Quinoa & Moongdal Sweet Pongal/Quinoa Sakkarai Pongal

One of my favourite Indian festival is obviously deepavali, but i have so many fond memories about Pongal which is also known as Festival of harvest, dedicated to Sun God. Every year, Pongal falls on mid january and this festival is celebrated according to Tamil calender. This festival is celebrated for 4 days, obviously most of the Tamilians make a trip to their native village to enjoy this traditional festival with their family. Though its been many years i have celebrated this Festival of harvest in India, i plan myself to celebrate this festival here in Paris without any fail. Coming to this Quinoa Sweet pongal, this dish is definitely a delicious and ultimate Sweet dish to prepare without any fail for this festival.

Peanut Poli/Shenga Holige/Ground Nut Sweet Paratha

If you love sesame seeds and jaggery poli, then you will seriously enjoy this peanut poli. Its one of the easiest sweet paratha aka poli to prepare for any special occasions to serve and enjoy with your loved ones. No need of making syrup or stirring the filling. Just grind the roasted peanuts with grated jaggery  along with whole cardamom pods, your filling is ready to make some dangerously addictive protein rich holige. This poli is also from Northern Karnataka where this kind of interesting holige are quite famous, and these sort of sweet parathas have their own place especially in Diwali feast platter.

Sajjaka Holige/Rava Obbattu/Semolina Poli

My today's post is from Northern part of Karnataka, this rava obbattu aka Sajjaka holige is quite popular there. Prepared with a simple rava and jaggery stuffing, this sweet flatbread will definitely please anyone's sweet tooth. And this sweet is made during the Dusshera/Dasara festival season. With a simple wheat chappathi dough, i prepared quickly this sweet poli and this dish tastes absolutely fabulous to enjoy with a mug of spiced black tea.

Thengai Poli/Kayi Holige/Coconut Jaggery Sweet Paratha

This week is going to be some delicious sweet flatbreads with different stuffings. Yes i picked Sweet flatbreads as theme for this week's blogging marathon. Poli/Holige is a Indian sweet flatbread which calls for channadal-jaggery stuffing. Though channadal stuffing is a quite popular stuffing for making some polis, many different versions of polis do exists. One of the popular poli after Puran poli aka channadal stuffing poli is this Thengai poli. Freshly grated coconut, once grinded with jaggery and cooked for few minutes makes this fantastic polis.

Masool Dal Masal Vadai/Masoor Dal Fritters

Have you ever tried masal vadais with Masoor dal aka red lentils, if not you should give a try. I was very much bored of dishing out some fritters with usual channadal and Urad dal. Last week when i went to Indian grocery, i grabbed a packet of whole masoor dal. Though i bought the packet of whole masoor dal to make dal or pulao with it, i couldnt resist to make some crispy vadais with them. Since i picked Sankranthi Special as theme for this week's blogging marathon, i seriously want to prepare some crispy vadais out of those protein rich dals.

Kalkandu Pongal/Rock Candy Sweet Pongal/Kalkandu Sadham

Rock Sugar/Rock candy/Sugar Candy is known as Kalkandu in Tamil, this rock sugar is used in South Indian cuisine for making many delightful desserts out of it. My today's recipe is an another Sankranthi special sweet pongal or sweet rice you can prepare easily with sugar candies or rock candies. This pongal dish calls for milk, which makes this more creamy. Usually prepared with raw rice and split moongdal, this sweet rice is definitely a must to try if you want to prepare a different sweet pongal on Sankranthi. But my recipe calls for just raw rice. Adding split moongdal or skipping the moongdal doesnt change the taste of this dish.

Red Rice Flakes & Coconut Sweet Pongal/Sivappu Aval Thengai Sakkarai Pongal

Pongal/Sankranthi, the popular harvest festival is around the corner. Obviously after Christmas and new year celebration, Indians get ready to celebrate this famous festival. Been born and brought up in South India, i have many beautiful memories about this festival. If you live in City, you might visit the villages to see how this festival is celebrated there. Though many traditional versions of Sweet pongals exists,some easy breezy versions of pongals do exists to prepare on this auspicious day. Even a novice cook, can dish out those easy and delicious pongals on Sankranti with less efforts.

