Butternut Squash Halwa

Our visit to Farmers market brings new vegetables to our home once a while. This time we got Butternut Squash. I like the color and its appearance. And the name itself told me that it has to be good.. Butter, Nut.. Lovely name right.. Yeap Very nice vegetable. You can definitely try this vegetable.

After buying this vegetable I really dont know what to do with it.It was sitting on my counter top for more than a week. I was confused whether to go with sweets or to make come curries. Called my fried Dahlia and asked What to do with Butternut Squash. She told me to make Halwa or you can use it in the Sambhar. So i'm using Half of it in Halwa and the other half in Sambhar. Thanks Dahlia akka for your suggestion. I did exactly like carrot halwa and it taste very good. But instead of thickening the milk at stove top i added condensed milk.

It is a good source of fibre, vitamin C, manganese, magnesium, and potassium. It is also an excellent source of vitamin A.

To make this tasty Halwa:

You will need:

• 3 cups of grated butternut squash
• 1 cup of condensed milk
• ½ cup water
• 2 pinch of cardamom powder
• 2 tsp ghee
• 1 tbsp dry raisin
• 1 tbsp cashewnut (roughly chopped)
• Sugar as needed .(I dint add sugar, Its purely optional)

Procedure:

Step 1:

Cut the butternut squash lengthwise and scoop out the seeds using a spoon as shown in pic.

Step 2:

Grate the peeled squash using a grater ..(Just like u grate carrots).

Step 3:

Now switch on Non stick pan at Medium heat. Add the ghee. When its hot add the raisin and cashew nut. Saute it till the raisin plums and the cashew nut turns golden brown color. Remove the raisin and cashew nut when its done. Keep it aside.

Step 4:

In the remaining ghee add the grated butternut squash and lower the heat. Saute it till it get rid of the raw smell. It will take 10 to 15 mins in medium low flame. Now add the water and allow it to boil.

Step 5:

When the water starts boiling add the condensed milk along with the cardamom powder. Saute it till you get Halwa consistency. It will take less than 7 mins.

Step 6:

Now garnish with the raisin and the roasted cashews . Transfer it into another bowl and allow it to cool. Refrigerate it for few hours. Now its time to cut and serve. Wow Yummy Butternut squash Halwa is ready.



Hint:
You can add extra sugar if you like extra sweet version of this Halwa.

Pal Khova/ Milk Kova

Pal Khova is one of our favorite dessert during childhood days. Just taught of making this since we cant get fresh khova here. I never knew that this would take such a long time for me to get the delicious khova. Oh my God. It killed my time. But was really satisfied with the outcome. Very comforting dessert. We enjoyed it.




You will need:

• 4 cups milk
• 3 tbsp ghee
• ¾ cup sugar (can go upto 1 cup sugar)
• 1 tbsp rava/sooji (optional)
• saffron(optional)
  
• More patience!!!!! (very important!!)
  

Step 1:

Heat a heavy bottom pan , add milk, sugar and ghee to it. Stir it for 30 mins. Stirring occasionally. After 30 mins increase the heat and stir it continuously (just to avoid lump formation) . When its boiling just reduce the heat and then again increase it. Its a bit hard work. But the result will satisfy you!!!!.

Step 2:

Now add rava and saffron to it and continuously stir it. At this stage the mixture will look like this.



Step 3:

Now totally after 1.30 hours of hard work, the mixture will reduce to 1 cup of khova. At this stage you can see some vigorous bubbles too.. Now transfer the mixture to a buttered cookie sheet and pour the mixture to it. Allow it to cool for some time.


Step 4:

Using Pizza cutter just cut it into desired shape or just using ghee roll it into desired shape and enjoy your day. You will surely enjoy the outcome after 1.30 hours of hard work.

Banana Bonda

Making bajji with ripe banana is very common and i have did that several times. But this time i thought of trying something different with simple steps. So just tried this in my own way. It was good and it taste similar to unniappam. Can name it as banana unniappam i think!!!!..



You will need:

• 1 ripe banana
• ¾ cup All purpose flour(Maida)
• 2 tbsp sugar(can increase or decrease depending on your taste).
• water just few tbsp (just enough to make dough)
• Yellow color a pinch(optional)
• oil for deep frying
  

Step 1:

Just mash the banana with the help of banana masher or using hands. Add flour to it and knead it well. Now add sugar and yellow color to it. Along with that add few tbsp of water to form a dough. The final dough should be thick like this....



