Pomegranate Fruit cups

These colorful mini cups are perfect for holiday entertaining and kids will love them.

Serves 6-8 people
Ingredients:

1 pkg. Raspberry or cherry gelatin
2 cups POM wonderful 100% pomegranate juice
2 tbsp POM Wonderful fresh pomegranates
2 tbsp chopped walnuts
2 tbsp chopped pineapple
2 tbsp chopped apple
2 tbsp cranberry
8 foil muffin cups
Muffin pan





Preparation:

Boil 2 cups of POM 100% Pomegranate juice. In a bowl pour in the gelatin and boiled juice. Stir for 2 minutes until completely dissolved.
Stir in Fresh pomegranates, apple, pineapple, walnuts and cranberry.
Spoon into foiled muffin cups, place then into a muffin pan to keep up the shape and refrigerate for 2-3 hours until firm. Remove liners and serve.



Wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving.

I am sending this to POM Wonderful Contest and Foodie Blogroll contests hosted by The Leftover Queen.
This also goes to Vegan Ventures-2 by Suganya

Berry-licious Pomegranate Smoothie

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups POM Wonderful 100% pomegranate juice, chilled
1 cup mandarin oranges in light syrup, chilled
8 ounces low-fat frozen blueberry yogurt or plain vanilla yogurt and 1 cup fresh blueberries
1 cup ice cubes
Orange slices or fresh mint leaves, for garnish









Preparation

Place pomegranate juice and mandarin oranges in the freezer for about 30 minutes before starting the recipe.
In a blender add pomegranate juice, mandarin oranges, blueberry yogurt and ice. Blend until smooth.
Pour into tall glasses and garnish with orange slices or mint leaves and serve.

I am sending this to POM Wonderful Contest and Foodie Blogroll contests hosted by The Leftover Queen.

Thank you Foodbuzz!!

I am very happy to share the NEWS that I won this beautiful Juice fountain in foodbuzz weekly raffle. Thank you foodbuzz!! I and my family are very happy to receive this lovely "Breville Compact Juice Fountain", which we never imagined of.



I had received an email that I won the raffle and that I was soon going to get a juice fountain. The very next evening a huge box was at my door as a great surprise. I was so exited to open the box. My husband was not ready to believe that I had got this huge Juicer as a gift. Foodbuzz made it possible!!

I am very happy be a part of foodbuzz which is a beautiful community of foodies around the world. Wonderful recipes to learn and share , restaurant reviews, meeting new foodie friends, visiting their blogs and above all celebrating food are some of the awesome features of foodbuzz.

Some More Diwali Treats:)

Boorelu- A traditional Andhra Delicacy made during festivals.

I wanted to make boorelu ever since I saw it in Sailu's blog. I tried it for this Diwali , Thanks to Sailu for the wonderful masterpiece recipe. It came out very well.

Ingredients:

For batter:
1/2 cup black gram dal/urad dal
1 cup rice salt to taste

For Filling:
1 cup bengal gram dal/channa dal
1 cup sugar or 1 cup grated jaggery
1/4 cup fresh grated coconut
3/4 tsp cardamom powder
1 tsp Ghee (clarified butter)
oil for frying

Preparation:

Soak rice and black gram dal for about 4 hours. Drain the water from the black gram dal and rice. Grind into a thick dosa batter like consistency adding very little water. Add little salt and mix well. Set it aside.

Cook bengal gram with just enough water to cover the dal. The dal should be cooked and should hold its shape. Drain any left over water from the dal after its cooked. Add jaggery or sugar to the dal and blend them together till it folds well.In a heavy-bottomed pan add ghee, the dal paste and cook till the extra water from the sugar dries off. Stir continuously as the dal tends to stick to the pan. Turn off heat. Add grated coconut, cardamom powder to the paste and fold. Make small balls as shown in the picture.

Heat oil in a wide heavy bottomed vessel for deep frying the balls. Dip each ball in the batter to coat evenly. Deep fry till golden brown. The shelflife for boorelu is 2-3 days but it disappeared in my house within hours .

