Highlights of the week - 14 to 20 Jan

This week was a leftovers kind of week. There was undhiyo and the rest of the items leftover from the family dinner on Sunday. My MIL had also brought over her signature aloo-gobhi, chole, boondi raita and gajar ka halwa for us. We had all of these for 3 days.

roti, rice, dhokla, kadhi, undhiyo, jalebi

roti, rice, jalebi, boondi raita, chole, aloo gobhi

methi roti, rice, kadhi, boondi raita, aloo gobhi

The daughter took methi paratha one day, potato sabji the next day, and pizza roti, featuring multi-grain roti and homemade pizza sauce after that.

sandwich, nuts,jalebi, ketchup, methi paratha, salad

bread and egg, til gul ladoo, roti, potato bhaji, nuts and salad

multigrain pizza roti, salad, sandwich, nuts

15th January was Makar Sankranti. I had made tilgul vadis a few days ago. But the daughter wanted til gul ladoos. I find it impossible to eat store-bought til ladoos if they are hard. Our local store had run out of these ladoos by evening. So I made them at home. I melted a teaspoon of ghee. Then I added 100 gm of natural jaggery cut into very small pieces. I use all natural jaggery without any chemicals. This time I ordered this from Amazon and it is quite good. As soon as it melts, turn off the flame add 100 gm of til, 1/4 cup of roasted peanut powder, 1/2 tsp each of cardamom and nutmeg powders. Mix everything together and transfer it to a plate. Wet your palms and use a spoon to scoop up some of the mixture to make ladoos. Using a spoon helps to keep the size uniform and also prevents burning your fingers trying to scoop the hot mixture. The ladoos need to be made while the mixture is hot so using a spoon and wet hands will protect you from burning.
These ladoos were very easy to bite into and taste awesome.

til ladoos

After all the cooked leftovers were dealt with, I tackled the leftover vegetables in the fridge. I had small amounts of papdi, tuver and peas which I did not use in the undhiyo. So I cooked them into a sabji with some potatoes, tomatoes, garlic and sabji masala.

multigrain roti, mix papdi sabji, green amla chutney, sweet amla chutney, cucumbers and rice, with curd

On Friday, I made a Nutella substitute for the daughter. I use a mix of almonds and walnuts instead of hazelnuts for the nutella because those are more readily available here. Roast 1 cup of nuts (a mix of almonds and walnuts) in a pan on low flame till they darken just a bit. Melt 1/2 cup of chopped chocolate in the microwave. Use 30 second intervals and stir after every 30 seconds. It should be done in less than 2 minutes. Take the cooled nuts in a food processor or a powerful mixer, and grind to a paste like consistency. Add 1 tbsp cocoa powder, 2 tbsp oil, 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, 1/2 cup of powdered sugar and 1/2 tsp of salt. Grind to smooth consistency. Add the melted chocolate and mix. Store in the fridge for 2 months.

homemade nutella using almonds and walnuts

homemade nutella using almonds and walnuts

On Saturday, I tried to make gul poli. The stuffing turned out to be a bit of a disaster but I was able to rescue it and make decent gul polis.

gul poli, cabbage potato and peas sabji, kadhi and rice

On Sunday, I made methi matar malai with tandoori rotis without the tandoor. I followed this recipe for the dough, but used only whole wheat atta and not maida. Also reduced the baking powder to 1 scant teaspoon. To make the roti, I used a different method where you spread water over the rolled out roti and stick it to the tava. Cook on medium flame for about a minute and then turn over the tava over a high flame to cook the other side. Then peel out the roti using a spatula. It makes perfect restaurant like rotis.
For methi matar malai, I used this recipe but skipped the chopped onion, bayleaf and garam masala in the gravy.

whole wheat tandoori roti, methi matar malai and singhada halwa

I had also made some singhada(water chestnut) flour halwa which was on my to-make list for a long time.