Step 2:

Heat oil in a pan on medium heat. Take some dough in your hand (you can use spoon too) and put it in the oil. Don't worry about the shapes. We are not pro's right!!!!!.. Deep fry it till it become brown color.

Serve with hot tea/coffee and enjoy you evening time. Simple and tasty.. What else can you ask for?....

Cashew Raisin Biscotti

Today i was planning to make cookies. So just kept the butter outside and was getting ready to make cookies. Suddenly Biscotti came into my mind. So just went ahead and search for few recipes. Got the good one. Then again i was not able to make final decision whether to make cookies or biscotti. Because i don't like Indian Rusks. But finally decided to try biscotti thinking if its not coming good then i can make cookies. You know what after making first batch i was very satisfied with the taste of this biscotti. So went ahead and made 2 more batches and stored it. And one more good news. it will stay good for more than 2 weeks. Just store it in air tight container or zip lock.

You will need:

• 1½ cup All purpose flour
• ¾ tsp baking powder
• pinch of salt
• pinch of baking soda
• pinch of nutmeg powder(optional)
• 2 Eggs
• ¾ cup sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla essence(can reduce to 1 tsp also)
• ¾ cup raisins (can go for dry cranberry, dry cherry too)
• ¾ cup roasted nuts( almonds. pistachio, cashew) i made with the mixture of three nuts.
  

Step 1:

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Step 2:

Preparing Dry Ingredients:

Take a big bowl,sieve the flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda. Keep it aside.

Step 3:

Preparing wet ingredients:

Take a mixing bowl add eggs and sugar and mix it well with an electric mixer high for minimum 5 minutes. Now add vanilla essence and nutmeg powder.
Step 4:

Now mix the dry mixture into the wet mixture little by little and continue to mix it with the electric beater.After adding the flour mixture, take a spatula and mix it for few more minutes, just to make sure the flour is mixed well with the wet ingredients.

Step 5:

Now with the help of spatula just fold in the raisins and nuts.

Step 6:

Butter the cookie sheet and pour the mixture into it as shown in pic below. Pat to 1 inch thickness.



Step 7:

Bake it for 20 minutes. Take the biscotti from the oven and let it cool for 10 mins. Please dont turn off the oven.

Step 8:

Cut the biscotti into ½ inch thickness diagonally. Bake them for 5 minutes with cut side down, remove and turn the cookies to other side and bake again for another 5 minutes. Switch off, remove and cool completely.


This will be crispy and crunchy. Specially we can take out for picnic or outing.

Can you believe that this biscotti doesn't have butter in it. Even without butter it taste wonderful. Give it a try and let me know how it came out for you!!!!

Pineapple Kesari

You will need:

• 1 cup rava/ semolina/sooji
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 cups Water (can reduce to 2 cups of water to get thick consistency)
  
• ½ cup ghee( can increase or decrease according to your choice)
• 1½ cup canned crushed pineapple in juice (if you are using pineapple chunks better cut it into small pieces)
  
• 1/8 tsp of kesari food color (egg yellow)
• big pinch of cardamom powder
• small pinch of salt
• ½ cup cashew and raisins (fried in ghee)

Step 1:

Heat a pan and add 2 tbsp ghee. Add cashews and fry for few minutes.After that add raisins and stir it till it become balloon like structure and transfer it into another bowl and keep it aside.

Step 2:

In the same pan add remaining ghee and fry semolina till it become light brown color.(till it gives nice fragrance). Now add water to it and stir continuously to avoid lump formations. Add sugar, cardamom powder,crushed pineapple with juice and allow it to boil. When it starts boiling add food color and a pinch of salt. Then add half of the nuts and raisins into this mixture and stir it. Please don't close the pan when making kesari. Save the remaining for garnishing.Keep stirring till you get your desired consistency.It will take less than 2 mins to get the desired consistency. When it starts bubbling vigorously switch it off and let it cool for 10 mins. Serve as dessert as warm or cold. It will taste good in both ways.

Step 3:

Garnish with remaining nuts and raisins and serve. A quick dessert is ready to serve.

