An update...

With so many preparations for Diwali done at home, we finally never realized when it came and went! We plan something and something else, completely out of norm happens. Diwali wasn’t as grand as usual or as how we wanted it to be, with Peddu being down with fever. It’s been over ten days since he’s got fever. The reports are not clear enough to rule out Typhoid or just a viral fever; we are still waiting for the final report to come in, even as they started on Antibiotics and that has controlled his fever to great extent.

Its 4 days since we have been in the hospital. With Hubby dear shuttling around his work, home and hospital, I have completely taken off from work, trying to handle through phone calls. It’s been one hectic week that I can happily forget!

 I always wondered how one will spend the day off when the entire day is at one’s dispose. Believe me it is terrible. For one, it is extremely heartbreaking to tend to a sick child, who is happy one moment becomes cranky the next moment with the fever setting in. When the fever subsides, we have the TV for the entertainment. It has been ages since I have actually watched Tele. I was able to manage the TV dose only for a day. Finally hubby dear decided to get my laptop, hoping that it will give me company when Peddu sleeps.

We are hoping to get back home tomorrow. He didn't get fever since morning and his doctor was clear that he will not let us go home unless Peddu does not get temperature today and tomorrow. It was heart warming to see how well Chinnu was taking this separation from us. He has been on his best behaviour or so claims Athamma. While Konda is mature enough to understand still keeps asking when we will get back

My Sils’ families came to visit us for Diwali. It wasn’t much fun with Peddu being unwell. Still we wanted the rest of the kids to enjoy the day. They had sorts of celebration at home. But nobody had the mood to do much.


With guests visiting, Amma wouldn’t think of treating them with store bought stuff. I managed to pinch in when I could. It was the usual fair of Coconut Burfi, Panasa Thonalu , Mysore Pak and new dishes like Badusha.

I will write about the recipes once we get back home.

I have recorded how we have our Deepavali Celebrations every year, it makes me sad there isn't a post this year to mark the occasion. But more important than that we will have celebrations when we get back home with Peddu all well.

Do share in your diwali celebrations. With the whole time on hand, I would surely love to read elaborately on every note.

Thenkuzhal Muruku | Thenkuzhal Recipe | Deepavali Snacks

Thenkuzhal is one of my favorite Muruku varities. This Diwali we wanted to make Thenkuzhal along with few other muruku varieties. Sweets will follow tomorrow. I always enjoyed eating this Thenkuzhal and was surprised to find that the proportion that Amma normally uses is almost the same except of course you add some and minus some!

For making the murukus, follow the exact same method as seen in the Jantikalu or Muruku. I am going to list out only the ingredient proportion as the making method is the same.

Before I forget, I had a wow moment this evening. While browsing through our cookbook collection, I happened to look into those old books I remember Sree buying. We always made sure to visit the annual Madras Book Fair. And every year, we used to add some to our collection. While I used to buy Tintin and Asterisk, Sree used to buy different genre, at times it also used to be cookery books for Amma. So one such collection, especially when he thought he might have to teach himself to cook, he had got some set of collection.

Until this evening, I never realized it was "Meenakshi Ammal Samaithu Paar". As it was called Cook and See, it never struck me to translate. How fantastic! I was jubilant. Imagine having heard so much about this author and always had her collection. Deepavali has always been special for the times I spent with my brother, planning on how early we should get up for the firecrackers. Its been years since we actually did it. But every year I never fail to remember our childhood days, every year it used to be the same. It makes it all so nostalgic, I miss my brother. Diwali is not as special if one doesn't not remember the good days spent as a child with siblings.

I am sure he is making the festival a grand remembrance for my niece and nephew as we are making it for our kids. And it was one of the reason why even when Peddu is down with fever, we want to make sure others don't feel let out. And this festival of lights will surely brighten him.

Wanted to share the first batch that was done today. Made Thenkuzhal, Buttermilk Muruku and Amma made Coconut Burfi.