Sakhar Bhaat/Kesari Bhath/Maharashtrian Sweet Rice

Gudi Padwa marks the beginning of New Year in Maharashtra. This festival is also known as Gudhi Padva. Gudhi padva is considered as one of the foremost auspicious day in the year when people start new ventures.On the festival day, people decorate their houses with mango leaves and 'rangoli' designs, and pray for a prosperous new year. They visit the temples to see the yearly calendar 'Panchangasravanam' as priests make predictions for the upcoming year.It is a tradition to serve bitter leaves of neem tree with jaggery as Prasad on Ugadi/Gudhi Padva. Gudi Padwa is considered as an auspicious occasion to make investments like buying a house, jewellery and other new things. The festival is celebrated when the summers begin and the time for harvesting the crop arrives. The fragrance of ripening mangoes, jackfruit and other seasonal fruits fill the air with sweet smell.

Bellam Paramannam/Annam Payasam/Andhra Style Jaggery Rice Pudding

Bellam Paramannam is a sweet rice pudding prepared basically with rice and it is served as a prasadam/offering to God in most of the homes in Andhra. This pudding is especially prepared on most of the special occasions and festivals like Sankranti. Usually prepared with rice and milk, this pudding can be sweetened either with sugar or jaggery which is later garnished with fried raisins or cashews. Paramannam can be served hot or cold as a dessert. This dish is also called or known as Annam payasam, Paramannam, Bellam Pongali however this pudding is definitely a royal treat to whoever love Indian style puddings.

Carrot & Corn Medhu Vadas

I cant imagine my festive foods without medhu vadas, usually we make urad dal medhu vadas. But for this time, for pongal celebration i prepared this medhu vadas with sweet corn kernels and grated carrots. Actually i freezed two months back, fresh sweet corn kernels and i simply used it for making this crispy beauties.

If you dont have fresh sweet corn kernels,you can go very well with the canned ones. With loads of finely chopped onions and grated carrots;these vadas tastes marvellous. Both onions and carrots gives a wonderful texture and flavour to this medhu vadas. We just loved this different medhu vadas when served with tomato pappu. If you making medhu vadas next time,do give a try to this wonderful looking vadas.Sending to Swathi's Favourite Recipes Event - Lentils.

2cups Urad dal
1/2cup Sweet corn kernels
1cup Onions(finely chopped)
3nos Green chillies(chopped)
1/2cup Carrots (grated)
1tsp Fennel seeds (crushed)
Few Curry leaves
Few Coriander leaves (chopped)
1tsp Ginger (chopped)
Salt as per taste
Oil for deepfrying

Soak the urad dal for an hour before grinding, grind both urad dal and sweet corns without water.

Add the salt to the urad dal and sweet corn mixture,this help the dals to grind together well.

Now add the chopped onions,grated carrots,chopped green chillies, chopped ginger pieces,curry leaves,crushed fennel seeds and chopped coriander leaves,mix everything well with your fingers..

Heat oil for deepfrying, take a small ball from the corn medhu vada batter, flatten them with ur fingers.

Drop gently one by one to the hot oil.

Deep fry the vadas until they turn brown.

Fry everything as small batches, drain the excess of oil with a paper towel..

Serve hot with spicy chutney!!

Oats Sweet Pongal/Oats Sakkarai Pongal

                        Wishing all my friends a happy pongal and makar sankranthi wishes.

Hope many of us might be busy with the pongal celebration, its almost lunch time here and am waiting my kids to start the pooja, meanwhile just want to post an another healthy and delicious sweet pongal with rolled oats i prepared for our today's pooja. This oats sweet pongal takes very less time to get ready and an excellent neivedhyam to offer. Oats sweet pongal goes for a quick preparation, dry roasted rolled oats cooked with already prepared jaggery syrup and cooked moongdal makes this wonderful,delicious as well as healthy sweet pongal. This oats pongal is definitely a wonderful twist to our usual rice pongal,give a try friends.Sending to my own event CWS-Oats guest hosted by Amruta Pore.

