Coconut flavoured wheat halwa and a story

My husband is a november born saggitarian. Basically a nice guy and very sweet but where temperaments and habits are concerened we are poles apart. I believe and thrive on little gifts, remembering dates, candle light dinners , barefoot walks on the beach, and flowers. Hubby tries hard but still requires reminders and prodes (sometimes as blatant as, "Hey, remember tommorrow is my birthday, what about a bouquet, huh?" ).


I remember dates and go all the way out and plan! It takes effort for him to get over the "shock" err...surprise of these episodes The first birthday after we got married was the one that caught him completely unawares. I got a made to order lovely, heart shaped birthday cake, a big bouquet, loads of balloons, candles, and returned from work early to cook a full fledged four course dinner. Conspired with our landlady who lived on the first floor to lock me in so that hubby would return as usual by 7PM, open the door using his own key, and then I would surprise him by suddenly switching on the lights and giving him a magnificent display of all the goodies bought and cooked.


Everything would have gone fine except for the fact that hubby's spare key refused to turn the lock that evening. I listened to him twist and turn it for a full five minutes before switching on the lights inside. The poor guy thought we had burglars inside! By the time I tried opening from within, he was at his wits end and thought I was deliberately playing the fool and locking him outside. Anyway, in all that ruckus our landlady rushed down and saved the situation by opening the door with my key which was with her.


After this I keep my surprises a little more predicatable! This time, with Abhi around and me being stuck without a driving license, decided the simplest way would be to just cook something special. Made a coconut flavoured wheat halwa. Did not have the time to patiently stir it till it reached the consistency where it could be cut into neat blocks. It was just as fine scooped by a spoon! And, guess what! Had just bought a Luminare juice jug set and upon opening found a pretty looking ashtray along with the jug, glasses, and snack jars. Both of us don't smoke or encourage smokers in the house. To cut a long story short, decided the ash tray would make a spectacular receptacle for my halwa! And, before you ask...No, I have not lost my nuts during pregnancy...well, not all...





Broken wheat (sambha godumai/bulgar) - 2 cups

Coconut palm jaggery - 150 gms (if unavailable, just use plain jaggery)

Coconut milk - 100 ml ( I used readymade coconut milk powder)

Cardamom (Elaichi) - 5 Nos

Fresh coconut pieces - 1/4 cup

Canola oil - 1/2 cup


Soak wheat overnight. Pulverize to smooth paste adding a little warm water.Place a fine pored sieve over a deep vessal or alternatively drape a thin muslin cloth over the mouth of the vessal. Strain the wheat paste through this. If using the sieve, coax out all the milk by pressing with a ladle. If using the cloth, secure it over the top of the vessal and allow the milk to slowly trickle out. The white whey you get is wheat milk.


In a seperate vessel boil about 150 ml water and dissolve jaggery. Filter to remove scum. Pour this into a thick bottomed skillet and simmer till it reaches a thick,syrupy texture. Pour in the wheat milk and the coconut milk, simmer stir till the mixture reaches a jam like consistency.
Cut the coconut into tiny bits and fry them till golden brown. Add these, the cardamom seeds, and canola oil to the halwa mixture. Keep stirring till the oil gives a glazy coating to the wheat mixture. Voila, halwa ready!



By the way, hubby loved it, huh.

Sending this across to the Food for 7 Stages of Life - DDPI (15-24 yrs) event being hosted at Sourashtrakitchen and co-hosted by http://bengalicuisine.net/

Simple Spinach soup

I saw an expat celebrity chef's show on TV the other day. She was making a spinach based gravy. Her method was to boil lots of water , cook the spinach in it, drain the water and dunk the leaves in cold water! "Preserves the color", she chirped! I was outraged at the sheer waste of all those fabulous nutrients. Why not preserve the nutrients instead! Greens are delicate store houses of nutrients. Treat them easy. Here's a quick n healthy spinach soup going right to Sunshine mom's TumyumTreats Monthly Mingle - Soups event. The Monthly mingle event was started by Meeta of "What's for lunch, Honey?".

