Besan Laddoo

California is surrounded by the fire disaster right now. There are 2 fires and thousands of people missing. I became aware of the smoke outside when I went to my apartment balcony early morning last friday. The sun felt weak and the instant reaction as soon as I took a breath - it feels or rather smells exactly like how it use to in India after Diwali. Once I reached office, my coworkers started asking if its good to bike and that was the moment when I actually came to know about the fires. Ignorance was bliss! May be this is what grace looks like that we are sitting in between 2 fires and still able to breathe.

Its sad to see the damages that have happened with the fire, the number of people missing and a lot more suffering. Whatever may be the real cause, but it is time to rethink the amount of damage we do to mother nature. Its also a good time to remember to not be too proud of your achievements and donate what you can - nobody gets to take anything with them!

Coming back to Besan Laddoo, I have a funny memory related to besan laddoos. It was one of the year during my undergraduate in Pilani, 2004 I think. My photographic memory shows me a picture of me in my Malaviya bhavan room where we spent our last year. I had a jar of besan laddoos packed with me from home when the fall semester started in July/August. By the time laddoos reached pilani, they had all merged into each other due to the hot weather and the enormous amount of ghee so it was one big besan laddoo stuck in a jar. May be they all were meditating all throughout the journey from home to Pilani that by the end of it they just forgot their bodily boundaries and merged! I think I just used a spoon to eat laddoos after that :-)

Ingredients:

1. Besan (I used a mix of fine besan and coarse laddoo besan) - 3 cups

2. Ghee - 2/3 cups

3. Sugar - 1 cup

Steps:

1. Heat a pan and dry roast the besan and set it aside.

2. Heat ghee in the pan and add besan to it. Keep stirring it so that it doesn't burn.

3. Keep roasting until you can smell the roasted ghee and besan and the besan has turned brown.

4. Add sugar and mix well.

5. Take the mix off the heat and let it cool a bit. 

6. Make Laddoos by taking the mix in the palm and pressing it. 

7. Final trick to make them smooth and shiny is to just roll them inside the palm as you would normally do with the dice before rolling them. 

Kasaar

Oct 24, 2018 (Sharad Poornima)

'Kasaar', the word is not something native to my language but then this is what people around me use to call it growing up. I think we simply called it 'आटे का प्रसाद'. I also noticed that there is a similar dish name in Nepal and the recipe is also similar. Whatever the name but I am sure most folks have had it in some form or the other.

Its full moon day today! Somehow the moon never fails to amaze every single time. I have so many different memories with moon. We grew up singing 'चंदा मामा दूर के, पुए पकाये बूर के। .... ' that I am sure moon was wondering how come he got so many sisters. My 'real' name means moon or rather moon phases/moonbeams. All throughout our childhood full moon use to be a special day for us - mom would do the fast. We would listen to the satya narayan katha. My brother was responsible for reading it and my sister was responsible for blowing the conch. After that we would go see the moon and eat the prasad. Some days the moon would be hiding behind the clouds but we still got to eat the prasad. It would then be distributed to the neighbors as well. I made it today but in a healthy way to avoid overdose of sugar.

On multiple occasions I had the chance to see the Moon in the sky on one side while the Sun was rising on the other side. All so normal for both of them as if wishing each other a good night and good morning but the sight is absolutely mesmerizing!

Ingredients:

1. Wheat flour (Aata)

2. Sugar or Gud (used Gud)

3. Ghee

4. Dry fruits (optional)

Steps:

1. Add a few teaspoons ghee to a heated pan.

2. Add the atta to it and keep stirring.

3. Add the cut dry fruits (fox nuts, almonds).

4. Keep stirring.

5. When it turns light brown, add sugar or gud to it.

6. Keep stirring and then take off the heat when the color is brown. 

Homemade Ghee

They say stories can create positive emotions! May be that's the reason people tell bed time stories to kids? So I will add my Ghee stories in this post. I guess the Ghee recipe is probably well known so nobody will care about that.

I have been making Ghee at home for quite some time now and eat it regularly. Something common with my parents who would boast about eating so much Ghee in their times. I have some good childhood memories associated with Ghee.

