Karadayan Nombu Adai (Sweet & Salt)

I know I am late in posting this. Better late than never. My system was down for two days and was busy reviving it. Then it was already late with Arusuvai. So posted that first. This year nombu was celebrated on 14th March. Unlike other festivals, nombu is observed during a specific period of time of the day. The time period is the ending of the month of Maasi (Kumbham) and beginning of Panguni(Meenam), which is called Sankramam. This year it was a convenient time of between 8:00 A.M and 8:30 A.M. After S left to office (he leaves by 7:00 A.M), me and my MIL started with the preprations. The flour was made ready two days before. We prepared both salt and sweet versions of the adai, though only the sweet ones are offered as neivedyam.

Preparing the rice flour for the adais

Wash and soak 3 cups of rice in water for half an hour.

Drain and allow to dry on a kitchen towel for half an hour or so. It should not be dried completely. Some moisture left on it is good.

Powder it from a flour mill or in a mixer grinder.

Seive them to get the fine powder.

Dry roast the rice flour in a kadai till they turn light brown.

You may have to seive again, since some lumps can be found.

Those lumps can be powdered again by giving a run in the mixie again.

Cool and store in an airtight container.

Preparing the Vella Adai
Roasted rice flour - 1 cup

Water - 2 cups

Powdered jaggery - 1 cup

Cooked black eyed peas(vellapayar/karamani) - 2 tblspn

Coconut pieces - 2 tblspn

Ghee - 1 spn

Boil the jaggery along with the measure water. When the jaggery is fully dissolved, remove any scums.

Transfer the strained jaggery water to a kadai. When water starts boiling, add chickpeas, coconut pieces and slowly add the rice flour.

Keep stirring while you add so that it doesn't form lumps. Add a teaspoon of ghee.

Cook till the water is fully absorbed. Leave it to cool.

Take a lemon size of the dough, flatten it on a banana leaf.

Arrange the leaves on a idli mould and steam cook for 10 mitnutes. The test is the adais would have shiny texture.

For neivadyam, adai is offered with a blob of fresh butter. Adai with fresh home made vennai (butter) is heaven.

Uppadai (Salty adai)
For seasoning

Mustard - 1 tspn

Green chillies- 3

Red chilly -2

Coconut pieces- 2 tblspn

Chana dal - 2 tblspn

Oil

Roasted rice flour -1 cup

Water - 2 cups

Salt

In a kadai, do the seasonings as given.

Add water and salt.

When waters starts boiling, tip off the flour into it.

Cook till it reached the upma consistency. Cool and prepare adais in the same way as sweet ones.

Arusuvai Friendship Chain and an Event Entry

During one of my usual blog hop, Meera's post on Eggless Banana Cake caught my attention. I always look for eggless cakes. Among the list of the ingredients, she had mentioned about doodh masala. She has posted the recipe for the same earlier. In the recipe for doodh masala , found one ingredient which was new to me.Haven't heard about that before. On further googling,landed at Indira's. Needless to say, its a treasure house of recipes featuring all most all ingredients used in various regions of India. She has introduced the ingredient for doodh masala in one of her posts on Indian ingredients. What to say about her pictures. They are so real that you might extend your hand to pick them from your screen.

Now cut to the Arusuvai Friendship Chain. Arusuvai is started in India by the mother-daughter duo - Latha amma and Lakshmi of The Yum blog. I had mailed Srivalli, of interest to be a part of the chain. Ever since, Srivalli mailed me that I was to receive from Gaurav, I have been visitng his blog everyday to see if he has posted on his arusuvai ingredient. What to say about the post
on Arusuvai, there wasn't any updations on his blog then. One fine day, there arrived his post. He made up for the delay with 3 posts on the ingredient he received. Still a week passed, with out his mail confirming he sending me the courier. Finally received the intimation from him. He had mentioned the courier guys asking for door no etc. In my place, the building/door no doesn't have any significance. Rest of the address details is enough to locate.

And it arrived at my door two days back. As soon as I opened I found a packet of some seeds. If not I have stumbled on Meera's post, I will not have known what it is. How hard I might guess. If I taste it, I might have a feeling of having tasted it before, but never its name. It was Charoli/Chironji/Saara Pappu. Many thanks to Indira for introdcing it to me and to Gaurav for giving me an opportunity to use it. I feel, this is the spirit of Arusuvai.

I prepared Dates Banana Milkshake adopting recipe of Chandrika of Akshayapatra.
Since I had to prepare for 5 and didnot have enough dates, I added some Dates syrup also. Garnished with the charoli seeds sent by Gaurav.

I am sending this off to Sig's MBP event, which has Mixed Drinks as the theme.

I will be sending a secret ingredient to Sunshinemom of TongueTicklers.

PS. If any of you , who reside in India and is interested to part of this friendship, please leave a comment in Srivalli's or at Bharathy's blog, who are co-ordinating this.

Grilled Veggie Burrito - Baja fresh style

I love grilled veggie burrito from Baja Fresh(fast food mexican place). If you haven't eaten there, give it a try.

Ingredients:
Flour tortillas - 2 (burrito size)
Salsa(mixture of finely chopped onions, tomatoes, coriander leaves, salt and lemon juice) - 1/2 cup
Onion and capsicum - chopped - 1/2 cup
Cooked chick peas - 1/4 cup
Sour cream - a dollop(optional)
Cheddar cheese(optional) - 2 tbsp

Method:
Heat a pan. Add a tsp of oil and fry onions and capsicum till they are cooked. Set aside.
In another pan, heat the tortillas.
In the center of each tortilla, place a handful of salsa, cooked onions and capsicum, cooked chick peas, sour cream and cheddar cheese. Wrap the burrito as shown in http://billgrady.com/wp/2002/11/14/how-to-wrap-a-burrito/

Enjoy!