Besan flour ladoo.

It is the easiest of all sweets. Care should be taken to fry the besan flour with more ghee, otherwise the ladoo will have a mild bitter taste.But it will turn completely sweet the next day (24 hrs).
I took only 45 minutes for the entire preparation.
I tweaked the original recipe by roasting the bessan flour with 2 tbsp ghee and 3 tbsp corn oil. (afraid of ghee ..ha ha). Moreover while making the ladoo balls I used 1/4 cup of milk to get a good shape and to avoid more ghee.
But i am giving below the original recipe.

Ingredients:
Besan flour - 2 cups
powdered sugar- 2 1/2 cup
ghee -3/4 cup
cardamom powder - 1/4 tsp
cashews- 15
raisin- 15

Method:
Heat a pan with ghee and roast the flour without lumps, till the raw smell vanishes.
Take off heat and add sugar, fried cashews, rasins and cardamom .
Mix well and make lemon size balls out of it.
Now the besan flour ladoo is ready to serve.
It can be stored in air tight containers for a week.
If you add milk , then you should start preserving them inside fridge after 2 days.

vellai poosanikkai thalar kootu

White pumpkin or Ash gourd or winter melon is the English translation for Thadiyangai or vellai poosanikkai or kalyana poosanikkai.
Thadiyangai is otherwise called thirushti poosanikai in Tamil.
Indians break this vegetable in streets to drive away evil eyes.But we can make wonderful thalar kootu out of it.Thalar koottu means a side dish in liquid state .
The credit goes to a restaurant called 'Mint leaf' in Jalan Tun Sambanthan , KL central, Malaysia.They serve this piping hot koottu with sambar rice.
When we were in Malaysia , We often visited this restaurant because of its traditonal Indian cooking , cleanliness and also because of this koottu.

kalyana pooshanikkai paruppu koottu.

Ingredients:
White pumpkin/ thadiyangai- 1 slice(1 lb)
channa dhal(kadalai paruppu)- 1/4 cup
Toor dhal - 1/4 cup
Red onion- 1/2
Ripe vine tomato -1
Shredded coconut- 1 tbsp
green chillies- 4
cumin seeds-1/4 tsp
Red chilly powder -1/2 tsp
coriander powder-1/2 tsp
turmeric powder-1/4 tsp
salt - as required.
mustard seeds-1/2 tsp
curry leaves- 1 brig
oil-1 tsp

Method:
Soak channa dhal and toor dhal with 2 cup water,asafoetida and turmeric powder for 15 minutes and pressure cook them in slow fire for 10 minutes after whistle.
Remove seeds and skin of white pumpkin.Chop it into small pieces.
Cook it with onion,tomato,chilli powder, salt in a closed vessel.
Now see the cooked dhal.You can find the toor dhal gets cooked fully but the channa dhal is half done.This is the right cosistency.
Drain and save the dhal water to make rasam.
Mash the dhal mildly without breaking channa dhal and add it to the cooked white pumpkin.
Grind the coconut, cumin seeds and green chillies.Add this mixture to the boiling curry.
In a separate pan, heat oil, crackle the mustard , add the curry leaves, urad dhal and garnish the curry/thadiyangai koottu.

Serving suggestions:
Can be served with chapathi,naan, rasam-rice etc.
Makes nearly 500 ml of thadiyangai thalar kootu.