LETZ COOK/CRAFT/MAKE

This year Christmas was extra special for more than one reason. It's the first one after our marriage and my brother was with me for Christmas after 6 yrs. I made all the goodies during the week after I got back from work. Some of the recipes are from other fellow bloggers. Sharing with you all a few pictures and a recipe. Clockwise from top: Farsi Puri, Rawa Ladoo, Fruit cake, Seven Cup Sweet, Murukku, Kaju Katli and Boondi Ladoo in the center Farsi Puri Rawa Ladoo Fruit Cake Seven Cup Sweet Murukku Kaju Katli Boondi Ladoo My Christmas Goodies Seven Cup Sweet Ingredients: Coconut (shredded) - 1 cup Besan - 1 cup Ghee - 1 cup Sugar - 3 cups Milk - 1 cup Method: Fry besan in a tawa on low heat for about 5 minutes till the raw smell disappears. Add shredded coconut and fry for another 10 minutes in low heat. Increase the heat and add milk and sugar and mix well. Stir till all the sugar melts and then slowly add ghee in spoonfulls till it is completely absorbed. Stir till the

WISHING YOU All A MERRY CHRISTMAS

This is a very easy and quick recipe. It takes about 20min and tastes great. I try to avoid readymade sauces as much as possible and hence this simple marinara tastes fresh and delicious. It is also free of any preservatives that are usually found in store bought sauces. Ingredients: Angel Hair Pasta - 8 oz Tomatoes (diced and stored in juice) - 1 can Basil (dried) - 1 tbsp Carrots (sliced) - 2 Capers - 1 tbsp Onion (chopped) - 1 Garlic (finely chopped) - 6 Olive oil - 3 tbsp Salt - as needed Pepper - as needed Chilli flakes - 1 tsp (optional) Method: Heat olive oil in a pan and add chopped onions and garlic. Once the onions turn translucent add sliced carrots and cook on medium heat. After about 5 minutes add the diced tomatoes along with the juice and let it cook in medium heat, till the tomatoes turn mushy (about 15 min). Add capers, dried basil, chilli flakes, salt and pepper and leave it on low heat. In the meantime cook the pasta according to the directions on the package. Rememb

Here is my first entry to the JFI-Chocolate event . I've never made a dish for any other event this fast. Now I am sure you guys will accept that I am obsessed with chocolate. My boss usually brings us some treats during the holiday season and last year he brought this fudge. They tasted wonderful and my husband and I liked it a lot. I've been bugging him ever since for the recipe. Unfortunately his wife misplaced the recipe. I decided to Google for the recipe and found the one I liked, here . I omitted the nuts as the one I tasted last year was without the nuts. This tasted exactly like the one my boss brought last year and this year I packed some for him, as a pre-Christmas treat. It is a very easy no bake recipe and takes about 5 minutes to prepare and 2 hours to set. The fudge was chewy and soft and the cranberries complemented the white chocolate perfectly. Ingredients: White Baking Chocolate (chopped into smaller pieces) - 12 0z Sweetened condensed milk - 2/3 cup Cranberr

Its my turn to host this month's JFI(Jihva For Ingredients). This event was started by Indira of Mahanandi and you can read all about it here . After much thinking (who am I kidding), I decided on this month's special ingredient. Full credit goes to my husband for suggesting this. Its my most favorite ingredient and I think it holds true for most of you out there. Both kids and adults love it. I have not come across anyone who hates it. There are people who like it, some who love it and then there are people like me who adore it. Yes this month's special ingredient is CHOCOLATE. For the last few months, every time a JFI ingredient was announced, I would hope that it isnt chocolate. I am glad that I got to choose this as my ingredient. You can say that I am obsessed with it. I love chocolate in any form or shape. We have all heard and read a lot of contradicting reports about its health benefits (dark chocolate is considered the best), but no one has challenged its taste and

I made this traditional dessert for dinner on diwali and everyone loved it. It was a very simple and easy recipe and tasted divine. I took this recipe from Mrs. S. Mallika Badrinath's TRADITIONAL SWEETS recipe book. This will be my entry to the JFI-Special Edition Diwali event hosted by Vee of Past, Present and Me . Ingredients: Green gram dal(Split moong dal) - 1 cup Jaggery (grated) - 1 cup (can be increased or decreased as per taste) Coconut milk (thin) - 2 cups (milk - 2 cups can be used instead) Ghee - 2 tbsp Cardamom powder - 1/4 tsp Cashew nut - 1 tbsp Raisins - 1 tbsp Water - 1 cup Method: Fry cashews and raisins in 1 tbsp ghee till roasted. Roast the moong dal with 1 tbsp ghee till it turns golden brown in color. Pressure cook the dal with 1 cup of water and 2 cups of milk till soft and mushy (You can cook it on the stove top but it takes longer). Add jaggery and heat it till it becomes thick and creamy. Add the cardamom powder and fried cashews and raisins and serve warm

