Instructions:

• In a food processor blend black beans until smooth.
• Add all ingredients except chocolate chips, blend again until smooth
• Remove mixture from food processor and fold in chocolate chips.
• Bake in muffin cups or cake pan for about 35 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.
• Slice into squares and serve hot.

Ingredients:

• Any fruits of your choice, 5 cups(bananas, oranges, pomegranate and apples go well with chaat)
• Chaat masala, 1tsp
• Cumin Powder, ¼ tsp.
• Black or pink salt, ½ tsp.
• Lemon juice fresh, 3 tbsp.
• Sugar, 1 tsp.

Preparation:

• Slice Bananas. Peel apples and cut into cubes. Remove orange skins and cut into small segments.
• Combine all the fruits in a large bowl.
• Add sugar and salt in lemon juice and let it dissolve.
• Drizzle lemon juice on the fruits.
• Sprinkle cumin, and chaat masala.
• Toss all of them well
• Let it stay for 1-2 hours in refrigerator before serving. Garnish with a twig of mint or cilantro.

Tips:

1. You can also add slices of cucumber or chickpeas.
2. If you want it spicier, toss in some cut green chillies.
3. Guava can also be a great addition.
4. You can replace lemon juice with orange juice for a different flavor.
5. You can add lemon or orange zest for flavor.

Ingredients:

• Ground almonds 2 ¼ cup
• Eggs, five large
• Coconut sugar ¾ cup (can substitute with ¾ -1 cup regular sugar)
• Cinnamon Powder, 1 tsp.
• Zest from one lemon and one small orange
• Almond extract, 4 drops (optional)
• Confectioner’s sugar(for dressing)

Preparation:

• Finely grind raw almonds in a food processor. Mix ground almond with cinnamon powder in a mixing bowl.
• With electric mixer, beat eggs and sugar to a smooth cream, add zest then fold in ground almond and cinnamon mix slowly into the egg and sugar mixture.
• Pour it in a round baking pan lined with greased wax paper or in a 10 inch spring form pan bottom sprayed with nonstick spray or dusted with powder.
• Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit, for 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
• Wait till it cools down, release the sides and transfer to plate.
• Sprinkle confectioner’s sugar all over the top before serving.

Decoration Ideas:

Stencil any paper design on top and remove paper after you sprinkle confectioners sugar.

Ingredients:

• Peanut or almond butter, 3 tbsp.
• Yogurt, ½ cup (I recommend using homemade yogurt)
• French couscous, ½ cup, whole wheat (can use any kind of couscous)
• Strawberries, or Blueberries, handful
• Granola, store-bought or homemade, handful (see the recipe below for homemade granola)

Preparation:

• In a saucepan bring ¾ cup of water to boil and add ½ cup of couscous, remove from heat, cover and allow to sit for about ten minutes.
• Fluff to separate. Depending on type of couscous you use, amount of water to cook and sit time may vary. Authentic couscous will require significantly more cooking time.
• Choose a tall clear glass, layer with granola in the bottom, couscous, then layer 1 tbsp. of yogurt, peanut butter, fruit, couscous, yogurt, peanut butter, strawberries and granola. I slice strawberries and arrange slices to the side of the glass.

Caution:
This recipe contains peanuts, Caution advised for anyone with peanut allergy.

FYI:

• Most couscous sold in stores is pre-steamed, so just dousing it in hot water is sufficient.
• Don’t boil or stir instant couscous as it brings it down to a mushy paste.

Fortunately here in cold weather food dehydrator works great for making leathers. I make it for my sons and I end up eating most of it.

Some fruits are good for leather. I like bananas, all berries, apricots, peaches, mangoes, plums. You can add cinnamon, lemon, nutmeg for flavoring. The dehydrator I use is Excalibur, 9 tray dehydrator. I was told in small dehydrators heat is not evenly distributed.

• I make these leathers without any flavoring. I blended only fruits in vitamix until pureed. No need to add water.
• Dehydrate on teflex sheets for 5-7 hours at 120 degrees. Using nonstick spray makes it easier to remove, but you don’t have to use it.
• Once you remove leather wash off the oil from nonstick spray with cloth or paper towel.
• After about 3 hours remove the leather from teflex sheet and turn place on mesh sheet for better drying. Timing may vary depending on how thick you spread puree on the sheet and the water content of the fruit.
• Do not spread puree too thin on the sheet. If you spread it thin it will break into pieces when you remove it from sheet.
• To store it cut into strips and roll it tight in plastic wrap and store in airtight container at room temperature for a month. You can store in freezer if you have many of them. It will last for a year in freezer.

