Rice Pudding is the western version of our own Indian Rice Kheer (Paal Payasam) but in the consistency of Sweet (Sarkarai) Pongal. We add saffron threads and cardamom in the Indian pudding. Here they add vanilla extract and cinnamon to flavor the pudding. While browsing “The Joy of Vegan Baking” by Colleen Patrick – Goudreau, I came across this pudding recipe using brown rice instead of white rice and non dairy milk instead of dairy milk. Since I had both soy milk and brown rice at home I decided to make it.

This is my entry for

1. Suganya’s Vegan Ventures
2. DK’s AWED – American
3. Srivalli’s Rice Mela

I’m a mother of a preschooler and like many others of his age he is also picky when it comes to food. Earlier I didn’t have any problem at all with him during mealtime. He used to eat a lot of veggies, rice, chapathis and fruits etc. But not anymore. So these days I’m hunting for healthy and tasty recipes which appeal kids. While browsing the “Vegetarian Times – Fast and Easy” book I found many such recipes.

The crispy breakfast bar recipe, especially caught my attention because these were “no bake” bars which can be prepared in a jiffy and are healthy too. These are crunchy chewy bars. They get fiber and iron from whole-grain puffed cereal and protein from almond butter and almonds. The original recipe does not have almonds, but I added it to give the extra crunchiness and protein boost.

Following the basic method, one can come up with a couple of variations, like using peanut butter and peanuts, chocolate chips, etc to mention a few. A variety of whole-grain puffed cereals are available in the grocery stores these days. I saw puffed millet and other puffed cereals too.

The prep time is only 15 minutes, which includes the time to take out the stuff you need from your pantry and you have to freeze the mixture for 30 minutes. So in 45 minutes you have a healthy treat ready, without any elbow grease.

So how does it taste? As I have mentioned earlier, my son “the picky eater” loved it so much, he ate 2 pieces as soon as he got home from school. We adults also liked it very much. Actually it’s a fancy “Pori Urundai” (puffed rice balls) with almond butter, raisins and honey instead of the jaggery syrup we Indians use.

This is my entry for:
1. Suganya’s Vegan Ventures.
2. DK’s AWED – Amercian.
3. Pallavi’s Sunday Snacks – Fix It.

Palada Pradhaman (pudding) is a very famous sweet dish in Kerala. It is made using rice flakes, jaggery syrup and coconut milk. These days the rice flakes (called ada) are readily available in Indian grocery stores. Also originally whole coconut is grated and ground to extract the milk in 3 stages, which is called the first milk, second milk and third milk. But nowadays both coconut milk and coconut milk powder are readily available, making the process of preparing pradhaman very easy.

I found this recipe for preparing Oats Pradhaman in a magazine. As I have mentioned earlier the recipe calls for coconut milk prepared right from scratch. So I have modified the recipe to simplify the procedure by using store bought canned coconut milk. The pradaman was yummy. It did not taste like oats at all.

This is my entry for Vaishali’s Sweet Vegan.

It seemed like Navarathri started just now and it’s already the 9th day, Saraswathi Pooja. Happy Pooja holidays everybody. We prepare a lot of sweets and sundals these holidays, but “puttu” is very important and our favorite too.

This puttu is different from what the Keralites prepare. It’s made with rice flour, grated coconut and jaggery. The process is also time consuming but worth every effort. Traditionally it’s prepared by soaking raw rice in water, draining it, spreading it on a cloth and powdering the rice, while the rice is still damp. But to make the process more simple store bought rice flour is used. This is especially prepared on a Friday and is distributed to everybody who visits our home to see the Golu. I’ve prepared it successfully a couple of times 3 years back, but now I have totally forgotten the procedure. Fortunately my mother is here and she prepared it this time. It came out very well and I wanted to record it before I forget it once again.

This is my entry for the following events:
1. Vaishali’s Sweet Vegan.
2. Srivalli’s JFI-Festival Treats.

