrup (1/2 cup) mix everything and combined well. Add slowly flour-salt-baking soda and baking powder -spice powder mix in small quantities and incorporate everything. Scrape down the sides of bowl once at twice. Stop the mixer and fold egg whites gently until no white streaks visible.

Finally drain the soaked fruits and add nuts and 2 tablespoon of all purpose flour and mix well. And fold in fruits and nuts into the batter.

Pour the batter into the prepared pans and smoothen the tops with a spatula. Bake for 1 hour or until skewer comes out clean.

Cool the cake in pan for 15 minutes and later invert them and cool completely for 45 minutes. Keep cake one or two days before serving.

Enjoy,

Variations:

• If you don’t want alcohol, use orange juice or apple juice.

I am linking this delicious cake to Favorite Recipes: Christmas Recipes hosted here.
Also linking to photography challenge hosted at Jungle frog cooking 
 

Gingerbread Man, Woman, Snowflake and Stars

 

 I don’t have any childhood memories associated with gingerbread man or cookies. The only memories about Christmas are of getting 2 week of vacations after the semester exams. Sometime, we would get piece of cake as gift from our neighbors. I haven’t seen amma baking any stuff. However I want my princess and prince to have some childhood memories. Hence I decided to bake some ginger bread man. I was longing for long time.

Every Christmas I will think I will make it, but Christmas comes and goes, and I never made it. I like the fairy tale story behind the gingerbread man. Story goes like this” there was an old lady who baked ginger the bread man and wanted to eat with her husband. But after baking, the ginger bread man jumped right out of the baking tin and started to run. Rhyming this Run, run as fast as you can; you can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man. Then he came across a pig, cow, and horse,  all of them wanted to eat gingerbread man. He escaped from all, singing the rhyme. However at one point he reached a river, and he wants to cross the river. One clever fox offered to help the gingerbread man to cross the river. However after crossing the river, the fox also eats the ginger bread man. He couldn’t escape from Fox singing his rhyme.  You can read this story from here

This Christmas I decide to keep my promise to myself. I baked gingerbread cookies, and used the entire array of cookie cutter available in my hand to make ginger bread man and woman, snowflakes and stars. Then comes the fun part, icing, I am still a novice on that part. So after looking at images all over the internet I came to know that I needed royal icing. One problem with royal icing is that it contains raw egg whites. I don’t want to give that to my kids. So I made a trip to Target and bought readymade icing. After coming home when I tried to do icing on my gingerbread cookies, it is not that easy as I thought, if I press nozzle in one direction, icing is going in the other direction. Then hubby tried to help me, and he also can’t figure it out. So I stopped icing extravagance.

Next morning I went to Michaels  and bought meringue powder. I made royal icing, and did my art work on the cookies. I left it alone in corner of my kitchen for icing to dry. My hubby did a very careful move of not touching them but wanted to take some water from the bottle that was nearby. He ended up breaking my dressed ginger bread cookies. I was very upset upon on the destruction of my ginger bread man and woman.

Finally I redid some yesterday and created this gingerbread man and woman, snowflakes and stars. I was amazed by the talents of a few bloggers who make them beautiful. If you ask me how did you do? I will say I did well according to my capabilities. Still there is room for lots of improvement. My daughter brought a ginger bread man craft from her Mother’s day out. I loved it so kept them along with my gingerbread man’s photo.

My gingerbread cookies are adaptation of two recipes, one from Joy of Baking and other from simply recipes. I used increased spices from Joy of baking recipe and added black pepper from simply recipe to get some kick; it took me three day to finish. First day I made dough and second day I cut out and made cookies and third day I did icing. My daughter helped me in rolling the dough. It is delicious not tooth breaking ginger bread cookies. But firm enough to hold the icing.

Here comes the recipe.  

 First grab ingredients from the pantry both for gingerbread and frosting.

In bowl mix flour, spices, salt, baking soda and set aside. Cream butter and sugar and egg and mix everything once again. To this add molasses and mix everything. Then gradually add flour and spice mixture in three additions to form smooth dough. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside for chilling for about few hours to overnight.

Next day transfer the dough to well floured table and spread it into ¼ inch thick sheet, cut various shapes using your cookie cutter.  Chill the cut cookies until you ready to bake. Preheat oven to 350F and bake the chilled cut cookies for about 12 minutes. 

Let cookies allow cooling in the cooling rack for about 1 hour. While prepare royal icing.

Transfer the icing into piping bag fitted with decorative tip. Start working with your imaginations. 

Enjoy as much you want. 

                                                                            Print Recipe

Gingerbread man, woman, snowflakes and stars

Adapted from Joy of Baking  and Simply Recipes

Prep Time    20 minutes

Chilling time: Overnight

Cook Time    12 minutes

Serves    6 - 8

Ingredients:
1 ½ cup All purpose flour
1/4  teaspoon salt
 1/4+1/8 teaspoon Baking soda
 1 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
 1/8 teaspoon  black pepper
 1/4 cup   butter room temperature
 1/4 cup  white sugar
1/3 cup  molasses
Royal Icing
  2 cup confectioners’ sugar
  1 tablespoon Meringue powder
 4 tablespoon Water
 2-3 drops rose water.

Directions
In a large bowl, sift or whisk together the flour, salt, baking soda, and spices.

In the bowl of your electric mixer, with the paddle attachment, (or with a hand mixer) beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg and molasses and beat until well combined. Gradually add the flour mixture beating until incorporated.   Combine everything to form smooth dough.

Wrap the Dough in a plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm (at least two hours or even overnight). Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (177 degrees C) and place rack in center of oven. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
On a lightly floured surface transfer and roll out the dough to a thickness of about 1/4 inch sheet. Use a gingerbread cutter to cut out the cookies.  With an offset spatula lift the cookies onto the baking sheet, placing about 1 inch (2.5 cm) apart. If you are hanging the cookies or using as gift tags, make a hole at the top of the cookies with a straw or end of a wooden skewer. (If cookies are a little soft, place the baking sheet (with the cookies) in the fridge for about 10 minutes. This will prevent the cookies from losing their shape.)

Bake for about 8 - 12 minutes depending on the size of the cookies. They are done when they are firm and the edges are just beginning to brown. Remove the cookies from the oven and cool on the baking sheet for about 1 minute, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. If you want you can press raisins, currants, or candies into the dough for eyes and buttons while the cookies are still warm. Otherwise, confectioners frosting can be used to decorate the cookies. Store it in an airtight container.

Royal Icing: In an electric mixer (or with a hand mixer), mix powdered sugar, meringue powder and water and rose water to from frosting consistency of your choice. Tint frosting with food color, if desired. Place the frosting in a pastry bag fitted with a decorative tip and decorate the gingerbread men as desired.

Variations:

• You can skip black pepper if you want and add spices of your choice.