HAPPY NEW YEAR 2010!!!!!!!!

Wishing all my blogger friends and all my readers a very happy and prosperous New Year 2010!!!!!

Best Regards,
Veda

Instant Bhel Puri

Last week I had a kitty party at home for my colony friends and we had a blast. Every month, a new host is chosen to throw a party. What we basically do is snack, play games and of course there are prizes for the games and all in all we have a good time just being around with friends. It’s really a nice way to unwind every month.

My cousin Ramya gave me these wonderful ideas for snacks. I prepared Bhel puri, Papdi chat, Pani puri. This is so easy that if you have all the ingredients at home, you can make it any time. A good choice for bachelors too!

Ingredients:
Puffed Rice – 3 cups
Carrots – 2 grated
Onions – 2 finely chopped
Tomatoes – 2 finely chopped (Mix tomatoes and onions with some lime juice and keep aside)
Halved Groundnuts – store bought which is already coated with spices
Papdi – 7-8 (store bought)
Sev – a handful for each plate

For the chutneys:
Dates chutney for the sweet chutney
You can use store bought green chutney powder. All you have to do is mix the powder with water.

Mix all the above ingredients along with some salt. Garnish with coriander leaves and sev on each plate.

Don’t make it early and keep this because it can get soggy. Keep all the ingredients ready, but mix them only when you are ready to eat! Hope you enjoy trying this and eating it too!

Carrot Payasa (Carrot Pudding/Kheer/Payasam)

Before posting this recipe, I did like to wish all my readers a very happy and safe deepavali (a row of lights). True to the word, this festival is celebrated by lighting up homes with lots of diyas (oil lamps), flowers, rangoli, and crackers. And how can one forget sweets? This is the time to indulge in lots of caloric sweets and forget about the weighing machine for a while. After all diwali comes once in a year.

Talking about sweets, we still like to keep it traditional at home by making payasa along with other varieties of sweets.

Payasa (in Kannada), Payasam ( in Tamil), Kheer (in Hindi), Pudding (in English), Athough the names are different in different languages, the ingredients which go in to the making of this dish is the same. It has the combination of Rice, Milk, Sugar, flavoured with Cardamoms, Raisins, Cashews, Almonds and Saffron (kesari). Although rice is commonly used to make payasa, we also use vermicelli, sago, poppy seeds. This year for diwali, My mother-in-law prepared payasa with Carrot as the main ingredient. Its very different from the usual rice pudding and tastes delicious too!!!!

Ingredients: (Serves ~6)

Carrot - 4

Sugar - 1 cup

Milk - 1 and 1/2 cup (boiled)

Cardamom - (8-10)

Raisins and Cashews - (8-10 each)

Almonds - 5 (coarse powder)

Saffron - few

Preparation:

1. Pressure cook carrots. Grind them with 1/2 cup milk.

2. Take a deep bottomed vessel, and boil the ground mixture for 5 mins along with 1 cup milk, sugar, cardamoms, saffron and raisins.

3. Fry the cashews in 1 tsp ghee and add it to the above.

Serving tip: Best served when slightly chilled.

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