Banana(top), Strawberry and banana, Mango, Strawberry(bottom).

Note: Add sugar if fruits are not sweet and taste tart. I didn’t have to use sugar.

Ingredients:

• Peanut or almond butter, 3 tbsp.
• Yogurt, ½ cup (I recommend using homemade yogurt)
• French couscous, ½ cup, whole wheat (can use any kind of couscous)
• Strawberries, or Blueberries, handful
• Granola, store-bought or homemade, handful (see the recipe below for homemade granola)

Preparation:

• In a saucepan bring ¾ cup of water to boil and add ½ cup of couscous, remove from heat, cover and allow to sit for about ten minutes.
• Fluff to separate. Depending on type of couscous you use, amount of water to cook and sit time may vary. Authentic couscous will require significantly more cooking time.
• Choose a tall clear glass, layer with granola in the bottom, couscous, then layer 1 tbsp. of yogurt, peanut butter, fruit, couscous, yogurt, peanut butter, strawberries and granola. I slice strawberries and arrange slices to the side of the glass.

Caution:
This recipe contains peanuts, Caution advised for anyone with peanut allergy.

FYI:

• Most couscous sold in stores is pre-steamed, so just dousing it in hot water is sufficient.
• Don’t boil or stir instant couscous as it brings it down to a mushy paste.

Ingredients:

• 3 cups of crabapple (I used the crabapples with tiny seed that can be blended. Some crabapples have large seed, they need to be deseeded.)
• 2 cups of raisins(soaked in water)
• 5 medjool dates
• 2 cups of pecans

Procedure:

1. Food process pecans until you get coarse powder. Keep this powder aside.
2. Discard the raisin soaked water.
3. Food process crabapple, dates and raisins until you get coarse paste.
4. Add pecan powder and food process until you get a cookie dough consistency.
5. Apply small amount of oil to teflex sheet, spread the mixture on the sheet. You might want to wet your hand in between to spread, otherwise it will stick to your hands. I cover this with wax paper at the end and roll this with roller, just to make smooth surface. You do not have to roll it.
6. Score into bar shapes and dehydrate at 130 degrees for 10 hours and change the sheet on to mesh sheet. Leave it for another 10 hours to a day depending on how thick you spread.
7. Store them in airtight container once they cool down.
8. You can keep these bars for many months(if they last).

Bottom layer: blended blueberries
Middle white layer: unsoaked Cashews and agave
Top Green layer: Avocado and agave(I added one crown of raw broccoli for green color)

Get all the components ready. Blend each layer separate in coffee blender. Layer the ingredients in custard cups or wine glasses. Layer them in any order you like. Top with blue berries and mandarin slices. Chill for 30 minutes to one hour until the layers are set.

Tip:
Use dehydrated granola in between layer to make it look more attractive.

Note: Do not fry sugar or coconut. Do not overfry suji.

Rambutan, Sapota (Chikoo), Champagne grapes, Star fruit, Dragon fruit, Figs, Lychee and Guava.

Ingredients:

For Outer layer:

• Red millet flour: 2 cups, freshly ground
• Jaggery: powdered or grated or shaved, 1 cup
• Cardamom powder: ½ tsp, nutmeg powder ¼ tsp (optional)

For Stuffing:

• 1 cup of powdered cashew nuts and 1 cup of pitted dates cut into small pieces, 1 tbsp. of dry coconut powder
• Hand mix all the stuffing ingredients and keep it aside. You should be able to make balls with stuffing, if it is dry add more dates or date water. If dates are too dry you need to soak them in little bit of water for about an hour.

Preparation:

• Add ½ cup of warm water to Jaggery and let it melt, no need to heat it up; Strain the Jaggery once it is dissolved in water to remove the impurities.
• Blend whole red millets in a dry jar of Vitamix blender. There is no need to fry them before blending. Take millet flour out of blender to a bowl.
• Slowly add Jaggery water to Millet powder to make soft balls. Use your judgment and add water to the millet powder until the dough comes to soft consistency. If you add less water you will see cracks when you make balls and, after you steam it will be hard. If you add more water it will stick to your hand and it won’t steam properly.
• Bring it to pizza dough consistency.
• Divide the dough into small lemon size balls, flatten the ball to make a disc and place stuffing in the center and bring the edges together to seal it.
• Shape into smooth ball. Arrange them in double boiler or on greased idli plate and boil on high flame for 15-20 minutes.
• These stuffed millet ball are very delicious, a must try healthy dessert.

