Besan milk burfi

Just a little over a week go for Deepavali! We have booked our tickets to go to India the coming weekend. My Deepavali purchases? I am warming up. Bought a nice designer sari last Sunday from Lavanya Arts and Crafts. Will definitely contribute to Chennai's economy too!

While I am happy that I will be celebrating the festival with my family, I am more excited about the 'batchanam' gallata. I cannot wait to get into the kitchen with my mother-in-law to try new as well as traditional sweets and savouries with my in-law. Started my foundation for that. Making my grocery list now itself, this will save time :) Clever girl !

As a part of the foundation work, I tried this besan flour burfi yesterday.

Besan burfi, very easy recipe. No special ingredients needed, we can make this yummy burfi with easily available ingredients from our pantry with in 20-30 minutes. I tried this milk besan burfi from the site  'momreceipebook'  

All you need is a cup of besan, ghee, milk powder and 1-1/2 cup of sugar. Nuts of your choice and 4-5 cardamom pods. You can find the recipe in here.

--- I did little variation from the original recipe. I used 1/2 cup fat free vegetable shortening for roasting the besan flour.
--- For sugar syrup I added only 1 cup of water instead of 2 cup as mentioned in the original recipe. This is my mom technique. She always say if you are making sugar syrup or jaggery syrup, use less water. So that we can achieve our consistency quickly.
--- I used 1/2 cup ghee when mixing the besan + milk powder mixture with the sugar syrup.
--- Also added 1/2 cup of dessicated dry coconut to the mixture.

I layered the greased wax paper on a plate and transferred the hot gooey mixture on the paper and topped with dry toasted cashews. Then using a greased knife I cut the burfi  to 1 inch square shape.

Easy besan milk burfi is ready to serve.

Dual Sauce Pasta

Hope you all had a wonderful Navaratri. I had a blissful time filled with pooja in the mornings and with some wonderful dance and music performances by the students of Temple of Fine Arts in the evenings. It has been 3 days since Vijayadasami but I still have not fully gotten out of the Navaratri mood yet!!  Hopefully getting back to blogging will help me parachute back to reality. So, here comes, with twice the processing power...err.. I mean , twice the goodness of your normal pasta - The Dual Sauce Pasta!!

You can taste the hot and spicy taste from the vegetable sauce and a nice creamy cheesy tangy, garlicky taste from the white sauce. I found this interesting recipe while watching the  Food Network show '30 minutes meal' hosted by Rachael Ray. Of course she used a meat sausage and some chicken stuff in her red sauce, but I tried it in my style with whole lot of vegetables.

Ingredients : 1/2 lb -- Pasta For Red Sauce 1 No -- Onion big size 1 No -- Roma tomatoes 1.5 to 2 cups -- Diced vegetables 1/2 cup -- Tomato puree 3 - 4 tsp -- Chili powder 100 gm -- Fresh paneer cubes (optional) 3-4 tbsp -- oil 1 tsp -- Garam masala powder 2-3 tsp -- lemon juice Salt to taste Few Cilantro to garnish For White Sauce 1 cup -- Milk 4 tbsp -- Butter 2 tsp -- All purpose flour 1 -2 pods -- Garlic 1/2 cup -- Cheese Black pepper and salt to taste Method : First comes the red vegetable sauce --- In a pan add the oil and heat the pan in a medium flame. Once it is hot add the paneer cubes and fry until the crust turns slightly brownish. --- Take the paneer out and keep it aside. In the same pan, add the diced onions and cook until the onions are soft. --- To the onions add cut vegetables and the diced tomatoes. I used beans, carrots, potatoes, frozen corns, green bell pepper and peas. --- Add tomato puree, chili powder, salt and little water to the vegetables and  cook until the vegetables are soften. --- I like to have a little heat in my veggie sauce, which will  balance out the creamy sauce. You can very much adjust the chili powder according to your taste. --- Add the fried paneer, garam masala powder and lemon juice and mix well. The colourful vegetable red sauce is ready. Now comes the White Sauce --- Before we start the sauce, cook the pasta as per the instruction given. You can try this recipe with any shape pasta. --- Take another pan in low flame, add butter. Once it is melted add couple of teaspoons of all purpose flour. This all purpose flour helps to thicken the white sauce. --- It will be good if you add the flour in initial stages, so that it will be cooked and also no lumps will be formed. --- Fry the flour until nice aroma comes from the butter flour mixture. --- Add a cup of milk to the mixture and cook. The milk will cook the flour further and  thicken the white sauce. If you need more sauce, you can dilute with water or more milk. --- Grate the garlic, and add to the white sauce along with salt and pepper. --- Add the cheese and mix well. Put the flame off and add the cooked pasta and mix well. How to serve --- Take the serving plate and put the creamy cheesy pasta in the middle of the plate. --- Make a well in the middle of the pasta --- Now scoop a big spoon full of vegetable sauce and pour into the pasta well. --- Garnish with chopped cilantro on top and serve warm.

The colours so attractive and inviting, everybody will love to dig into the pasta well and enjoy the colourful pasta.