~~ 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.