Tips:

Secret to this recipe is fresh millet flour. If you use the store-bought flour, they come out slightly bitter, not even close to the delicious taste you get with freshly ground flour.

Ingredients:

• Ripe mango
• 1 medium size guava
• Small sweet seedless grapes(from Indian store)

Procedure:

• Peel and cut mango into ¾” pieces.
• Add diced guava and grapes to mango.
• Garnish with sunflower seeds.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup cashew butter(see below for recipe)
• ¾ cup of unsoaked cashews
• ¾ cup agave nectar
• ¼ cup of carob powder (may substitute with cacao powder)
• 5 tbsp of coconut oil
• pinch of salt

Procedure:

• First process ¾ cup of raw cashew nuts in food processor just for few seconds to small pieces, keep aside. I do this step in mortar and pestle sometimes to keep pieces bigger.
• Take 1½ cup of raw unsoaked cashew nuts and process in food processor on high speed to turn into cashew butter(will get about 1 cup of cashew butter). You need to process for at least 7-10 minutes to get butter. It is worth spending this time to make this delicious natural chocolate.
• Once cashews turns to cashew butter, to the consistency you see in the photo.
• Now add agave, coconut oil, carob powder, salt and blend.
• At the end add coarsely blend cashew pieces and process for few seconds until mixed. Lay it out on cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, freeze it and take it out few minutes before serving.
• Cut it into pieces when you take it out from freezer. Need to store the left overs back in freezer otherwise it will get soft.

1. Bake sweet potatoes in preheated oven at 375 degrees for 1 hour.
2. Create a wide and long slit on top of each sweet potato. Carefully scrape the pulp out with use of a teaspoon. Make sure the skin is intact.
3. Blend sweet potatoes with peeled papaya pieces, add cardamom(powdered) and nutmeg if you like.
4. Serve on sweet potato skin or in any bowl.

Tip:

For easier blending, place papaya in the blender first.

Almond milk yogurt

BY DRSAILA · JUNE 24, 2015

This is a great, healthy low carb yogurt. Stores well. This is gluten free, soy free, dairy free and refined sugar free. This is a good alternative if you are lactose intolerant.

1 cup raw soaked almonds

3 cups water

1 tbsp of turbinado sugar or honey (not raw honey)

1 pack starter culture

Soak 1cup almonds in water overnight. Rinse almonds and drain the water soaked to remove tannins, it is not necessary to peel the skin but if you take time and remove almond skins it tastes even better.Then blend almonds in vitamix with 3 cps of warm water. Filter through nut milk bag and squeeze to separate fiber from the liquid. Check the temperature. The almond milk should be about body temperature, if it is cold just heat it on stove a little bit to bring it to warm temperature.

Almond milk and started culture

Add culture starter to the milk (one pack per 1 quart of liquid). Give it a little whisk. Place milk in warm glass container then add sugar. Ferment for 8 hours in warm corner or you can use yogurt maker or place in an oven preheated to 110º and shut off the heat once you keep the container.

Almond yogurt

After the almond milk ferments, take out of the yogurt maker and place in the fridge to slow the fermentation process. Save some of this yogurt and reuse it as culture for next batch. This will last in fridge for about a month. If you want a thicker yogurt you can strain the yogurt in cheese cloth or nut milk bag for about an hour to drain off the liquid portion.

Then take off the thick yogurt from cheese cloth and mix it with spoon, you can be used as raw version of sour cream.

Add agave, fruit, honey, cinnamon, and vanilla powder for a nice yummy breakfast. This can be served with a Raw Burrito or you can make parfait. Do not freeze this yogurt.

