Vegetable Poha # Vegetable Flat rice # vegetable atukulu # Easy and healthy breakfast

Poha Upma with vegetables is easy to prepare within very less time. For working women especially on sundays when we wake up late, we can prepare this and serve hot. Poha is nothing but atukulu in Telugu and flat rice in English.

Ingredients;

Poha (mota only); 1/4 kg
carrot; 2 small
beans; fistful
green peas; fistful (optional)
potato: 1 medium sized
sweet corn: fistful (optional)
onion             ; 1 big
mustard seeds; for seasoning
jeera               ; for seasoning
urad dal          ; for seasoning
oil                   ; 4 table spoons
green chillies ;  6 to 8 as prefered
red chillies     ; 1 or 2
curry leaves   ; few
Turmeric       ; 1 big pinch
dhaniya          ; 1 bunch
(kothimeer)

Preparation time 20 min

Firstly chop and keep all the vegetables into small cubes ready (beans, carrot, potato and onion).
Wash and drain the poha once to clean it from dust.

Now take a pan, put some oil and add mustard, jeera and urad dal and allow it to splutter. Now add the sliced onions, green chillies (sliced) and 1 or 2 red dry chillies, curry leaves and stir well till the onions change colour. Then add the chopped vegetables carrot, potato and beans. You can also add green peas,sweet corn or baby corn as you wish.

Fry these vegetbales for 2, 3 minutes and add some water to it (about half a cup).Also add a big pinch of turmeric. Put the flame on medium and allow the vegetables to cook properly. Add little salt in water just enough for the vegetbales only. **If we wont add little salt here, while eating we feel these vegetable pieces saltless and not so tasty **

Check if the vegetables are well cooked, soft enough and now squeeze the water from the flat rice little by little and add it to these vegetables. ** See that not much water is left in these vegetables otherwise when u add the poha and mix well, it will become like a paste **

Mix poha and the vegetables properly, add salt as per your taste and mix well and allow it get hot. keep mixing for 3, 5 minutes and switch off the stove. Finally season it with dhaniya or kothimeer or coriander as you call and serve hot.

You can serve it with little pickle and curd. Its too good when hot!! 

Do try this easy recipe and let me know your comments in the below comment box.

Moong Barfi # Easy sweet dish # Pesar pappu barfi sweet

Moong dal has a unique taste. The more you chew the more taste you get. It is rich in carbohydrates and has zero cholesterol. Children will love its taste. Moong Barfii s easy to prepare in less time.

Ingredients:

Moong dal ; 250 grms
Sugar         : 300 gms
khoya        : 100 gms
Elaichi      : 3 pieces
Ghee         :  100 gms
Kesar colour: little (small pinch)
Kaju         :  50gms

Preparation Time: 20 min

First of all wash and soak moong dal or the green gram in water for about 4 to five hours. Grind it and make a fine paste after 5 hours.

Now put little ghee in a pan, fry some cashews and keep them aside. Now add the remaining ghee and fry this moong paste on a medium flame by stirring continuously for about 10 minutes. It becomes hard like this.

Now add the khoya by crumbling it (making into as small pieces as possible), also add sugar and food colour and keep stirring continuously.

The sugar and khoya gets mixed completely with the moong and looks as above. Add the Elaichi powder now and keep a plate greased with ghee ready. **Touch this paste and see- if it is sticking to your hand, its not yet done, if not its done. **

Pour this mixture into the greased plate.

Keep spreading it all over the plate using the spatula or apply some ghee and do it with your hand itself. (do remember that its hot)

When this mixture is still wet, arrange the Kaju on it by pressing a little. You can add raisins too.

After some 40 to 50 minutes, when its dry, you can cut it into squares or diamond shapes as desired without disturbing the dry fruits. Now moong Barfi is ready. If u take this paste in a bowl and eat it hot, u can serve it as moong halwa too. The more you chew the more tasty it will be. 

Do try it and post your experience!!