1cup Rolled oats
1/4cup Yellow moongdal
1+1/4cup Jaggery
1/4tsp Cardamom powder
3tbsp Ghee
Few cashews
Few raisins

Dry roast the rolled oats and keep aside.

Wash the moongdal and pressure cook it with a aup of water upto 3whistles and put off the stove.

Meanwhile take the jaggery in a cup of water, bring it to boil. Strain it and keep aside.

Once the steam get released, add the jaggery syrup and dry roasted oats to the dal,mash it and cook for few minutes until the oats gets cooked.

Finally add the cardamom powder and put off the stove.

Heat the ghee, fry the cashews,raisins until they turns golden brown, add immediately to the sweet pongal and give a stir.

Serve.

Kodo Millet & Rock Candy Sugar Pongal/Varagu Kalkandu Pongal

Kodo millet is well known as varagu arusi in Tamilnadu, this tiny grains are an ancient grains. I can also say that this grain is one among the forgotten grains. Actually i have already tasted this cooked millet at my grandma's home,she usually serve this cooked millet with fingerlicking fish gravy. I still remember the taste but somehow after then i never had a chance to buy or taste this healthy millet.

During my mom's last trip to India, i asked her to bring me a packet of this millet and she got me from the organic shop. Back home, i cleaned it and stored it in an air tightened box. As Pongal is tomorrow, i really wanted to share this healthy sweet pongal i prepared with this incredible tiny millet and rock candy. Rock candy are crystallized form of sugar and well as know as Kalkandu in my mother tongue, try this pongal and am sure you guys will definitely love this healthy and tasty pongal.

1/2cup Kodo millet

3tbsp Yellow moongdal

3cups Milk

1+1/2cups Rock candy sugar

1/2tsp Cardamom powder

Few cashew nuts

Few Raisins

Ghee (as per need)

Take the kodo millet, moongdal in a pressure cooker, wash it.

Add the milk, rock candy sugar to it and pressure cook for 3 whistles.

Once the steam gets released, add the cardamom powder and cook in simmer.

Finally fry the cashew nuts and raisins in enough ghee and add them to the cooked sweet pongal, give a stir.

Serve warm.

Notes:

I used pressure cooker for quick cooking, you can also cook it in a vessel but the cooking time will be bit longer.

You can also powder the rock candy sugar,but i didnt powdered them.

Increase or decrease the amount of the rock candy as per your need.

Foxtail Millet Sweet Pongal/Thinai Sakkarai Pongal

Pongal is around the corner, its one of the important festival for South Indians.Even we are far away from our hometown, we never forget to celebrate this traditional Indian festival. I'll be cleaning the entire house tomorrow and will be making many foods during the three days of pongal celebration. No matter, its a working day for us or not, our pongal celebration will be simple as always.

You might have noticed that am cooking quite often with wholegrains now and one of my recent favourite is foxtail millet aka thinai, this grains is really wonderful. You can cook and eat this grain exactly as we cook rice,needless to say that this healthy grain suits prefectly for making many interesting dishes. For a change, i tried this sweet pongal with this marvellous tiny grains, the final result was just amazing. This foxtail millet pongal tastes simply awesome and definitely delicious. Celebrate pongal in healthy way friends, give a try to this wonderful pongal and am sure you guys will definitely love this.

3/4cup Foxtail millet/Thinai
1/4cup Yellow moongdal
1+1/4cup Jaggery
1/4tsp Cardamom powder
3tbsp Ghee
Few cashews
A pinch Edible camphor (pacha karpooram)

Dry roast the foxtail millet,moongdal together. Wash and pressure cook it with 3cups of water upto 4whistles and put off the stove.

Meanwhile take the jaggery in half a cup of water, bring it to boil. Strain it and keep aside.

Once the steam get released, add the jaggery syrup to the cooked millet and dal mixtur,mash it and cook for few minutes.

Finally add the cardamom powder,edible camphor and put off the stove.

Heat the ghee, fry the cashews until they turns golden brown, add immediately to the sweet pongal and give a stir.