Tips:

• I don’t recommend heating it up or bringing this to warm temperature in high speed blender. It is good to add warm water.
• Do not ferment with fruit. Just add fruit later.
• You can substitute Quinoa or any grain milk for almond milk.
• If you don’t have nut milk bag, you can use Nylon Paint strainer bags from HomeDepot or Lowe’s.
• Do not discard the liquid portion. You can use this to make cashew cheese and fermented drinks.

ngredients:

•  1 cup fresh papaya, cubed
• • 1 cup fresh pineapple cubes
• • 1 banana, sliced
• • 1 cup mango, cubed
• Canned Toddy palm slices or fresh if you have
• • 1 cup champagne grapes
• Fresh Watermelon cubes
• • 1 cup other exotic fruit such as dragon fruit, lychees, longans, or rambutans

(I used Dragon fruit)

• • Garnish: starfruit slices and any berries

DRESSING:

• • ½ cup coconut milk or water
• • ¼ cup cashews soaked
• • 1 Tbsp. freshly-squeezed lime or orange juice
• • 2 Tbsp. agave or sugar
•  

Preparation:

1. Blend dressing ingredients
2. Place all the fresh fruit in a mixing bowl.
3. Pour the dressing over and toss well to mix. I prefer to leave the salad dressing aside and have the guests serve as much as they like right before they eat.

Tip:

Drizzle lime juice on star fruit slices before garnishing so they won’t turn brown.

It will be eye pleasing if you present it in a Pineapple boat.

Ingredients:

• Besan(chickpea flour or Bengal gram flour)  – 1 cup (may replace it with besan ¾ cup and Almond powder ¼ cup)
• Ghee(clarified butter) – 1 cup
• Sugar – 1cup
• Water ½ cup

Procedure:

Keep one tray greased with ghee ready. Sift the flour and get rid of the lumps.Add sugar and water to thick bottom skillet. May add a pinch of turmeric to sugar syrup if you like golden hue.

Let the sugar syrup boil on medium flame. When it comes to one string consistency add basin in small portions about 3 batches for one cup. If you like it harder, add besan when sugar syrup comes to two string consistency. While adding besan with one hand, whisk with another hand. Use your dominant hand for whisking. Stir well until besan evenly mixes with sugar syrup. Some add baking powder at this point to get porous look. I don’t recommend it. Then add hot ghee about 3 tbsp at a time and mix well. You will see lot of bubbling. Keep stirring while this mixture is cooking on medium flame. This is the most important step. Do not leave it on the stove without stirring. Once this mixture starts to leave the sides of the pan and when you see pores in the mixture turn off the flame.

Pour this without any delay onto a pre-greased tray and level the surface with greased spatula or bottom of bowl. May garnish with sugar granules on top. After 5 minutes score desired shapes. Separate pieces only after 30 minutes to one hour. 

Tips:

• Make this recipe only in small batches because of lot of stirring involved.
• May replace half of ghee with any oil of your liking. Ghee should be boiling hot when you add.
• Do not use nonstick skillet.
• Flame should be only in medium. Do not be tempted to put it on high flame.
• Be attentive especially at the end, while adding ghee and besan.
• Tray must be filled with mysore pak to get enough depth to see darker shade in the middle when cut. Choose the tray size keeping this in mind.
• Mysore pak will be soft if you transfer this on to tray before it turns frothy.

Whole grains are low in sugar & fat, high in fiber and rich in several essential minerals and vitamins. Just for fun I made them with different flours; red millets and mixed rice and Bajra(pearl millet) flour.

Ingredients:

• Freshly ground Red millet flour, 2 cups  or
• Freshly ground, equal amounts of Bajra and Rice flour, 2 cups
• Powdered or grated Jaggery, 1 cup
• Cardamom powder, ½ tsp.
• Nutmeg powder ¼ tsp. (optional)

 For Stuffing:

• Coarsely Powdered Cashew nuts and Walnuts, 1 cup
• Pieces of Pitted dates, raisins or figs, 1 cup
• Dry coconut powder, 1tbsp.
• Poppy seeds, 1tbsp.

• Fry poppy seeds for one to two minutes on a griddle.
• Add dates and raisins or figs, add a little bit of water just to wet them; cook on low flame for few minutes. Add powdered cashew and walnuts and coconut at the end
• Mix all the stuffing ingredients and keep it aside.
• You should be able to make balls with stuffing.

Preparation:

• Add ½ cup of warm water to jaggery and let it melt, no need to heat it up; Strain the jaggery once it is dissolved in water to remove the impurities.