Kaju katli( cashew diamonds

Today i just thought of making some sweet dishes for my hubby's colleagues as Holiday presents. Suddenly Kaju katli came into my mind because of its taste.. As you know people here in the US like good presentation. So i went ahead and did this Kaju Katli. This is the first time i tried with powdered Cashews. Earlier i used to wet grind the cashews and the final product will be cashew Halwa!!!. This time tried with powdered cashews and guess what it really worked. The final product was better than Adyar Sweets. Thats what my husband said!!!. HA HA HA. So you can surely try this for a simple and quick dessert.

You will need:

• 1 cup whole cashews
• ¾ cup powdered sugar
• ¼ cup water

Step 1:

Finely powder the cashews using coffee grinder. (I have Indian Mixie. So i powder the cashews using the small jar which comes along with Mixie set.)

Step 2:

Take a heavy bottom pan (to distribute heat evenly, flat bottom is best) and add water and sugar to it and heat it for some time till you see bubbles.

Now add the powdered cashews and stir it continuously for few more mins. Keep stirring it untill it forms a soft ball.

You can also check by taking little of the mixture and roll it on a plate and see whether it solidifies within seconds. Transfer the content to chopping board lined by aluminium foil. Let cool for few minutes, and knead when its still warm. Place plastic wraps on top of the content and roll it to desired thickness and cut in diamond shape. Again, let it cool and then store in air-tight box for up to a week. It can also be refrigerated.

Hint:

If the dough is sticky, stir it few more mins to get the desired consistency.

If the dough is too hard just add few drops of warm milk and roll again

Red Velvet cake

This became one of my favorite cake after coming to US. When i was in India i haven't heard about this. I once got a chance to taste a small piece of this cake. Wow what a tasty cake. Look at the color. Hmm who wont like this???.. First time i didn't have this red color and cocoa powder in my pantry, so i tried with orange color and just omited the cocoa powder. But didn't get the taste like the one that i sampled earlier. Next time got these ingredients and tried this for our First Wedding Anniversary. Wow!!! No words to express the unique taste of this cake. I simply applied vanilla frosting to make my work easier. Can try with homemade icing too. That will be delicious.

You will need:

For the cake:

• 2½ cups sifted cake flour
  
• 2 tsp cocoa powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 1½ cups powdered sugar
• ½ cup unsalted butter softened
• 2 large eggs
• 2½ ounces red food colouring
• 1 tsp white vinegar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

For the frosting:

• 8 ounces cream cheese
• ½ cup unsalted butter softened
• 1 pound confectioners sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup chopped nuts(optional)

Preparation method:

For The Cake:

1. Preheat the oven to 350° F.

2. Grease and flour 2 (9-inch) cake pans.

In a medium bowl...

1. sift together flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt

2. set aside.

In a large bowl...

1. Cream together sugar and butter.

2. Beat in eggs one at a time.

3. Alternately add flour mixture and buttermilk.

4. Beat in food coloring and vinegar, then add vanilla.

Spread the batter evenly in the pans.

1. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

2. Turn out onto a rack to cool.

For The Frosting:

1. In a large bowl, cream the cream cheese and butter.

2. Beat in confectioners' sugar until fluffy.

3. Beat in vanilla. Stir in pecans.

4. Use frosting to fill and ice cake.

5. Slice and serve on individual plates.

Strawberry cake eggless

You will need:

• 1¼ cup All purpose flour
• 3½ tbsp butter(room temp)
• ½ tsp vanilla essence
• ½ tsp strawberry essence
• 2 tsp baking powder
• ½ cup milk
• 1 cup strawberries chopped (fresh or frozen) if frozen thaw it before mixing it
• ½ tsp lemon juice
• ½ cup powdered sugar
• pinch of salt
  

Step 1:

Preheat the oven:

Preheat the oven to 375 degree F.(190 degree Celsius)

Step 2:

Preparing strawberries:

Mix 1 tsp sugar and lemon juice on freshly chopped strawberries and keep it aside. This will make the strawberry juicy and soft.

Hint:

If using frozen you can skip step 2.

Step 3:

Mixing dry ingredients:

Mix together flour, baking powder, salt and sift it with a sifter.

Step 4:

Mixing wet ingredients:

Cream butter and powdered sugar using electric mixer. Then add milk to it.

Step 5:

Mixing dry and wet ingredients:

Mix the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients little by little till you get all ingredients mixed together.

