Hope this Diwali fills your year with joy, peace and prosperity and continues to brighten the rest of your life. Wishing you all a Very Happy Diwali. 
My Diwali
Nivedya thali (offering during
puja)
Chole, Poori,
Sheera,
Chooda,
Nariyal BarfiOther Diwali Treats:
Bottle Gourd Barfi Dudhpak
Chooda is one of the popularly made festival food at my home. My mom would start making Diwali goodies a week before the festival. She would make Phenori, chooda, tukudi (shankarpali), chakkuli (chakli), churmundo (rava laddu), sev, fried masala peanuts and khadi (barfi). Every time my mom started to make a new delicacy I and my sister would wait eagerly wait for the first batch to devour. Narakchaturdasi and Lakshmi puja are the most important days for us. We worship water and then take oil bath. The legend behind this is that when Lord Krishna killed the demon Narakasura, he took oil bath after returning home and then worshiped Goddess Lakshmi. To mark this event everyone has bath before sunrise and take oil bath. In India people also burst crackers early in the morning to mark this event. But here in US with all the work deadlines placed right after Diwali (read 19th Oct), I could make Chooda and Khadi for Diwali this year. Here is the recipe for the chooda and it goes to Priya's event Diwali 2009. and Sunday Snacks - Festive snacks of Navratri & Diwali .
Ingredients
3 cups thick pova or beaten rice
1/2 cup groundnuts or peanuts
1 cup putana dal or dalia or split and roasted bengal gram
15-20 broken cashew nuts
15-20 curry leaves
3 tablespoon mustard seeds
1/2 cup coriander seeds
3 tablespoons jeera or cumin seeds
2 tablespoon saunf or fennel seed
1/4 cup red chili powder or as desired (I used byadgi chilli powder)
2 tablespoon turmeric powder
1/4 cup sugar
salt for taste
Method
Roast the coriander seeds, cumin seeds and fennel seeds till crisp and grind it into a fine powder. Mix in sugar, salt, turmeric and chili powder as per taste and mix it with the ground spice powder. I just mix it in grinder and give it a pulse or two so that all the powders are integrated well.
Fry the pova, ground nuts and dalia in a fryer. I have a steel fryer in which I put the pova or dalia and dip it in a pan of hot oil. In this way the pova does not spill into the pan and is easy to remove from the oil. Optionally fried dry coconut slices or copra slices can also be added. As soon as one batch of pova, dalia or peanuts is fried, add a teaspoon of masala powder and mix well. The masala powder mixes well when the ingredients are hot. Let the oil cool a little bit and then fry the curry leaves ( the curry leaves will burn if fried on high heat). Add 2-3 tablespoon oil and fry the mustard till it starts to splutter. Mix the mustard and curry leaves well with the chooda. Store in airtight container.
This weekend was pretty busy with all the Diwali preparations and cleaning going on around the house. I made chooda/chiwda and and coconut barfi following my mother's recipe. They will be appearing very soon on the blog. I made the coconut barfi for the first time. The verdict- my husband has been eating it day and night...I just hope it lasts till Diwali. My whole home was filled with the enticing aroma of coconut and cardamom for hours. It was amongst these plans and tasks I decided to make granola.
I have been always looking forward to eat sugar and chocolate free granola cereal for breakfast and evening snacks, but I never thought it could be made so easily at home. Thanks to Priya from Akshaypaatram, I have finally found my heart's wish come true :). Here is the link to Priya's blog post.
I had maple syrup, honey and vanilla in my pantry, so the only things I needed to buy were the hazle nuts, oats and the pecans. It is interesting to go shopping for things which you have never shopped for before. I found Wheat Germ in the breakfast section tucked on the top most aisle...I guess it is not usually picked up by many people. I then started searching for flax seed and I could not find it in the breakfast aisle. I asked a staff "Where can I find flax seeds"...he turned towards puzzled and asks "Umm.. whats that..can you spell it for me". I say "F-L-A-X". He says "I do not think we have that in our store". I tell him that I was expecting to find it somewhere near wheat germ in the breakfast section. He says "Wheat germ...whats that? "...that is when I realized that he could not be of much help! It shows how much people know about health foods as compared to fast, frozen and ready to eat food. I again went to the breakfast section and a old lady helped to to find the flax seeds. But by then I found a organic mixture of Whole Rolled Oats, Wheat, pumpkin seed and ground Flax seed. It was a 400gm packet and I used all of it to make the granola.
Ingredients I used: 3 cups - Rolled oats + Whole Wheat (flattened wheat..looks just like oats but browner in color)+Pumpkin seeds + Flax seeds
1/4 cup each (unsalted)- Walnuts, Pecans, Hazelnuts - coarsely chopped
1/4 cup - Wheat bran
1/4 cup each (packed) - dried Cherries, plump Golden raisins - coarsely chopped
10-15 dates -coarsely chopped
10 cashew nuts- chopped
1 Tbsp - Butter
2 Tbsp - Oil (I had olive oil, but any vegetable oil works too)
2 Tbsp - Maple Syrup
2 Tbsp - Honey
1/2 tsp - pure Vanilla extract
I followed pretty much the same procedure as Priya's to make this granola. Here is how it looked before going into the oven.