• Blend whole red millets in a dry jar of Vitamix blender. There is no need to fry them before blending.
• Take millet flour out of blender to a bowl.
• Slowly add jaggery water to Millet powder to make soft balls.
• Use your judgment and add water to the millet powder until the dough comes to soft consistency.
• If you add less water you will see cracks when you make balls and, after you steam it will be hard. If you add more water it will stick to your hand and it won’t steam properly.

• Bring it to pizza dough consistency.
• Divide the dough into small lemon size balls, flatten the ball and place stuffing in the center and bring the edges together to seal it.
• if you want to make earthen oil lamp shapes, bring more dough to top and mold it to lamp shape with your fingers.
• Arrange them in double boiler or on greased Idli plate and steam on high flame for 15-20 minutes.
•  

Tips:

• Secret to this recipe is fresh millet flour. If you use the store-bought flour, they come out slightly bitter, not even close to the delicious taste you get with freshly ground flour.
• To make these with rice flour, you can either make it with store-bought rice flour or homemade rice flour.
• To make rice flour at home, you need to soak brown rice overnight, drain and dehydrate for about 10 hours and grind it to in Vitamix dry jar.
• To make Bajra flour, just blend Bajra in vitamix. No need to fry or soak prior to blending.
• Do not buy any whole grain flours from the store because they go rancid very quickly.

Ingredients:

• Organic coconut milk 2 cups
• Yogurt 1 cup
• Coconut sugar or any sweetener 4-5 tbsp.(I used cane sugar this time to keep Popsicles in white color for patriotic theme, coconut  sugar will give light brown color)
• Shredded coconut, frozen or dry,2 tbsp.
• Blue berries
• Raspberries or strawberries

Preparation:

• Thinly slice strawberries. No need to cut blueberries.
• Mix all the ingredients except fruits.
• Taste the mixture and change the ingredient amounts to your liking before you pour in molds.
• Pour liquid in popsicle molds, up to ½ , add fruits
• Push with Popsicle stick and then fill the Popsicle stick, so fruits are evenly distributed on the Popsicle.
• Leave ¼ the inch space from the top of the mold for the liquid to expand.
• Gently tap the mold on countertop to remove any air bubbles.
• Freeze them overnight.

Removing popsicles from molds:

• Run the molds under hot tap water for about 20 seconds.
• Carefully and slowly remove the popsicle.
• If it is difficult to get the popsicle out, run the mold under hot water for some more time, ensuring not to melt the pops. If you are not serving right away, arrange them on a plate and freeze them back.

Ingredients:

• Thick yogurt 2 cups
• Sugar or honey 3-4 tbsp
• Saffron – 4 strands
• Dash of Cardamon powder
• 2 tbsp of coarsely powdered almonds(almonds)

Procedure:

1. Strain the yogurt in muslin cloth for 2 hours by hanging it to any
2. Whisk the strained yogurt.
3. Mix it with sugar, cardamon powder, crushed saffron and mix it with whisk.
4. Garnish with fruits. Chill before serving.

Tips:

• You can add fresh mango pulp if you like to make mango srikhand.
• Some people like to add 1 or 2 tbsp of sour cream to give a rich creamy texture.
• This goes well with puris (indian puff fried flat bread)

Thanks to my friend Vani Murthy for sharing this recipe.

I used cake decorating tool to drop into flowers on to dehydrating sheets. You may pipe through decorating bag or ziplock with corner snipped off. You can make initials, shapes, flowers and so forth.

Dehydrate 18-24hrs until the outsides are fairly hard, but they should still be chewy and transfer them to mesh sheets once they are solidified. If you want to store them for longer periods you might want to completely dry them for at least a day.

If you don’t have dehydrator, keep them in oven on cookie sheets at 200 degrees for about one hour to two hours depending on the consistency you like.

Watch Video :

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

1½-2 cups sugar

• 6 cups water
• pinch of salt
• 3 cups couscous
• 1 pint fresh cranberries

Preparation:

• Boil water for 5 minutes.
• When it is boiling add couscous, stirring constantly until thickened & all water absorbed
• Then add sugar and cranberries and stir for 5 minutes
• Shut off heat and set aside for 10 minutes, or until couscous has absorbed all the water
• Then pour the mix into 9×14 inch cake pan or a jello mold.
• Just rinse and do not dry the pan.
• Chill for about 2 hours.
• Cut into squares or invert cake onto a serving platter
• Top with Flaxfrosted cranberries or just garnish with nuts and raisins or top with fruit jam and fruit slices of your liking.

