Varalakshmi Vratham / Varalakshmi Pooja / Varalakshmi Puja

Varalakshmi Vratham / Varalakshmi Pooja is one of the important hindu festivals celebrated in South India. This festival falls on the friday before the full moon day in the month of Adi / Sharavana month every year and this year we celebrated this pooja on July 27th, friday 2012. Varalakshmi, the goddess of wealth is worshipped on this day by many women and its believed that the goddess grants the boon/varam to them after performing the varalakshmi pooja. I started performing this vratham right after my marriage as its a tradition in my husband's side.

Early Morning, women get up and put traditional kolams in the frontyard. After taking headbath and wearing new or clean clothes, they make neivedhyams/prasadams to Goddess Varalakshmi. After that, they decorate the Kalasam in a grand way with all jewelleries and perform the varalakshmi vratham in detail. They tie a yellow thread with nine knots while performing this pooja and read the varalakshmi vratham story at the end. On this day, they invite many married women for thamboolam and give them prasadams. They all sing songs prasing Goddess Varalakshmi in the evening and chant "Varalakshmi Ashtothranamavali".

Kalasam Decoration :

Take a silver plate or your traditional pooja plate and spread it with raw rice. Coat the silver varalakshmi sombu/pot with turmeric paste and decorate the pot /kalasam with kumkum dots. Fill half the sombu with water. Add a coin,a small jewellery, a flower, a betal leaf and nut inside the pot. Coat the coconut with turmeric paste and keep it ready. Once its dried, draw the goddess face on its side perfectly and keep it ready. Spread five mango leaves on the top of the kalasam uniformly. Keep the coconut on its top such that the amman face should be clearly visible from the centre. After placing the coconut properly, take a new cloth and decorate the amman as shown in the picture. While decorating, make sure that the amman pot is not disturbed. After the kalasam is nicely decorated, keep it ready. Just before starting the pooja, invite the amman to your pooja by placing the kalasam on the layer of rice in the pooja plate. If mango leaves are not available in the region you live, substitute it with betal leaves. 

Pooja Place Arrangements :

Pooja place should be cleaned and arranged nicely before the day of varalakshmi pooja. On the pooja day, keep the flowers, other pooja items handy before starting the pooja. Keep few paper napkins on your side to wipe your hands in the middle. Keep the pooja vidhanam book ready with the pages pointing to Varalakshmi Pooja.

Prasadams :

In our household, we make 5 prasadam varieties and offer to the Goddess. We generally make Paramannam ( Sweet Rice ), Puliodhara, Medhu Vadai, Sundal, Boorelu, Appam, Payasams, Annam.

You can choose your prasadams based on your interests and item availability. Please see the recipes in the blog for your preparations.

Above all, doing the vratham with good devotion is much more important than doing all the decorations, prasadams in a grand way. Somehow in my perspective, honest and deep prayers would give an immense satisfaction to your soul than creating a big hungama during any pooja or vratham day. My dear friends and family, kindly forgive me if my idea conflicts with any of yours.

Basic Pesto / Simple Pesto / Italian Pesto



Italian Lunch : Pennie coated with pesto, garden salad using home grown

cherry tomatoes dressed with raspberry vinaigrette



Ever Since I tasted the Pennie Pasta coated with the green delicious pesto, I have become addicted to that greenish oil and herb sauce. I never fail to taste this pesto at least once a month. Not only me, my family loves this pesto and urge me to make this more often in my kitchen. As its abundant during summer, we could enjoy our home made pesto this time using our home grown fresh basil leaves.

Though Basil leaves are prominently featured in Italian cuisine, its originally a native of India. Health benefits of basil is mainly due to the essential oils present in basil, and its widely used in the treatment of cancer, diabetes, stress related issues due to its antiviral, antioxidant properties. There are many varieties of basil found in the world and their culinary use varies with different regions.



