millet

Mixed millet Masala Cookies:

November 17, 2017

Millets are a very good alternative to normal All-purpose flour or whole wheat flour in gluten free baking. You can’t even recognize the core ingredient. It is gluten free as well as high in nutritional value too.

When I was trying out some recipes for the 2017 Millet calendar, I dished out a couple of recipes, which had turned out super tasty, and at the same time, healthy, filling and as an alternate snack for kid’s tiffin boxes as well.

I tried pizza based seasoning in this cookie recipe and it tasted super delicious.

Ingredients:

Mixed Millet flour – 1 cup

Butter – 50 grams

Sugar – 2 table spoons

Salt – ½ teaspoon

Baking powder – ½ teaspoon

Baking soda – ½ teaspoon

Curd – 2 table spoons

Pizza seasoning or Oregano – 1 tea spoon

Chilli flakes – 1 tea spoon

Cumin – 1 tea spoon

Grated cheese – to decorate.

Method:

Mix flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, pizza seasoning, chilli flakes and cumin and keep aside.
Now beat butter and sugar until it becomes fluffy and creamy. Add in curd and beat once again.
Mix in flour mixture and bind all the ingredients together, the resultant dough will be like Chapati dough.

Take dough little by little, roll it into half inch thickness and take a cookie cutter and cut.
Arrange this in a lined baking tray.
Sprinkle grated cheese on top.
Bake this in a pre-heated oven at 170 ºC for 10 to 12 minutes.

Note:

Here mixed millet flour is store bought pre- mixed flour.
Alternately one can mix two to three millet flours and make their own flour or use all purpose flour as well.

Instant Paddu:

July 8, 2017

This Recipe happened by fluke and I felt it was a very good option for kid’s tiffin boxes and basically my daughters loved it and they were asking me to include this as a regular item. So, I was thinking of sharing it with you all, lovely readers.

Last week when I made some biryani for kids and hubby’s tiffin box, no one was interested to carry a raita with them and I was left with one big bowl of onion and tomato raita. I wanted to utilise that sweetish raita in some way and thought of preparing rawa Paddu.

I took an inspiration from rawa idly mix and proceeded like that. Instead of adding only Rawa, I included millet idly rawa too and believe me, it was so tasty and the kids were saying “it was oozing with flavour and no side dish or chutney was needed” for this.

Now we will see, how I proceeded –

Ingredients:

Normal Rawa – 1 cup

Millet rawa- 1 cup

Ghee – 1 table spoon

Mustard – 1 tsp

Urad dal- 1 tsp

Cumin- ½ tsp

Hing- ¼ tsp

Curry leaves – 1 or 2 springs(chopped)

Eno fruit salt – 1 Tsp

Curd – 2 cups

Chopped onion -1

Chopped tomato – 1

Chopped coriander – little

Salt

Sugar

Method:

-Make seasoning by taking ghee in one pan, when it is hot, add mustard. After mustard splutters, add urad dal, cumin, hing, chopped curry leaves and fry for a minute.

-Add plain rawa and millet rawa fry until it becomes grainy in texture.

-Remove from the flame and cool the mixture into room temperature.

– Before preparing batter, take the curds, chopped onions, tomato, coriander leaves, salt and sugar mix nicely by adding Eno fruit salt.

– Now add seasoned, cooled rawa mix and give a stir. Mixture should be little watery kind at this point. Keep aside for 5 to 10 minutes so that batter will become thick now due to soaking of all the moisture by rawa.

-If batter is too thick you can add little more curds and adjust the consistency. It should be like idly batter and consistency should be little thick.

-Keep Appam or Paddu tawa, when it is hot keep it in a simmer, pour ½ tsp of ghee to every hole and pour the required amount of ready batter.

-Close the lid, cook for a while. Then flip and cook other side as well and then serve either as it is or with any chutney.

Note:

-Here I have used little millet idly rawa, you can use any millet rawa as well.

-If you don’t have access to millet rawa, you can use only rawa too.

– Here I have used Uppittu rawa/plain semolina/Bombay rawa.