Traditional dishes—besan puri, Masala puri, Khara for the festival

Besan Puri's are stuffed traditional puris which do not require any chutney or curry while eating and can be stored for 5,6 days easily. 2,3 days before a festival if we can prepare these puris, when guests come, it will be nice to serve this home made and ready food along with a sweet. They will feel happy.

Ingredients;

Maida: 1 big glass

Whole wheat atta: 1spoonful

Upma rawa: 1 spoonful

Besan {gram flour}: 1 glass

Dhaniya or kothimeer: 5 buches

Pudina: 5 bunches

Lemons : 6 to 8   

Oil : for deep fry

Take a bowl, put little salt and squeeze the juice from all the lemons and keep the lemon juice ready.

First kneed the maida with little salt and water, apply little oil and cover it for about an hour to get a good batter. Batter should be the same as we do for normal puris.

 Finely chop the dhaniya and pudina as shown below. Prepare green chilli paste by grinding green chillies and salt together as per the spiciness you prefer. 

***For green chilli paste if we add 100gms green mirchi we add 50gms salt***

Now take the basin atta in a big plate, add the finely chopped pudina, dhaniya, green chilli paste and half the above lemon juice and knead the dough. Check and add more lemon juice if needed, dont add any water for this dough. Apply little oil and cover it and keep it aside for sometime.

***If any lemon juice is still left out just add some sugar and water and we can drink it as lemon juice*** 

Now take the above maida, press and mix well the dough once again and make small pieces for puris. Take one piece make it round and press a little and keep it aside. Repeat this with all other pieces of dough.

Now make the basin atta also into pieces of almost same size with your hands only. Take one maida small puri and put this round basin stuffing into it as shown below

 Cover the all the sides by pulling the sides of the maida puri such that the stuffing is not shown outside at all as shown above and below.

Stuff all the maida small puris with the stuffing and keep ready. Now these stuffed puris can be pressed with a roller slowly by sprinkling some atta so that it wont stick to the roller and prepare the puris. Prepare some 10 puris like this and start deep frying them as shown below

After removing from oil if we can place them on a newspaper or a tissue paper for sometime the excess oil will be removed. These puris are now ready to serve hot and they are equally good when they get cooled also. The tangy taste of the lemon juice, the flavor of the pudina and dhaniya will be mouth watering. Since we use basin atta {gram four} we call them as besan puris and since we stuff  the puris with this masala we also call them as masala puris or the stuffed puris, Here are the delicious besan puris.....

 Try these puris for this festive season at home and do mention your comments so that I can understand your opinions and improve myself and I feel motivated if you like it. Share it with your friends and near and dear if you really like this dish

Macaroni snack, tangy macaroni, Easy breakfast for children

For working parents those who do not have much time to cook this is an easy breakfast recipe. If we had a tiresome work on a particular and unable to get up early in the morning for the next day, this dish will help us out as it does not take much time for preparation. It can be served as a snack too in the evening when children are back to home. When some guests come in an odd time which is neither lunch nor dinner time you can serve this hot and fast to them.

Macaroni, Noodles, Maggie all are children's favorite dishes. It does not take much time to cook. For children who do not eat completely from their lunch boxes---if we prepare such dishes, their boxes will be clean bold and they lick it tooo. My children just love it.

Ingredients: To serve 2 people

Macaroni : 4 fists full
Onion: 1 large chopped finely
Tomatoes: 2 medium sized
Ginger garlic paste: half a spoon
Pepper powder: one pinch
China salt {ajninimoto}: one pinch
Turmeric: one pinch
Red chilly powder: As per need
Oil: 2 table spoons


Preparation time: 20 min

Take a big bowl full of water to boil and drain the macaroni. Macaroni will become double the size when cooked and it should have enough space to boil well, so take a bigger bowl and boil the water. Add some salt and a spoon of oil in this boiling water and then add the macaroni so that they will get some salt taste in them and wont get sticky also. It will take approximately some 8 to 10 min for the macaroni to cook. Take one in the spoon and check if its cooked and now strain it in a strainer. Macaroni has gum added in it to retain its shape and texture. So always boil well strain and then only use it. Now the macaroni is ready to cook.

