Coconot Ladoo

Plz forgive the picture quality

Its been ages since my last post.  I decided to start over on a sweet note. I had some fresh coconut on had so I decided on coconut Ladoo. They are my favourite ladoos ever.

Growing up we had a few coconut trees so coconuts were abundant in our house. So whenever there was large quantities of extra milk sweet treats with Coconut were a common thing. My mom would either make Laddoo or burfi. I loved the Ladoos more, not sure why though.

This is the easiest Laddoo recipe ever and so its a keeper.

Ingredients

2 cups fresh coconut

1/2 cup sugar

1 cup milk

1 t spn Cardamom powder

2 Tbl spn ghee

Method:

Heat a heavy bottomed pan, add the ghee. Add the coconut to the pan. just cook for 5 minutes. Add milk and sugar. Keep stirring. You will see lot of moisture in the pan. keep stirring, the heat should be on medium at this point. Add the cardamom powder. When the mixture is almost dry. Turn off the heat.

When the mixture is lukewarm, pick up a fistful of the mixture and roll into a ball.

You could add a Raisin/sultana/cashew for garnish on top.

Cool it completely , store in air tight jars.

Pesto with home grown Basil

There is nothing more enticing than cooking with freshest of ingredients grown by the you. Especially the home grown herbs. This year we have participated in the community gardening practised here. we were all allotted small plots about 5 X 6. I have planted lettuce, cilantro, spear mint, Methi, spring onions, basil, tomotoes, carrots. cabbage. I know i have over crowded the vegetables. But methi, carrots will be harvested shortly so i figured there will be room for other veggies to grow peacefully.
I bought sweet basil from Lowe's and planted it. I also bought a small packets of seeds from there. The seeds have germinated now, i am hoping for a good basil harvest throughout the summer. the plant is doing fine i guess. I read on many of the blogs that pinching the basil plant encourages it to grow like a bush. so harvested the leaves today for a small amount of pesto.

This is my first harvest of basil leaves. Fresh from the garden. This was clicked even before i washed the leaves.

The pesto recipe is very simple.

Ingredients:
2 cups fresh basil leaves
3-4 cloves fresh garlic, peeled and sliced
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/8 cup cashew nuts
1/3 cup Parmesan cheese
1/2 fresh squeezed lemon
salt to taste



Method:
Put it in the food processor and grind till it is a smooth paste.

I will post the fotos of my gardening plot very soon. You come back to check it out.