Receipe 1 : Rava laddu

So, why not make a sweet beginning? So i decided to start with rava ladoos first. It has been my fav sweet for ages and i always thought it was very difficult to make. Well.. not anymore! Infact now i would say, it happens to be one of the easiest sweets to make. Let me explain the steps to make around 10-12 rava ladoos.

What you need?

1 tumbler of rava
1 tumbler of sugar (same measure as rava)
cashews (fried in ghee..ah..yum!!)
grounded elachi (say..about half a spoon)
ghee!

Also you will find the need of a

Mixie
Frying pan

Le Method:

Step 1:

It is simple! I know i keep telling that (being positve helps!!).. Just take the rava and fry it in a frying pan. Don't fry till it goes all red though! Keep its color alive.. So the best way to achieve the perfect fried rava is to fry it keeping the flame in "sim" mode. Once you are done with it, just pop the fried rava into the mixie and grind it till you get it in a nice powder form. Take it and keep it aside.

Note! Do not put the hot rava into the mixie. Once you are done with frying the rava, let it cool and then do the grinding! Sometimes.. our fingers do matter!

Step 2:

Now take the sugar and put it in the mixie. Grind it into a fine white dust. Put this along with the powdered rava in a mixing vessel. (paatharam..if it makes sense).

Step 3:

Mix these powdered stuffs together along with grounded elachi and fried cashews (break the cashews into small pieces..never put the whole cashews..the ladoos will start to tremble..n fumble then). Take a frying pan and with low flame, melt ghee. Next, just add it to the mixture till you can make balls out of it.

Eureka: You can just think of this similar to making chapati dough. I mean, nobody gives you the measure of water to pour in the flour. You keep adding water till you can make it into a nice dough. The same holds good for this.

Making the balls can be a bit tricky. All you need is some patience and positive outlook( You can think of the delicious ladoos you are going to tuck in a few mins..) . Just put the mixture in your palm and press it moderately hard enough to make it into a ball like shape.

Let it stay for 10 mins to harden itself...

Voila! ready!.. I bet you didn't think it was that easy right?!!

The start!

TARGET: 365 recipes in 365 days.
Here we go!

The Cooking Pot Kickoff

With the year coming to an end, I realized that i havn't kept even a single resolution out of the 30 resolutions i had planned to execute in 2009. I guess procrastination can be a greater evil than the demons. With a new year around the corner, I thought - Why not take up some self-challenge. That's when Julie Powell came to my mind. If she was inspired by Julia, I am going to be inspired by Julie. That doesn't mean that I am going to experiment the french cuisine..rather, I am going to try multi-cuisine. So here we go. This is going to be a place to make cooking a lot more easier and fun. Welcome on-board to Gayathri's Cooking Project.