Apple Halwa

Hi friends, Howdy all?

Hmm... its been a while I have posted.... suddenly became too busy with Thaswika and Facebook;) These facebook games are making me crazy ;)

I hate apples, so tried to eat in a different way .... thought not to waste them. Only thing, select good red apples so that it will be sweet. One or two apples were green for me, so it was little bit sour. So moving on to the recipe........

Ingredients:

Apples - 5, red big ones

Sugar - 4-5 tablespoons (add more if you are sweet lovers;))

Cardamom powder - 1/2 teaspoon

Cashew nuts - few for garnishing

Ghee - 1/2 cup (Be generous if you love it;))

Method:

Peel, deseed the apples and cut into small cubes.

Mash them to a fine paste in a mixer without water.

Heat a non-stick pan and pour into it. Keep stirring for 30-40 minutes, until it becomes thick and cooked.

Once all water evaporates, add sugar, cardamom powder and mix well. Keep stirring for another 20 minutes, until it becomes thick.

Heat ghee in a small pan and fry cashews in it to golden brown.

Add the mixture to the halwa and stir well.

Tasty apple halwa is ready to serve.

Cooking time : 60-75 minutes

Serves 4-6 persons

Kartoffelsuppe

Wondering what is this ..... it's a German dish, more or less, like our cream of Potato soup from HAN's;)

Wanted to participate in AWED-German event, hosted by my friend, Lakshmi of Kitchen Chronicles, which was started by DK.


To be frank, I browsed for recipes, but found few, more time consuming, and few needed me to buy few ingredients. Difficult to spend more time for cooking or shopping, with Thaswika around, nowadays its a difficult task. Hubby is also too busy and working late hours:(

So found this simple soup recipe here , just to give my entry for the event. But it came out well, MUST TRY:)

Ingredients:

Potatoes - 2, medium sized
White Onions - 1, medium sized
Celery - 3/4 stalks with leaves
Bay leaf - 1
Butter - 2 tablespoon
Milk - 2 1/2 cups
Salt to taste
Oil - 1/2 tablespoons

Method:
Wash, peel and cube potatoes. Chop onion and celery.

Heat oil in pan, saute onion, potatoes, celery for five minutes.

Add water to it, until the vegetables are covered.

Then add bay leaf and salt to it, boil until they are tender.

Drain the excess water, reserve it and allow it to cool for few minutes.

Mash vegetables in a mixer nicely, add it to the reserved stock.

In a pan, heat butter and add this to it. Thin soup by slowly adding milk.

Keep stirring for few minutes, but do not boil.

Tasty kartoffelsuppe is ready to serve.


Cooking time : 20 minutes
Serves 4 persons

Now to an award and a tag....

Priya Raj(http://ennsamaiyal.blogspot.com/) passed me "HONEST SCRAP" award. Thank you for sharing it with me!!!

Rules are:

I must thank the person who gave me the award and list their blog and link it

I must list 10 honest things about myself (THIS I DON'T LIKE;))

I must put a copy of The Honest Scrap Logo on my blog.

I must select at least 7 other worthy bloggers & list their links

I must notify the bloggers of the award and hopefully they will follow the above three requirements also.

Thought so much writing this.....;)

1. Honest towards my work, whatever or whichever is allocated to me.

2. Simple, Caring, Trustworthy, Friendly, Lazy sometimes,

3. Can do anything for those who love me truly.

4. Avoid people who talk at the back, those who ditch, those who compare. Completely ignore them.

5. Hate, when people tell lies or cheat, as though I won't knew that it is a lie. Can't take it!

6. Love to travel and explore new places, but always avoid if any risk is involved while enjoying!

7. Won't trust people so easily and once I trust, I will be always for them.

8. GOD fearing. Think many times, before I have to do anything wrong;), that GOD won't punish me for that deed;)

9. Sometimes not bold to face problems. But, too cautious not to get them.

10. Very possessive towards that I own!

Would like to pass the award to

Priti - http://indiankhanna.blogspot.com/

Shama - http://easy2cookrecipes.blogspot.com/

Lakshmi Venkatesh - http://delightsofcooking.blogspot.com/

LG - http://www.tasteofmysore.com/

Priya - http://priyaeasyntastyrecipes.blogspot.com/

Sripriya - http://www.srikarskitchen.org/

Vidhya - http://iyercooks.blogspot.com/

And LG http://www.tasteofmysore.com/ has tagged me for ABC's... so here it is

1) A - Available/Single ? Available, but to my husband only

2) B - Best Friend ? My hubby

3) C - Cake or Pie ? CAKE

4) D - Drink of choice ? Ice Lemon Tea

5) E - Essential item you use every day ? Tissues.

