Elayappam/Ela Ada

Elayappam is a popular snack in my family. For me elayappam comes with many fond memories. My grandma, mom and her sisters used to gather in grandma's kitchen, sit together and do the process of spreading appam to ela. We liittle ones hardly join them for watching and yeah we were busy in playing right. Ohhhh i miss those days and my dear ones. Ok enough of my nostalgic momemts right? :) .

Coming back, we were in an indian store and my hubby noticed frozen ela ada/elayappam there. He wants to buy it. I always try to avoid frozen foods and so promised to do it at home with our traditional recipe. So this is for my dear hubby. The taste was yummy and got thumbs up from him and our friends. Double happy :) .Here comes the recipe for you all. Happy cooking .

Preparation Time:30 minutes
Cooking Time:20 minutes
Serves:3

Ingredients:

Raw rice	1 cup
Jaggery	2&1/2 cup
Grated Coconut	1&1/4 cup
Water	1/4 cup(appx)
Banana leaf	as needed

Preparation:

(1) Soak raw rice in water for about 15 minutes. Drain the excess water and spread rice over a newspaper so that excess water will be drained off. Grind raw rice in a mixer and make a very fine powder. Sieve it to make sure it is finely powdered. Mean while mash jaggery too into fine powder

(2) Now take 3/4 cup of jaggery in a bowl and add 2 tspoon of water to it. Mix well using hand to ensure jaggery is finely powdered. To this add rice powder and mix well using hand.

(3) Combine jaggery and rice powder. Now you have to make it a thick dough. Sprinkle water little by little and mix well using hand ( Don't add more water. The dough should not be loose or too tight.). Make a medium thick dough.

(4) Now heat the banana leaves over the flame of stove and keep it aside. Take one leaf and add around two tspoon of dough to the centre of leaf (adjust the quantity depending on the size of leaf) Spread it using the fingers and make a circular shape (refer the picture). Spread the dough so lightly so that the leaf should be transparent.

(5) Above that sprinkle around 2 tspoon of coconut and jaggery one above the other as shown in the picture (you can increase or decrease the amount of jaggery/coconut as per your taste).

(6) Fold over the leaf. Now seal the edges. For that first fold the two edges and finally cover it with the third fold. Repeat it with other leaves. I made 8 such packs.

(7) Steam it using a steamer. I used idly cooker to cook. It will be ready in some 20 to 30 minutes.  (When you open the leaf one part of dough will be stitched to other half. This is the correct stage. If you add more water while mixing it will be seen as squishy)

Your elayappam/ela ada is now ready.

Tips and variations:

• You can also add boiled green gram/payaru with this. Sprinkle 2 tspoon each as the third layer over the coconut.
• Be careful while adding water. Adding more water will make appam squishy.

Home Made Chocolates

Yeah now time for sweetness. I know all of you love chocolates. Do you know preparing home made chocolates are so easy???Yes, it is!!!!  I got this recipe from one of my favorite cooking show. 

My little one like this very much and i love to see his smile when he chew it. He will tell as "chac, chac" with a lovely smile…heehee..ok story time over and here comes the recipe with my clicks...

Preparation Time: 15 min
Setting Time: 8 hrs in room temp/4 hrs in refrigerator
No.of Chocolates: 15(big)

Ingredients:

Cocoa Powder( i used Hershey's)	1 tbl spoon
Drinking Chocolate	5 tbl spoon
Icing Sugar/Powdered Sugar	3 to 5 tbl spoon
MilkMaid/Condensed Milk	1/2 cup
Milk Powder	2 tbl spoon

Preparation:

(1) Take cocoa powder in a bowl. Add icing sugar to it and mix well with a spoon or spatula.

(2) Now add milk powder to it and mix well.

(3) To this add drinking chocolate and mix all the contents well using a spoon or spatula.To this dry ingredients pour condensed milk little by little. Mix well.

(4) Mix the dry ingredients with the condensed milk using hand. You will find it too sticky to mix. But be patient and mix well. Make a thick paste (Don't make it watery). Now leave aside for 20 minutes in room temperature to set well (You can also keep the same in refrigerator for about 10 min).

