Pongal celebration is Indian Harvest Festival, typically falls on 14th January every year. It starts on a day before 13th January, called bhogi where most of the people will dispose worn out items also known as a way to clean up and start new on pongal day. Although we do have a lot of item to be disposed haha… but we didn’t have enough time to clean up all on that 1 day. So decided to take things slow, started with our kitchen on the 13th January and still cleaning. hahaha… with a 3-year-old around  to ‘help’ the cleaning process turn out a little slow 😛

So back to the Pongal celebration, normally celebrated during sunrise by making Pongal (rice cooked in milk and molasses) and offer it to the Sun God. I made pongal for the 1st time this year. Since we started our Stay Fit and Eat Clean lifestyle so i decided to make brown rice pongal sweetened with alpha-sweet.

Since im using brown rice so I cooked the rice before-hand in rice cooker and then made into Pongal. Brown rice longer to cook compared to white rice. Vishane loved it, his 1^st time trying Pongal actually. We had it as our breakfast.

Sujean likes to mix Pongal with puli satham (Tamarind rice). I decided to make puli satham as well since I have extra cooked rice. Recipe as below.

Pongal Recipe :

2 cups cooked Brown Rice

1 cup milk

1 cup water

2 tbsp blackstrap molasses

4 tbsp Split Mung Bean

Ingredients below you alter to your preference :

• Ghee (Clarified Butter)
• Alpha-Sweet (Erythritol)
• Golden Raisin
• Cashew nut
• Cardamom Powder
• Pinch of salt

Roast golden raisin, cashew nut in ghee (clarified butter) and place aside. Heat a little bit ghee in pan and roast mung bean until brown, then add in cooked brown rice in the same pan with milk and water. Press with a ladle to break up any lump. Continue to cook for 20-30mins till in reaches pudding like consistency. Add molasses and Alpha-Sweet stir until all well mixed. Finally, add in cardamom powder, salt, roasted raisin and cashew nut. If you like a strong ghee taste you may add a little ghee at the end and mix well.

Puli Satham (Tamarind Rice)

1 cup cooked brown rice

1 cup Tamarind Juice (I took a lime size of tamarind mix with 1 cup water)

To Saute :

1 sprig Curry leaves

1 small Red Onion (chopped)

2 Garlic (chopped)

1 Dried Chili (I ran out of dried chili so I used a pinch of chili flakes)

1 tsp Mustard Seed

½ tsp Urad Dhal

1 tsp Yellow Lentil

¼ tsp Tumeric Powder

A pinch of salt

A pinch of Asafetida

1 tsp Cooking oil (I used olive oil)

Pan roast and grind this ingredients :

• ½ tsp Cumin
• ½ tsp Fenugreek

Heat cooking oil in a saucepan; add in ingredients to saute until it turns brown for about 3-4 minutes. Add cumin and fenugreek powder. Once it’s well mixed, add in tamarind juice, turmeric powder, salt and asafetida bring to boil until it thickens. Pour the gravy into cooked brown rice and mix well.

And we wrap up our Pongal Day dinner with Pasta and BBQ. Sorry no picture. (I need to remind myself to take pictures of everything from now on)