Healthy snacking - Ragi (finger millet) Laddu

My baby girl is now 10 months old. Its about time I started seriously thinking about shedding the extra kilos and the layers of blubber that pregnancy left me with. I have never gone gymming or tried exercise. The most I will do willingly is go on a walk for maybe an hour or so.  I've almost completely stopped ordering junk food for meals and gulping down aerated drinks without a second thought. Its been ages since I deep fried anything at home or ate any deep fried stuff bought thoughtlessly. I've replicated my favorite junk food recipes at home so that even if I do eat burgers, pizza or kachoris, its all home made. MUCH better and healthier than ordered stuff. So mayonnaise and cheese spread gets replaced with home made low fat, protein rich hummus. Soups made at home so I need not worry about MSG or high sodium content. I have 32 sweet teeth and that does not help my cause. WHAT do I do about the damn sweet tooth teeth ?! I find better alternatives for chocolates and traditional calorie laden sweets of course!

So here I present...drum roll please.. RAGI LADDUS. An extremely nutritious, filling sweet that you wont feel guilty eating. Goes without saying that you should not wolf down a dozen, that would just defeat the purpose. Never mind what I did with my trial batch..

Ragi / Finger millet is a rich source of Calcium, Iron, Protein, Fiber, Calcium and other minerals. The cereal has low fat content and contains mainly unsaturated fat. Finger Millet contains amino acids which help in bringing down cholesterol level and controlling blood sugar level. 

I used jaggery instead of sugar as it is a healthier option. Sesame seeds and peanuts helped me avoid the use of ghee completely. Its good to know something that tastes so good is also nutritious. But surely you don't need to know all this after the first bite..You'll only want to eat more.

Here is a list of all the goodness that goes into it:

Ragi/Nachani flour - 1 cup

Grated Jaggery - 1/2 cup

Dessicated Coconut/ Coconut powder - 1/4 cup

Peanuts, roasted - 1/2 cup

Sesame seeds, roasted - 2 tbsps

Elaichi/Cardamom powder - 1 tsp

Milk (optional) - few spoons

Method:

Dry roast the Ragi flour until it smells roasted. Be careful to stir constantly, yeah, work those biceps, because  the flour burns quickly. To the roasted flour add roasted peanuts, sesame seeds and coconut powder. Heat the mixture so that the coconut powder gets slightly brown. Now grind this mixture into a fine powder. Spread it on a plate. Add elaichi/cardamom powder to the mixture. Add grated jaggery to this mixture and work it into a crumbly texture. Be careful if the mixture is hot as the jaggery becomes sticky and hot when added to the hot flour mixture.

Ragi laddus shaped without milk

Now there are two ways I rolled out the laddus, just to know which method I will use in future. For the first method, I rolled out the mixture into balls while it was hot, right after adding jaggery. I found it extremely  tricky to do without burning my hand. Also, once the laddus cooled and I bit into them they were very crumbly and messy. I couldnt bear the hot sticky mixture for long so I used a modak mould to shape it. Not much success, as you can see in the picture. Oh well. Thats how I learnt an alternate way to roll the laddus. A better method.

Ragi laddus shaped with milk

For the second method, I let the whole mixture cool and added grated jaggery. Once the jaggery is worked into the flour, I added a little milk to the mixture. Very little at a time, just enough to bind the mixture and make it a pliable texture. This slightly moist mixture was easily rolled into laddus. These are the darker, round ones in the picture. They taste better and aren't messy to eat. Adding milk may reduce their shelf life but hey, these wont lie around untouched that long anyway.

HAPPY SNACKING!!

Donuts!! Glorious DONUTS!!

I absolutely LOVE donuts. Who can resist donuts?!! And WHY would you deprive yourself of such a yummy thing? Its like biting into a soft cloud of light sweetness. With or without frosting, I could gobble them with my eyes shut even if you wake me up at 3 am. I cant rush to Mad Over Donuts whenever I feel like it. I’d shamelessly eat into my retirement savings if I were to give in to every craving like that. So whats the next best thing ? HOME MADE DONUTS, of course!

As with every dish I decide to try, I read and read and read recipies until I found the PERFECT one for me. EGGLESS. I saw a couple of recipies for Baked Donuts too..but hey, Deep fried is what I dig. Ya dig? (Sorry! Blame the sugar rush…)

Please excuse the picture quality. Either that, or gift me a nicer phone with a better camera. I cannot waste the calories I blissfully gained from these donuts on fetching the digicam, taking pics, then uploading them. Naah. I'm sorry about the weird shapes too..I just couldnt waste any of that awesome doughnut mixture! But the recipie, I promise you, is perfect. Guess what the secret ingredient is? POTATO!! YES, one mashed boiled potato gives these donuts the smooth texture you’ll love. If you haven’t worked with yeast before it could be a pain in the business end to proof the yeast..fancy way of saying that the yeast wont do what its supposed to do if you don’t treat it right. It may take a few attempts to get it right, so browse a few nice pictures of donuts to get yourself motivated to keep going..

Heres what you’ll need :-

1 1/3 cups warm milk,
1 packet active dry yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons)
2 tablespoons butter
2/3 cup sugar
1 boiled potato, mashed smooth without lumps
5 cups all-purpose flour or maida
A pinch or two of nutmeg (jaiphal), freshly grated
1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 1/2 cups sugar, powdered works better
1 tablespoon cinnamon powder

Method:-

Place 1/3 cup of the warm milk in a bowl. Stir in the yeast and set aside for five minutes or so. Be sure your milk isn't too hot or it will kill the yeast. Keep this bowl aside in a warm place. I placed it in an oven that was off but still warm from being used a few minutes previously.

Once the yeast-milk mixture becomes frothy, stir it alongwith the butter and sugar into the remaining cup of warm milk. With a fork, stir in flour, mashed potato, nutmeg, and salt. Knead the mixture. You want the dough to pull away from the sides of the mixing bowl and eventually become supple and smooth. Add milk or flour as required to get this non sticky, soft consistency. Turn it out onto a floured counter-top, knead a few times and shape into a ball.

Transfer the dough to a buttered or oiled bowl, cover it with a cloth and put in a warm place. Let it rise for an hour or until the dough has roughly doubled in size.

Punch down the dough and roll it out 1/2-inch thick on your floured countertop. I used a drinking glass to stamp out circles. Stamp out the smaller inner circles using a smaller cutter. I used the handle of a spoon used in my mixer ginder. Don’t throw away the precious bits! They can be fried just like the rest of the donuts.Cover the donuts with a clean cloth and let rise for another 45 minutes.

If you are the calorie counting type, you could bake these at 170 C for around 10 minutes and get out of my face..I tried and preferred the deep fried ones instantly. Make sure that the oil isn’t too hot. You could test it by dropping a little ball of dough into the oil. It should come up to the surface fairly quickly.

Drain excess oil and while the donuts are fairly hot, dust on powdered sugar mixed with cinnamon powder or plain powdered sugar.

I couldn’t wait to eat them as soon as I could bite into them, so the cream cheese frosting never happened. If you search for frosting recipies, you’ll find many. I just loved them as they were. 

Makes 1 1/2 dozen lovely donuts.