Vella Kozhukattai

Ingredients
For outer covering
Rice flour: 1/2 cup
Salt: a pinch
Sesame oil: 1 tsp
Water: 3/4 cup


For pooranam
Grated jaggery: 1/2 cup
Grated coconut: 3/4 cup
Cardomom powder:1/4 tsp


The above measurement will yield around 15 small kozhukattais (byte sized)


Procedure:
Step1:
Mix coconut, jaggery and cardomom powder together in a heavy bottom pan and cook in low flame stirring constantly until all the jaggery melts and mixed well with coconut. The pooranam should be little thick.

Easy way:
Mix all the ingredients(do not add water) in microwave safe bowl and heat in microwave for 2 min in High
The pooranam is now ready.
Divide the pooranam to 15 small balls.

Step2:
Boil water, ghee and salt together.Switch off the flame and add the rice flour stirring constantly without any lumps.

Step3:
Once the mixture becomes warm, knead it to a pliable dough similar to chappathi dough.Divide this to 15 small sized balls.


Step4:
Grease your hand with little ghee/sesame oil and make a small cup shape with the dough.Put the pooranam inside and close it.

Step5:
Steam cook for 6-8 minutes.The kozhukattai will look shiny once it is cooked.Do not cook more than that.Otherwise the outer covering will become hard

Eggless Chocolate Muffin

Ingredients
Whole wheat flour: 1 cup
All purpose flour:1 cup
Cocoa powder: 1/3 cup
Flax seed powder: 1 tablespoon
Light brown Sugar:1.25 cup
Baking powder:  1tsp
Baking soda: 1 tsp
Butter: 1/2 cup (1 stick)
Milk: 1/2 cup
Water: 1/2 cup
Curd: 1 cup
Vanilla extract: 1 tsp


Procedure:
Step1:
Melt the butter and add curd , milk, water and vanilla extract and mix well


Step2:
Mix the dry ingredients in a separate bowl


Step3:
Mix the dry and wet ingredients together until they are mixed well.Do not overmix


Step4:
Pour into muffin pans


Step5:
Add some chocolate chips on top (optional)

Step6:
Bake in a preheated oven at 375 F for 20 minutes

Thool pakoda

Recipe bookmarked from one of the old cook books.

Ingredients:
Bengal gram flour:  2cups
Rice flour: 1/4 cups
Salt: 1.25 tsp
Ginger minced: 1 tablespoon
Grenn chillies chopped: 2
Cashews: 2 tablespoons
Baking soda: 1/4 tsp
Coriander leaves: a bunch
Curry leaves
Onions: 1 medium
Ghee: 3 tablespoons
Hing
Oil: to fry


Procedure:
Step1:
Mix all the dry ingredients (rice flour, besan, salt, soda,hing)


Step2:
Chop the onions, ginger and cilantro and add it to the flour


Step 3:
Add cashews and ghee and mix well


Step4:
Add water little by little and make a crumbly dough

Step5:
Deep fry in preheated oil until golden brown
Note: Do not make any shapes or hold the dough tight.Just pinch small portions of the dough and drop it in oil

Sending to Krithi and Denny's "Serve it Fried" event

THATTAI

I learnt this recipe from my mother in law.It came out perfect.I thought of making this upfront for Krishna Jayanthi. However the whole batch was finished yesterday itself:-) 

Ingredients
Rice flour: 1 cup
Urad dal flour: 1 tablespoon
Salt: 3/4 tsp
Asafoetida:1/4 tsp
Grated coconut:2 tablespoons
Chilli powder: 1 tsp
Butter: 2 tablespoon
Bengal gram dal/Kadala parupu: 2 tsp
White Sesame seeds: 1 tsp
Oil: to fry
Curry leaves: a sprig (optional)
The above quantity yields around 25 small thattais


Urad dhal flour:
Dry roast the urad dhal until a nice aroma comes out.It should slightly change the color but should not become deep reddish brown
Allow it to cool and powder in mixie
Sift the flour and store in air tight container.


Procedure:
Step1:
Mix rice flour, urad dhal flour, salt, hing and chilli powder well.Sift this mixture well.
Soak the channa dal in water for 15 minutes

Step2:
Add the grated coconut.
If you are using frozen coconut, thaw it before adding


Step3:
Add the butter and mix well 

Step4:
Boil 1/2 cup of water and add salt and asafoetida and allow it to cool


Step5:
Now add salt  water and drained channa dhal  and knead to a pliable dough (Similar to chappathi dough). Add more water if necessary

Step6:
Make the thattai shapes using butter/wax paper
Make small balls and place it on butter paper
Cover it with another butter paper and press the balls with a heavy tumbler
This way it will be easy to make the thattais with perfect round shape
Make sure that thattais are little thin so that it comes out crispy

Step7:
Using a fork make small holes in the thattai (This will avoid puffing like pooris)

Step8:
Pre heat the oil and fry the thattais to golden brown.Use medium to high heat

Notes:

