Avocado rava kheer

No, I am not growing avocados in the  backyard ( I live in a flat ), nor I have any estate of avocados anywhere :) , I just love this fruit and its versatility and above all it is so nutritious and is very rich in anti oxidants that you find it hard to avoid this fruit.. I wanted to incorporate this fruit in my diet few years ago , but always got it wrong and now I have almost learnt to get the good ones. Those who have never tried this fruit even till now will tel you it is otherwise called as butter fruit since its texture and taste is like butter.. so soft, smooth and silky.

For this evening I tried kheer with it .. Ok now dont get into thinking that I cooked avocados in milk .. Nah! I did something which a kid can do , in fact these days kids can do much better! I made rava  or sooji or semolina kheer and added avocados into it and mixed well. Its quick , easy and simple and not to forget healthy. So here goes the recipe..

Ingredients

Medium rava - 4 tbspn

Milk 2 cups

Sugar candy ( kalkandam) - a handful

Avocado - 1

Cardamom powder - a pinch

Method

Mix the rava and one and half cups of milk and cook till the rava thickens, it takes less than 10 minutes. Remove from flame and then scoop in the avocado pulp to the kheer. Add in the remaining half cup of milk and stir well till the pulp gets well incorporated in the kheer. You can also use a hand blender for this!

Add a pinch of cardamom powder and serve !

Tomato Jam

I guess tomato season is on, streets are filled with tomato carts and fresh cute little tomatoes are quite inviting. I once tried tomato pickle so this time decided to try something sweet.. so why not jam. But dint want to pour in all those huge amount of sugar into it. So I decided to use sugar candies. I Kerala sugar candies ( kalkandam ) are generally used in the food of babies instead of sugar or else jaggery is used. Kalkandam is usually white in colour, but we also fine yellow coloured sugar candies in some grocery stores, mainly those stores which sells ayurvedic raw materials and other stuffs. It is costly compared to the white ones because of its medicinal values. I made this jam using a mixture of the above said white and yellow sugar candies. The recipe is as follows

Ingredients

Tomato pulp - 2 cups ( I took almost 10 medium ones)

Yellow sugar candy - 1 cup

White sugar candy - 1/2 cup

Water - 1/3 cup

Lemon juice - 1 tspn

Cardamom powder - a pinch

Method

Wash the sugar candies in fresh water and then add 1/3 cup of water and melt the candies. Strain in a towel or fine sieve to remove the impurities in the candies. Add this to the tomato puree, add in the lemon juice and cardomom powder too. Stir occasionally in med flame till the contents thickens. Remove from flame when the contents reduce to a jam consistency.  Pour into a sterile jars while the jam is still hot, close the lid tight and refrigerate for longer shelf life.

Note : You are free to replace the sugar candies with white sugar.

Done! :)