Ragi Rava Ladoo

Ragi or Finger millet grains are known for their nutritional benefits like good dietary fiber, cooling agent for your body, reduces cholesterol levels & many more.

Even with all those health benefits I never liked them becoz they never tasted good Or say no taste at all.I still remember my mom  running behind me to finish the one big glass of ragi malt mixed with yogurt.

Anyways now I want to experiment new ways of cooking these healthy grains & that's how the ladoo was made. 

 

Ingredients

1/2 Cup ragi 

1/4 Cup coconut pieces

3/4 Cup grated jaggery 

1/2 cup sliced almonds & raisins 

1 Tbs elachi powder 

1 Tsp butter

*** Ragi grains are hard to grind as they are. So you need to sun dry them or just dry fry for few seconds in a hot pan and grind them.

Heat a pan and add ragi grains to it. Dry fry them for few secs. Coarse grind Ragi grains to get a rava texture. Now heat a pan with 1 tsp of butter. and fry ragi rava for 5mins or till the nice aroma comes out of it. Switch off pan and allow it to cool. 

*** I used fresh coconut as it has the wetly texture which blends all the ingredients together. 

Grind coconut and keep aside.

Now mix all the ingredients in a  bowl together. ( No need to add milk or butter to make balls)

As the coconut is fresh you will be able to roll nice ladoos as shown. 

Out Come: They are very tasty with all those almonds, raisins, elachi & jaggery. I love to call it a healthy bite.

Mexican Tomato Rice

Mexican tomato rice is a little different version of Indian Tomato rice.This tangy rice is a yummy dish which can be prepared with less effort & spices.

I did some changes to the recipe which can be good to Indian taste buds & served it with peanut chutney & curd :)

Ingredients

2 Cups of rice

1 Cup onions chopped

4 Garlic cloves finely chopped 

2 Red chillis sliced

2 Cups of tomatoes diced 

2 Tsp cumincoriander powder

1 Tsp garlic chilli powder

Cilantro for garnish 

1 Tsp olive oil

1 Tsp jeera

Salt 

Seasoning

2 Tsp Olive oil

1 Tsp Mustard 

Heat a pan with oil add jeera to it. Fry till they start jumping & add rice to pan. Do a lite fry of rice. Cook rice with 4 cups of water ( Varies with rice) & once it is done cool it.

Now heat a pan with oil add garlic and chillis. Fry them till garlic is done or turns brown.Then mix onion to pan and fry it till they turned transparent.Add tomatoes to pan along with salt and allow them to cook with a closed lid. 

Once tomatoes are done add cumincoriander , chilli powder to pan. Cook them for 10mins & switch of heat.
Mix tomato mixture carefully to rice without breaking it & garnish with cilantro. 

Serve with Tortilla chips or Indian chutney  or with curd.

 

Note:

1. I used sona masuri rice.You can replace it with basmati rice if you want. 

2. Replace green chillis with jalapenos for more spiciness.