Thenkuzhal Muruku | Thenkuzhal Recipe

For the dough

Raw Rice flour  - 5 cups
Urad Dal flour - 1 cup
Water - app 1/2 cup or more

For Seasoning

Cumin seeds - 1 tsp
Sesame seeds- 1 tsp
Asafetida/ Hing - 1/2 tsp
Salt to taste
Butter - 50 gms

Oil for deep frying

Method to prepare:


In a wide vessel, take both the flours along with salt. Mix well. Add cumin, Sesame seeds to the flour, mix well.

Whether you use Asafetida powder or the solid ones, you got to mix it in water, make sure it is dissolved before adding to the flour. If its not dissolved properly, when deep frying the muruku, there are chances for the hing to burst our due to air bubbles.

Mix in the hing to the flour and finally add the butter. Gather everything well and you will get more of a crumbling mixture. Now slowly add water and knead a dough which is little more softer than the puri dough.

Heat a kadai with oil enough to deep fry. Once the oil is hot enough, simmer to low flame.

Take the Muruku Aachu, wash and wipe it clean. Then divide the dough into equal balls. Fill the Muruku maker with the dough. You can either press it directly over the flames or press over a paper or slotted spoon and gently slide it down the hot oil. But since the quantity mentioned here is less, you can press it directly over the kadai.

Cook over medium flame, using a slotted spoon, turn it over to other side to ensure both sides turn golden colour. You will know by seeing the colour that its cooked. Remove to a kitchen paper and store it in a air tight container.

This normally stays good for weeks.

Pappulu Kajjikayalu or Pappulu Karjikayalu Step By Step Recipe | Deepavali Sweets | An Anniversary to Celebrate!

There are days that you ought to make sure you remember and make memories even if the days are made hard. An Anniversary is not something you forget, you are made sure you remember. Last year Hubby dear made sure he treated me with a trip I will never forget, by taking me to a place that was my favorite. We celebrated our decade of marriage last year with a trip ahead of the day. This year we didn't plan for a trip as I was already away for a while and wasn't prepared for another one.

When we thought we can safely forget, family and friends won't accept it anyways. Lataji remembered to wish me even while she was traveling. Friends make the occasion so much so wonderful. So a cake and special lunch is a must. With Peddu being down with a viral fever, we didn't want to do anything. But kids insisted on a cake. Eleven years is not that comes every day.

An Eggless Blackforest Cake was ordered for the occasion. Not something that I could ignore that easily!

After a tiring lunch, we wanted to retire for a nap. But the Diwali fever has caught the neighborhood already and since morning there was insistent firecrackers played with. There are times when you feel silence can be so overpowering. I felt this at my Sister's place at San Jose. There was no a drop of sound, not even a bit. All I could feel was my own heart beat. And here I was trying to catch a nap amidst a commotion that was inconceivable. Finally I thought I might just ignore napping..

As a continuation of making something for the Diwali and for the special day today, Athamma wanted to make Kajjikayalu, but with a different stuffing.

Step by Step making of Pappulu Karjikayalu

Get the dough ready and let it rest for 15 minutes

 Grind the stuffing together and keep it aside

 Roll out the dough and place the stuffing on the discs

 If you making the half moon shapes, take the rolled out disc on your palm,

 Place a spoon of the stuffing in the center.

 Close your palm and bring the sides together, slowly close it

Once you close the entire sides, press strongly to close together

 Roll one side inside, continue doing like that as shown in the picture.

Continue doing it with the rest.

 For the full shaped discs, roll out the dough into a small circle, with the stuffing in the center.

 Place another rolled out disc over this and press the sides.

 Firmly press the sides like this.

 Now you have all the shaped ones ready

Heat a pan with required oil for deep frying these Kajjikayalu, fry them on slow flame.

Once they are cooked on both sides, drain them on a kitchen towel.

Ingredients Needed:

For the cover:

All purpose flour / Maida - 1 cup
Ghee - 2 tsp
Salt - a pinch
Water to knead

For the filling:

Fried Gram Dal - 1 cup
Dried Coconut/ Copra - 1/2 cup
Jaggary - 1/2 cup or (you can increase as per your taste)
Cashew nuts - 10 whole
Cardamom - 2 nos

Oil for Deep frying

Method to prepare:

Kajjikayalu are normally made in half moon shapes. There are many ways to make this. You can even make these in the molds available.


