Vellam aval (jaggery poha)

Ingredients:

Aval (poha) -2 cups

Jaggery - 11/2 cup

elaichi (cardomom) -6-7

Cashew nuts for garnishing -7-8

Raisins -few.

Ghee - 1Tblsp

Method:

Wash the aval (poha) nicely in water and leave it for some time without water.(It will become soft with the washed water itself)

Take a kadai wash the vellam (jaggery) nicely and the put it in the kadai with little water.

The jaggery starts melting little by little and when it has melted fully and become a syrup, start adding the soaked poha to it.

Now start mixing thoroughly and leave it to cook for some time.

When it is cooked,take another kadai add some ghee to it and fry the cashew nuts and then the add the raisins to it.

Now add the fried cashew with raisins to the jaggery aval.

The vella aval is ready and hot to eat.

Kuzhi Appam

Appam is a special item made for festivals like Kartigai deepam where we light kuthi valakus and lots of mud ahals with diyas and also for avania vattam (the changing of the sacred thread for men) and also for some festivals. You can also make it whenever you feel like having it.
This is a sweet made out of jaggery and liked by everyone. It is poured into small moulds called the appa karal. This is our favourite and we just can't stop having one after another,since they are also small in size. Especially children will love it.


Ingredients:
Raw rice -1cup
Jaggery -1 cup
Banana - 1
Cardomoms (elaichi) -5-6

Method:
1.Soak the raw rice in water for an hour.
2.Grind the rice with banana and jaggery withou adding any water.
3.Remove the ground batter and add cardomoms and mix.
4. Take an appa karal which has 8 moulds and pour 1/4 tsp oil in each mould and pour little batter into each mould how much ever it can hold and cook it.
5.After one side cooks, turn it the other sideand cook it.
6. Let it cook on slow fire.
7. Now after both the sides are cooked thoroughly remove the appams from the appa karal and serve them hot.