Navrathri Special - Gulab Jamun

Navrathri is all done and now I cant wait for Diwali. Back home in India, Navrathri is one of the biggest festivals in our family. We still have elaborate pooja both in the morning and evening which the elders take care of while the "kolu" is taken care by us the younger ones in the house. Its been almost 8 years since I went home during navrathri and oh I so miss it - all the fun, festivities and the house-visits that we used to make as young kids, scouting for sundal :-) Anyway, now that we are far away from home, with a busy schedule over the weekdays our navrathri celebrations have been condensed to weekends and am just glad that we had 2 weekends to celebrate this time around. On Saraswathi pooja I made these yummy Gulab Jamun. I was debating whether I should wait until Diwali but my sweet tooth got ahead of me and I decided to make it for Navrathri.

Ingredients:
Jamun -
2 cup mawa/khoya (reduced solidifed milk, available in Indian stores)
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tbsp sugar
2 - tbsp milk
Sugar syrup -
2 cups sugar
1 cup water
1 tsp powdered cardamom
few strands of saffron (optional)

Method:
Mix all the ingredients for the jamun. Use as much milk as necessary to make a soft dough (consistency should be softer than chapathi dough). Set aside and let it rest for 15 min or so.
Meanwhile, mix sugar and water in a large pan and set it on a medium flame.
Allow the mixture to boil for 5 min or until the syrup turns viscous.
Now add cardamom and saffron to the sugar syrup.
Keep the sugar syrup warm by adjusting the flame to lowest possible setting.
Now pinch a part of the dough and roll it into little balls.
Heat oil in a frying pan. When it is hot enough, drop a few balls and let it fry slowly. It may take 3-5 min depending on how hot the oil is.
Once the jamun becomes golden brown, take it out and drain it on a paper towel.
Even as they are warm, transfer them onto the sugar syrup.
Serve the jamuns warm or cold; they taste yum with ice cream.

Note: Be patient while frying the jamun. Use a low flame and fry until it turns golden brown. This will ensure a fully cooked and juicy jamun to enjoy.

This will be my entry to "Sweet series" event hosted by Sireesha of Mom's Recipes.

Enjoy !!

Leftover Rotis - No Problem !!

I love one pot meals anytime - be it a busy workday or just a lazy weekend when I just dont feel like getting out of my cozy couch !! Dinner gets done quickly with less pots and pans to clean afterwards. Hence I try my best to blend my veggies, protein and carbs in one mighty dish :-) On weekdays we get our carb from rotis and our weekends are mostly reserved for rice. So it was Friday night, I was too tired with all the running around during the week that I didnt have the energy to cook much of a dinner. It clearly was one-pot-dinner time! - as I was racking my brains thinking about what to make for dinner, I noticed I had a few extra rotis left over from the whole week's supply. Call it serendipity but at the same time I remembered my mom making upma out of leftover idlis or even stale bread back home in India when she was in a similar situation. So I figured if idlis can transform into upma why cant rotis. And thats how this roti upma came into existence. Since this was all we are going to have for dinner, I added some veggies along so it would make a filling meal and that it did. We were pretty happy the way it turned out and I plan to add it to my cooking routine...


Ingredients:
8 rotis, cut into medium sized pieces
1 small onion
2 tomatoes
2 green chillies
Few curry leaves
3 tsp oil
1 tsp split urad dal
1 tsp jeera (cumin)
1 tsp mustard
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp red chillies (adjust as per taste)
salt to taste
cilantro to garnish

Method:
Heat oil in a saute pan.
Add urad dal, jeera, mustard and curry leaves. Let it splutter and urad dal turn golden brown.
Now add green chillies and onion. Saute until the onions are well cooked.
Add tomatoes and cook until the raw smell of tomatoes disappear.
Add turmeric, salt and red chilli powder. Saute for 2 min.
Now add the roti pieces and stir until all the ingredients are well mixed.
Garnish with cilantro.
Serve warm with yogurt.

If you would like, you can break some eggs on the rotis at the final step and mix until the eggs are cooked. If you are from South India, you may recognize the similarity with Kothu Parota except that Kothu Parota is made with Parota instead of rotis.

Enjoy!

Baingan (eggplant) Masala

Summer this year has, like every summer before it, gone by too fast and fall is knocking at the door. As much as I love fall and the festive season it brings, I cant help but be sad when summer comes to an end. To add to my end-of-summer blues, this season I couldn't even do as much farmer's-market-shopping as I would've liked to. Makes me envious of the blessed few in CA who enjoy farmer's markets all through the year. Sighs apart, I feel thankful for friends that do manage to go vegetable-picking and share their little bounties from such trips. One such friend went vegetable-picking on one of those rare sunny weekends (this summer was such a washout for us in the East Coast) and she shared the veggies that she'd picked - delightful eggplant, robust-looking potatoes and ...
Here is the recipe for Eggplant masala I made with those yummy freshly picked eggplants. I love eggplant but bitter ones are a major turnoff for me (so are the ones filled with seeds). As all eggplant aficianados know, one bitter eggplant is sufficient to spoil the entire dish - so, I am extra careful in choosing them. For the small Indian variety, I prefer the lovely tender ones without spots - but these tend to be seasonal (even in our trusty local Indian grocery shops). However, I have almost always had good luck with the more readily available Italian or Japanese variety as well. The following recipe works well for the Indian, Japanese and Italian varieties quite well.

Note: Cut eggplant into 1" cubes and drop them into salted warm water. This helps reduce the bitterness if any in the eggplant.

Ingredients:
6 medium sized eggplant (baingan)
1 medium onion, chopped
2 tomatoes, chopped
2 tsp jeera (cumin)
1 tsp mustard
2 tsp minced ginger
1 tsp minced garlic
2 tsp red chilli powder
2 tsp garam masala
1 tsp amchoor powder (dry mango powder)
2 tsp dhaniya-jeera (cumin-coriander) powder
Cilantro, finely chopped for garnish (optional)
1 tbsp oil
salt to taste

Method:

1. Heat oil in a pan, when it gets hot add jeera, mustard, minced ginger and garlic.
2. Once garlic gets golden brown, add onions. Saute it for a few minutes until onions brown.
3. Now add tomatoes, turmeric and salt. Cook until the raw smell of tomatoes disappears.
4. Now add the cut pieces of eggplant and cook for about 5 min until the pieces are tender and well-cooked.
5. Now add amchoor powder, red chilli powder, garam masala and dhaniya-jeera powder.
6. Saute for a few more minutes until the spices get incorporated well.
7. Garnish with cilantro.
8. Serve hot with rotis/rice.

This will be my entry to "IAVW: Indian" hosted by Erbe in cucina. This event is a part of the series "It's a Vegan World: A food event" started by Vaishali of Holy Cow - Recipes from a vegan Kitchen.
Enjoy !