To make the dough


To make the dough, take the flour, salt and ghee in a bowl. Mix well. Then slowly add water to knead into a stiff dough. If you want to get a crispy cover, the dough has to be stiff. When you allow it to rest, it will get soft again. So either you mix some more flour before rolling out. Or you knead and roll out immediately


To make the filling

Grate the Copra or the Dried coconut. This tastes great and also stays longer as the fresh one might get spoiled.

Pulse the fried gram dal and cardamon in a mixer, then add the jaggary and pulse again. Chop the cashew nuts into small pieces. This will be a dry mixture.

Making the kajjikaya on the rolling board.

Once you are ready to roll out, divide the dough into small equal balls. Using the rolling pin, dust the balls, flatten them into small circles, like the puris.

Scoop a spoonful of the dal filling and place on the middle. List one side of the dough, bring to the other side and press well. You can dab some more flour and press well so that the filling doesn't come out.

Making it in your palm.

Once you roll out the cover, take it on to your left palm. Hold it while you scoop in the fillings. Now gently cover both open sides. You will end up having a half moon.

In all shapes, to get the design, you have to turn the sides like tuck in and then press. Then again tuck in. As shown in the picture.

Round Kajjikaya.

This is much easier way to make. Roll out two small puri size dough. Place the filling in the middle. Place the other puri on top and press down well.

Once you have all the Kajjikaya filled and ready, Heat the oil for deep frying. Once the oil is hot, simmer and gently drop in the kajjikaya. Fry in low flame, only then the outer layer will be crispy.

Turn to the other side, when its cooked on one side. Once its done on both sides, drain them on to a kitchen towel.




The dal stuffing will be more than what you need. You can make so many other varieties with it.

I am hoping to get some more sweets to be featured..stay tuned!

Have a great week ahead!

Microwave Chocolate Burfi in 5 minutes | Deepavali Sweets | Step By Step Recipes

I missed celebrating Navrathri as grandly as we did last year. So thought I should alteast welcome Deepavali in that manner. Yesterday I took out all my cookbooks, paper clippings to browse through the possible sweet and savories that can be done this year. I have shortlisted it to Basundi, Mohanthal, Mysore Pak (looks like both recipes are almost the same, will have to check again) Cheeroties. When it came to Savories, I have fallen short! I don't know what to make. Please do leave your suggestions. Will be great to get ideas.

We will also have my both SIL and their families visiting us for the festival. So we are gearing ourselves for the grand get together and much merry and fun to happen. While my older nieces are grown up, we still will have five hyper active kids to cater at home.

Hubby dear has already listed out the dishes that I might have to consider making for them. As a prelude, plus as a part of our anniversary, I thought I should make this quick Chocolate Burfi. Also I promised Smitha I will send her one more dish for the MEC: Festive Dishes she is hosting for me.

Read this Chocolate Halwa, you will pretty much know how passionate I am on this halwa. This Chocolate Burfi is almost the same, except different cooking mode and timing. And it gets done by itself in flat 5 minutes! Can you imagine indulging in a sinful treat within 5 minutes of craving for it? This answers your query. Of course provided you stock the ingredients on hand.

If you are anything like me, you will have condensed milk, Cocoa powder and butter all the time on hand. So why wait, just whip and indulge in this tempting Burfi.

As per my own description, I always consider a Halwa to be more lose without any shape. While a Burfi to be able to retain a shape. Well you can ask how Kerala halwa which is mostly cut into cubes are referred as halwa. I don't know I may call it as halwa but I consider it as Burfi. Another aspect that can contribute would be the texture of burfi tending to be more crumbly. while halwa is mostly chewy. Is that right?

Whatever you may call it, either burfi or halwa this is a time for indulgence and let's not waste it by discussing on the name!

Making Chocolate Burfi Step By Step

Get all the ingredients ready at hand. That tray is for making brownies. It works fine with this too

In a microwave safe bowl, add the condensed milk.