(5) Once it is set you will get a very thick paste. Take one bunch(lemon size) of prepared mixture in hand. Make ball shapes by rolling it using hands.

(6) Keep the ball shapes in a plate (keep space between each chocolates,preferably placed above a foil paper/wax paper to avoid stickiness, i didn't used).

(7) Now keep aside for more than 7 hours in room temperature or more than 3 hrs in refrigerator. Your home made chocolates are now ready (Ball shapes will slightly depress and form circle shapes).

(8) You can store this chocolates in a container or else cover each chocolates with a foil paper and store it. Store in refrigerator for short term use and in a freezer for long term use.

Prepare and enjoy your own chocolates
:)

Carrot Halwa-Guest Post

Hi everyone, I am Aswini from Happy cooking blog. I thank my friend Shyama for creating a space on her blog to make a guest post. Whenever we start a new thing, we start with a sweet. Since this is my first guest post, I planned to make a sweet. But had no idea what to do. Making carrot halwa was my long time dream. So took this day to make it true. So here comes the recipe.

Ingredients:

(Serves 2)

Carrot	3 or 4 cups grated
Sugar	½ to ¾ cup
Milk	2 cups
Condensed milk(optional)	3 tbsp
Cardamom	4
Nuts(almonds,cashew,pista)	3 or 4 tbsp
Raisin	2 tbsp
Ghee	3 tbsp
Salt	A pinch

Method:

1.       In a heavy bottomed pan(I used pressure cooker bottom) , heat a tbsp of ghee and fry the nuts and raisin and set aside.

2.       In the same pan, heat rest of the ghee and add the carrot gratings and fry for a second. Then add 2 cups of milk and allow the carrot to cook.

3.       Keep the flame on low or medium. Once all the milk has evaporated, add condensed milk, sugar, pinch of salt and cardamom(I powdered sugar and cardamom in a mixer).

4.       Keep stirring till it gets a bit dry and consistency as of halwa. Garnish with nuts and raisin. Serve warm. Happy eating

  

Notes:

·         If you are adding condensed milk, reduce the amount of sugar you are adding.

·         Adding raisin is also optional. Some people may not like it in halwa.

Ada Pradhaman/Ada payasam

Ingredients:

• Ada-250 gm
• Jaggery/sharkkara-1/2 kg
• Elakka/Cardamom-6 to 8 
• Cashew-10
• Raisin/Unakka Mundhiri-2 tbl spoon
• Sago/Chawwari-2 tbl spoon
• Coconut milk(onnam pal/thick)-1 cup
• Coconut milk(rendam pal/medium thick)-2 cup
• Ghee-1+3 tspoon
• Tiny coconut slices-2 tspoon

Preparation:

(1) Crush ada into small pieces. Keep it aside( Nowadays crushed ada is available in market).
(2) Mash jaggery into fine pieces. Keep it aside.
(3) Heat ghee in a pan. Fry coconut slices, cashewnuts,sago, raisin one by one. Keep it aside
(4) Boil 4 to 5 cups of water. Once it starts boiling add crushed ada into it. Cook it till it is done(Tip: Becomes soft.If u have doubt crush a piece and make sure). Switch off the flame. Drain the excess water. Again add cold water into  it. Wash well and drain the water using a filter to remove the stickiness. Keep it aside.
(5) Heat a  deep bottomed vessel. Add cooked ada into it. Then add jaggery pieces. Add 3 tspoon of ghee. Keep on stirring in low-medium flame till the contents turns thick( Tip:it starts to separate from the vessel. Here jaggery will melt and combine with ada. Stirring is bit tough. So be on full energy :)).

Alternative step for no:5.....
Heat a bottomed vessel.Add jaggery pieces with little amount of water. Stir it and melt the jaggery. Then add cooked ada and 3 tspoon of ghee. Keep on stirring till it turns thick.

(6) Add medium thick coconut milk. Keep on stirring in between low-medium flame. When coconut milk reduces to half the quantity add thick coconut milk. Heat for another 5 minutes. Add crushed cardamom.
(6) Switch off the flame and add the fried coconut slices, cashew nuts, sago and raisin. Mix well.

Your ada pradhaman is ready:)

Happy onam....