Antina Unde/ Gond Laddoo

 I always complain I never get things right the first time. But let me tell you how my mind works. Take for example this particular unDe. I see in the recipe that I should roughly chop dry fruits. Being the lazy/smart a** I am, I try to do this in the mixie. I pulse and see that it is very unevenly chopped, so I run couple more rounds and unintentionally powder them. For some reason, I do this with all the nuts, even after seeing that it didn’t work the first time. So instead of having coarsely chopped nuts, I now have their respective powders. 

To fix this I take couple extra and chop them by hand. Then I beat myself up for not doing this in the first place. Now I have double quantity of these, and I am not sure how much jaggery syrup to make to accommodate these extra things, that too in powder form!! So I add little extra jaggery, you know just in case, and turns out I added lot more than needed. So now to fix this I add almond flour to adjust the consistency. At this point my head is hurting, and I know that the littlest of the littlest thing can trigger me any minute…tick, tick, tick :))

Seriously, if I get a penny for every time I use almond flour to fix my dessert…… 

God bless that person who thought of selling almond flour ready made. Almond flour ki jai !! 

  

Coming to the recipe - this is a very poushtidaayaka unde, especially given to women during postpartum care, or when girls hit puberty. I would say women any age should consume these to keep ourselves strong.

Happy Mother’s Day ladies!! Stay strong!!

Nellikaayi Saaru/ Amla rasam

Continuing with another healthy recipe, again with nellikayi - Nellikayi Rasam. 

It all started with my cousin making nellikayi tambli for me one time. When asked where she got nellikayi from, she mentioned frozen section in Indian stores. The problem with that is, you get quite a few nellikayis in 1 pack, and every recipe uses only 1-3 max, more wouldn’t be too appealing for your taste buds either. So to finish that pack, I have been browsing more and more nellkayi recipes :) 

So here’s one more nellikayi recipe - nellikayi rasam - healthy, healthy recipe.

It is one of those tili saarus(watery rasams without dal), which you can either drink or eat with rice. I prefer drinking over eating with rice. I would also use little less of rasam powder than mentioned below(original recipe) to get a stronger flavor of nellikayi. 

Do try!

Healthy Spinach-Moong Dal Palya/Sabzi

My husband is the kind, who brings home a chocolate, will make sure our daughter gets a big chunk and enjoys in her enjoyment. And he does it very often, more than necessary, IMO. 

I, on the other hand, make sure I only get healthy snacks, make sure that her chocolate/sweet intake is limited during the week. Whenever she asks for an extra chocolate, I retort immediately - do you ever ask for more vegetables, then don’t ask for more candies. Or when she takes more than half an hour to finish her lollipop(no kidding!), slurping it endlessly until the stick starts to break apart; I don’t forget to thank her brain for being so eager to spoil her teeth, followed by a very long lecture on the bad effects of eating junk food :)

Then,

..

..

I put her to sleep, take handful of chips from my hidden stash and eat it feeling - ‘life is beautiful’ :D . Thankfully, I’ve come to senses with respect to ice cream bars and have stopped buying them. Otherwise every night(well, almost) I would’ve put my feet on coffee table, turned on some good TV, and have eaten one ice cream bar. 

Happy Mother’s Day, everyone!! :D

Coming to the recipe, Spinach-Moong dal palya has got to be one of the healthiest food out there. I don’t think it is made in Udupi-Kota region. I only got to know about this while browsing for other recipes. It turned out very tasty. Very very easy. My daughter loved it too. I am a happy mom :)

Do try!