Badam /Almond Halwa

This Halwa is one of my own experiments which turned out to be a success.

Ingredients:

1 cup Almonds (Soaked for an hour and peeled)
1/2 cup condensed milk
3 tbsp ghee (clarified butter)
1/3 tsp cardamom powder
pinch of saffron strands for garnish
raisins for garinsh

Preparation:

Grind the soaked and peeled almonds into thick paste adding very little water or milk. In a heavy bottomed pan melt ghee and add this paste.The heat should be in medium. To this add condensed milk and fold.Keep stirring until the mixture leaves the sides of the pan.You can see the ghee and the oil coming out of the halwa .The mixture will completely stop sticking to the pan. Add cardamom and transfer the halwa to a ghee coated plate. Garnish with raisins and saffron strands.

This recipe is quite easy and simple to make with very limited ingredients.Once the halwa cools down you can cut them into squares and store it in fridge.

I am contributing this to All That Glitters-Sugar High Friday hosted by my dear friend Susan and created by Jennifer of The Domestic Goddess.

Chocolate Burfis

This burfi is my mom's trademark . I used to tease her when ever festivals were nearing and she used to shop for Khoya/mawa. Now that she lives away from me, I miss her and try out her recipes:). It is a quite simple recipe and can be made in minutes.

Ingredients:

1 cup Fresh grated coconut
1/2 cup chocolate powder
1/2 cup condensed milk or Khoya or both
3-4 tbsp ghee
1/3 tsp cardamom powder
Nuts for garnish

Preparation:

In a heavy bottomed pan add ghee, grated coconut, condensed milk, khoya and fold well.

If you don't find khoya you can do with condensed milk alone but the burfis will be little soft so you have to set them in fridge. With Khoya, burfis get some good square shape.

Well after stirring the mixture for a while, you can see that they leave the sides of the pan.The mixture should be transfered into a ghee coated plate and spread evenly. After it cools down, cut them into squares, garnish and serve. This also can be stored in fridge.

All this goes to JFI- Festival treats hosted by Srivalli.

I am sending the boorelu to Ruth's Kitchen Experiments .
All these Festive sweets go to Ivy's World food day event. I want to thank God for what ever he has blessed me with.

I am sending all these to Aparna's diverse Kitchen celebrating her Blog Anniversary too.

Nutritious Legume Chaat!!

I came up with this recipe because my two wonderful friends are into this event 'Susan & Sra'. Susan is the brainchild of the lovely event My Legume Love Affair. Sra is hosting it for the month of October. I simply could not resist myself from contributing :)

I combined a few legumes, veggies and spices to make a hot and sweet chaat which was a great combination with our evening tea.

Ingredients :
10 small puris (pani puris)
2-3 tbsp baby lima beans (frozen)
2-3 tbsp Speckled butter beans (frozen)
3-4 tbsp Blackeye peas (frozen)
3-4 tbsp Corn (frozen)
3 tbsp chopped Cucumber
3 tbsp chopped Tomato
3 tbsp chopped onions
Freshly chopped Cilantro
1 tbsp mint- cilantro chutney (home made or store bought)
1 tbsp date- tamarind chutney ( home made or store bought)
(if you don't have these chutneys you can simply use lemon juice and chaat masala)



Preparation:

Mix up all the three beans in a microwave bowl, sprinkle 2-3 tbsp water and heat it up for 25- 30 seconds in the microwave. If you feel that the beans are not soft enough to eat you can cook it for some more time depending on the microwave. Try to keep the shape of the beans.

Mix up all the other ingredients with the beans, fill it into the puris and serve with tea :). It makes a delicious and nutritious evening time snack.

Dussehra and Diwali Treats!

Wish You all an advance happy Diwali and belated Dussehra.

I know I am a little late for navratri recipes. I wanted to share this beautiful Goddess Durga's picture with all of you.

