3rd Anniversary of My Hobby Lounge

Hi,

How are you all doing?

Was away for a quite long time and I missed  your wonderful posts. For health reasons, I had to stay away. Will slowly catch up with your posts soon.

My Hobby Lounge's completed its 3rd anniversary on 22nd of January 2014.

During the last few months my frequency of blogging has reduced considerably due to various reasons though I tried my level best to stay connected.

Hope you all had a fabulous 2013. I went through a roller coaster 2013 and now eagerly looking forward to a smooth sailing time in 2014.
 


Will try to keep you all entertained at My Hobby Lounge.


Thanks for your motivation and support.



Starting my journey into the 4th year....................

Pot Holder - beaded swirl centre flower

This is my first post in my blog using beaded crochet. Though I have done few similar works which were gifted away, they were done very long back. this is the first beaded crochet work that is photographed by me.

This interesting pattern I came across while surfing for some other project. When I search for something I get distracted by so many eye catching interesting crochet patterns which I normally collect in my project library. This is one such pattern the link of which is here

Tomato storage - freeze - easy to grate

With tomato prices still on higher side, I minised the use of tomato to recipes and they do come out well without it. Wherever tanginess is necessary, I just add a bit of amchur (dried mango) powder.

Refrigerating tomatoes extends its life to some extent.  Freezing extends it further. I cut them into halves and freeze them either in a plastic container or in a ziplock bag. Whenever required, I grate them and use.

Grating a frozen tomato is so easyyyyyyyyyy!!!! you can do that in a jiffy and use it for sambar, rasam, curries, rice and wherever required in special gravies. Infact I enjoy grating them as the frozen ones are so crisp. Less messy too.

Pori Urundai (Sweet puffed rice balls) for Karthigai Deepam

A crunchy sweet shaped into balls made specially as a offering to Lord Muruga (Karthik) on the day of Thiru Karthikai. But it makes a good snack at anytime of the year.

You can use any variety of puffed rice viz., avil pori, nel pori, normal pori.

avil pori

Nel Pori

pori (nomal one)

Ingredients :-

Puffed Rice - 4 cups
Jaggery - 1 Cup
Coconut - 2 tbsp (finely chopped)
Cardamom - 4 Nos.
Dry Ginger Powder - 1 tbsp
Ghee - 1 tsp

Preparation:-

• The ratio of puffed rice to jaggery is 4 : 1 (Take a measure of jaggery which is 1/4th of the puffed rice)

• Small preparations will ease the process. Put the puffed rice in a sieve to get rid of sand or small stones & black over roasted particles and put it on a plate & clean them.

• Break a coconut (use only fresh ones). Make thin slices and chop them thinly. 

• Powder the cardamom and Dry ginger.

• Grate / slice with knife, the jaggery, melt it and strain it to remove impurities / sand particles.

• In a small bowl or plate, pour little water & keep ready (to check consistency of jaggery)

• Making the preparation & keeping them handy will ease the process.

Procedure :-

•  In a Kadai, pour the melted & filtered Jaggery water, Chopped coconut and boil till it becomes thick & froth well. Drop a little of that in the water kept in a bowl. Take it out with your finger and roll it. If you are able to shape it round like a ball that is the perfect stage. If you throw it on a plate, it will make a sound. Turn off the flame.

• Add Dry Ginger Powder, Cardamom Powder, mix well

• Add the puffed rice (pori), mix well and let it stand for two minutes (to cool down a bit).

• Start dividing them into equal portion. If it sticks to your palm, just moisten your palm with just few drops of water (or dip your finger tip in water and spread it to you palm) and start doing. don't dampen just moist.

• Take out each portion and shape them into round balls (at this stage too, you may moisten your hands)

• To further tighten the balls, grease your fingers & palm with ghee and tighten them once again. 

• Perfect pori urundai (sweet puffed rice balls) is ready!

• Store them in an air tight container.

Brought the karthigai Deepam Prashad for you