Glaze:(Optional)

Ingredients:

• 1 cup fruit juice
• 1 tablespoon Arrowroot powder

Procedure:

• Boil fruit juice
• Add arrowroot power that is melted in little water
• Brush it on the cake top and decorate with fruit, can also brush the fruit top for more glaze.

Variations:

1.This cake has Gluten, to make it gluten free, use Polenta(cornmeal) instead of couscous. For Polenta you need 3 cups of liquid for 2 cps of polenta.

2.Can use strawberries or blueberries instead of cranberries.

Ingredients:
1 cup of almond pulp
¼ cup of sesame seeds
¼-½ cup of sugar
3 tbsp flax seed powder(optional)

Procedure:

Hand mix all the ingredients and saute it in a thick bottom skillet for few minutes, till the sugar is melted. No need to use any oil. Once it comes to thick consistency remove from the heat, add raisins to the mixture at the end if you like. If your mixture is too loose you added more sugar. It shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes to bring the mixture to this consistency. Make balls immediately.

Red Millet kudumulu or Kolukkatis

BY DRSAILA · AUGUST 23, 2019

Happy Ganesh Chaturthi!

This is an easy and must have Naivedyam on a busy festive day of Ganesh Chaturthi. Red millets are low in sugar & fat, high in fiber and rich in several essential minerals and vitamins. Traditionally this recipe is made with rice flour, this modified version is much more healthier than rice kudumulu.

Ingredients:

• Red millet flour 2 cups, freshly ground
• Jaggery, powdered or grated or shaved,1 cup
• Cardamom powder, ½ tsp
• Nutmeg powder ¼ tsp (optional)

Preparation:

• Add ½ cup of warm water to jaggery and let it melt, no need to heat it up; Strain the jaggery once it is dissolved in water to remove the impurities.
• Blend whole red millets in a dry jar of vitamix blender. There is no need to fry them before blending. Take millet flour out of blender to a bowl.
• Slowly add jaggery water to Millet powder to make soft balls. Use your judgement and add water to the millet powder until the dough comes to soft consistency. If you add less water you will see cracks when you make balls and, after you steam it will be hard. If you add more water it will stick to your hand and it won’t steam properly.
• Bring it to pizza dough consistency.
• Divide the dough into small lemon size balls, flatten the ball with fingers to make finger shapes or into any flat shape of your choice. Arrange them in double boiler or on greased idli plate and steam on high flame for 15-20 minutes. 

Tips:

Secret to this recipe is fresh millet flour. If you use the store-bought flour, they come out slightly bitter, not even close to the delicious taste you get with freshly ground flour.

Basbousa

BY DRSAILA · DECEMBER 30, 2016

This is middle eastern recipe and an easy to make dessert for any occasion. If you want to make any shapes with cookie cutters this is a perfect recipe. 

Ingredients:

• Red millet flour 2 cups, freshly ground
• Jaggery, powdered or grated or shaved,1 cup
• Cardamom powder, ½ tsp
• Nutmeg powder ¼ tsp (optional)

Preparation:

• Add ½ cup of warm water to jaggery and let it melt, no need to heat it up; Strain the jaggery once it is dissolved in water to remove the impurities.
• Blend whole red millets in a dry jar of vitamix blender. There is no need to fry them before blending. Take millet flour out of blender to a bowl.
• Slowly add jaggery water to Millet powder to make soft balls. Use your judgement and add water to the millet powder until the dough comes to soft consistency. If you add less water you will see cracks when you make balls and, after you steam it will be hard. If you add more water it will stick to your hand and it won’t steam properly.
• Bring it to pizza dough consistency.
• Divide the dough into small lemon size balls, flatten the ball with fingers to make finger shapes or into any flat shape of your choice. Arrange them in double boiler or on greased idli plate and steam on high flame for 15-20 minutes. 

Tips:

Secret to this recipe is fresh millet flour. If you use the store-bought flour, they come out slightly bitter, not even close to the delicious taste you get with freshly ground flour.

Spaghetti squash Halwa – Festive Dessert

BY DRSAILA · NOVEMBER 12, 2015

Happy Diwali!!!

I feel immense gratitude while sharing this post today, thank you for all the love and support. Am sharing this perfectly healthy, yummy, mouth-watering, veggie festival sweet dish. Though I would not like to get addicted to this rich and heavenly dish, I would definitely want to indulge in it over festivals. Try on this easy dish and have a safe and Happy Diwali!!!