Basil Plant in our home garden



Ingredients




Fresh Basil Leaves - 2 Cups packed
Garlic Pods - 3
Olive Oil - 1/2 cup
Parmesan Cheese - 1/2 cup
Broken Walnuts - 1/2 cup
( Pine nuts can be substituted if available ).
Black Peppercorns - 1/2 tbsp
( Add more pepper powder if you want to ).
Salt - To Taste.


Method

Wash the basil leaves and keep ready. Dry roast the walnuts and black peppercorns first. Then grind them in a mixer grinder coarsely along with other ingredients. Add salt and black pepper powder according to your taste at the end. Keep the sauce in an air tight container. Add portions of this pesto to the cooked pasta and thoroughly mix this with the pasta and enjoy with a side of  a garden salad and fresh sparkling apple cider. A perfect Italian meal on any special day in your life.

Raspberry Smoothie / Raspberry Lassi

Thirst quenching smoothies are always healthier, a great energizing drink especially after doing  rigorous workouts. At home, we are smoothie lovers and we love to transform any fruits into lassi/smoothie form for a refreshing dessert. Fresh sweet and tangy raspberries are seen everywhere in the markets during this summer.  To enjoy these mini berries, I made a super cool raspberry lassi / smoothie along with our tomato basil pasta salad. Try this out and enjoy your summer with healthy desserts. 

Somehow, I prefer to give these healthy smoothies to kids at any time rather than offering them unhealthy desserts like sugar candy, gelato, sugar coated creamy pastry, desserts made with high fat whipped cream.

Ingredients

Fresh ripe raspberries - 2 Cups

Greek Yogurt or regular yogurt - 2 cups

Ice Cubes - 4 or 5

Honey - 2 tbsp

Sugar - 4 tsp ( optional , you can omit if you enjoy the slight tangyness of raspberries )

Water - 1 glass

Method

Put all the ingredients into the mixer grinder and grind them using the whipper for few rounds.When the smoothie is done to your satisfaction, transfer them into serving glasses. Decorate the drink with one or two fresh raspberries on its top and serve.

Tomato Basil Pasta Salad

We've been growing vegetables and herbs in our small vegetable garden this summer and we are quite happy with the results too. Upon looking at the freshness, we get tempted to make some good healthy recipes using these home grown vegetables. Out of those, we decided to make a healthy pasta salad using our organic, home grown heirloom tomatoes, basil leaves, Green Pepper ( Capsicum ) and few red cherry tomatoes and pearl yellow tomatoes ( heirloom variety) as well. We included few black olives, Smoked cheese cubes ( as we like ) in our preparation too..Freshly made pasta salad tossed with olive oil, black pepper powder and Parmesan cheese was an ultimate dinner for us last night. Of course, we had few pita chips and red bell pepper home made hummus ( which i will post separately ) as sides and our favourite raspberry smoothie for our yummy dessert.

This menu would be best suited for lunch. As we could hardly feel a perfect dinner time during this summer due to very late sunset, we are fine with this dinner menu.!!!!

This is a good and easy option for picnic as its mostly liked by kids. Try this in your home and let me know your feedback.

I will post our favorites "Raspberry Smoothie" and "Red Bell pepper Hummus" in my following posts.

Home grown fresh vegetables except olives and smoked cheese

Ingredients

Tomatoes  - 2 Medium

Fresh Basil Leaves - 2 Cups ( finely crushed )

Red Cherry Tomatoes - 1 cup

Green Bell Pepper -- 1 Medium

Pitted Black Olives cut into halves - 3/4 cup

Salt - To Taste

Black Pepper Powder - As required.

Olive Oil - 1 tbsp

Lemon Juice - 3 tsp

Smoked Cheese cubes - 1/2 cup

Shell Pasta ( Small size ) - 2 cups uncooked.

Parmesan Cheese - To garnish.

