Happy Diwali!

From Center - Coconut Burfi, Chakli, Thick Sev (omapodi),Ribbon Bakoda, Kaju Kathli, Badam Halwa rolled into bite Size pieces

Diwali always brings nostalgic memories of childhood, as a child I always wanted to know how much fireworks I could buy, if I can burst some as my older sisters always got a better share of them, I really did not care much for new clothes, but more concerned about what sweets and savories were made at home.

On D-day, We used to wake as early as possible and my mom would have woken up before us to arrange everything in the pooja room, the clothes,sweets and the fireworks , my mom will keep a little kumkum on the new clothes and we would return to the pooja room after a hot bath with oil and shikakai and then the fun began. We would run outside to compete with the neighbors on who would burst the most fireworks.

I miss that here but ah well, one cant have everything in life. This Diwali, I decided to make 6 snacks to denote the 6 years of our married life , so three sweets and three savories.

Sweets - Badam Halwa, Kaju Kathli and Coconut Burfi.
(I rolled the badam Halwa into bite size pieces , thanks Saffron for the neat idea)
Savories - Butter Murukku (Chakli), Ribbon Bakoda, Kara Chev

I decided to submit Ribbon Bakoda for the JFI. This is a recipe that I got from my mom as soon as I got married and it has been R's favorite ever since. Don't omit the garlic in this recipe, it makes it aromatic and tastes great! http://keeptrying.wordpress.com/2006/10/01/special-edition-jihva/
Here goes the recipe...

Ingredients

Rice Flour - 2 Cups
Channa Dhal flour - 1.5 cups
Dalia(pottu Kadalai) powdered - 1/2 cup
Garlic pods - 4
Whole red chillies - 6 to 7
Hing - A pinch
Salt - to taste
Butter - 1 Tbsp
Oil for deep frying

• Mix all the flours together with salt and hing
• Add the butter
• Grind the garlic and red chilly finely with water to make a paste (strain it , so that you don't have the seeds in the way)
• Add the strained water to the flour and bring them altogether as much as water is needed to make a dough (same consistency as chapathi dough)

• Now using the tubular press, you can start frying them in hot oil.
• Once they are fried, let the bakodas rest on a paper towel and then store in air tight container.

Happy Diwali to all of you and may this year bring all of us peace and all that we pray for.