Ingredients:

• 1 spaghetti squash -about 7 cups (any type of squash/pumpkin or Ash gourd will work)
• Sugar -2 cups
• Cardamom powder -3 pods
• Ghee – 6 tbsp(clarified butter)
• Khoa (Concentrated milk solids, also called khoa or Mawa), grated from frozen stick about ½ cup, fresh khoa will taste even better.

Procedure:

1. Bake spaghetti squash first. (see below)
2. Lightly fry cashew nuts and raisins in 2 tbsp of ghee and set aside.
3. Heat 3 tbsp of ghee to a thick bottom pan and add cooked and scooped out squash, and stir it until water evaporates and it comes together leaving sides of the pan.
4. Add Khoa and stir it for 5 more minutes.
5. Add sugar and cardamom powder and stir it until it comes to halwa consistency.
6. Garnish with cashew nuts and raisins.
7. Serve hot and enjoy!

Shelf life of this halwa is 3-4 days. Lasts in the refrigerator for 2 weeks. If you make this with jaggery it tastes even better.

How to Bake Spaghetti squash:

1.      Punch 5-6 holes in squash with skewer first, so it won’t burst while baking.

2.      Place whole squash in baking pan close to its size.  Add half cup of water at the bottom of pan.

3.      Bake in oven at 400 for 30 minutes

4.      When it is cool enough to handle, cut it in half lengthwise and scoop out seeds and strings.

5.      Scrape gently with fork to get fiber out. It comes out like beautiful strands.

Oat and Peanut Butter Power Balls

BY DRSAILA · JULY 3, 2015

No tools, No bake energy balls are truly delicious. This high protein snack, for sure, will be your kids’ favorite. This can be your instant snack when you can’t think of anything else to make in a short time. This is a great snack option before you exercise.

Ingredients:

• Raw Old fashioned whole oats, 1 cup
• Rice crisp cereal, 1 cup
• Creamy peanut butter ¾ cup
• Honey or Agave nectar, 3-5 tbsp.
• Ground cinnamon powder, ¼ tsp.
• Vanilla extract, 1 tsp.
• Raisins, chopped nuts or chocolate chips (optional)

Preparation:

• To a cup of oats, add 4-5 tbsp. of honey, mix well with ladle.
• Now add peanut butter and raisins and mix well.  
• Refrigerate the mixture for one hour.
• Take about 1 tbsp. of this mixture and roll it between your palms to form small roundels.
• You can eat them right away or refrigerate it for a few more hours.

(Refrigerating the balls further helps retain their shape better. )

Patriotic Fruit Bites

BY DRSAILA · JULY 2, 2015

These star-spangled Red, white and blue fruit bites are perfect for July 4th.

Ingredients:

• Watermelon
• Apple or Pear or White radish or Jicama
• Blueberries

Preparation:

• Cut the watermelon into half.
• Make 1 inch slices and insert star shaped cookie cutters into flesh.
• Follow the same procedure with pears or apples, remember to dip them in salted lemon juice to retain white color.
• If you want white color to stay for longer period of time without browning, you might want to use white radish or Jicama.
• Decorated with one or two blueberries on the top.
• Use tooth pick to keep them together

Mixed whole-seed Truffles

BY DRSAILA · JULY 1, 2015

I make this delicious, high fiber, nutrient rich sweet snack often. Every time I cut cantaloupes and cucumbers, I save the seeds and sun-dry them. Even though this has small amount of jaggery, you don’t have to worry about any hidden syrups. This is a whole grain nutrient rich dessert. 

You can have 1-2 truffles without any guilt feelings. I would not recommend this to diabetics unless their sugar is under control.

