Mexican Wedding Cookies!..

No Christmas is complete without cookies, so lets bake some!!..Says the sweet lady here :) .

This interesting recipe was found out from her place :)..
Keeping the page open, I rushed to the stores to make sure I was equipped with the raw materials..and YES!..; I couldn’t wait any longer…
Of course we don’t have any lovely snow fall here to compliment, but the season of festivity, the winter..…alas!!..they were real melt-in-the-mouth, perfect with a cup of hot tea.

The original recipe source- Mexican Wedding Cookies by Paula Deen from http://www.foodnetwork.com/

To yield 15-20 cookies

Get ready with:

1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar, plus more for coating baked cookies
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting hands
1/2 cup pecans, chopped into very small pieces (I used walnuts)

Method:

Preheat the oven to 275 degrees F. Line cookies sheets with parchment paper.
Using an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar at low speed until it is smooth. Beat in the vanilla. At low speed gradually add the flour. Mix in the pecans with a spatula. With floured hands, take out about 1 tablespoon of dough and shape into a crescent or a shape of your choice. Continue to dust hands with flour as you make more cookies. Place onto prepared cookie sheets. Bake for 40 minutes. When cool enough to handle but still warm, roll in additional confectioners' sugar or use a small strainer to dust in. Cool on wire racks.

Sharmi, these were baked specially for your lovely Cookie Baking Event. :).

Planning to bake another batch, fresh, this weekend as I am visiting my parents in Kerala for Christmas holidays. Feelling really proud to have thus entered dear Happy Cook's very first and sweet event of Home Made Christmas Gifts :) .

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Kovakka Mezhukkupuratti / Stir-fried Tindoras

Tindoras don't really find a place among my regular lunch spread as my better half and kids totally dislike the vegetable.

Since we were more exposed to Kovakka, as children; though been regarded as a tasteless green veggie, yet well enough with this preparation; I make this stir fry once in a while just to satisfy my craving of those childhood days...

Here's my version of Kovakka/Ivy gourd Mezhukkupuratti.

Ingredients:

Kovakka/Tindoras-2 cups-sliced thin, lengthwise.

Redchillies-2

Shallots/Small Onions-7-8 nos

Garlic- 2 flakes

Coconut Oil- A tbsp

Curry Leaves- a sprig

Mustard seeds-for seasoning-1/4 tsp

Salt- to taste

Method:

1. Wash the vegetable.Cut off the tips. (as Inji says here, slice them along lenghthwise as thin as possible so as to avoid pre-cooking). Somehow I ended up slicing them a little chunky as they were from my own garden and was not easy to get 'em sliced thin and again was forced to pre-cook (cooking till half done in a closed pan with salt, with just enough water).

2. Pulse the onions, red chillies and garlic in the mixie for not more than 5-10 seconds or crush them coarse using a hand mortar.

3. Heat oil in a non-stick pan, splutter mustard seeds, sauté crushed onion- garlic- chilly mixture till raw smell disappears, for a few seconds.Throw in curry leaves.

4. Add the vegetable and mix well so as to get coated with the spices. Keep the pan open, on a medium flame, tossing well, once in three minutes.

5. Remove from fire when they are roasted or acquire a golden brown hue, here and there.This would take 20 minutes time, more or less. Remove from fire and serve hot with rice.

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A College Reunion,a Nostalgic me!..More abt me too!!..

Have you ever heard of this Hit movie Classmates?

This Malayalam Movie(2006) talks about campus life of the students of CMS College in the year 1991 ; a beautiful story that unwinds about them meeting after 15 long years!.

Well, I am proud to announce to all my friends that I myself was a CMS ite of the very same period and that we are going to have a meet up after the same span of time!..

The meeting which is proposed to be on December 28th 2008 is a much awaited one as I am an active co-ordianator of the event.
Mr.Kiran John, my immediate senior, who is in charge of this re-union of 1985-1995 batch, holds a wonderful blog, which talks more abt the College and the Meet..

This Pookkalam/Floral carpet designed by me bagged a prize for the Onam celebrations.
I'm not here in this picture...but have a few of my pics with my close friends, of those days in Kiran’s Blog here.

Again,
"The Decade Dreams", the lovely Malayalam music album shot in the Beautiful CMS College Campus is dedicated to the Alumni.




And now, ..

Can I expect my blogger pals’ ‘Inspirational Comments’ and ‘Wishes’ under my post in Kiran’s place, Please ? :)

P.S -I have disabled the comment section down here so as to gently push you there ;).
Each comment there is going to be special and very precious to me as always...

Looking forward to your Loving Wishes,

Bharathy :)

Image courtesy-CMS College KTM-Mr.Kiran John.

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A Slice of Love...

Are you a banana lover? I bet you would love this.Do give a shot as this is one of the easiest dishes ever..

Amma makes this with much ease and expertise, when it comes to slicing the ripe bananas directly to the hot kadai, in no time with fresh ghee heating up in it. This dish, supposed to be a sweet snack, is somehow a ‘meal’ for my brother, sis and me.