After baking the Eggless Chocolate Cake using silken tofu, I was wondering what to do with the remaining tofu. I didn’t want to prepare the same old berry-banana smoothie and found this. I always have the Kesar Mango Pulp from the Indian store in my pantry to prepare my favorite drink Mango Milkshake. So I decided to use it instead of fresh/frozen mangoes. I had to add the tofu and mango puree little by little to suit our taste and finally found the ratio.

As most of you know I’m relatively a newcomer to the food blogosphere.  I started my blog on 14th of March 2008.  Around the 2nd week of April I came to know about Dining Hall (the old one) and Food Blog Desam and sent mails to be a part of it.  I received mails stating that both these forums were not active.  So when I found out about the new Dining Hall I was really surprised and thrilled both at the same time.  Thank you very much Siri and DK for doing this.  They have started this new forum with a bang.  One among the many creative ideas they are upto is the International Food League’s Open Sesame Contest.  To make it short, we have to solve a riddle, for which the answer is an ingredient with which we have to cook and if you are lucky enough you may also end up with a prize!

This was my riddle:
I am old and ancient and in many places a staple
health and longevity are wonders I wear like a lapel

My different forms give different taste
one form is enjoyed in the mornings – eaten in haste!
Another form is in form of soups and porridge
Or in forms of plain or stuffed breads

I thrive in the hot summers..But make you feel good and warm
I am good to people although many just use me for feeding birds and cattle in farms
I am just no mean and lowly grass with striking resemblance to maize
I have ‘pearls’ of wisdom to share if you want, to listen to me with grace

People with celiac turn to me
I give you fibre and irons, so rich i am for the world to see
Now sit tight and give it a hard thought – be clever be sane
to guess who I am, the highly nutritious and healthful whole grain.

As soon as I read the riddle I thought of 3 grains:

1.  “enjoyed in the mornings – eaten in haste” – oats
2.  “pearls of wisdom” – I thought may be pearl barley
3.  “feeding birds and cattle in farms’ – millet

So first, I emailed Siri with oats as the answer, but she replied that it’s not oats.  Then I googled barley and celiac disease and found that people with the disease should not consume barley.  Then I googled celiac and millets and found that it’s good for the disease, so emailed that and found that it was the correct answer.

Reason for chosing this particular recipe:
There are many types of millets and the dishes that can be prepared with those are also countless.  Since I love baking, I thought of baking millet bread.  As mentioned in the riddle, I also came across a wonderful recipe for a stuffed bread using millets.  It looked so yummy and simple to bake too.  Instead I chose finger millet (ragi) and this kozhukattai (dumpling) recipe because the ingredients are easily available and anybody can make this.  Not everybody will be interested in baking or everybody has an oven.  So I wanted to make something very simple, delicious and nutritious too.  I have made the very same kozhukattai 3 years back when I saw the recipe in a Tamil magazine.  Unfortunately I did not save the recipe.  So I was searching the net for the recipe and to my luck, the very same recipe was published in another Tamil magazine very recently.

Ingredients:
Finger Millet Flour (Ragi flour) – 1 cup
Powdered Jaggery – 3/4ths of a cup
Mung Daal – 1/2 a cup
Coconut, grated – 1/4 cup
Cardamom powder – 1 teaspoon

Procedure:
1.  In a frying pan, dry roast the mung daal for 2-3 minutes and cook it.  Note that the daal should not be cooked completely.  Don’t use a pressure cooker, it will become very mushy.  In a saucepan add 2 cups of water and let it cook for a couple of minutes.  It should be par boiled.  Now drain this and keep it aside.

2.  While the daal is cooking, dry roast the ragi flour also for a couple of minutes.  Ragi flour tends to lump and is sticky also.  To avoid that, the flour is just heated for sometime.

3.  Combine the ragi flour, grated coconut, cardamom powder and cooked mung daal.

4.  In a saucepan add the jaggery and water just enough to cover the jaggery and heat it.  Once the jaggery dissolves filter the solution to get rid of impurities.  Now pour the liquid back into the saucepan and boil it for another 2-3 minutes.