Next add the cocoa powder to the CM.

Mix the cocoa powder well into the condensed milk.

 Continue until the powder is well blended.

Next add the sugar and butter

Cook the mix in micro mode for 5 minutes

At 3 minutes, take it out and stir well.

After 5 minutes, it will look like this.

Mix well and transfer to the greased plate.

Spread it neatly on the plate

Garnish with Almond slivering.

Cooking Method : Microwave Mode
Preparation Time : 2 mins
Cooking Time : 5 mins
Setting Time : 30 mins or less

Chocolate Burfi in Microwave

Condensed Milk - 400 gms
Cocoa powder - 2 tbsp
Sugar - 4 tsp
Butter - 25 gms (increase more if required)

Slivered Almonds

Method to prepare:

In a microwave safe bowl, take the condensed milk, add cocoa powder mix well. Then add the sugar and butter. Combine everything together.

Micro for 5 mins. At 3 minutes, stop, stir the mix and keep it back for the remaining minutes. At 3 minutes the batter will still be watery.

Once 5 minutes is done, the moisture would have evaporated and it will resemble a crumbly texture. Mix everything well together.

Grease a tray with butter/ghee. Transfer the chocolate mix to the tray and spread it even. Sprinkle the almonds slivering over the top and allow it to cool.

Cut into squares after 30 mins. You will not have perfect squares cutting on the sides as it will be chewy. But you will be able to remove them in shape.

This is the new brownie tray I got from SFO, hubby dear was expecting a brownie to be served. He was pleasantly surprised to bite on a chewy Chocolaty Burfi.

Will try to add either AP flour or Almond flour to get that crumbly texture next time.

Sending this to Smitha who is hosting MEC: Festive Dishes this month.  You have until 31st Oct to send in your entries to Smitha.

Other Halwa Recipes blogged

And the answer is..

Banana Peel!...yep..the halwa was unbelievably made with the peels. I refuse to believe it wasn't a mystery at all!..for the first person to comment was Ambika and she said bang Banana Peel. Now Ambika has to tell us know if it was purely a guess and she came home..:)

Thanks to everybody who played along. It was a total surprise for me when Athamma asked me what the halwa was made of. And none of my colleagues who tasted it was able to guess it right. So all you guys truly proved yourself to be the foodies that you all guessed it on the first shot.

Paaka Shaale, Prathiba and Priya guessed it right as Banana Peel. Now you will let me know your secret in guessing it so right.

Hubby dear had got some very fresh bananas and by evening most of them disappeared. I didn't think much about it. But Athamma said instead of food, boys snacked on them. Much later she got us this halwa to eat. She asked us to guess what it was. Well it was beyond me. And it was really very shocking when she said seeing such fresh peels, she wanted to experiment with it. And you have the halwa!

It was so good that Hubby dear, who normally never eats sweets, asked for a second helping. Athamma was even keen on getting my colleagues taste this. So naturally I would want to see if any of them would guess it. Not a single person was able to guess but came back for a second serve. And none could believe that one would actually make a halwa with the peels.

Banana Peel Halwa!

Banana Peels puree - 1 cup
Milk - 1 tbsp
Sugar - 1/2 cup
Fried Gram dal powder - 1 tsp
Cardamon powder a pinch
Ghee - 1 tsp
Water - 1 tsp

Method to prepare:

Take the peels, wash well and remove the stack. Remove all blacken parts. Cut into small pieces and make a puree of it in the mixer. If required add 1 tsp water to get a smooth puree.

Heat a thick bottom pan. Melt the sugar with milk and once it is melted, add the peel puree. Keep stirring.

Half way through it, add the fried gram dal, mix well. Continue cooking till the halwa reaches a thick consistency.

Finally add the ghee once you feel the consistency is good. You can know by feeling the texture, it would have turned grainy.

Notes: All the fresh parts is used for this peel. About 5 big banana peels were used to get about 1 cup of puree.

If you want to make it more rich, you can add cashew nut powder or add more ghee.

Once again thank you all for playing along!

I am planning on Deepavali Special Dishes. Let me know what you have in mind.