She loves this cold, spongy and chewy,
While I prefer- warm, soft and juicy.
For this reason I fry the well ripened fruit slices in butter while the actual recipe calls for ghee.

So, here goes the recipe for Aethapazham/Nenthranpazham Vazhattiyathu or the Ghee Roasted Bananas..

Ingredients:

Butter- ¾ - 1 cup
Ripe Kerala Bananas/aethappazham/nenthran pazham-2 nos- each slice to abt a cm thick.
Sugar-a tbsp

Method:

Melt butter in a wide non stick kadai..Dump in the fruit slices.Spread them well so as to facilitate deep frying keeping the flame sim to medium.Turn over the slices, gently, so as to cook the other side.Do not close the kadai at any stage.Let the slices turn deep brown to black.
The whole roasted time takes up to 20-25 minutes and by the end the butter would have turned to ghee. Transfer the slices carefully from the pan while still piping hot to a casserole.Sprinkle sugar, toss and keep tightly closed.Open after, say 15 mins.The heat of the fried slices would have melted the sugar by now which gives a syrupy sweet coating to the final dish.(The remaining ghee in the pan can be reused).
Serve warm.


My sis who never gets tired of hosting events has come up with a unique one this month after the movie Saas Bahu and Sensex and says “It can be anything ranging from a recipe an aunt passed along, a dish your mom used to make, quick enough so that she has time to pack you off to school and get to work herself, a meal that you enjoyed during your girls' night out with friends and want to re-create at home.”
Please visit the movie website by clicking here.

And sis, this is for you, dedicated to "our" sweet amma and granny :)

Obviously, the recipe is passed over to amma by her mom, which gives out that heavenly aroma while getting fried; even more than the wonderful flavour of ripe bananas and ghee; we taste her Love, mingled all over, in every slice…

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Ada Pradhaman

Pradhaman is an important item of Kerala Cuisine and a 'must served' one for "Ona Sadhya".

The pradhaman here is made using ADA as the major ingredient, known as Sarkara Ada Pradhaman. Formerly I used to make ada by soaking raw rice, dry grinding it, making into a batter, pouring in a plantain leaf, spreading, rolling and tying each of the strips and steamcooking them;again cooling the strips and peeling them carefully, sprinkling cold water and tearing them into tiny bits.I had made the pradhaman you see here, following this method.Well, this is supposed to be the exact traditional way of preparing them, definitely making the recipe elaborate as these pictures would explain!.



The readymade ada packets in the market serve the purpose equally well.Most of the brands make ada using "maida" as the major ingridient.So it is important to make sure that the pack you buy is of made using "Rice", instead(press one of them lightly which crumbles easily and not hard).As a result of the above 'experiment', I found 'Double Horse' brand Ari Palada, the best.


Ingredients:

Rice Ada(ready made)-100gms.
Jaggery-2 medium balls / 350-400gms.
Coconuts-2 medium-or to yield 6 grated cups.
Ghee-1 tbspCardamom, powdered-1/4 tsp.
A few Raisins and Cashews-fried in ghee-optional

Method:
1.Wash Ada and soak in hot boiled water.Cover with a lid.Keep aside for 20 minutes.

2. Meanwhile prepare the coconut extract using minimum amounts of water.The "first milk" should be of 2- 2 1/2 cups.The thin milk or the 'second milk'(secondly extracted from the same molasses)of 3 cups.Reserve the mass of coconut shavings to extract 3rd milk, if necessary, towards the end.

3. Crush the jaggery balls into smaller pieces and make the syrup, by boiling just half a cup of water, for 10-15 minutes till it turns slightly thicker (almost the consistency of honey).

4. Strain and transfer the jaggery syrup to a hot thick bottomed flat utensil,(Uruli is the most preferred :).. nonstick woks can also be substituted)

5. Add the ada, now turned soft, after draining the water completely,to the utensil containing the jaggery syrup.Mix them well, carefully without breaking the ada and adding ghee at this point to avoid sticking together.Let the ada absorb the sweetness well. Simmer till it reduces to three fourth.

6. Add the second milk of coconut and simmer for 10 minutes on low fire.

7. Add the cardamom powder to the 1st milk of coconut and pour in to the wok.Simmer till it just boils or for 2 minutes.Do not boil for long to avoid curdling up.

8. Pradhaman must reach a semi thick consistency by now.If its too thick, add coconut milk, which you can prepare again(the thinnest 3rd milk) from the same coconut shavings after the extraction of the 2nd milk.
Again,the pradhaman tends to get thicker, once it is cooled down to room temperature.So do bear this in mind,while checking the consistency while removing from fire.

9. Remove from fire.Addition of golden fried cashews and raisins (in ghee) is purely optional as the original or the traditional recipe is devoid of the same.

10."Sarkara Ada Pradhaman"can be served Hot or Cold.

Note: Originally, as the recipe, the ada is sunken and the liquid part is what is seen, superficially. Attempting to bring out the ada, the liquid part of the pradhaman was drained, for the pictures, for a better understanding, here.



Wishing you all a Very Happy Onam!..

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