Dal payasam anyone??

My parents-in-law were very upset to know that Pras and I wont be visiting them for Onam. Hence, my mother-in-law quickly got down to making some dal payasam for us. I thought that it would be a very tedious task but she made it look very simple. Yet, I think I shall take the shortcut of using coconut milk from a tetra pak rather than extract it myself ;)Here goes the recipe[this will also help as a reminder for me]Ingredients1. Coconut milk extracted from one coconut - don't mix the first and second pressing2. yellow mung dal - 1 cup boiled3. Jaggery - 250gms4. ghee - 1 tbsp5. cashew nuts - a few for garnishing6. elaichi - a few for garnishingMethod:1. Boil the jaggery in a little water2. Pour the second pressing coconut milk and jaggery into the dal and allow it to boil for a while.3. Fry cashewnuts and elaichi in ghee.4. Add the first pressing coconut milk, ghee, elaichi and cashewnuts. Do not let it boil.For extracting coconut milk, boil a little water. Grate a coconut. Add a tiny bit of hot water to the coconut and squeeze the coconut bit by bit, extracting the coconut milk. This is the first pressing.Add a little more water to the squeezed, grated coconut and squeeze again to get the second pressing coconut mil...

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Tomato cheese rice

The other day I wanted to make pizzas. Unfortunately, after I had prepared the toppings, I found that the base was bad. So, I used my intuition and made the followingIngredients:One large onion - slicedTwo large tomatoes - sliced/choppedGarlic paste - 1 teaspoonRed chilli powder - 1 teaspoonCheese - 3 cubes gratedOil - 3/4 tablespoonSalt to tasteRice - 1 cupWater - 2 cupsMethod:Heat oil in a pan. Once oil is hot, put in the sliced onions. Once the onions start turning brown, put in the garlic paste. Put in red chilli powder and fry for a minute. Then add the tomatoes and the salt. Once tomatoes are cooked and soggy, turn off heat and leave to cool. Grind this into a paste.Put this paste in a cooker alongwith the rice, cheese and water. Pressure cook till rice is done.Tasty and yummy tomato cheese rice is ready ...

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