6) F - Favourite color ? Lavender

7) G - Gummy Bears or Worms ? Gummy Bears

8) H - Hometown ? Chennai

9) I - Indulgence ? Blogging and Facebook

10 ) J - January or February ? Jan

11) K - Kids and their names ? 1, Thaswika

12) L - Life is incomplete without ? Love

13) M - Marriage date ? July 6

14) N - Number of siblings? 1

15) O - Oranges or Apples ? Oranges

16) P -- Phobias / Fears ? When someone die near my place and I am alone at home

17) Q - Quote for today ?

"A heart breaking isn't always as loud as a bomb exploding.. Sometimes it can be as quiet as a feather falling.. And the most painful thing is, no one really hears it, except you.."

18) R - Reason to smile ? Anything funny

19) S - Season ? Winter

20) T - Tag 4 people ?

Priti -http://indiankhanna.blogspot.com/,

Shama - http://easy2cookrecipes.blogspot.com/,

Priya - http://priyaeasyntastyrecipes.blogspot.com/,

Sripriya -http://www.srikarskitchen.org/

21) U - Unknown fact about me ? Let it be unknown ;)

22) V - Vegetable you don't like ? Broccoli

23) W - Worst habit ? Biting nails :D

24 ) X - X-rays you've had ? Someone wants them? What the hell ;)

25) Y - Your favourite food ? curd rice with tasty pickle

26 ) Z - Zodiac sign ? Scorpio

Karunai Kizhanghu(Yam) Kootu

Shama asked me to share my first cooked experience for her FIRST COOKED FOOD EVENT.



So here I go .......

I did Yam Kootu when I was studying my 5th or 6th standard, (don't remember;) ). During summer holidays, my cousins from Bangalore and Hyderabad used to come to stay with us in Chennai. Can't forget those days, it was SO MUCH fun. We used to sleep in open terrace speaking about all those happened in school, home, etc.

Once it was some special day, my mom and my aunties went to temple in the morning. They left us at home since it would be crowded in the temple. They said would come back by 11 am and cook for us. But it was 12'o clock, they didn't turn back. Me, my 2 brothers, 4 cousin sisters, 2 cousin brothers were very hungry. We thought why can't we cook ourselves and surprise them.

But we don't know anything about cooking. So checked kitchen, found a big Yam and some dal in a bottle. After some discussion, me and one of my cousin sister planned to make kootu. There was a kerosene pump stove which we used to boil water. We thought of using it since other stove was too high for us. So we kept it in the middle of the hall and everyone sat around it ;), as we wanted to see how it get cooked:D

Quickly we kept a big pan and cooked the whole dal(later we found that it was 1kg of dal;)) in water. Every 10-15 minutes, water was drying and we kept pouring glasses of water. It took nearly an hour for the dal to cook. In the mid, we transfered the dal to a big cooker as the pan was not sufficient to hold it ;)

Meanwhile we cut yam(3/4 kg) into small pieces. Then added this to the dal and kept mixing them. Everyone wanted to try mixing it. So the ladle was passed to everyone. We added salt, curry leaves, coriander leaves and didn't temper it;) But trust me it tasted heaven, we almost finished half of it just by tasting it ;) Whole hall was messy and we quickly cleaned it before the elders came.

We thought our mummies would praise us today for this wonderful dish and kept waiting for them eagerly. They all came back around 2 pm and brought us lunch from outside. We didn't tell them as we wanted to surprise them. One of my aunty went to kitchen to bring plates and found the cooker on the stove. Instead of praisings, we got scoldings since the pan was spoiled and one whole bottle of dal had been wasted. And since we used green gram, the gravy became too thick, once it was cold :(

But when my dad and grandpa tasted it for dinner, they were praising us a lot. Dad did ate it 2 times with rice, saying it was better than my mum's;) Of course now I understood that it was a lie, he did it just to make us happy!


So now we go for the ingredients.....

Ingredients:
Green gram - 1 cup
Yam - 1 cup, peeled and cubed into small pieces
Mustard seeds - 1/2 teaspoon
Onion - 1 small sized, chopped
Black gram - 1 teaspoon
Curry leaves - few
Green chillies - 4, cut into small pieces
Coriander leaves - few for garnishing
Salt to taste
Oil - 1-2 tablespoons


Method:
Wash and cook green gram in 2-3 cups of water until they become soft.

Add cubed yam to it and cook for 10 minutes, until it is soft. Switch off flame and keep aside.

Heat oil in a pan. Allow mustard seeds to splitter in it. Add black gram, curry leaves, chillies, onion and fry until onions turn golden brown.

Add this to the cooked dal and salt to taste.

Mix well and cook for 10 more mintues until it starts to boil.

Garnish with coriander leaves and serve hot with rice or rotis.


Cooking time : 30-40 minutes
Serves 3 persons