Health for life

Am trying to reduce adding rice in most of my dishes especially when it comes to our dinner dishes like dosas or pongal. Yep nowadays am making pongal or non fermentation dosas with healthy grains like different millets,oats and cracked wheat. Trust me, we dont miss the rice in our dishes. Few days back, i tried making an interesting dumpling with super healthy foxtail millet aka thinai with mixed dals. This dumplings are just amazing with many nutritional value, serve simply with a shallot chutney makes a wonderful dinner too.

This dumpling batter goes for easy preparation and no fermentation is needed. Just leave the batter in room temperature for an hour and make your dumplings with your paniyaram pan. You can have them either for snacks or for dinner if you dont feel like making your dinner with other stuffs. You can feed easily everyone at home with millets without their knowledge as some wont like to have foods prepared with millets.Sending to my own event CWS-Urad Dal guest hosted by Sowmya of Nivedhanam and to my event Healthy Diet-Diabetic Friendly Recipes.


1cup Foxtail Millet/Thinai arisi
1/2cup Channadal
1/2cup Toor dal
1/2cup Yellow moongdal
1/2cup Urad dal
4nos Dry red chillies
1tsp Fennel seeds
3nos Garlic cloves
Salt

Soak the foxtail millet along with all dals for atleast 3 hours.

Grind thesoaked millet and dal with dry red chillies, fennel seeds, garlic cloves with enough water and salt as bit coarse paste.

Keep aside the batter for an hour or two hours in room temperature.

Heat the kuzhi paniyaram pan in medium heat, pour few drops of oil n pour a ladle of the batter.

Put the flame in simmer n cook slowly, turn on both sides until they get well cooked.

Dont cook them in high flame.

Serve hot with spicy coconut chutney or onion chutney..

Pannacotta is a famous Italian dessert prepared with cream,milk,sugar and along with gelatin or agar agar (a vegetarian gelling agent). This Italian dessert tastes fantabulous when the weather is too hot as they are usually served chilled.Coming to todays post for this weeks blogging marathon,since my theme is mini servings, i chosed to share a classic pannacotta prepared with Madagascar vanilla pods which i recently got through a friend who came back from Madagascar island. Obviously vanilla panna cotta using Madagascar vanilla pods seriously makes a huge difference, tastewise they are just unbeatable and absolutely delicious.

Vanilla pannacotta served with berry sauce, an absolute delightful dessert to enjoy thoroughly after a super heavy lunch or dinner. Traditionally pannacotta is flavoured by vanilla,but later peoples started making pannacotta with different fruits and chocolates,even i love chocolate pannacotta very much..For a light version of this pannacotta, you can use low fat milk and low fat cream,which tastes truly delicious too.Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM#31. Sending to Srivallis Summer Special Mela.



1cup Full fat milk
1+1/2cup Low fat cream
1/4cup Sugar
1/2no Vanilla pod
1tbsp Agar agar powder
Few chocolate vermicellis for decorating

Split the vanilla pod and remove the vanilla seeds.

Heat together the milk,vanilla seeds,cream and sugar in a vessel.

Whisk everything well until the sugar gets well dissolved, immediately add the agar agar powder to the hot milk-cream mixture,mix well and put off the stove.

Pour this mixture in ramekins or small moulds, keep aside until the mixture gets cool.

Cover them with aluminium foil and arrange in fridge atleast for an hour.

Mixed Berries sauce:
2cups Mixed berries (strawberries,raspberries,blueberries,blackberries)
1/4cup Sugar
1tbsp Lemon juice
1tbsp Cornstarch

Take the berries,sugar and lemon juice in a heavy bottomed pan and cook in medium heat.

Mash the berries and stir occasionally, once the berries are soft and juice oozes out, add the cornstarch and stir quickly.

Turn the heat to high flame and cook for few minutes until the sauce reach the desire thickness.

Cool it completely and store in fridge for a week.

Here we starts our 24th edition of blogging marathon today, thanks to Srivalli for making this monthly event very interesting with so many beautiful themes. Everytime ill go to her space to chose my themes for the next blogging marathon, she never forget to surprise me with her beautiful themes, dunno where she get those incredible themes. Seriously she rocks, Srivalli just admire you the way you chose the themes.

The best way to sneak veggies is to add either in fried rice or as stuffing in masala dosas, actually i quite often finish leftover vegetable stir fries by stuffing them in crispy dosa and serve them mostly during our dinner. Obviously my small family love vegetable masala dosas. When i chosed cooking with different veggies for this weeks blogging marathons theme, i know ill be making vegetable masala dosas.

Last weekend i prepared this mixed vegetable masala dosa quickly for our dinner and went for a easy breezy vegetable masala, needless to say i prepared my vegetable masala with carrot,cabbage and green peas as i chosed this combination from the list given by Srivalli for cooking with different veggies theme. This vegetable masala gets ready very much quickly and we truly enjoyed having this healthy masala dosa.Check out the marathoners running this 24th edition of blogging marathon here.Sending to Siris Celebrating First Anniversary.

If the idly batter is thick, add water to turn them little bit thin.

Heat a pan, brush the pan with oil,pour a ladle of the idli batter,drizzle oil and cook on both sides..

Place enough vegetable masala in the middle of dosa and fold it.

Serve immediately with spicy chutneys or sambar.

Today for this weeks blogging marathon, i chosed black urad dal to make this super crispy,healthy medhu vadas as my theme for this week is cooking with colours. Trust me, these black urad dal medhu vada makes a pect evening snack when served along with sambar or coconut chutney. While making this black urad dal medhu vada, i tried adding some finely grated mixed veggies this time to make these crispy beauties much more healthier.

Personally for me, the best way to feed  veggies to picky eaters is to add veggies in their favourite fritters, this way they wont ever notice the addition of veggies.I used grated carrot,zucchini,potatoes and broccolis for making medhu vadas, you can very well add any sort of veggies for making this medhu vadas. The addition of these veggies turned out this medhu vadas very delicious and healthy at the same time.Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing this 29th edition.Sending to Vijis SYS-WS - Apple & Carrot, Rafeedas Mission Explore Foods: Lentils event by Sheelu and Pallavi and to my own event CWS-Urad Dal guest hosted by Sowmya of Nivedhanam and to Vardhinis Dish Out It - Lentils and Vegetables.


2cups Black Whole Urad dal
Salt to taste
1no Onion ( finely chopped)
3nos Green chillies(chopped finely)
1cup Grated Veggies (carrot,zucchini,potato and broccoli)
1tsp Ginger (chopped)
Few Curry leaves (chopped)
3tsp Coriander leaves (finely chopped)
1tsp Fennel seeds (crushed)
Oil for Deepfrying

Soak the whole urad dal overnite, the next day grind the urad dal bit coarsely,add the salt to the dal.

Sprinkle some water and grind well.

Now add the chopped onion, chopped green chillies, chopped veggies,chopped ginger pieces,chopped coriander leaves, chopped curry leaves,crushed fennel seeds.

Mix everything well with your fingers.

Heat oil for deepfrying, take a small ball from the medhu vada batter  and flatten them with your fingers,make a hole in the center.

Drop gently one by one to the medium 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 or as side dish.