Method

• Wash all the vegetables and keep them ready. Keep all the ingredients handy with a big salad mixing bowl.
• Cook the shell pasta in a separate container and keep the drained cooked pasta ready. In the mixing bowl, first add a layer of pasta and add the chopped green bell pepper. Follow this method till you add all the bell pepper into the bowl. Mix them gently.
• Secondly add all the cut tomatoes and the whole cherry tomatoes , crushed basil leaves, cheese cubes and the cut olives.
• Add Olive oil, required amount of salt,black pepper powder, lemon juice and mix the salad uniformly.
• Add Parmesan cheese at the end and mix gently. Now its ready to be served in your meal.

Tips / Variations

• You can add other cheese varieties of your choice in your salad. As we all like smoked cheese cubes, I added them in my salad. You can omit the cheese cubes too if you dont want to include cheese in your salad.
• I don't prefer to add other vegetables in this version of pasta salad. This is mainly to enjoy the freshness of basil and tomatoes and to retain its original flavour.
• Try to use small size pasta in your salad as it easily blends with the rest of the ingredients and looks good too in the salad.

Alu Gobi / Aloo Gobi / Aloo Gobi Masala

 Aloo Gobi / Potato Cauliflower Curry is one of the quickest and easiest curry for rotis / chapathis and its mostly liked by all ages. I regularly make this curry for my rotis when I have very less preparation time. If its made with fresh Gobi ( cauliflower ), the aroma is very good. Aloo Gobi flavored with all the aromatic spices is definitely a very good accompaniment to rotis or pulav.

Ingredients

Gobi / Cauliflower - 1 Medium

Aloo / Potato - 4 or 5 Medium

Tomato - 1 Medium

Onion shredded - 1/2 cup

Oil - 1 tbsp

Cumin Seeds / Jeera - 1 tsp

Pattai / Cinnamon Stick - 1 Medium

Bay Leaves - 2 Medium

Ginger Garlic Paste - 1/2 tbsp

Green Chili - 1 finely chopped

Coriander Leaves - To Garnish

Turmeric Powder - 1 tsp

Garam Masala Powder - 2 tsp

Coriander Cumin Powder / Dhana Jeera Powder - 1 tsp

Red Chili Powder - 1 tsp

Salt - To Taste

Method

• Peel the skin off from the potatoes and cut them into cubes of any size as desired. I cut them into medium chunks. Take out the cauliflower florets and wash them with warm water.
• Cut the onions, tomato, green chili and keep all the other ingredients ready.
• In a frying pan / kadai, add oil first. When its heated, add cumin seeds, cinnamon stick, bay leaves, ginger garlic paste and fry them well.
• Then, add the shredded onion, green chili into the kadai and fry them for a minute. When the raw smell goes off, add the tomato pieces and fry for a minute.
• Add the cauliflower florets and the cooked potato cubes ( in case if you cook the potatoes separately in a microwave ) to the kadai. If you don't intend to cook the potatoes separately, then add the potatoes into the kadai with enough water for them to get cooked.
• When the potatoes are cooked three fourth, then add all the washed cauliflower florets into the kadai
• and cook them again on medium flame.
• When the vegetables are cooked to your satisfaction, add all the powders into the kadai and required amount of salt.
• Make sure that the aloo and gobi pieces are coated uniformly with all the powders. Fry them on medium flame for 4-5 minutes.
• Garnish with coriander leaves and serve with your hot rotis or rice pulav.

Variations / Tips

• You can either cook the potatoes separately and add to the kadai or add the uncooked potatoes directly into the kadai and cook them during the process.
• Don't cut the cauliflower florets smaller as they might get smashed while cooking.
• Instead of adding tomato, sometimes i do substitute with Mango powder to inject some sourness into the dish. 

