Beetroot Halwa

Wish you and your loved ones A Very happy Valentine's Day!

I have prepared this Indian delicacy couple of times for pot luck here for people who are new to Indian food and they definitely were shocked to see beetroot in a dessert. But they really enjoyed it to the core. They had a scoop of warm beetroot halwa along with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and I should say it is a divine combination.

This recipe is a no brainer. You cannot go wrong with the preparation. The more ingredients like condensed milk or kova you add , the more delicious it gets. But, even with just milk, you end up with a very delicious indian dessert. You can use the same preparation with carrots too.

Ingredients: Beetroot - 4 cups Grated Milk - 2 and 1/2 cups Sugar - 1 and 1/4 cups or depending on how sweet the beetroots are Cardamom powder- 1/2 teaspoon Ghee - 1 tablespoon / More if you wish Method Grate the beetroots using a food chopper or grater. In a  wide non-stick pan, add the grated beetroots and milk. Let it cook until the beetroots becomes tender and soft. Scrape the sides of the pan regularly to mix in all the goodness of the reduced milk. Add more milk if needed. Before adding sugar, the mix should not be very loose. It should be in the consistency of kova. Now add sugar and ghee and mix it well . Adding sugar will loosen the consistency.Simmer it.I usually leave it until it reaches the kova consistency again. Just the perfect consistency for any halwa. Finally  mix in freshly ground cardamom powder and remove from heat. Serve it warm with powdered nuts.

Mutta Paniyaram / Egg Paniyaram

I have to camouflage eggs in my little one's food. He wouldn't eat egg otherwise. While I was telling my MIL about this, she asked me to add beaten eggs to the dosa batter and make dosas out of it. I tried that and it worked. But then, I also wanted to make these little paniyarams out of it with more seasoning and flavour. Nowadays, this happens to be the easiest dinner idea whenever I am running out of vegetables in the refrigerator.

You can add equal number of eggs to the batter. But that didn't seem like a good option in my case since my little one has pretty good sense of smell and taste :-). So he finds out that I have added eggs to the paniyarams.Otherwise you can add 1 egg to 1 cup of batter and make these delicious and easy paniyarams.

Ingredients: Idli/Dosa batter -2cups Egg - 1 Salt - as needed Oil - 2 teaspoons + for making paniyarams Onion - 1 finely chopped Mustard seeds - 1 teaspoon Green Chilli  - 1 finely chopped Cilantro - 1 fistful, finely Method Mix beaten egg with the batter with required amount of salt. In a  pan, add oil and when it gets hot add mustard seeds. Now add onion, green chillies and saute till the onions becomes translucent. Remove from heat and add chopped cilantro leaves to it. Let it cool down a bit. Add the onions to the egg and batter mixture. Make paniyarams out of it and enjoy with your favorite side dish.