Serve.

Chocolate Sweet Pongal

 Today another edition of Blogging Marathon starts and as usual i'll be running for both two weeks, this time i choosed two beautiful themes to run for next two weeks, for the first week i'll cook up different dishes using chocolate as main ingredient  and for the second week as kid's delight with something sweets as theme, obviously you can see more super delicious sweet dishes for this next two weeks..Am very much thrilled and excited to be a part of this fabulous event again..

We had a fabulous pongal feast yesterday...Am here with a delicious, sweet pongal prepared with  rice,moongdal along with sugar and chocolate powder..This pongal is really very quick to prepare as i went for pressure cooking the rice and dal together and finally cooking them in a sugar syrup with cardamom powder,chocolate powder and roasted cashew nuts,ghee...Needless to say that this pongal vanished within few minutes,yep we loved the warm sweet pongal and enjoyed  it..An incredible sweet to enjoy either warm or cool,definitely a kid's friendly dish..Yep my teddies enjoyed simply with our family favourite onion medhu vadas..Sending to Srivalli's Chocolate Mela, Srav's Chocolate Fest&Radhika's Let's Cook-Rice ..

1cup Basmati Rice
1/2cup Moongdal
1cup Milk
3tbsp Chocolate powder
1/2tsp Cardamom powder
3/4cup Sugar
2tbsp Ghee
Few roasted cashew nuts

Cook the rice,moongdal together in pressure cooker with 3 cups of water upto 3 whistles, meanwhile heat the sugar with a cup of milk,bring boil until the sugar gets well dissolved, keep aside..Once the steam gets released, mix the sugar-milk syrup along with the cooked rice-dal mixture,chocolate powder,cardamom powder, ghee and roasted cashew nuts,cook until the mixture gets thickens..

Enjoy warm!

Brown Rice Sakkarai Pongal - Pongalo Pongal

Wishing you all a happy pongal wishes!!!..After trying out a varieties of sweet and savoury pongals, am here with a delicious,healthy sweet pongal prepared with brown rice,moongdal along with jaggery..This pongal is really very quick to prepare as i went for pressure cooking the rice and dal together and finally cooking them in a jaggery syrup with cardamom powder and roasted cashew nuts,ghee...Needless to say that this pongal vanished within few minutes,yep we loved the warm sweet pongal and enjoyed  it..

Check Srivalli,Reva,Monika,PJ,Veena,PriyaVaasu,Azeema,Jay,Ayeesha& Soumya for their yummy recipes as we are running blogging marathon..



1cup Brown rice
1/2cup Moongdal
1/2tsp Cardamom powder
3/4cup Jaggery
2tbsp Ghee
Few roasted cashew nuts

Cook the brown rice,moongdal together in pressure cooker with 3 cups of water upto 3 whistles, meanwhile heat the jaggery powder with quarter cup of water,turn as a thick syrup, strain this syrup and keep aside..Once the steam gets released, mix the jaggery syrup along with the cooked rice-dal mixture,cardamom powder, ghee and roasted cashew nuts,cook until the mixture gets thickens..

Enjoy warm!

Cracked Wheat Sweet Pongal

After trying out sweet pongal with whole barley,here comes my next healthy version of sweet pongal with cracked wheat..Cracket wheat are naturally low in fat and absolutely free of saturated fats, cholestreol and this help to maintain a consistent weight loss, they are rich in iron;magnesium,vitamin E,vitamin B and even in antioxicants..Cracked wheat gets cook very quick and easily, to make cracked wheat, the whole raw wheat kernels are crushed down as smaller bits including the bran and germ, thats y this cracked wheat have more health benefits than the whole grain..




1cup Cracked wheat (washed)
1/2cup Yellow moongdal(washed)
1cup Milk
3/4cup Sugar
1/2tsp Cardamom powder
1tbsp Ghee
Roasted cashewnuts
Few saffron strands

Pressure cook the cracked wheat and moongdal together with 3cups of water upto 3 whistles..Once the pressure released, add the milk,saffron strands and sugar to the cooked cracked wheat-dal mixture and along with the cooked water, cook everything in a vessel until the sweet pongal get thickens, finally add the cardamom powder, ghee and roasted cashewnuts to the pongal..