Guessing Game!

Well I know it's been ages since I had anything interesting to play this guessing game. I remember most of us doing it in the initial period of blogging. Guessing games are really fun as it makes you think had. But with natural ingredients, it is quite easy. 

Still I remember few bloggers who had natural ingredient yet it used to be so tough to guess them.

What I got to offer as a mystery is a cooked product. You got to guess what the main ingredient is. It is a sweet dish, well a halwa. I can see many of you saying not again! Yes I seem to have quite a few Halwa Recipes on the blog. But believe this halwa is not my creation. I would never have thought of getting this to the blog. 

But can you believe hubby dear actually asked for it couple of times, you can be sure it was excellent. Moreover I took the box to my office and nobody was able to guess the ingredient. But vouched it was really fantastic.

It is a halwa made with one unexpected part of the fruit. The fruit is very commonly available. But the main ingredient in this halwa is never used. Yet it turned out to be so delicious.

Now out with your answers!

Will post the answer and recipe tomorrow!

Microwave Easy Cooking Event Round Ups | Host Lists

Below is the list of future hostess for Microwave Easy Cooking Event and the past round ups

If you are interested to host, please leave a comment. Else I will email individuals myself..:)

Event Details for 2012

Month	Host	Round up
January	Kalyani	MEC: Jan
February	Veena
March	Privish	MEC: Mar
April	Nalini	MEC: Apr
May	Pradnya	MEC: May
June	Priya Suresh	MEC: Jun
July	Smitha Joga	MEC: Simple n Easy Snacks
August	Srivalli
September	Surabhi
October	Eskay
November
December

Event Details for 2011

Month	Host	Round up
January	Indrani Dhar of Appyayan	Combo Meals
February	Srivalli	Curries and Gravies
March	Priya Mitharwal	Rice Dishes
April	Lataji	Lunch Box Dishes
May	Lakshmi Venkatesh	Calcium Rich Food
June	Lavanya	Party Appetizers
July	Monika Manchanda	Microwave Potato Feast
August	Srivalli	Potluck Party 2011
September	Nutan	Tea Time Snacks
October	Pradnya	October Edition
November	Vatsala
December	Kavi	December Edition

Event Details for 2010

Month	Host	Round up
January	Manju Mahadevan	Dips and Spreads
February	Sara	Soups
March	Jay	Celebrity Bloggers
April	Priyanka	Kids Party Food
May	EC	Healthy Diet Food
June	Kamalika	MEC Delicious Dals
July	PJ	My Favorite things
August	Srivalli	Potluck Party 2010
September	Nivedita	Fruits
October	Smitha	Festive Dishes
November	Priyadarshni	Sweet Tooth
December	Monika	Savory Snack

Event Details for 2009

Month	Host	Round up
January	Raji	Microwave Paneer
February	Jayasree	Microwave Puddings
March	Priya Suresh	Savory Snacks in Microwave
April	Mythreyee	Microwave Nuts
May	Rachel	Essential Extras
June	Simran	Breezy Breakfast
July	Ramya	Protein Rich Foods
August	Srivalli	Potluck Party 2009
September	Srivalli	September Edition
October	Suma	MEC Fresh Produce
November	Paro	MEC: Sweets 'n' Savouries
December	Cham	MEC: Festival Foods

Event Details for 2008

Month	Host	Round up
January	Srivalli	Microwave Tiffins
February	Srivalli	Microwave Greens
March	Srivalli	Microwave Rice
April	Srivalli	Microwave Cakes
May	Srivalli	Microwave Steamed Dishes
June	Srivalli	Microwave Preserves
July	Srivalli	Microwave Soups and Stews
August	Srivalli	Potluck Party 2008
September	Srivalli	Microwave Chocolate
October		Break
November	Pavani	Microwave Cheese
December	Kamalika	MEC: Halwa

Event Details for 2007

Month	Host	Round up
August	Srivalli	Microwave Sweets
September	Srivalli	Microwave Basics
October	Srivalli	Microwave Snacks
November	Srivalli	Microwave Side Dish
December	Srivalli	Microwave Gravies