My mom use to make extra rotis during lunch when we were in school so we could eat those to get past the 3pm slump. We will eat those rotis as the lunch energy disappeared and my favorite was to eat them with 'ghee-cheeni'. It was a thing! Put good amount of Ghee on the roti and then spread sugar all around on the roti and them roll it up so that the sugar won't fall. I realize that I had a great affinity to sugar back then where I would put spoonful of sugar in the mouth when bored - the activity was called 'cheeni-phankna' :-). I remember how I never ate yogurt without sugar but then taste changes and now my taste is much more healthier.

So why make Ghee at home? If you are just bored doing nothing, it can keep you engaged for an hour or so - probably not the best motivation though. Here are some others:

Saves money - $4.69 for 1LB(450gm) butter which produced approx 375ml of Ghee. The same amount of readymade organic Ghee would cost more than $15 I guess. Talking about saving, its in my blood I guess to optimize and get the max value out of the money I spend. My parents never wasted anything to an extent that I have a few funny stories that I still tease them on how could they save so much. I didn't see any impulsive purchases happening around (except few ;) ) so it has really come to me mixed in the genes.

You know what you are eating - I mean you really know what happened to that butter and how it turned into Ghee.

Tastes great - I have a couple of old Indian store Ghee bottles lying around with some Ghee in it. I think I stopped liking it after a while. Homemade Ghee reminds me of old days when we use to sometimes get fresh cow milk (freshly milked from the cow in front of you!) and it tasted so good that I understood why I didn't like the normal buffalo milk taste. Freshness and purity made all the difference. Those raw experiences really help me appreciate a number of things in life more.

You get more! - The left over brown colored milk solids can be eaten with sugar like a cool dessert. We use to eat them as kids but not I just throw it away. Remember to throw it in the trash and not in the sink drain as it can clog it.

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For those who really wanted to read the recipe here is mine (nothing fancy).
Ingredients:
Unsalted Organic Butter - 1LB

Preparation:
1. Empty the butter sticks into a pan and put it on medium low heat.
2. Let the butter melt. Soon the milk solids will start separating from the fat which is ghee.
3. Keep heating on low heat, stirring it in between and let the milk solids become brown and settle at the bottom of the pan.
4. Once you see the clear ghee, turn off the heat.
5. Let the Ghee cool down.
6. Keep a bottle handy and use a paper towel or a thin cotton cloth as a funnel to filter the ghee.
7. Store the Ghee at room temperature.

Panjeeri

Adding a post to this blog after over 2 years. Reason? I made Panjeeri on Janamashtami and then some Laddoos on Ganesh Chaturthi for a friend. She liked the Laddoos and asked for the recipe so I decided to write it up. I am sharing my mom's (dad's? I always found both of them in the kitchen together on festivals so I am not sure who's recipe it use to be) Panjeeri/Ladoo recipe. I wish they could just write all these precious recipes down or better make videos. Since childhood we have been used to eating different kinds of Panjeeri on Janamashtami and making these brought back all those raw memories.

Ingredients:
1. makhane (fox nut)
2. badam (almonds)
3. kajoo (cashew)
4. bheej (melon seeds)
5. posta (poppy seeds)
6. kishmish (dried grapes) (optional) (I forgot to add them so I am putting it as optional :)
7. dry coconut powder
8. sugar
9. water

Preparation:
1. Heat a pan. Add 1/4 cup beej and roast them till they start to splutter. Keep them aside.
2. Now roast 1/4 cup posta till it's light brown or you can smell the roasted smell.
3. Add 1 cup makhana, 1/2 cup badam, 1/2 cup kajoo and add the beej and posta to this.
4. Now grind this mix and add some coconut powder and some cut kishmish to it.
5. Heat a pan and take 1/2 cup of sugar for each cup of the above ground mix.
6. Add the sugar and add 1/2 cup of water for each cup of sugar.
7. Now stir this to make sugar syrup with one 'taar'(wire between your index finger and thumb when you touch the sugar syrup). you keep stirring and heating and checking by your index finger and.thumb. take off the heat when you can find one 'taar' forming between your index finger and thumb if you move them apart
8. Now heat a pan and heat some ghee. Add the ground mix to this and then add the sugar syrup. Stir till the mixture leaves the pan.
9. Let the mix cool a bit (make sure it's not fully cooled down or it will get tough to make Ladoos)
10. Take the mix in your hand and make Ladoos by pressing it inside your fist.
11. Garnish by rolling the Ladoos on dry coconut powder.

