Choco rava kesari and a dedication

My mother is celebrating her 60th B'day today. I thought of dedicating this post to her. My mother has inspired us(me and my sis) in more than one way. She(read as she and father) gave us the best education that we could get by putting us in the best school in my city.(Madurai) For a middle class family it was definitely an expensive affair then. She always gave the highest priority to studies. She used to work in the state government and managed both work and family very elegantly. She was well respected at the office and at home front too she managed to do everything a "stay at home" mom would do for her kids. In a nutshell she is the BEST and a guiding factor in whatever we do..

Here is something I wrote for a competition held at my company last year end during parent's day. I was selected for a memento for this effort :-), but unfortunately it was never given as almost during the sametime the company faced a crisis due to some shocking revelation by the then chairman regarding the financial condition of the company..

Just giving the last two lines of the original writeup to make the post short. :-)

Trinkets you bought, they are no more. Love you showered, they are memories. But the lessons you taught. That's us! Thank you mom and dad.

Here is also a choco kesari recipe that I made especially for my mom. My parents are off to a pilgrimage trip for a couple of days as my mother wished to visit few famous temples during her b'day. She feels, her faith in "amman" is what keeps her going. And I don't have any reason to not believe it. :-)

Once again Happy B'day to dear amma and wishing many many more happy returns of this day.

Coming to the recipe, I shall not take credit for the idea of using cocoa powder in kesari for I saw it in almostturkish blog, long time ago..It tasted really good with a nice chocolaty flavour.

Here is the recipe

Ingredients

Ordinary Suji/Rava/Semolina: 1/4 cup
Water: 3/4 cup
Sugar: 1/2 cup
Cocoa powder: 1 1/2 tbsp
Ghee: 4 tbsp
Cashew: a few for garnishing

Procedure

1. In a small bowl, add the cocoa powder and little water(2 to 3 tbsp) and mix well to form a liquid mixture. Keep aside.
1. Add a tbsp of ghee in a pan/kadai and add suji and cashew.
2. Roast on a low flame till suji turns golden brown. The cashew also would have got roasted nicely by this time.(My grandmom suggested me this method of adding cashew and suji together. This way even if we are not able to make out if suji is roasted or not, looking at the color of roasted cashew we can remove suji from heat.)
3. Tranfer the suji to a bowl.
4. In the same pan, add water and allow it to boil.
5. Once hot, add the roasted suji and mix. Keep on low to medium flame.
6. It would absorb the water immediately and would become semi solid. Do not add more water eventhough one might get tempted to do so..
7. Add the cocoa powder mixture and sugar and mix well.
8. Now the mixture would again become watery. Add ghee and mix on low to medium flame.
9. Put off the flame once the mixture again reaches semi solid state.
10. Allow it to cool a bit so that it thickens.

Note: Feel free to increase or reduce the quantity of sugar as per preferences. The cocoa powder can be omitted to make an authentic south indian kesari. The amount of water mentioned is for ordinary suji. It might vary for other types of suji though I have not tried.