Step 6:

Mixing strawberries:

Using the spatula fold in the chopped strawberries with the above mixture.

Step 7:

Bake:

Prepare the baking pan by buttering it nicely just to avoid sticking. Then pour the mixture into the baking pan. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 to 40 minutes. Same old technique to check whether the cake is baked. Just insert a tooth pick in the middle. If it comes out clean its done. Allow it to cool for 5 to 7 minutes.. Before serving dust it with some powdered sugar.

Additionol decoration: To make layer strawberry cake.

Cut the cake into 2 pieces. exactly half. and place the bottom piece in a cake stand. Then apply whipped cream all over the cake. Then put the top piece on top of the whipped cream. Then cover the full cake with whipped cream or vanilla frosting. On top of the whipped cream cut the strawberries and decorated in your own way. I'm not good in decorating. So i did my own style of decoration.

Handy Hint: Before covering the top of the cake with cream you can cut the cake into your own desired shape. like heart shape, tree shape. I prefer round shape. But occasionally will go for heart shapes too.

If you think your cake is very crispy outside(meaning over baked by mistake) just cut the outer edges slightly using knife.Then cover the cake with whipped cream.

Banana nut cake recipe

You will need:

• 3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed
• ½ cup melted butter ( 1 stick)
  
• 1 cup sugar (can easily reduce to 3/4 cup)
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp baking soda
• Pinch of salt
• 1½ cup of bread flour (can substitute with All purpose flour)
• 2 tbsp chopped nuts (silvered alomonds, cashews)
• ¼ cup raisins

Step 1:

Preheat the oven:

Preheat the oven to 350F.

Step 2:

Making cake dough:

With a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the sugar, egg, and vanilla. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in. Add the flour last and mix. Mix in chopped nuts and raisins.

Pour mixture into a buttered pan. Bake for 45 mins. Cool on a rack. Remove from pan and slice to serve.

Boli

You will need

• 1 cup Bengal Gram (Kadalaparuppu)
• 1 cup Sugar ( I added 1¼ cup sugar because i love sweets)
  
• ¼ cup Gingelly Oil(Nallenna)
• 1 cup All Purpose Flour(Maida)
• Water - As reqd to form a dough
• ¼ tsp Nutmeg(Jathikka) powder
• ¼ tsp Cardamom(Elakka)powder
• A pinch of Golden Yellow Food color (Optional)
• Rice Flour or maida flour - to spread on the board,to prevent it from sticking
• ¼ cup Ghee

Step 1:

Preparing dough

Mix the maida flour and food color together .Add enough water and make it into a soft dough.Pour gingelly oil into it and knead it well until the dough become very soft.Keep it aside for 1 hour to make it more soft.

Step 2:

Making filling

Boil gram with plenty of water until it is cooked soft.Strain it well.Again add some more water,boil it and drain.Add sugar and 3 tsp of ghee into the cooked gram,allow it to cook in medium heat.

Stir continuously until the mixture becomes semi solid.Be careful,it should not become too hard.Now stir in cardamom powder and nutmeg powder into it.Mix well together and grind it using a mixer when its hot. If it becomes cold,the mixture can harden and makes grinding difficult.

STEP 3:

Rolling Boli

Now make equal number of lemon sized balls with both gram mixture and with the dough.Take a ball made of flour,roll out a little on a floured surface( rice flour is spread on the surface).Keep the gram ball in centre of the rolled dough.Cover the gram completely with the dough as shown in the picture.
Now using hand ,press it evenly and make it very smooth. Again roll it out as thin as possible.

Step 4:




Frying Boli

Heat a griddle and cook the bolis just like we do for chappathis.Apply little ghee on both sides.Keep it in an air tight container and keep it in the refrigeretor when it is cooled.Thus, it can be stored for a week.

Handy Hint:..

While rolling with gram mixture it will be sticky. So use lots of flour for rolling. And clean the tava with paper towel after making each boli. The end result will be mouth watering.

Doughnut recipe

You will need:

• 4 cups All purpose flour (Maida)
  
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Step 1:

Whisk the eggs and the sugar

Start your doughnuts by putting the 2 eggs and sugar into a mixing bowl. Whisk them briskly until their appearance becomes very pale and fluffy.