Fresh Spinach (palak) - 1 medium sized bunch
Coriander leaves (cilantro) - 3 to 4 sprigs
Shallot - 1
Ginger - 1/2"piece
Green chillies - 4 Nos (more or less)
Low fat milk - 1/2 cup
Grated parmesan - enough for sprinkling over each serve
Salt to taste

Rinse the greens well. Slice up the shallot, ginger, and green chillies. Place these and the greens in a thick bottomed pan. Cover and simmer cook till the leaves wilt (3-4 minutes). Blend to smooth puree, add the milk and salt and simmer for a couple of minutes. Ladle onto serving bowls, sprinkle on grated parmesan.

Ragi kool (finger millet porridge)

You see that big brown, crispy dosa (crepe) that forms the background to my blog's title? It's made of ragi (finger millet/nachani/kelvaragu/panjapullu). Apart from dosas, ragi makes wonderful adai, puttu, sevai,idli,and 'kool'(porridge).

In rural Tamil Nadu (in South India) ragi is most commonly used to make 'kool' a porridge kinda dish. When summer rages at its worst then ragi kool with buttermilk and a dash of salt is liberally consumed by villagers involved in hard, physical labour. This is said to neutralise the energy draining effects of the sun and the hard work at hand.

The sweet version of this 'kool' uses jaggery (indian unrefined sugar) and milk. Jaggery adds in essential iron to this fortifying, comfort food. When had slightly warm, this tastes like manna and used to be my instant whip up option when I was pregnant and midnight hunger pangs struck!

Ragi , a nutritional treasure trove is a great source of the essential amino acid, methionine. Methionine is essential for vitality. Ragi, especially if sprouted, goes a long way in supplementing the nutritional deficiencies caused by a diet of highly refined cereals like white rice.

Today, we had to take Abhi for inoculation early in the morning.A nice, warm bowl of ragi porridge with a few cubes of sliced pappaya made for a wonderfully nourshing, easy breezy breakfast.



For 1 serving

Ragi flour (you can buy it ready made, look for sprouted and ground varieties) - 20 gms (4 heaped teaspoonful)

Water - 2 cups

Jaggery syrup - 2 teaspoons

Milk - 1/4 cup

Mix in the ragi flour into luke warm water and set on stove top at medium heat. Keep stirring till the mixture thickens and gets a glazy appearance (about 5 minutes). Add the jaggery and milk, and stir for a couple more minutes. Take off flame and enjoy while warm.


To make Jaggery syrup

Jaggery is usually available as lumps, either golden brown or dark brown.The dark brown version is denser in minerals but the golden brown version is cleaner.Since jaggery is unrefined it can contain sediments. Boil about 250 ml water for 100 gms of jaggery. Place the lumps in and simmer to dissolve jaggery. Simmer on for an extra few minutes to allow the syrup to thicken. Filter to remove scum. Once cool, transfer into airtight containers, and refridgerate. Stays good for a month or more.

Ragi kool is off to the JFI - Ragi event on at Madhuram's Eggless cooking

A relook at Falafel and Hummus

My favourite aunt emailed me yesterday. She wanted to know all that I remembered about Lebanon - the people, places, food et al because the new novel she was about to teach at school is set in Lebanon (she is a French teacher in a Canadian high school).Our stay at Beirut, Lebanon dates back to 2005. That's where my software hubby was catapulted to, just after our betrothal, by his parent company to work on a Middle East Airlines project. And after marriage, that's where my role of the 'trailing spouse' began

I loved the beautiful terrain. We lived in a serviced apartment a short walk from the corniche and the picturesque pigeon rocks.

Could go on about the place! But food is what matters out here
I'd earlier posted two famous Lebanese recipes along with the story behind my learning them, and I repost them now to make it easier for my athai to look up.

Falafel with Garlic labenah dip

http://thefootloosechef.blogspot.com/2008/07/falafel-with-garlic-labenah-dip-and.html

Hummus (chickpea dip with sesame paste)



http://thefootloosechef.blogspot.com/2008/09/hummus-chick-pea-dip-with-sesame-paste.html