Dry Nuts Burfi

This is my submission for Click…Nuts event hosted by http://jugalbandi.info/2007/11/click-december-2007-the-theme-is/the-theme-is/ of Jai and Bee.

Ingredients:

Powder of cashew nuts, almonds, pisthachios and hazel nuts-1 cup
Sugar-1 ¼ cup
Vanilla essence-1/4 teaspoon

Method:

1. Boil the sugar with a cup of water in a pan or heavy bottomed vessel.
2. After the sugar melts and a thick syrup is formed, add the powdered dry nuts.
3. Stir well on low flame until the mixture comes out from the sides.
4. Add the vanilla essence and transfer the mixture into a greased plate.
5. Cut into desired shape.

Grated Mango Pickle (Instant)

Ingredients:

Grated raw mango (Sour)-1 cup
Red chilly powder-2 tablespoons
Salt-2 tablespoons
Sugar-1 teaspoon
Crushed garlic-1 tablespoon
Fenugreek powder-1 teaspoon
Turmeric powder-a pinch
Oil-4 tablespoons

For Seasoning: ¼ teaspoon mustard seeds, ¼ teaspoon cumin seeds, ¼ teaspoon gram dal, ¼ teaspoon urad dal and few curry leaves.

Method:

1. Dry roast the fenugreek seeds and allow them to cool. Later grind into a fine powder and keep aside.
2. Heat the oil in a pan and add the seasoning ingredients and let them splutter.
3. Add the grated mango and turmeric powder. Cook on low flame until oil separates from it.
4. Add the crushed garlic, sugar, fenugreek powder, chilly powder and salt. Cook for two more minutes and turn off the stove.
5. After cooling, store it in a dry jar. Tastes nice after one day and keeps for ten days, if we don’t use a wet spoon. Goes well with plain rice or dosa.

Cookies with Dry Fruits and Nuts

This is my submission for AFAM …A Fruit A Month hosted by Latha Narasimhan of http://theyumblog.wordpress.com/and for "Eat Christmas cookies" event hosted by susan of http://foodblogga.blogspot.com/2007/11/eat-christmas-cookies-food-blogga-event.html

Cranberries are a major commercial crop in certain US states and Canadian provinces. Most cranberries are processed into products such as juice, sauce, and sweetened dried cranberries, with the remainder sold fresh to consumers. Cranberry sauce is regarded an indispensable part of traditional American and Canadian Thanksgiving menus and European winter festivals. Cranberries are a source of polyphenol antioxidants, phytochemicals under active research for possible benefits to the cardiovascular system, immune system and as anti-cancer agents.

^{For more details, please visit the following website.}

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cranberry#_note-22

Ingredients:

All purpose flour or maida-2 cups

Sugar (powdered)-2 cups

Butter or ghee-1 ½ cup

Baking powder-1 teaspoon

Dried Cranberries-few chopped

Pistachios-few chopped

vanilla essence-4 drops

Cookies, before baking…

Method:

1. Mix all the above ingredients into a tough dough except the dry fruits and nuts.
   

2. Roll the dough into big circles using the rolling pin.
   

3. Cut into small circles using a biscuit mold or any small lid. Garnish with the dry fruits and nuts.
   

4. Place them in a greased tray and bake for 5-6 minutes in oven toaster.
   

5. Allow them to cool and store in an air tight container.
   

Note: We can use other dry fruits like apricot, raisins and other nuts like almond, cashew etc.

Mutter Paneer

This is my submission for Think Spice… …Think Cinnamon hosted by Sunita of http://sunitabhuyan.blogspot.com/

Ingredients:

Cubed paneer-1cup
Fresh mutter-1/2 cup
Tomatoes-5
Green chillies-3
Cashew nuts-10
Kasoori methi (dry fenugreek leaves)-1 tablespoon
Turmeric powder-a pinch
Red chilly powder-1 teaspoon
Salt-1 tablespoon
Oil-1 tablespoon
Ghee-1 teaspoon
Coriander seeds-1 teaspoon
Cumin seeds-1 teaspoon
Sugar-1teaspoon (optional)
Cinnamon stick-1 piece

Method:

1. Grind the tomatoes, green chillies, cashew nuts, coriander seeds, cumin seeds, cinnamon stick into a smooth paste.

2. Heat the oil and ghee in a pan and fry the grinded paste until it turns brown.

3. Add turmeric powder, chilly powder, salt and kasoori methi and fry for two more minutes.

4. Heat the paneer in oven for two minutes and wash with cold water.

5. Add mutter and panneer and boil it for five minutes on low flame with sufficient water. This cury tastes very nice with poori or chapathi.

Note: I make this curry when I want to avoid using ginger, garlic, onion and garam masala. Cinnamon gives a nice flavour to this curry.

Chekkalu

Chekkalu or Karapu billalu

Ingredients:

Rice flour – 4 cups
Soaked Chenna dal – 1 cup
Green chilli, ginger and jeera (cumin seeds) paste – 1 spoon
Hot oil or ghee – 2 spoons
Curry leaves – chopped
Oil – for deep fry
Salt – to taste

Mthod:

1. Mix all the above ingredients in a big bowl and make it into dough.

2. Now make lemon sized balls with the dough.

3. Take a greased plastic cover and flatten the balls into circles.

4. Heat oil in the pan and deep fry the chekkalu into golden brown colour.

5. Let them cool and store them in an air tight container. They will remain fresh for more than one week. These snacks don’t absorb much oil.

Note: Instead of green chilli paste you can use red dry chilli powder.