The whole universe is aware that this blog desperately needs a revival. There are no valid excuses for not blogging – however speaking for myself I can confidently say that I am just plain lazy and procrastination is my best friend. In the many days, months, years that we have been away, WordPress has become unrecognizable, the sidebars have become stale, the recipe index next to useless and requests for recipes have bloated to mammoth proportions. I have stopped baking (almost) and started cooking mostly the traditional fare, become a mother, lost lots of weight, started to read voraciously and overall, become older and wiser. Amma has become a grandmother, discarded an entire organ (the uterus) from her body and become an ace at using the internet.
We have certainly not run out of ideas or recipes. While there are several non traditional recipes on this blog, with this new start we hope to get the blog back to its roots – cataloging more of the traditional recipes. We hope to focus more on our heirloom cuisine, share more in depth about the tradition of cooking we love so much. We also hope to clean up the recipe index, update tags and categories and make it easier for all our readers to search for recipes.
Payathamaa Urundai is one of the few Indian sweets that is easy for beginners since it does not require one to be bothered by the sugar syrup consistency.
Ingredients
- Moong dal (split) – 1 cup (pictured below)
- Sugar – 1 cup
- Ghee – ½ cup
- Cashewnuts – 1 tbsp ( broken)
- Raisins – 1 tbsp
- Cardamom – 4 pods
Method
- Dry roast moong dal until it turns light brown. Stir continuously so that it is evenly roasted. Allow to cool.
- Remove cardamon from the pods. Grind sugar and cardamom to a fine powder.
- Grind the roasted moong to a fine powder.
- Mix the powdered moong dal and sugar in a bowl.
- Toast the cashewnuts in ghee till they turn golden. Add the raisins and toast on a low flame.
- Add the roasted cashewnuts and raisins to the moong dal powder. Mix well and shape into balls.
OMG you are back!!! I’ve missed you! How are you? Valli and I were just talking about you… where are you? do msg me your # and I’ll call… are you up for doing lunch? 🙂
LOL. You literally jumped. I have been secretly reading your blog. There was this beautiful looking bread with a name that sounded like Christopher Columbus, I have been meaning to congratulate you for that for like maybe a year now. How are both kids doing? We must certainly meet for lunch.
Yeh! Good to see you back Laks. It has been so long. I have been bad. promised Lathamma to call, but never did. Tell her I am sorry and will do that soon. My in laws were here, so life has been busy. 🙂
Siri
..and with Vara Lakshmi Vratham coming up, there couldn’t be a better timing for this Urundai..
Yayyyyyyyyy!!!! Glad to the post in this blog! Great beginning and looking fwd to some more….Hugs to u for kick starting, love to the little girl and lots of tight and warm hugs to athe granmom 🙂
Hi L, good to see your post after a long time. I have disappeared too for a long time, no energy to blog! 🙂
Have a great time there, enjoy your toddler See you soon hopefully back here.
Asha.
nice looking urundais and hope to see such great posts regularly !
There was no weight to lose……….. so leave that part out.
Glad to see you back!
@Siri – We must meet up when I come down to Bangalore.
@DK – Got kicked in the butt by a friend of mine, had to start.
@Asha – Next up is a post on Coconuts, I am spacing posts, one per week.
@Priya – Those who know me well, also know that I am highly irregular. But I promise there will be a pattern to blogging, however erratic it may seem.
@Raaga – Two years back, I thought the same. How much did I have to lose? But by merely playing with my daughter I have actually lost 6kgs, dropped inches, my pants don’t stay up without a belt! I fit into jeans that I used 10 years ago. And yet I am not fatigued, on the contrary stronger than before.
Welcome back, Lakshmi……
It is wonderful to see that you are back to blogging. I’ve been a regular reader and have checked many times over the last several months, hoping to see a post on your blog. Hope you and your mother are well. Looking forward to all your traditional posts.
Ah! Anytime I need an Iyengar recipe quickly I turn to your blog. Thanks from another Iyengari.
My3
Ah! Wokay, wokay. Will keep posting more.
Hey all the time you chatted and I never thought you started blogging..:)..just checked all your posts in super speed rate..pictures are lovely ok, so there is no need to improve on them..LOL
This looks mouth wateringly yummy!!