Ingredients:

• ½ cup seeds(sundried, cantaloupe seeds, yellow cucumber seeds,sesame seeds)
• ½ cup powdered fried chana dal(bought fried chana dal in Indian store and powdered this at home)
• 3 tbsp flax seeds(powdered at home in coffee blender)
• 1¼ cup jaggery,shaved

Procedure:

• Fry all seeds except for flax seeds, on medium flame in a thick bottom large sauce pan until it lightly changes color and remove them from pan. Now add flax seeds to these roasted seeds
• Powder all the seeds in coffee grinder except sesame seeds.
• To make syrup from jaggery, add ¼ cup filtered water to 1 cup of shaved jaggery.
• Melt it on high flame, let it all melt in the hot water in the pan; at this point if you see any impurities in jaggery you might want to strain it and put it back in the sauce pan to make syrup.
• Once it is melted bring it to single string consistency.
• Almost looks like honey, test it by applying a little to your finger and rub it with thumb and slowly stretch. Stir it until crystals start to melt, use heavy bottom pan, stir constantly until you see foamy bubbly consistency. Watch out for splashing because it is very very hot. Pay attention to pan. You will see caramel starting to brown.
• At this point add seed powder and sesame seeds. Make truffles while it is hot.
• Keep it in air tight container, they last for 2 weeks at room temperature.

Tip:

If it crumbles up, wet your hand with water or sprinkle little water on mixture and make balls.

You can add little cardamom powder to the for flavoring.

Popped Corn and nut truffles

BY DRSAILA · JUNE 24, 2015

I make this delicious, high fiber,nutrient rich, sweet snack at least 3-4 times in a month. Even though this has small amount of jaggery, you don’t have to worry about any hidden syrups. This is a whole grain, nutrient rich dessert. You can have 1-2 pieces of this without any guilt feelings. I would not recommend this to diabetics. I like this with Sorghum better than Corn.

Ingredients:

• ½ cup Corn kernels or sorghum(jonnalu) kernels; (will make 2 cups of powder)
• ½ cup mixed nut powder, I used mixture of cashew nuts,&walnuts

• 1 cup jaggery

• Procedure:

• Fry the corn kernels on medium flame in a thick bottom large sauce pan. Once it starts popping close the lid. They will all finish popping in 1-2 minutes once it starts to pop.
• Remove the vessel from the flame.
• Powder the popped corn in a dry vitamix jar. You will get about 2 cups of fluffy powder for ½ cup of corn kernels you popped.
• Make a coarse powder from mixed nuts (no need to fry nuts).
• To make syrup from jaggery, add ¼ cup filtered water to 1 cup of shaved jaggery.
• Melt it on high flame, let it all melt in the hot water in the pan; at this point if you see any impurities in jaggery you might want to strain it and put it back in the sauce pan to make syrup.
• Once it is melted bring it to single string consistency.
• Almost looks like honey, test it by applying a little to your finger and rub it with thumb and slowly stretch. Stir it until crystals start to melt, use heavy bottom pan, stir constantly until you see foamy bubbly consistency. Watch out for splashing because it is very very hot. Pay attention to pan. You will see caramel starting to brown.
• At this point add mixture of nut and popped corn powder. Make truffles while it is hot.
• Keep it in air tight container, they last for a week at room temperature.

• Tip:

  If it crumbles up, wet your hand with water or sprinkle little water on mixture and make balls.

  If you are making this with corn, make sure it is not GMO corn. Because very few stores carry non GMO corn, I prefer to make this with sorghum.

  You can add little cardamom powder to the nut mix for flavoring.

  Watch Video :

Patriotic Fruit Bites

BY DRSAILA · JULY 2, 2015

These star-spangled Red, white and blue fruit bites are perfect for July 4th.

Ingredients:

• Watermelon
• Apple or Pear or White radish or Jicama
• Blueberries

Preparation:

• Cut the watermelon into half.
• Make 1 inch slices and insert star shaped cookie cutters into flesh.
• Follow the same procedure with pears or apples, remember to dip them in salted lemon juice to retain white color.
• If you want white color to stay for longer period of time without browning, you might want to use white radish or Jicama.
• Decorated with one or two blueberries on the top.
• Use tooth pick to keep them together

Jujube Squares

BY DRSAILA · JUNE 24, 2015

This is very tasty and healthy snack. If you have dehydrator at home, i would highly recommend to make this healthy snack and keep it handy instead of munching of unhealthy snacks.

I buy jujube from Asian market. In Indian/Telugu language Jujubes are called Regu pandlu.

2 cups of Jujubes(seeded and cut into small pieces, soak if they are dry)

¾ cup of almonds(soaked for 12 hours and dried on counter for about an hour)

1 large banana

Blend almonds in food processor to small pieces.

Then add jujubes and blend for two more minutes, then add banana and process for another two minutes.

Spread on teflex sheet, cut into squares and dehydrate for about 12 hours.