• Make sure you sift the flour and the sesame seed is free of stones to avoid bursting
• Dont add too much of urad dhal flour which may result in chewy thattai
• Fry in medium heat to make sure the inner part is also crispy
• If using frozen coconut, thaw it before use. Can also roast it slightly.
• Dry chilli flakes can also be added instead of chilli powder
• The flavour is enhanced when coconut oil is used for frying.I have tried this using canola oil and also sunflower oil.
• Make the thattais little thin.If it is too thick, then inner part may not turn crispy

Step by Step Pictures

Wheat Flour Appam

Ingredients:
Wheat flour: 3/4 cup
Rice flour:1/2 cup
Grated Jaggery: 1 cup
Grated coconut: 1/2 cup
Cardomom powder: 1/4 tsp
Ripe Banana: 1
Oil: to fry


Procedure:
Step1:
Mix wheat flour, rice flour, cardamom powder and grated coconut

Step2:
Heat jaggery with 1 cup of water and melt it.No need to check for any consistency

Step3:
Allow the jaggery syrup to cool and filter it.

Step4:
Mix the dry ingredients to the jaggery syrup.

Step5:
Mash the banana and add it.


Step6:
The consistency of the batter should be as that of idli batter.Add water if necessary.
Note: Prepare this batter atleast 1 hr before you fry the appams.This will result in more softer appams


Step7:
Heat the oil in appam pan and fry the appam both sides until golden brown

Homemade Pooja Mandap

With an array of festivals and poojas on its way , I badly needed a pooja mandapam.I thought of ordering one online but it was either too expensive or it was too small.

I finally ended up making myself.This was too easy to make than I thought.Hope this post will  be useful for anyone who wants to make the mandap at home.

We bought all the materials from home depot.The total cost was around $45

Materials Required

Wooden Plank (2ft by 4ft) - Will cost around $7 - 8.Get it cut into two 25" by12" pieces

Ornamental moulding 1(for gopuram)- 15". Cut the ends little slanting like gopuram

Ornamental moulding 2 (for top and bottom) - 2 pieces (each 25")

Stair legs - 4 (Will be available in 34 or 36".Cut the required 27" from each and keep the remaining for stand)

Some round moulding bought from Joanns

Elmers Carpentar glue

Minwax wood stain( I used Red chestnut color)

Some old newspaper and clothes

Procedure:

Step1:

Get everything cut to the required size at the home depot itself.The wooden plank can cut using electric saw( An operator will be doing it).However the small mouldings have to be done by ourselves with a hand saw which is also available at home depot itself. (My husband helped me to cut the mouldings)

Wooden plank -cut into two 25" by 12" pieces using electric saw

Ornamental mould for gopuram - Cut it into 15" using hand saw.The sides should be slightly slanting

Ornamental mould II - Cut into tow 25" pieces

Stair legs - You will get it in 32 or 36".We require only 27".Cut the both the ends and save a 3" piece for the lower stand

Step2:

Apply the wood stain using old clothes.

Refer this video in youtube on how to stain wood.There are lot of videos available

Step3:

Apply 2 or 3 coatings and allow to dry overnight

Step4:

Assemble all the pieces using wood glue

• First stick the four small legs to the lower wooden plank.Let it dry for 30 minutes
• Then stick the four large legs evenly and dry it for 30 minutes
• Finally place the upper wooden plank on top of the legs.This was the only difficult part.We had cut the legs little uneven and then I had to apply little play dough with glue to fix it
• Once it is dry, stick the 25" moulding to the top and bottom plank
• Now stick the gopuram plank in the center of the top wooden plank

Note: There were some imperfections when we cut the mouldings.I mixed the play dough with little bit of glue and applied over it

Step5:

Apply a final coating of wood stain if required

After decorations

Arisi (Rice) Appam/Nei Appam

Ingredients

Raw Rice:	1 cup
Toor dhal (optional):	1 tsp
Grated jaggery:	1 cup
Ripe Banana:	1
Cardomom:	4 pods
Oil/Ghee :	to fry
Grated coconut  (optional) :	2 tablespoon

Procedure:
Step1:
Soak rice and dhal together for atleast 1 hour

Step2:
Drain the water and grind the rice in mixie/blender without adding water. 
Once jaggery is added, the batter will become more watery

Step3:
Once it becomes coarse, add the jaggery and grind it until it becomes smooth.

Step4:
Add the mashed banana and cardomom seeds and grind until everything mixes well.
Add the grated coconut as well

Step5:
Pour about 1 tsp of oil in each kuzhi in the paniyaram pan

Step6:
Pour 1 tsp of batter in each of them.Make sure you fill only 3/4 of the kuzhi with batter.

Step7:
Flip the sides and fry until golden brown

Notes:
Do not add water while grinding rice.
The batter consistency should be like dosa batter. If it is very watery can add rice flour
Always fry in the medium flame 
Use ghee for frying for enhanced taste and flavor
If prepared without adding coconut, this will stay good for atleast 3 days (have not tested beyond that :-)