This being our thalai diwali (first one after the wedding), I wanted to go all out and prepare a lot of dishes for diwali. It was a challenge as I had to come back from work and start making the dishes every night. A big thanks to the food blog community, as I found many delicious dishes, all with elaborate descriptions and pictures. This made my job much easier. Coming from a christian background we do not prepare most of these dishes at home. Cakes and cookies are more common back home. So it was quite a challenge to make these dishes without having seen anyone make them, but following the directions word by word was the key. The dishes turned out perfect. So here is a small compilation of the treats I prepared with links to the original recipes. I am adding a few notes to help others out there like me. Coconut Burfi from Saffron Hut : Remember to use a heavy bottomed pan, as milk here in US usually gets burnt easily. Also stir it often to prevent burning. Since I live in a dry cold

I wanted to participate in the AFAM-Peach event hosted by Mansi of fun and food . But since I was out of time I decided to try a twist to the traditional bhel. I skipped both onions and tomatoes and added peach, mango and pomegrante seeds instead. The bhel tasted perfect with the right amount of spice, salt, sourness and crunch. Ingredients: Peaches (cubed) - 1/2 cup Mango (raw) (cut into small pieces) - 2 tbsp Pomegranate seeds - a handful Mamra (puffed rice) - 1 cup Sev - 2 tsp Mint chutney - as needed Sweet chutney -as needed Chilli sauce - as needed Salt - a pinch Cilantro leaves - for garnishing Method: Mix all the ingredients well and give the bowl a good shake. Serve immediately.

Every year for halloween I decorate the house with scary stuff and buy a lot of candy for the neighbourhood kids. Its so much fun to look at all their costumes and their smiles, after getting candy. Even though most moms wont agree with me, I enjoy giving them candy. While waiting for the kids to knock, we carve pumpkins and I roast the seeds for healthy snacking later. Showcasing our carving talents Pumpkin seeds are healthy as they are filled with fiber, zinc and omega 3 fatty acids. They also help lower cholesterol levels. Remember to wash and strain the pumpkin seeds, as this will help remove the fibrous pumpkin flesh. Also eating the pumpkin seeds with the skin on increases its nutritional value. Pumpkin seeds washed and cleaned, ready to be munched on Ingredients: Cleaned pumpkin seeds Chilli powder - as needed Salt - as needed Garam masala - as needed Lime juice - a few teaspoons Method: Sprinkle the seeds liberally with salt and chilli powder as per taste. Also add a pinch of

Last week during my usual blog hoping I came across this recipe and I liked it. It has chocolate in it and thats more than enough reason for me to fall in love with it. The recipe was pretty simple and easy to prepare. Since it does not use butter I think its healthy too. I wasnt sure how it would turn out and was worried if it would turn out hard, more like a browny as it does not use both butter and flour. On the contrary it was very very moist and fruity. After the first bite, I thought that it needed more sugar but after a few bites I fell in love with it. It tastes light, moist, fresh, fruity and yummy. For those of you who like your cakes real sweet you can add a ganache frosting or serve it with a creme anglais sauce. Coming to the reason for this cake, it was my Birthday on Sunday. I wanted to bake my own birthday cake and my husband offered to help. So we decided to bake it together. I followed the recipe as it is from here . Since I do not have a food processor, we cooked the

It's finally here. The roundup for the Green Blog Project - Summer 2007 event . This was started by Inji pennu of myinjimanga . I read about the Green Blog Project - Summer 2006 event , when I had just started blogging in Aug 2006 and I decided to participate. When I saw the roundup, I was excited to see so many other fellow bloggers growing vegetables and fruits at home and going the organic way. Then Mandira of ahar hosted the Green Blog Project- Winter/Spring 2007 event . Even though it gets pretty cold in Colorado and most veggies dont survive, I decided to grow some herbs indoors and participate. I was surprised to see so many entries at the roundup and realized that there a lot of winter gardeners out there. Both these events were very encouraging and I got good tips and ideas to try new plants this year. So when Inji pennu asked me if I would host this year's event I was more than happy to do so. Sorry for the delay in posting the roundup. I had 4 of my wisdom teeth ex