Step 2:

Add the milk, vanilla, salt and butter

Next, you will need to introduce the milk, vanilla, salt and melted butter to the dough and mix it all together briefly.

Step 3:

Mix dry ingredients and allow it to chill.

You can now add the baking powder to the bowl of flour and mix them together a little bit. Next, add this dry mix to the egg mixture and combine them thoroughly. The dough will be sticky. Cover and chill for 2 hours.

Be careful not to over-mix the dough or the resulting doughnuts will turn out tough.

Step 4:

Roll the dough out and cut it

Begin forming the doughnuts by sprinkling some flour upon the work surface and then dusting your hands with a little more flour. Now roll the dough out to a thickness of about half of a centimetre. Next, use the large cutter(you can use coffee mug also) to cut out the doughnuts. You can then use the small cutter (i used cola bottle cap :) ) to cut out their centres.

Set the doughnuts aside and combine the leftover dough with some new dough.
Roll it out again and repeat the process until all the dough is used.

Step 5:

Fry

It is now time to fry your doughnuts. Place a saucepan with the oil over a medium heat. While waiting for the oil to heat up, you can prepare a tray by lining it with some paper towel. Now place the doughnuts into the hot oil a few at a time. Let them cook for about one minute until golden brown and turn them over. Cook the other side and place them on the tray. Repeat until all the dough is used.

Step 6:

Powdered doughnut:

Place your doughnuts on a plate and liberally dust them with powdered sugar. Your doughnuts are now ready to serve!

Glazed doughnut:

Drain the doughnut with paper towel briefly and then dip into the bowl of hot glaze.Dip in a vanilla glaze (recipe below)and drain on a wire rack set inside of a baking sheet.

They can be glazed with strawberry, chocolate, or raspberry sauces. Enjoy !!!

Vanilla Glaze:

• 3 cups confectioners sugar (powdered sugar)
• ¼ to ½ cup milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• ½ teaspoon strawberry extract

In a medium mixing bowl big enough to dip your doughnuts, stir together all glaze ingredients until there are no lumps. Set aside until ready to dip the hot doughnuts.

Apple Nut Muffins Recipe

Step 1:

You will need

• ½ cup butter room temperature
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 large apples
  
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp cashewnut (chopped)
• 2 tbsp almonds
  

Step 2:

Preheat the oven

We need to set the oven to 400°F before beginning to make the muffins.

Step 3:

Mashed apples

Peel the apples and cut into small cubes. Then boil it in the hot water till it become soft and then mashes it with a spoon or with the blender.

Step 4:

Preparing dough

Cream butter and sugar with an electric hand-held mixer until light and fluffy.Beat in eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition. Add apples and vanilla and beat until smooth. Along with this mixture, mix together the flour, salt and baking powder. Stir until dry ingredients are moistened then gently stir in chopped nuts.

Step 5:

Bake

Now put some of the batter into each of the muffin moulds using the spoon. Only fill them to about 2/3 of their capacity since the batter will rise while baking. Place the muffins onto a baking tray and put them into the oven. Allow to bake for about 15 -20 minutes.

Step 6:

Remove from oven

Once the muffins are done, take them out of the oven and let them cool a little before removing them from the moulds. Place them on a serving tray.

Step 7:

Serve

If you like, you can sprinkle the muffins with a little icing sugar. They taste best if you eat them while still warm. Enjoy!


Hint:

You can replace apple with your favorite fruit like bananas, strawberries. No need to boil it. Just mash it or grind it and add along with the mixture.

Carrot Halwa Recipe

You will need

• 3 cups grated carrot
• 1 ½ cup sugar
• 2 cups mixture of milk and water (the proportion may be as you like)
• 5 cardamons
• 15 cashews
• 10 raisins
• 2 tbsp ghee or butter

Method :

Step 1 : Peel all the carrots and grate them finely.
Step 2 : Put pan in low heat .Add ghee, some cashews, raisins and grated carrot, and fry it for just 30-40 seconds.
Step 3 : Then add milk in pan and bring it to boil with grated carrot and add sugar to it.
Step 4 : Cook over medium heat until all the milk gets thicken.
Step 5 : When ghee starts separating then add cardamon powder. Mix it well and turn off the heat.
Step 6 : Decorate with cashew nuts.

Do not heat the mixture too long, so as to prevent it from getting hardened.