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.

Onion Mint Sandwich

I couldnt stop myself to brought a prestige sandwich maker from India. Obviously if am making sandwiches or grilling my meats or veggies now i'll do it through my sandwich maker. As i told earlier,most of our dinner goes for salad,soup or either sandwich. With this sandwich maker,even my lil one prepare himself his favourite sandwich. Since i choosed cooking with electric appliances as theme for this week of blogging marathon, i prepared this quite easy,flavourful and super filling sandwich with onions and mint chutney through my sandwich maker.

The original recipe is from Sharmi's Passions, seriously i loved the simplicity of this sandwich and tried it two days back for our evening dinner. You will love this fantastic sandwich prepared just with sauteed onions and a quick mint chutney. If you dont have sandwich maker, dont worry just heat butter in a pan and toast this sandwich both sides and enjoy.Sending to Tried & Tasted event guest hosted by me,event by Lakshmi.Check out the bloggers running this 24th edition of blogging marathon here.Sending to
 Siri's Celebrating First Anniversary.

Mint chutney:
1/2cup Mint leaves
2tsp Urad dal
Salt
Oil

6nos Bread slices
2nos Onions (sliced lengthwise)
1tbsp Sambhar powder
1/4tsp Chilly powder
Salt
Oil


Heat oil, add the urad dal and fry until its turns brown,to the same pan add the mint leaves and saute until they shrinks.

Transfer them to a mixer and grind as chutney with enough water and salt,keep aside.

Heat again oil, saute the sliced onions for few minutes, add immediately the sambhar powder, chilly powder and salt,cook for few minutes until the onions gets well coated with spices.

Spread the already prepared mint chutney over a bread slices.

Place the onion filling over a chutney spreaded bread slice and close with an another.

Transfer it to a sandwich maker and close and secure the lid of the sandwich maker.

Wait until the red light turns to green, your sandwich is done.

Enjoy with your favourite salad.

Cucumber,Walnut & Oats Smoothie

Am not a breakfast person, sometimes i will totally skip them and have my lunch earlier. But once i went to my family doctor,she was just shocked to know this and she adviced me to have atleast shake or smoothie with my favourite fruits or vegetable for my breakfast. From that day onwards,if i dont feel like having my breakfast, i'll quickly blend some fruits with yogurt or milk and have it instead of skipping. Even my daughter started following it,have her smoothie or shake before she leaves to her school.Here am starting my second week of blogging marathon from today, as usual i'll be running for three days with an interesting theme called cooking with electric appliances. Such a very interesting theme na, my kitchen is loaded with electric appliances, i cant spend a day without them.

I start my day with them and end my day with them,yep the appartment we live dont have gas connection so obviously my stove top goes for electric induction stove. For my first day, i chosed to showcase my favourite Butterfly blender, i carried from India during my last trip, you can either use it as mixer,juicer, whipper as well as blender. I quickly prepared this healthy smoothie  few days back with the magic ingredients of this month's Magic Mingle Challenge,as Kalyani chosed both cucumber and walnuts for this month's challenge along with my favourite grains.Sending this smoothie to my own event Healthy Diet-Filling Smoothies & Shakes by Veena and to my own event CWS-Oats guest hosted by Amruta Pore.Check out the bloggers running this 24th edition of blogging marathon here.Sending to  Siri's Celebrating First Anniversary.

1cup Cucumber (peeled &chopped)
10nos Walnuts (deskinned)
1/2cup Rolled oats (dry roasted)
2cups Yogurt
Honey (as per need)

Blend together the chopped cucumber,walnuts,dry roasted oats,yogurt with honey as thick smoothie.

Transfer it to a glass and enjoy immediately.

Coriander Almond Pesto

I mostly prepare my pesto with basil leaves and i love the flavour of the basil leaves while having my pastas. When i went through Sharmi's space, i got hooked to this coriander almond pesto immediately i tried them today for our lunch as i planned to prepare pastas.Coriander leaves and almond works out wonder and we loved the flavour of this pesto.

I loved seriously the simplicity of this pesto and obviously its our recent favourite.I just increased the quantity of coriander leaves and grinded the pesto with flaxseed oil instead of water else i didnt changed anything and went as per the original recipe. If you love the flavour of coriander leaves, you guys should give a try to this super flavourful,super nutty and delicious pesto. I even enjoyed the leftover pesto as a spread over some toasted bread slices for my evening snacks.Sending to Tried & Tasted event guest hosted by me,event by Lakshmi.

2cups Cooked pasta

1cup Coriander leaves (washed)

20nos Almonds (deskinned)

6nos Garlic cloves (chopped)

2nos Green chillies (chopped)

1/2tsp Oil (for cooking)

Flaxseed oil (as per need)

Salt

Heat the oil in a pan,fry the garlic cloves and green chillies until a nice aroma comes out,put off the stove.

Grind the washed coriander seeds,almonds,fried garlic cloves,chillies,salt and flax seed oil, until the paste turns bit coarse.

Add enough pesto to the cooked past and serve immediately.