If you want to make Panjeeri (cut into barfi style), then add the mix to a flat plate and then flatten it to an appropriate height as per your need. let the mix cool a bit and then cut them into polygons as per your desire.

New Mexico - May 2018

I usually end up making at least one trip somewhere in the summers. There was a lot of chaos going on at work and needed a break, this trip aligned very well with that. A friend suggested New Mexico and having lived there she gave a lot of pointers, even offered to accommodate at her mother's place there. We didn't end up doing that. The trips usually need to have some nature or culture in it. The beaches and the cities don't just fit in well. 

We visited Santa Fe and Taos. Both places are very different than a typical city in the US. We flew to Albuquerque Airport. It is one hour drive from Santa Fe. I knew Albuquerque because of the Dr. Vasant Lad's Ayurvedic Institute there. We couldn't visit as the Institute was closed during the weekend. Even though the two cities are just 1 hour drive apart, they are very different in terms of the architecture and culture. I found Albuquerque to be a usual American city. 

We spent the first day in Santa Fe. This is how all houses and buildings look in Santa Fe - Adobe buildings. I liked it so much as it makes them feel uniform and very earthy. The downtown is small and can provide historic glimpse. It's good for folks who like fine dining. We took a round and went to have dinner at a small place away from the downtown. 

Museum of Contemporary Native Arts

Palace of Governors

We had dinner at a small but good Southwestern food place. Food was great and I think some of that I tried for the first time.

Next day we planned to visit Bandelier National Monument and then stay at Taos. Bandelier is where the Ancestors of the Ancestral Pueblo people lived before 15th century. They built homes carved from the volcanic tuff. Later they moved from this area to pueblos along the Rio Grande near Taos. 

Domed Oven

Very popular photo spot

Those holes are houses

Song and Dance by the Native community folks.

We started for Taos from Bandelier. Taos is a town in northern New Mexico bounded by the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. It’s known for historic Adobe buildings, Art and Taos Pueblo, a multistory adobe complex inhabited by Native Americans. Both Taos and Santa Fe have a good number of museums and art galleries. Taos really felt like an Art town. 

We stayed in this small inn that was also built with Adobe and run by a lady. Taos is a very small town and this place made me feel like being at home. 

Blue and Black corn. Totally reminded me of Home.

Small sitting area in the Inn. We sat there in the night with our books. 

Next day we visited the Taos Pueblo which is a world heritage site and around 150 Native American community people still live in it. 

Main buildings

Adobe Oven

Usually each floor is set back from the floor below. The roof of each level serves as a terrace for the level above. Ladders are used to go from one level to another. 

History

Houses don't have direct water supply and the river water is used.

Many people have left these homes and now use them as gift shops

After the Taos Pueblo visit, we went to see the steel bridge and the Rio Grande Gorge which was close-by. 

Rio Grande Gorge

From there we wanted to go visit the Earthship Biotecture. An Earthship is a passive solar house that is made of both natural and recycled materials such as earth-packed tires. The Earthship architecture began in 1970s when the architect Michael Reynolds wanted to create a sustainable home with recycled materials. 

Glass bottled used as material

Water Management inside the house

This was the most amazing part of the house. Lots of fruits and vegetables in such a small balcony

The next part of the trip wasn't planned. We met a white woman at the Earthship. During the casual chat, she asked where we are from in India. I usually say 'just above Delhi' as most people can locate that region in their head. She asked the name of the place. I thought, how would she know. When we mentioned hills she mentioned Nainital and I was a bit surprised. It seems she had been visiting the Neem Karoli Baba in Kainchi, Garampani. She mentioned that there is a Neem Karoli Baba temple in Taos. She also mentioned they serve good 'chai' in the evening :). What was there to think more. We went straight to that temple from the Earthship tour. 

From there we started back for Santa Fe where we were supposed to stay that night. We mostly relaxed that night. Next day, we went to see some more art in the downtown before heading back to the Airport. The colorful ceramic art below looked great. 

Chocolate + Cashmere Man

I think I saw this at a small place where we ate before going to Albuquerque.

Until next time......