Wheat Rava Khichdi/Dahlia Upma

Dear Foodies,

My mother's entry to Pavani's WBB # 4 event this fortnight
and also to Anthony's Curry Mela :-)
( This pic is a bit blurred, will try putting up a better one soon)

Here comes another wonderful tiffin recipe from my mother. Its a really healthy and very tasty breakfast recipe. Though the recipe is very similar to the usual upma recipe, the taste is distinctly unique. I for one have always hated the normal upma made from rava/sooji. Whenever my mother made it, she had to make something else for me or I would'nt eat. But this was restricted to rava upma alone,I just love this wheat rava khichdi.

I have'nt tried making this upma here, and when my mother sent me the recipe with the pictures, I knew it had to be sent to the WBB event. So here goes the recipe for wheat rava 'Khichdi',

Wheat rava khichdi(Dahlia)

Ingredients:

• 3 cups - Wheat rava (dahlia)

• 1 nos - Onion, sliced

• 1 nos - carrot, julienned/grated
  

• 5 nos - Green chilles, slit across the length

• 2 nos - Red chillies

• 1 sprig - Curry leaves

• 4 Tbsp - Oil

• 1 tsp - Mustard seeds and Channa Dal
  

• Salt to taste

• Coriander leaves for garnish
  

Procedure:

1. In a pan/cooker, heat the oil, and let the mustard seeds splutter, then add the channa dal, chillies, curry leaves and onions. Saute till the onions turn transparent.
   
2. Add the carrots, saute for a while and add 6 cups of water (rava-water ratio is 1:2).
   
3. As the water begins to boil, add the salt and then slowly stir in the Rava, avoiding any lumps.
4. Steam cook the upma for 5-8 mins if using the cooker or cover the pan with a lid and cook for the same amount of time.
   
5. Garnish with coriander and serve hot :-) I just love it with some ginger or tomato pickle and thick curd ;-)
   

Notes:

• You can add vegetables of your liking to the upma. Eg: peas, tomato, potato.

Here is another variation (with better photos).

Rava Ladoo

Dear Foodies,


I made Rava ladoo's this weekend. My brother was coming over to visit me, and rava laddoos are one of his favorite sweets. So I took the brave step of trying to make them for him. They tasted good, but lacked my mom's touch :-( A few of the laddo's were a bit hard and had to be microwaved for a couple of seconds to regain their softeness.

Here is the recipe I followed, making these ladoo's is a lot easier than I thought it was, so do try them out.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups - Rava/Sooji (Upma rava)
  

• 2 cups - Sugar ( adjust depending on how sweet u want them, starting from 1:3/4)

• 5-6 nos - Cardamom/Elaichi

• 1/4 cup - Raisins

• 1/4 cup - Cashews/Almonds

• 1 cup - Ghee

Procedure:

• Heat 1 Tbsp of ghee in a wide saucepan and roast the rava in it for a few minutes. When you start getting the pleasant aroma of the rava, switch off the heat and let the rava cool. The rava will have turned a slight orange, do not let it brown though.
  
• Once the rava is cooled, transfer it to a blender along with the sugar and cardamom seeds. Blend them for a few minutes so as to mix the sugar and rava well. But see to it that the rava does not become too fine.
• Heat 1 tbsp of ghee and roast the raisins and cashews/almonds and allow to cool.
  
• Now in a small kadai melt the rest of the ghee, you can reduce the heat to the minimum amount so that the ghee remains in its liquid form until u are done with the laddoos.
  
• Take the rava+sugar mixture in a wide vessel or plate. Separate small portions of the mixture and add required amount of ghee to form small ladoo's. Initially I was placing the dry fruits in each laddoo individually while making them. But towards the end I lost interest and added the dry fruits to the whole mixture !! hehe

My Notes:

• When I was making the first few ladoo's my mind dint let me use just ghee to make the ladoo's and so I was adding a few drops of milk (read it in a website) This did make the process easier but the laddoo's turned out to be hard and were mistaken for Golf balls !!! So dont heisitate to add the required amount of ghee :-)
• You can add coconut pieces roasted in a litlle ghee to the ladoo's too.
• Another variation here, using a combination of roasted urad dal flour and rava.
  

Varalakshmi Vratam

Dear Foodies,

Here are a few photos my mother sent me last week after the Varalakshmi Vratam at our home on August 4th.

Goddess Lakshmi fully decked with jewels and flowers. The alankaram has been done this very same way every year.

The Goddess along with the naivedyam my mother prepared.

A closer look at the delicacies
Clockwise: Idli, Sundal,Pulihora,Rice,Coconut Burfi,Sweet Pongal,Vada,Dahi vada and dal in the center
You can also spot milk,coconut water and assorted fruits

Some neivedyam recipes - Paal payasam, Poli/Bobatlu, Sweet Pongal, Kozhkattai/Modagam,
Temple-style Tamarind Pulihora, Sundal (Sundal again), Rava Idli, Medu Vada & Dahi Vada, Savory Mixture,