Sunday, October 01, 2006

Happy Dasara

Dear Foodies,

~~ A VERY HAPPY DASARA TO ALL OF YOU !! ~~



I made Pongal and Sundal as
naivedyam on Friday and here are the pictures. I will be posting the recipes a little later as I plan to make more goodies for Vijayadasami too. :-)


Dasara in our house is a big event. We have the custom of keeping '
kolu/golu', which is an exhibit of dolls(made of clay or wood), majorly consisting of Gods. We usually have a 5 or7 step arrangement. A few dolls that we have in our collection in India are:a Ashtalakshmi set, Dasavataram, a doll set depicting a market place, a collection of animals which we arrange in some wet soil to depict a zoo, a temple with a band of muscians. The most reacent major entrant is a cricket set which is soo much fun to set-up :-). I miss being at home for this festival. It was always soo interesting to help my mom arrange the dolls.



I was of the opinion that Dasara and Dussera were just two different ways of spelling the festival name in English, but wikipedia says otherwise....read about the interesting twist:
Dasara and Dussera

I made some Rava Kesari and Bajji(potato fritters) on Sunday for the Saraswati puja naivedyam. A little about the puja from wiki
The goddess Saraswati is worshipped during Navaratri. In South India, Saraswati Puja is a very important festival. The last three days of Navarathri starting from Mahalaya Amavasya (the New Moon day) are dedicated to the goddess. On the ninth day of Navaratri (Mahanavami), books and all musical instruments are ceremoniously kept near the gods early at dawn and worshipped with special prayers. No studies or any performance of arts is carried out, as it is considered that the Goddess herself is blessing the books and the instruments.



I had some batter left even after I used up all the sliced potatoes. It was then in a sudden flash that I realised my mother uses a slotted spoon to make boondi and I was using one such spoon to drain the oil from the fritters. And soo... I happyily made use of the extra batter in making boondi's instead of peeling another potato for the fritters :-) They were nice n crisp and it was wonderful eating them after a looong time :-) I think I am going to make boondi's more often as they are soo simple to make and yet soo tasty.

14 thoughts:

Prema Sundar said...

Happy Dasara to u too priya.. I too made sundal and payasam.

Anonymous said...

Happy dassara to you too. Made sundal and pal payasam. I see prema had the same in her menu.

FH said...

Happy Dasara! Pics look wonderful, yummy sweets too!:))Enjoy!!

mitr_bayarea said...

Priya,

First time visitor from the other Priya's blog. Happy navarathri and your sundal pictures remind me of all the types of sundal and goodies I did for the last weekend for Saraswathi puja and Vijayadasami.

Keep up the enthu!

RP said...

Happy dasara to you too.
Great looking dishes! Yum yum!!

Chandrika said...

Happy Dasara, Priya! and Happy Dasara to your soft toys too!! :-)

KA said...

Belated dasara wishes to you Priya

Anonymous said...

Happy Dasara Priya. Your pictures look wonderful. Felt like eating them right away :).

Rajesh &Shankari said...

same pinch, I made the same sundal too and semiya payasam

Anonymous said...

Your template, right side Profile is down?

Apun Ka Desh said...

What lovely food. :)
Yummm...

sudha said...

Hi Priya..Nice photos. I also made rava kesari this time. Also i liked the 'ganta' in the picture. Congratulations for your first muffins.

Priya said...


Prema, Hema, Asha, Mitr, RP, Arjuna, Shilpa, Shankari and Indian
Thank you all for the wishes. Hope all of you had a great time and are all geared up for Diwali :-)

A special Hi to Chandrika from the teddies ;-)

Inji, I am soo not sure why the template got messed up. It looks normal to me :-(

Sudha, My mother sent me the ganta from Hyderabad, even I love it. Will want to get more articles with that kind of design.

bhattathiri said...

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Yoga which is one of the greatest Indian co tribution to the world has got vast potential in all fields. In Tihar jail India Yoga is experimented among the inamtes and found successful. Their criminal mentality is changed. This study aimed at investigating the effect of Vipassana Meditation (VM) on Quality of Life (QOL), Subjective Well-Being (SWB), and Criminal Propensity (CP) among inmates of Tihar Jail, Delhi. To this effect the following hypotheses were formulated. 1. There will be a significant positive effect of VM on the QOL of inmates of Tihar jail. 2. VM will have a positive and significant effect on SWB of inmates. 3. Criminal propensity (CP) of inmates will decrease significantly after attending the VM course. 4. There will be significant difference in SWB and CP of experimental (Vipassana) group and control (non-Vipassana) group. 5. Male and female inmates will differ significantly in SWB and CP, as a result of VM. In the famous "Time" magazine the importance meditation and yoga, an ancient Indian system, is high-lighted that the ancient mind- and spirit-enhancing art is becoming increasingly popular and gaining medical legitimacy. It is a multi billion dollar business in US. In many Universities it is accepted as subject and included in the Syllabus. In the latest famous book "Inspire! What Great Leaders Do" written by Mr.Lance Secretan recently published by John Wiley and sons, the benefit of meditation is elaborately described for good corporate governance. By practising transcendental meditation, or TM, many people have got relief from back pain, neck pain, depression. The mind calms and quiets, . What thoughts you have during meditation become clearer, more focused. Anger, anxiety and worries give way to a peace. In the world exhorbitant medical expeneses one can definitely make use of meditation. Maharshi Mahesh Yogi and Sri Ravi Sankar are poplarising this. The Iyengar Yoga institute in US is famous.

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