5.  Add the liquid to the dry ingredients and combine to form a dough.  Add some water/milk if required.  Now pinch golf ball size dough and shape it into cylinders in your palm making a fist.  I got 11 dumplings for the above measurement.

6.  Place it in an idli plate and steam it just like you would steam idlis, but for an additional 10 minutes.

Ragi kozhukattai was very delicious.  We all loved it.   It’s a very healthy after school snack for kids,  without oil and white sugar.  Enjoy!

My Notes:
1.  As mentioned earlier, steam the kozhukattai for more time than you would steam idlis.  Mine did not cook properly in the inside, so I had to steam it for another 10 minutes and it was done perfect.

2.  Also eat it immediately, it hardens after a while.

Although I have not tasted Baklava, I have always been fascinated by it.  I saw an episode of Sandra Lee’s semi home made cooking recently, where she prepared Baklava Roll Ups.  I felt that it was easier then the traditional baklava making.  I also saw A-kay’s version of baklava.  It was the real deal.  In general preparing baklava requires some patience.  Actually I’m ok with the patience part; I love to do this kind of stuff.  Getting some quiet time is difficult for me.  With a toddler around, I’m always running behind him or the vice versa.  He doesn’t let me do anything.  The only time I’m free is when he takes his afternoon nap.  So I thought of simplifying even Sandra Lee’s version.  Anyhow I bought both the regular phyllo pastry and the phyllo pastry pre baked shells from the grocery store.  I thought I will make either her version or mine depending on the time I get.

I placed both the packets in the fridge to thaw overnight.  I pre heated the oven at 350F, started preparing the pistachio and almond mixture.  When I thought of removing the phyllo pastry sheets from the packet, I heard my son running from his bedroom, he got up very early today.  So back it goes into the freezer.  I settled him giving some snacks and decided to do my version.  I removed the pre baked pastry shells from the carton, lined it on a baking sheet, drizzled some  honey, added a teaspoon of the nuts mixture and drizzled some more honey on top and baked it for 8 minutes.  It was nice and red on the corners when it came out of the oven.  After a couple of minutes, I was able to taste it and it was very good.  Since I have not tasted a traditional baklava, I don’t have anything to compare it with.  For me it was a “tasty, quick fix, make ahead in case of a party and store it in the fridge” dessert.  Everybody in my family liked the taste.  That by itself is a big deal for me with picky eaters around.

Stage 1:
Pre heat the oven at 350F.  Prepare the nuts mixture.  I just took equal amounts of pistachios and slivered almonds, a tablespoon of butter at room temperature, sugar (as per your taste) and pulsed it in a food processor.  I did chop the pistachios roughly before adding it to the food processor.  Remove the pre baked pastry shells from the packet.  I had thawed it overnight, but later only I saw that thawing it for 10 minutes is enough.  So do go through the instructions in the package before hand.

Stage 2:
Line the pastry shells in a baking sheet.  Don’t throw away the carton the shells come with, you can use it to store them after baking.  As always I tried only 5 of them at first.  But you can go ahead and do all at once because it came out well. There is nothing to mess up.  Drizzle some honey in the shells and then top it with the mixture and again drizzle honey on top of the mixture.  Bake it for 8 minutes or as mentioned in the instructions.

Stage 3:
Once baked take it out of the oven, either enjoy immediately or place the baked shells back in the carton and cover it with a saran wrap and store it in the fridge for later.

Variations:
1. Top it with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream for a gourmet kind of dessert.
2. If you let your imagination wild, you can come up with different kinds of stuffing.  For an appetizer, just bake the shells for 3-5 minutes and then fill with potato masala.  It will be a different kind of potato puffs, easy one too.  Fill it with anything from salads to chocolate mousse.

Update:
The baklava tasted really good even out of the refrigerator.  But one thing I would do the next time is mixing the honey with the nuts mixture itself, to bind it so that it doesn’t spill while eating.  Actually for adults it’s just one mouthful or two bites, it was not a problem, adding some honey on top of the mixture did bind it up, but my son was spilling it while eating.