-I did seasoning part on previous night and kept it aside for cooling. So that, morning it will be easy to mix and proceed to make Paddu.

-You can make this rawa mix and store it for a future use.

Chocolate cake from Ghee Residue:

June 17, 2017

Ghee residue is a moist, brown coloured by-product formed after preparing ghee from white butter.

Ghee residue is a rich source of essential fatty acids, natural anti-oxidants and proteins.

In olden days, people used this as a natural body scrub. When I was a child, my mum used to rub this on me, before bath and I now feel nostalgic while seeing this brown sediment and so I make it a point to use this without throwing by using either in Atta kneading or in baking.

This time, I had a couple of Pea protein powder packs in my hand, which was given by my lovely co-sister who is a Ayurvedic doctor. So, I included that as well in this brownie kind of chocolatey cake.

pic main

Ingredients:

All-purpose flour – 1 cup

Whole wheat flour – ½ cup

Mixed millet flour – ½ cup

Choco chip – ¼ cup

Protein powder – ½ cup

Milk powder – ¼ cup

Cocoa powder – ¼ cup

Sugar – 1 cup

Ghee Residue – 2 table spoons

Milk – 1 ¼ cups

Vanilla essence- 1 tea spoon

Baking soda – 1 teaspoon

Method:

Measure everything and keep it ready. Pre-heat oven at 180 C.
Mix all the dry ingredients like, flours, protein powder, milk powder, cocoa powder and sieve couple of times and mix in Choco chip and stir nicely. Keep it aside.
If you coat Choco chips with dry flours, it will not sink in the bottom while baking.
Now take ghee residue, put milk and heat it. When ghee residue is mixed nicely with milk, switch off the gas.

Add sugar, vanilla essence and baking soda and keep aside for 5 minutes.
After 5 minutes, beat this wet mixture thoroughly until mixture forms a bubble at the upper layer.
Fold in dry ingredient and make a batter. (don’t beat or over mix in this step)

Bake this in a lined baking dish in a pre-heated oven at 180 C for 30 to 40 minutes or until done (when you insert a tooth pick or knife in the centre of cake, it should come out clean)

pic main 1

NOTE:

-You can use only All-purpose flour or mixture of any flour.

-If you don’t have any protein powder in hand, instead of protein powder, use milk powder.

Plantain Upside down Cake:

April 24, 2017

This is my trial in egg less as well as butter less baking. Here I have used raw flax seed gel as a replace for an egg as well as fat and it worked out just fantastic.

Ingredients:

Finger millet flour/Ragi – 1 cup

Whole wheat flour –½ cup

Sugar – ¾ cup

Mashed banana – 1 cup

Flax gel – ½ cup

Baking powder – ¾ tsp

Cooking soda – ¾ tsp

Salt – ½ tsp

Cinnamon powder – one pinch.

Vanilla essence – 1 tsp

Curd – 1/3 cup to ¼ cup (according to requirement)

For Caramelized base:(Optional)

Brown sugar – ½ cup

Butter – 2 table spoon (chilled)

Banana roundels – As needed.

Method:

How to make flax gel: Take 2 tsp of flax seed, make powder. Put this powder in thick bottomed small pan, add one cup of water and boil until it is thick, slimy and reduced to almost half.

-Now make banana slices (half inch thick), keep it ready.

– Take one baking tin in which you want to bake this cake. Brush some oil at the base. Spread brown sugar uniformly and take butter, make small cubes and place it here and there.

-Place this in a pre-heated oven at 180C for 6 to 8 minutes until the sugar has melted. Remove from the oven, mix this liquid nicely and place banana roundels in regular intervals and keep aside.

– Now Take all dry ingredients like flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon powder and sieve together couple of times or mix using dry wire whisk.

– Now take another bowl, beat all the wet ingredients like, flax gel, vanilla, sugar, mashed banana

-. When it becomes frothy, fold in the dry ingredient mixture. If you feel this batter is too thick, then adjust the consistency by adding curds.

– Pour this ready batter to the cake tin in which you placed banana slices.