Barley Sweet Pongal

Have you ever tried making sweet pongal using barley, if not do try them soon friends, actually i tried them today for a trial,but finally i got hooked with this sweet pongal.. Barley along with yellow moongdal when cooked in condensed milk,omg wat a tasty and healthy sweet pongal, the result was extremely delicious but unfortunately since its a trial i just prepared them with a half cup of moongdal and half a cup of whole barley, even my hubby loved it..Definitely am gonna try again during weekend.



1/2cup Whole barley
1/2cup Yellow moongdal
1/2cup Sweetened condensed milk
1/2tsp Cardamom powder
1tbsp Ghee
Roasted cashewnuts

Pressure cook both barley and moongdal together with 3cups of water upto 3 whistles..Once the pressure released, add the sweetened condensed milk to the cooked barley-dal mixture along with the cooked water, cook everything in a vessel until the sweet pongal get thickens, finally add the cardamom powder, ghee and roasted cashewnuts to the pongal..

Enjoy warm..

Aval/Poha Sakkarai Pongal & Happy Pongal Wishes

Wishing you all a very happy Pongal/Sankranthi with a delicious sakkarai(sweet)pongal dish prepared with aval/poha..If u bored to makes out sweet pongal with usual rice and jaggery,give a try to this delectable poha sweet pongal which hardly needs very less time when compared with usual sweet pongal and tastes fantastic and delicious quite similar as the sweet rice pongal...I prepared this sweet pongal to celebrate the Pongal earlier this morning, coz its a working day as usual here and its quite hard to celebrate our festivals if the festivals days comes on working day, this morning was quite a hectic day but somehow i managed to cook my poha sweet pongal and vada to celebrate this auspicious day..since i had a quite less time to make out this aval pongal i didnt went for yellow split moongdal, if u want to try out along with moongdal,dry roast the moongdal and cook in a pan with enough water until they soft and add them to this pongal, personally i felt without moongdal this poha  sakkarai pongal tastes too delicious...

1cup Aval/Poha (thin)
1/2cup Jaggery (powdered)
1/2tsp Cardamom powder
2tsp Ghee
10nos Cashew nuts

Soak the powdered jaggery with half cup of water, let the jaggery get dissolves and filter it...Heat again and let them starts boiling, meanwhile wash twice the thin poha and add the washed thin poha along with cardamom powder to the boiling jaggery water, stir and mix everything well and cook until the water get absorbed, dont worry if its looks little soggy..put of the stove..

Heat the ghee and fry the cashew nuts until they turns golden brown..add the hot ghee and roasted cashew nuts to the aval sakkarai pongal and stir well..

Serve warm..

Sakkarai Pongal - Happy Pongal

First of all Wishing you all a happy pongal..There are several way to prepare sweet pongal, my mom's special is rice n moongdal with jaggery...this is my favourite sweet pongal..i just added saffron to give colour n didnt change anything, i prepared them as my mom used to prepare always...Sending to Rice/Wheat sweets & Diabetic friendly sweets by Mythreyee of Paajaka...

1cup Raw rice
1/4cup Split Moongdal
Few Saffron Strands
1/4cup Jaggery powder
1tbsp Cardamom powder
2tbsp Ghee
Few Cashew nuts

Wash thoroughly both raw rice n split moongdal together, pour four cups of water , jaggery, saffron strands n pressure cook them upto 3 hisses...keep aside n let them steam release..meanwhile fry the cashew nuts in hot ghee n keep aside, add the cardamom powder to the cooked pongal n fried cashew nuts n hot ghee n toss them gently..

Serve hot n enjoy every spoon!!!

Sending to FIC - Yellow by Sunshinemom of Tongueticklers
                 My Legume Love Affair - Seventh Helping host by Srivalli , event started by Susan ..
                 Harvest - The Festival Of Rice by Sudeshna of Bengali Cuisine ..
                 Festive Food - Makar Sankranti by Priti of Indian Khana...