It was raining cats and dogs here due to some storm in the Pacific ocean. It reminded me of the heavy rains in Pune and at times it would rain non stop, day and night for many days in a row. In such rainy days, my mom would make fried jack fruit papad's which we would get from Mangalore and various bhajiyas (vegetable fritters). We had ganola with yogurt, sliced bananas and strawberries on Monday and the granola with hot milk made a hearty breakfast on Tuesday morning when it was raining hard.
With my job there is not much time now a days for doing other activities like reading which I used to previously do very frequently. I mostly find time on weekends and during the week nights to catch up on my reading. I subscribe to Reader's Digest and Good Housekeeping and always eagerly wait for the latest issue to arrive by mail. Here are a few books I plan to finish soon...
Sense and Sensibility-- Auther: Jane Austin (Pride and Prejudice is another of her famous novel)
Reader's Digest
Healthy Living from the Inside Out (I picked up this from the library last week..found the introduction very interesting!)
This is a breakfast regular at my parents home. My mom makes this early in the morning and the whole smells with the sweet aroma of the dosa and the jaggery cooking on the iron griddle. The sweet aroma would make us wake earlier than usual :) The sweet surnali with butter and honey is beyond description and one must taste it to enjoy the wonderful soft dosa along with the butter melting due to the heat of the surnali. The non-sweet version of this dosa can be made by skipping the jaggery, but I always prefer the sweet version. Methi or fenugreek seeds are added to facilitate fermentation and to make the dosa more softer.
Ingredients
2 cups rice (preferably raw rice)
3/4 cup pova or beaten rice (thin)
1/2 cup butter milk or 1/2 cup curd
1/4 teaspoon methi seeds
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup grated coconut
1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 cup gur or jaggery(skip, if you want the non-sweet version)
Method
Soak rice and methi seeds for 6-8 hours. Rinse the soaked rice and methi. Wash the pova and drain the water. Grind rice, methi, curd or buttermilk, pova and coconut to make the dosa batter. You should feel the coarse rice pieces in the batter and the batter should not be very fine in texture. Make sure that the batter is not too runny.
Cut the jaggery into very small pieces using a knife and mix it along with turmeric powder into the batter. If you don't want to make sweet dosa, you may skip the jaggery. Another option is to grind the jaggery pieces with the batter. Keep it in a warm place overnight for fermentation. The batter will rise and will double in volume.
Heat a non-stick tava or griddle and rub it with oil. Pour ladle full of batter on the tava and gently spread it from center with a spoon. It is very similar to making pancakes. The dosa should not be very thin, so take care not to spread the batter on the griddle as you do for masala dosa. Cover and cook the dosa. This dosa is to be cooked only on one side and should not be flipped to the other side. Hence, it should be cooked on a very low flame till the top of the dosa looks well done.
Serve the sweet surnali with a dollop of butter and honey. The non-sweet version can be served with chutney or pickle.
Preparation time: 45 minutes excluding the soaking time.
Serves: 4-5
Last week I had delicious salmon curry at my friend P's home. She found a new recipe on the internet and modified it as per her taste to make dry salmon curry. My husband Atul doesn't eat meat, so I tried the same recipe and substituted paneer instead of salmon. The verdict- awesome paneer curry with a new twist!
Ingredients
1 cup cubed paneer
1 cup thick curd
1 medium onion
1 teaspoon ginger-garlic paste
1 medium tomato
1/2 teaspoon coriander powder
1 teaspoon cumin powder
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon sugar
salt for taste
1/2 teaspoon garam masala powder
1/4 teaspoon pav bhaji masala powder
handful coriander leaves
1.2 teaspoon butter
oil for frying
Method
Saute the paneer cubes in 2 tablespoon oil till light brown. Grind the onion, garlic, ginger into a fine paste. Add 2 tablespoon oil in a pan and fry the paste till the raw smell disappears. Puree the tomato and add it to the paste and fry till the tomato is cooked. Cool it down completely. Add curd and the rest of the ingredients except the paneer and salt. Heat the masala on a very low flame (I heat it on 2 on the range of 1-9). If the flame is high the curd curdles and the masala becomes watery. Heat it for around 10 minutes stiring occasionally. Add the paneer and cook it on low flame for another 15 minutes or till the paneer has absorbed all the masala. If the masala is very thick then warm milk can be added to make the masala liquidish. Garnish with chopped coriander leaves and serve hot.
My Diwali Nivedya thali (offering during puja)
Cook on a low flame till it leaves from the sides and almost solidifies. I take a pea sized sample of it and check if it solidifies upon cooling.
Pour immediately on a plate greased well with solid ghee (if liquid ghee is applied to the plate then the burfi sticks to the plate). Flatten it with the back of a glass so that it is smooth on the top. Cut into squares when hot. Cool it down and then separate the squares. Store in air tight container.
It was raining cats and dogs here due to some storm in the Pacific ocean. It reminded me of the heavy rains in Pune and at times it would rain non stop, day and night for many days in a row. In such rainy days, my mom would make fried jack fruit papad's which we would get from Mangalore and various bhajiyas (vegetable fritters). We had ganola with yogurt, sliced bananas and strawberries on Monday and the granola with hot milk made a hearty breakfast on Tuesday morning when it was raining hard.
Cut the jaggery into very small pieces using a knife and mix it along with turmeric powder into the batter. If you don't want to make sweet dosa, you may skip the jaggery. Another option is to grind the jaggery pieces with the batter. Keep it in a warm place overnight for fermentation. The batter will rise and will double in volume. 