Laddu Parade

Rava Laddu /Semolina Laddu




Ingredients :

1 cup Rava (sooji)/ semolina (makes 5-6 laddus)
1/2 cup sugar (you can add more if desired)
1/4 cup Ghee (clarified butter)
1/4 cup cashew nuts
1/4 cup Raisins
3 tbsp milk



Preparation :

Fry the cashew nuts and raisins in 2tbsp of ghee until golden color and keep separately.
Roast the semolina in a heavy bottomed pan on medium heat until slight golden color.
To this add ghee and sugar. Fold them together. Also add the fried cashew nuts and raisins.
Combine the 3 tbsp milk, fold together and remove the mixture from the pan in to a plate.
If you feel the heat is bearable by your hands, make small balls (laddus) out of the mixture.
The traditional way for making rava laddus is different and is a little difficult.
It requires thick sugar syrup in which the Semolina is poured and then made into balls.

The following are some of my previous recipes which I would like to combine in this Diwali treat. Click on the name to go to the recipe.

Besan Laddu

Coconut Laddu

Dryfruit Laddu

Snacks

Murukku/Jantikalu

The following recipes are famous for Durga pooja in Kolkata, West Bengal. Without Sandesh and Malpua there is no Navratri festival in Kolkata.

Sandesh

Pineapple Malpua

Carrot Halwa / Gajar ka Halwa

Gunjiyas/ Kajjikayalu/ Somasi / coconut pie



This is my contribution to JFI- Festival treats hosted by Srivalli and Yummy Festival Feast - Diwali by Pallavi

My Kitchen Garden this 'Summer' was fun!!

I had loads of fun this summer which I thought of sharing with you pals. Parents were here from India, and Chicago is a great place to hang around. We went to lot of sightseeing before Diya was born.

I had created a beautiful kitchen garden in my patio with tomato, jalapeno and mint. All were a great success. I enjoyed a yield of almost more than 10lbs of tomatoes and 4 lbs of Jalapenos. Here are some pictures.

My Mom enjoying the first harvest of cherry tomatoes.








Apple Mint flowers






My Patio

This is little Diya's hands holding Rakhi when she was 12 days old and It was her first Raksha Bandhan celebration with her little brother Jai.

Breaking the silence!

Thankyou so much to all of you, for all your love, concerned enquries and patience. It is high time that I reveal the reason for being so quite for so long.
The good news is, we are blessed with a Beautiful Princess.
My little lamb's name is "Diya".
She started twinkling in our life from August 4th on.
I may not post very frequently but will be saying hi to you all once in a while:)

Neivedyam turns "1" Today!!

Today Neivedyam is celebrating its first anniversary!!

It was a year ago, while looking for some recipes that I stumbled across the world of food blogging. I was mesmerized and stunned to see a huge community of food blogs. I did not know what blogging was or there was something called food blogging. A few weeks passed by, afternoons of discovering more and more blogs led to the day where I decided to start my own blog. I remember the first comment I got, the blood rush I had and still have, every time I get a comment. Each and every five minute I used to check for comments. Since then, it feels so good every time I hit the publish button to share my kitchen adventures with the world. I feel so overwhelmed when I hear that people are trying my recipes and enjoying them.

This journey about food blogging has been a wonderful experience and I feel happy for all that it has given me. I have met some very talented, wonderful and lovely friends. So many great cooks, delicious recipes from different continents. Apart from recipes it is wonderful to share so many other thoughts and information. I feel happy and privileged to be part of this loving community.

I thank my fellow bloggers for being so supportive no matter what. Your comments and suggestions mean a lot to me. I also thank the non-bloggers and silent visitors of Neivedyam.

The best part about this blog was when I moved to Chicago. So many friends who knew me through Neivedyam came forward to help me. They made me feel that I was not a stranger. I even got to meet a couple of them. Thanks to Desi momz club.

These days when I go through my blog, I don’t believe my eyes, that I put all this effort on each and every post!! This is because I feel really lazy to resume. I am not sure when I will be back, but will quietly keep trespassing all the blogs for its delicious treats.