Peanut butter n ghee nan khatai

I tried nan khatai erlier & did not post it. This time round, I tried a fusion of two -three recipes & tweaked them a little. I used peanut butter as also ghee. I mixed, whole wheat flour or atta with besan or chickpea flour ( chana dal flour ) & rava or sooji.

For the flour besan rava mix, inspiration was a You tube video . 

Since I had peanut butter ,I googled for nan khatai making use of peanut butter. I got two peanut butter cookie recipes .One used eggs & another was eggless. Both recipes by the same food blogger.

I added flax seed meal as I was making eggless nan khatai. And I used ghee & peanut butter in equal amounts.

Ingredients : 1 cup whole wheat flour, 1/2 cup chana dal flour, 1/2 cup rava,1 cup powdered sugar 1/4 cup peanut butter, 1/4 cup ghee, 1 tbsp flax seed meal.

Method : Add 3-4 tbsp water to 1 tbsp flax seed meal.Mix nicely & keep aside in a small bowl. Let this be kept aside for 15-20 minutes.

Preheat oven to 200 degrees centigrade for 10 minutes.

Mix chana dal flour, rava & whole wheat flour nicely with a spoon or whisk. keep aside.

Mix peanut butter & ghee nicely. Add powdered sugar to it. Mix sugar with ghee & peanut butter nicely.

Add this ghee peanut butter-sugar mixture to flour rava mix. Mix nicely.

After 15-20 minutes of soaking flax seed meal in water, pour the soaked flax seed meal water mix into the dough  mix containing flour-rava-sugar-peanut butter ghee.Add  water little by little if the dough is crumbly. Dough must be such that small cookies can be shaped by hand out of the dough.

Shape small cookies from the dough. Put the cookies on butter paper. Put the butter paper on to a tray.Bake them at 200 degrees centigrade for 20-30 minutes( in total after baking them 2-3 times ). I baked them in two trays in the oven...one below the other. So ,the baking was improper. I had  to bake many times And some got browned a tad too much & 2-3  got burnt . Baking in an electric oven is unfamiliar & so I erred. I forgot to bake the cookies from below & when, I tried to do that, I went overboard.Some got browned to chocolate brown shade & 2-3 got burnt.

The cookies turned out somewhat chewy. My dad felt they were not crisp. Sweetness was okay.

Tip : I forgot to add baking powder and or baking soda. I skipped adding elachi or cinnamon powder.

The cookies can be garnished with almond or cashews before baking & they turn out to be almond or cashew embedded cookies . Or any dry fruit of choice .

Next time around, I hope to bake better cookies ..crispy ones ! 

Apple Halwa.

I had got leftover unsweetened apple sauce. This sauce was brought from store by my teen for making cakes eggless. I thought why not make a sweet dish using this apple sauce & yet, I wanted to avoid cakes , cookies etc.I googled & came across this apple halwa. I looked up one more recipe .My recipe is a combination of both these recipes & maybe a little bit of some tweaking of the recipes.

Ingredients : 1 cup unsweetened apple sauce ( apples can be used as well as in this recipe ) , 1 cup sugar, 1 tbsp ghee, 1 tsp ghee for greasing the plate, assorted dry fruits chopped, 1 tsp cardamom powder.

Method : Take a thick kadhai & add ghee. As it melts, add the unsweetened apple sauce. Keep gas on slow flame throughout the recipe . Keep frying the apple sauce till it tarts thickening as it loses moisture. Please check so that it does not get stuck to the bottom of the kadhai

Add sugar to the thickened apple sauce ghee mix in the kadhai. The sugar will start melting .Keep stirring so that all ingredients mix nicely.Add the chopped dry fruits into the mix. Mix all nicely.  Every now & then give a good stir to the contents.As the mix in the kadhai gets thickening again, be careful.It will soon start leaving the sides of the kadhai.  Let it be on the gas stove.

Grease a plate with ghee all over.

Put off the gas. Pour the thickened halwa into the grease plate. Spread it evenly with a bottom of the katori. Let it cool.Then cut into desired shapes & serve.

My halwa became too sweet Next time, I would be using less sugar ...maybe 3/4 cup  sugar for 1 cup apple sauce or maybe even half cup sugar would be apt.

Pinneapple gojju.

In our religious mutts & temples ,especially mutts in particular, Pinreapple gojju is one of the items in the prasadam feast. I love the sweet tangy taste of the gooju . So I thought of trying out this recipe which I googled.

I had brought four slices of pineapple from the market. Its in  season now & one can see many handcarts selling 4 slices of pineapple in packet for the price of 20 bucks ! I used up 2 pineapple slices for making pineapple sheera .The remaining two sices I used up while making this gojju. I wanted to try & see how the rcie turns out in my hands .So just two slices.

Ingrdients : 2 slices of pineapple ( peeled ) , 1 tbsp jaggery, 1 tbsp fresh dessicated coconut, 1/8 Methi seeds, 1 tsp urad dal, 2 tsp Sesame seeds ( used white unpolished ), 4 dry red chillies ( used 2 byadgi & 2 lavangi chillies ) , 1/ 2tsp mustard seeds,  1/4 tsp hing, 1/4 tsp haldi, 1 tsp oil,5-6 curry leaves , 1 tsp lemon juice, salt to taste.

Method : Roughly chop the pineapple piece & let them be cooked in a little water & hing.  Add jaggery to the pineapple pieces as they are getting cooked

Meanwhile dry roast methi seeeds, sesame seeds, dry red chillies & urad dal all separately. Alternatively  little bit of oil can be used to fry sesame seeds & methi seeds ...both separately. Keep aside all roasted ingredients. Take all the roasted ingredients & add fresh desiccated coconut to it. Make a paste of all these items with some little water .Pour the paste into the pinapple water jaggery mix. It must be boiling now.

Prepare vagar by popping mustard seeds & curry leaves. Pour this vagar over the coconut curried pineapple mix. Add lemon juice. Mix nicely. The pineapple gojju is ready .Serve with rice and or rotis !

I used both lavangi & byadgi mirchis as byadgi mirchi are hardly pungent & lavangi mirchis are pungent. If you don't want pungency, you can use all byadgi mirchis .If you want gojju to be pungent, you can use all lavangi mirchis.

The gojju tasted great. Even my parents said that !