Quick Carrot Halwa

3pm to 4pm in the afternoons is when the snack alarm in his tummy usually rings. And today it had a special desserty appetite. He was 18 months old, when the word "Mi Mi" came into existence. We used to give him fruits, sweets and cakes and some exotic cookies saying "yummy yummy". And even more was the influence of the famous Wiggles number "Fruits salad, yummy yummy"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gB4MNu6W9sg

So, he comes to me saying, "Amma, edanum Mi Mi venum", meaning he wants something yummy yummy. I ask him if he wanted to eat sliced carrots dipping them in honey or sugar. He suggests back to me, "that Mi Mi you make with carrots, can you make that now ?" So 20 minutes and he had it in his hands. At the time when there are emails floating around asking people not to make use of a microwave, I'm putting up a quick recipe for a microwaved carrot halwa. This recipe comes from a cook book. I gifted a microwave to my MIL in 2005 and she mentioned to me about this recipe that she discovered in the cook book that came with it. Never had i had the chance to try it and have always been doing the traditional grating carrots and cook on stove method. It has taken me 5 long years to try it :-).

8-10 large carrots

100 ml milk

1 cup sugar

1 tsp ghee or melted butter

To garnish : 10 black currants (or) golden raisins (and) 10 almonds (or/and) Cashews, pinch of Cardamom powder or sprinkle some of their seeds.

Cut the carrots in random order, we need not grate them. Transfer the pieces into a blender/mixer, add the sugar on top and add the milk at one go or depending on the efficiency of the blender you could add little by little. Blend well. Transfer this carrot juice into a thick microwave safe container. Place the bowl in the microwave and let it cook for 15 minutes. Bring it out, add the ghee and all the items that you wish to garnish with, mix well and put it in for 5 more minutes.

Zeh Hakol, yummy yummy warm carrot halwa is ready to be served. If you have the habit of stocking ice creams, relish the warm carrot halwa with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

For the love of baking...

Fruit and Nut Loaf - No added Sucre

In the midst of cleaning and clearing the kitchen before we vacate the house I get carried away by these left over chunks of walnuts, almonds, black currants, dates, apricots and dried plums. I wanted to get rid of them so I can claim I cleared a shelf in the kitchen today! But how ? It is impossible for me to just eat all of those dry fruits at at that very moment in order to get rid of those bottles. A also calls out, "amma pashikaradu, edanum snack kudu" meaning "mom am hungry, give me a snack". I didn't want to do anything elaborate. So tried something like a fruit and nut bread with no sugar, no eggs, no vanilla extract, no butter, no milk. Just simplified plain whole wheat bread with dry fruits and nuts in it.

I used,

2 tsp instant yeast

50 ml lukewarm water

3 cups whole wheat flour

1 cup all purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

less than 1 tsp of cinnamon powder

a bowl or 2 full cups of mixed dry fruits and nuts (i used walnuts, almonds, black currants, dates, apricots and dried plums)

Preheat oven to 175 deg C.

In a huge bowl, prepare the yeast by beating it well with lukewarm water for approx 5 minutes. Add the flour and baking powder, cinnamon powder and salt - make a dough by adding water occasionally. Keep it aside by covering it with a damp cloth of about 1 hour. The dough would have risen to a certain level. Now add the bowl of dry fruits and nuts and mix well into the dough. This can be allowed to rise too by leaving aside for few hours. But i was running out of time and so placed the dough in two 10in*4in aluminium baking sheets. Just grease the sheets with butter before placing the dough in order to get that non-stick feel.

Bake for 40 minutes or until the usual tooth prick coming out dry test succeeds. Cool the loaves for a while before cutting. This is a yummy tea time loaf or a healthy morning breakfast since it has no added fat like butter or milk or oil or eggs and no sugar - the dry fruits act as the sweeteners.

Broccoli Dosa

This belongs to the subset of the evil mom's recipes. Thankfully we are in a stage - point of life where I still get to decide and dictate what he should be eating. And I do not think this will go on forever, but as long as I'm in power why not utilize the chances.

After making some stir fried vegetables salad for us,I had some broccoli shoots left behind. I used only the florets in the salad and had a major portion of the stem/stalk left behind. I had not thought of anything for little one's dinner that night. If I was to show him a full bowl of vegetables like ours, no way he was going to oblige and his tumbly would still remain rumbly. Just when i thought I would make him a couple of dosas, i hit upon the idea of broccoli dosa.

Quickly microwaved the broccoli shoots, put them in the blender they turned into a fine paste. Added it to equal portion of the dosa batter and a little salt and voila - brocolli dosa mix was ready.

To start from scratch - (makes approx. 15 dosas)

Soak 1 & 1/2 cup rice and 1/4 cup urad dhal for 3 hours in water

2 cups of finely washed broccoli shoots or florets or the stalk cut into pieces

salt to taste

1 small green chilli (optional)

When it is about time to grind the soaked items, microwave the broccoli for about 7-8 minutes. Add water periodically and grind the rice and the lentil first for a couple of seconds and when the rice is all almost half broken, add the broccoli and grind well until the batter consistency is reached. If you wish to add a little flavor, toss a chilli into the blender.

Heat a pan, pour a ladle of batter at a time to get thin crispy dosas or a little more than that to make thick Adai like dosas which can be enjoyed with butter or ghee + sugar combo by your little ones.