***After straining if you need some time to put it on the stove then please don't leave it in the strainer, mix it well with your and put it in a wide plate and spread them in it so that they don't stick to each other.

[***otherwise it will become like a ball and is hard to separate them all again***]

Chop the onions and tomatoes as shown below into small pieces.

Now take a pan, put  2 spoons of oil and add jeera to it. when the jeera is fried add onion and ginger garlic paste to it. Let it cook for a while and then add the tomatoes. when the tomatoes are cooked add little salt only for the tomatoes, turmeric and red chilly powder and mix well. Now add the cooked macaroni, salt and mix thoroughly. Add a pinch of china salt and pepper powder for good flavor and mix again

Simmer the stove till the macaroni gets heated. Top it with coriander and your macaroni is ready.

Do try this dish and do write about it in the comment box below............

Dassera and Diwali south Indian special sweet dish Kajji kayalu in Andhra, Garjelu in Telangana; amma chethi vonta; traditional sweet dish

  Since ages our fathers and forefathers also have been enjoying this South Indian traditional dish named Kajji kayalu or Garjelu. Especially for Dassera and for marriages we prefer this sweet. It is prepared with different types of fillings. Today I will show you how to prepare with khoya filling.

Ingredients;

Maida - 1/4 kg
khoya -  1/4 kg
sugar  -  1/4 kg
ghee -    1 spoon
oil     -    enough for deep fry
elaichi [cardamom] - 3
kaju small pieces - fistful
sare palukulu [chironji ] -fistful

Preparation time; 45 min

Take maida and Knead it with sufficient amount of water and make a dough just as we do for chapathis. Apply some oil over it and cover it with a lid. Keep it aside for 1.5 to 2 hours.

Take khoya and put it in the kadai [fry pan] on a medium flame and keep stirring it. it slowly melts and gets softer. keep stirring till it changes colour to light golden brown and leaves out good smell. Switch off the stove and spread it wide in the same fry pan and allow it to cool down completely.

Mean while take the sugar and grind it to fine powder along with elaichi or cardamom. Now take a small pan put a spoon of ghee and add the kaju and fry them to golden brown, then add the other dry fruits and take it off and put it over the fried khoya.

The khoya will take round about 2 to 3 hours for cooling down completely.

**If we add sugar before the khoya cools completely, it becomes sticky as the sugar melts and we wont be able to continue with the sweet**

Now the khoya gets dry, mix well using your hands. You can feel it powdery. Now add the sugar powder and mix well.

** If we want less sweet, we can add little less sugar powder**

 This mixture is now ready for the stuffing.

  Take maida, mix it properly once again and divide it into pieces for making small puris with the roller. Prepare about 6 puris and stop. Now take the 'Kajji kaya maker', apply oil on its sides and put the puri over it as shown in the below video. Now put a spoonful of the stuffing and close it. Press the sides nicely top to bottom, remove the excess puri and slowly open it. The Kajji kaya is ready to fry. Similarly do it with the remaining puris.

Apply oil on the sides as shown below

Put the puri over the mould as shown below

Now put a spoonful of stuffing on the puri, touch the ends of puri with wet fingers [so that it sticks properly and does not open ] and then close the mould and press it properly.

Press the mould from all sides thouroughly

Remove the excess puri slowly and press again.

slowly open the mould and the kajji kaya is ready to fry.

Now deep fry these kajji kayas in oil till rawness goes and little brown spots appear.

**The sides should be pressed well in the mould with great care. We can apply little [very little] water with fingers on the edges where we press so that it does not open. Do not fry if it opens as it spreads in the oil and becomes black and we wont be able to fry further. So checking the sides is very very important.

Make only 6 to 8 puris at a time and stuff them and deep fry them and then continue with the puris again so that they wont get dry. Deep fry these stuffed puris till spots appear on it. It wont get brown since we are using maida. So dont wait for the brown colour, just spot are enough. After frying place them on a tissue for a minute or so to absorb the extra oil and the traditional Kajji Kaya is ready...

Please do post your opinion on this dish or if u like it do click on like. thankyou.