LEMON RICE

Lemon rice is simple south Indian lunch box rice dish... Lemon rice is nothing but steamed rice mixed with juice of lemon with yummy crunchy peanuts and cashews..

Lemon rice can be made with leftover rice also....It is best with mango pickle and papad..

INGREDIENTS:

• Lemon juice - 3 tsp
• Cooked rice - 1 cup
• Ginger chopped - 1 tsp
• Green chilli - 2 no
• Peanuts as required
• Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
• Tumeric powder - 1/2 tsp
• Asafoetida
• Channa dal - 1 tsp
• Curry leaves
• Oil - 1 tsp
• salt to taste

PROCEDURE:

• Squeeze the lemon and extract the juice and add salt as required
• In a small frying pan, add oil and tamper the mustard seeds,channa dal , ginger,green chilli,curry leaves ,tumeric powder,asafoetida and curry leaves..
• Turn off the heat.. Mix this tampering to lemon juice 
• For lemon rice ,rice should be fluffy and cool
• Now add this lemon juice mixture to rice and mix gently ...Mix with fork so that it maintains fluffiness and not become mashy....
• Serve with pickle or potato fry...

TIPS:

• Grinding of ginger and green chilli gives much more flavour
• To extract more juice ,keep the lemon in water for an hour..

RAVA LADOO

Rava ladoo is easy and simple to make sweets.. Its my hubby favourite.. I usually make big batch of roasted powder rava and sugar mixture and stored it in freezer.. Whenever we need it just mix with milk powder and hot ghee and then make them into ladoos.. yummy rava ladoos ready in no time..

For this type of rava ladoo, I prefer fine variety...we can also add finely chopped nuts

INGREDIENTS:

• Rava -  1 cup
• Milk powder - 1/2 cup
• Powdered sugar - 1 cup
• Ghee - 1/4 cup
• Elachi powder
• Nuts 

PROCEDURE:

• Dry roast rava and grind them into fine powder.. but if you don't like fine powder ,you can use fine variety of rava

• In a bowl, add rava ,powdered sugar,nuts and milk powder mix well
• heat the ghee 

• Add ghee little by little to mixture and mix in a small batch and start making ladoos
• Make tight ladoos
• Yummy Rava ladoos ready

PAL KOZHUKATTAI

Pal kozhukattai is delicious dish from Tamilnadu... Pal kozhukattai is a rice dumplings cooked in coconut milk with sugar/jaggary.. My mother used to make it with sugar.. its so yummy and those dumpling just melt in mouth ...

There are many ways to make this pal kozhukattai ..this is very simplest method..

INGREDIENTS:

• Rice flour - 1 cup
• Grated coconut /coconut milk - 1/2 cup
• Sugar - 1/4 cup
• Ilachi powder - 1 tsp
• Salt to taste
• Gingely oil - 1 tsp
• Water as required
• Milk - 1 cup

PROCEDURE:

• In a sauce pan, heat the water until it boils and bubbles .. add gingely oil to water
• In a bowl add rice flour and salt and mix well 
• Now add this boiling water little by little to rice flour and mix using wooden ladle its forms crumple as shown as pic... this flour now half cooked

• Grease your fingers make them into soft dough

• Then make them into small balls and steam them in idli cooker

• Grind the coconut into smooth thin paste.. or extract thin coconut milk

• In a sauce pan ,add this coconut thin paste and milk and little water let it boil in very low flame
• Add sugar and ilachi powder.
• Add steamed rice balls in this coconut  milk .. let it cook for few more mins.
• Yummy pal kozhukattai ready