-Bake this in a pre-heated ready oven at 180C for 40 to 50 minutes or until done. If you insert knife, it should come out clean.

-Remove once it is done. When it is cool, de-mold and serve.

NOTE:- Here I took caramel which was stuck on the base of the baking dish, put it in a microwave cup, re heated it and poured as a sauce to give saucy texture. (You can see that in the picture)

-If you want to make this as a vegan,avoid caramelized base.

Millet and Oats porridge:

March 23, 2017

A low calorie Diet is very difficult to manage. You feel constantly hungry and can’t concentrate on your work. To attain fullness, we should think of adding millets in our diet as it is very nutritious, gives strength and increases immunity. It is low on starch, high on minerals and fibre.

This is a 3 spoon miracle filling diet. If you have this porridge in the morning, you will surely not feel hungry until your lunch.

Ingredients:

Mixed millet flour – 1 spoon

Finger millet flour – 1 spoon

Oats – 1 spoon

Water – 1 ½ cups

Salt- ¼ teaspoon

Cardamom powder – ¼ teaspoon

Sugar free natura – 1 teaspoon

Method:

Take one thick bottomed vessel, mix all the ingredients.
Boil this mix by stirring in-between.
While boiling, mixture becomes glossy, when it is done.
Switch off the gas and serve.
It is a very good breakfast option for weight loss or diabetic patients.
Adjust the consistency by adding extra water if you want a runny texture.

Orange – Nutella Swirl cupcakes:

March 19, 2017

These millet cupcakes are healthy and delicious at the same time, a very good snack for all the kids who are studying hard for exams.

picture main

Ingredients:

Mixed millet flour- ½ cup

Whole wheat flour- ¼ cup

All-purpose flour – ¾ cup

Ghee – ¼ cup

Egg – 1

Sugar – ¾ cup

Salt – ¼ tsp

Baking powder – ¾ tsp

Baking soda – ¾ tsp

Curd – ¾ cup

Orange zest – 1 tsp

Nutella – as required

Method:

Pre-heat oven in 170 C. Line cupcake baking tray with paper liners.

collage 1

Mix all the dry ingredients like millet flour, whole wheat flour and all-purpose flour, baking powder and soda, sieve 2 to 3 times or mix with dry whisk.
Now take one more bowl or food processer, put egg, curd, sugar, ghee, salt and beat nicely.
Grate orange zest from outer surface of the orange (Don’t add any white part) and add this to liquid and beat one more time.
Now pour this wet mixture into dry ingredient mixture and fold in and mix everything lightly.
Don’t over mix.
Pour this mixture into cupcake tray by using the spoon.

collage 2

Drop Nutella on the top of each batter filled cupcake mould, swirl a little.
Bake this in a pre-heated oven for 15 minutes or until done.

picture main 2

Enjoy with evening tea. It is a good option as a snack as well.

Millet and spinach khichdi:

December 18, 2016

Millet’s are tiny cereals, which are low in Carbohydrates and a very good source of Protein, fibre and Vitamins. This is a very tasty, easy to make, healthy one pot meal which makes a very light meal.

millet-1

Ingredients:

Saame rice/Foxtail millet – 1 cup (you can use normal rice as well)

Moong/green gram dhal – ½ cup

Spinach – 1bunch

Cumin seeds – 1 tsp.

Hing – ½ tsp

Ginger – 1” piece

Green chillies – 1 to 2 (slit)

Salt- to taste

Ghee – 1 to 2 tbl sp

Water – 4 to 6 cups

Method:

-Soak dhal and millet rice after washing, for 10 minutes.

-Wash and grind spinach into puree.

-Heat ½ table spoon of ghee in a pressure cooker.

-Add Cumin seeds, hing, green chillies and ginger and fry for a minute.

-Now add spinach puree, water, salt and bring to boil. When it starts boiling, add soaked and drained dal and millet rice mixture.

-Check for salt and cook till 3 to 4 whistles.

-After the pressure releases, open the lid and pour in the remaining amount of ghee.

khichdi

-Enjoy with any crispy side dishes or raita!!!