Vazhaipoo Adai / Banana Flower Lentils Crisp / Vaazhaipoo Adai

  

Banana Flower which is called as "Vaazhaipoo" in Tamil is a purple flower which blossoms at the edge of the banana bunch in its tree. Its widely used in many regional cuisines of India. Due to its dietary fiber and high protein value, including this healthy vegetable in our regular cooking is wiser. Also, its very good for stomach related problems. My mom often made this vegetable during our thanjavur childhood days, she generally made Vaazhaipoo Curry, Vaazhaipoo Paruppu Usili, Vadai, etc., Also I remember her Vaazhaithandu Mor Kootu which is one of my favourites. Though we dont get the Vaazhai Thandu ( Banana Stem ) here, I am lucky to see some fresh Banana Flowers atleast in a nearby China Market. Though I make many versions of food items using this great flowery vegetable, this time I made a protein rich Adai ( Lentils Dosa ) and its so... yummy and healthy. Try this out during tiffin time with a side of fresh curd and a spicy pickle. A very healthy tiffin item for all ages...

Cleaning the Banana flower seems to be a little time consuming job initially. Once you know the technique of it, its a matter of few minutes.

• Rub your hands with little oil while doing this job as your hands might turn sticky and black during this process.
• Open the purple petals one by one and take out the yellow colour florets carefully.
• Remove the two parts from every floret carefully.
• In the picture I added, I showed the two parts that are to be taken out from each floret. One part looks like a plastic ear phone and the other part is a thick long stem with a thick dot on its top.
• Chop the cleaned florets under each petal and immediately put them in a diluted buttermilk in a vessel. This is mainly to prevent colour changing.
• Follow the same process for all the petals till you notice a small cone shaped yellow tender bud. As this tender yellow cone is also highly nutritious, chop them too finely and add it to the vessel. Keep it ready.

Ingredients

Toor Dal / Thuvaram Paruppu / Kandhi pappu  - 1 Cup

Channa Dal / Kadalai Paruppu / Senaga pappu - 3/4 Cup

Moong Dal / Payatham Paruppu / Pesara Pappu - 1/4 Cup

Rice / Idly Rice / Par Boiled Rice - 1/2 Cup

Dry Red Chillies - 4 or 5

Hing / Asafoetida - 1 Dash

Salt - As required

Curry Leaves - 1 Stem

Chopped banana flower - 2 to 3 cups.

Oil - For making the Adais / Crisps.

Method

• Soak all the dals and rice in one vessel for nearly 2 hours.
• Grind them coarsely in a mixer grinder along with dry red chillies.
• To the mix, add required amount of salt, hing, curry leaves.
• Drain the chopped banana flower florets from the diluted buttermilk vessel and add them to the Adai batter.
• Just grind it for another few seconds with these additional ingredients. Now the Adai batter is ready to make. Make sure that the batter is neither too thick nor too watery.
• Heat the griddle or frying pan  make the surface smooth and ready for making adais.
• Pour one full ladle of the adai batter and spread them uniformly and make a thin circle. Pour oil along the edges and allow them to cook on both sides.
• Flip to the other side and take out the adai from the tawa after both sides are completely cooked and crispy.
• Serve with a cup of fresh curd and a spicy pickle or chutney.

Shrikand / Kesar Pista Shrikand / Healthy Shrikand - Using Greek Yogurt

Sweets / Desserts always make our soul happy and if its a healthy sweet, then a guilt free enjoyment would take us to heaven.  Shrikand sweet was first introduced to me by my husband and I started enjoying it very much. Instead of  our regular  curd / Yogurt, I substituted Greek Yogurt in my preparation ( as it has more protein value ) and its absolutely delicious. Amount of sugar is also very less..Above all, its a quick dessert which can be made at any time and enjoy with. 

Ingredients

Green Yogurt - 6  ( 20 oz pack - 2 .I used )

Cardamom Powder - 1 tbsp
Saffron soaked in warm water - 2 pinch.
Nutmeg Powder - 1 tsp
Honey - 3 tbsp
Crushed Pista - 1 cup
Sugar - 3/4 cup to 1 cup ( Add more if you like )
 Method

• In a big mixing bowl, add all the ingredients one by one and blend them well. 
• Transfer them into small serving bowls and chill them in refrigerator for few hours.
• Enjoy this cool healthy dessert after a meal. 

Tips / Variations

Add more sugar to the Shrikand if you like more sweetness.