Bulgur/Burghol Upma

A Quick Breakfast/Dinner Menu. Whenever i feel so damn tired to make something for Breakfast/Dinner, i cook this Bulgur/Burghol Upma. Its very easy and simple to make and takes less time to Prepare. It doesnt require any Side Dish as such, goes very well Sauce or a Simple Low-fat Yoghurt mixed with Black Salt and Chilli Powder.

Ingredients
1 cup Bulgur/Burghol
1 Large Onion, chopped
3-4 Green Chillies/ Red Chillies
2 sprigs of Curry leaves
hing, turmeric each a pinch
Salt to taste
1/2 tsp Mustard seeds
2 tsp Cooking oil
Coriander leaves and Ginger Juliennes for Garnishing

Method

Boil 2 cups of Water and Blanch Bulgur/Burghol for 5 minutes. Heat Oil in a Kadai/Deep Pan, Splutter Mustard seeds, add chillies, curry leaves, hing and turmeric. After a minute, add Blanched Burghol, add Salt and Mix well. Cover and  Cook in a Low flame for 5-10 minutes. Put off the Flame. Garnish with Coriander leaves and Ginger juliennes. We enjoyed with  Low-fat yoghurt Mixed Whisked with Black Salt and Red Chilli powder.  Tasted Delicious and a Filling Meal!!!!!
Check out my other Marathon Buddies Srivalli, Priya Suresh, Jay, Monika, Reva, PJ, Azeema , Ayeesha ,Veena , Soumya and Gayathri

Pongal Special ~ Ven Pongal & Chakkarai Pongal

Wishing all my readers a very happy Pongal/Sankaranthi. Like every year, I made Ven Pongal, Chakkara Pongal and Vadai to celebrate the occasion. For a change, Husband wanted Uzhundu (urad dal) vadai  instead of the paruppu vadai, which is usually made for Pongal. I could not get fresh turmeric so tied the dried ones to the pot.

Chakkarapongal

You need

•  Raw Rice/Pachharisi - 1/2 cup
• Moong dal - 1/4 cup
• Jaggery - 1 cup
• Boiled Milk - 1/2 cup
• Ghee - 2 tspn
• Cashew - 10 nos
• Raisins - 10 nos
• Cardamom powder - 1/2 tspn

 

 

Method

Roast rice and dal separately. Pressure cook with 2 1/2 cups of water. Melt jaggery with 1/4 cup water. Filter to remove any impurities. Bring jaggery syrup to boil and stir in the cooked rice and dal. Cook on low flame till the jaggery is well absorbed by the rice,dal mix. This will not take much time and will get done quickly. Do keep stirring to avoid the mix getting stuck to the bottom. The color of the rice and dal will change to brown on cooking. Finally stir in the milk and cook for a minute or two for it blend well and remove from fire. Don't cook for longer time once the milk is added to avoid curdling.

 

Roast cashew nut and raisins in ghee and add it to the pongal. Finally add cardamom powder.

 

 

 

VenPongal

You need

 

• Rice - 2/3 cup
• Moong dal - 1/3 cup
• Turmeric - a small pinch
• Hing -1/4 tspn
• Water - 3 cup
• Ghee - 2 tblspn
• Cumin seeds - 1 tspn
• Peppercorns - 5-8 nos, crushed
• Few curry leaves
• Cashew nuts - 10 nos (optional)

Method

 

Dry roast rice for less than 5 minutes or so. Roast moong dal till you can smell the aroma of roasted dal and the dal would have turned light brown. Wash rice and dal together. Add 3 cups of water to rice+dal  mix. Add a pinch of turmeric and hing to it. Pressure cook till it is soft. After pressure cooking, the rice and dal would have cooked soft with no traces of water in it.

Mash it lightly with the ladle.

Heat a pan and add ghee. When ghee is hot, add cashews, cumin ,crushed pepper and curry leaves. When cashews start browning remove and add the seasoning to the rice dal mixture.

Mix well and serve hot. Coconut chutney goes well with pongal.

I shall post the vadai recipe in the next one. Until my friend, who is a follower of this blog, messaged me that she was expecting a post on pongal recipes, I didn't realize that I haven't posted the recipes here. Thanks Anu, this is specially for you.

Wishing all my readers a lovely day of celebrations with friends and family.

Choco Banana Milkshake

I was in the thought of making banana milkshake for evening drink. Added cocoa powder to make it different than the plain white colour. And wow.. It was fruity, chocolatey and.. yummy.





Ingredients:
Serves: 2
Cold Milk - 450 ml (I use 2% milk)
Banana - 1 big
Cocoa powder - 2 tsp
Sugar - 4 tsp or to taste

Method:
Blend everything together in a mixie/blender until frothy. Serve chilled with