Eggless Pumpkin Oats Cookies ( Diwali Collaboration )

Along with delectable desserts that are the highlight of every Diwali celebration, savory snacks like Namak para, mathri, khara boondi, sev and murukku also form an unavoidable part of the festive menu. Unfortunately, most of these call for deep frying or at least kneading with copious amounts of fat to make them crispy and flaky.

While the desserts can be prepared with a Sugar substitute or even replaced to some extent with fruit based desserts, the savory goodies were my primary concern. I was wondering what could be done to introduce some health and nutrition in this part of the menu when I stumbled upon the 'OatoberFest' series being run in the TOI by Quaker Oats and my culinary God Vikas Khanna. That gave me the idea to try something with oats. However I did not want to proceed with any of the usual flavor combinations.

I wanted the cookies to take on some traditional flavor and yet make them seem exotic at the same time. Going though my own blog for inspiration, I stumbled upon this 'Sri Lankan Pumpkin Curry' that I had prepared sometime back. With a large pumpkin siting on my kitchen counter, it seemed a wonderful option. Since I make this curry quite often (whenever I am faced with a deluge of fresh pumpkin), I already had the curry powder in my fridge.

Deciding against the use of wheat flour or maida, I decided to make the cookies with oats, grated pumpkin, freshly grated coconut, a touch of the curry powder, brown sugar and just a little bit of grease. Even as the first batch was taking on a light brown hue in the oven, exquisite aromas enveloped the entire house. As expected the cookies turned out to be moist, chewy and mind-blowing good. Enough to get the compliments flowing.

But that is not all ! This being a part of a blogger collaboration with my talented friends Parinaaz and Saswati , there are more savory goodies to be discovered at the end of this post.

Read on for the recipe -

Preparation Time - 50 mins

Ingredients -

• 2 cups Quaker Oats
• 1 cup grated pumpkin (tightly packed)
• 1 cup freshly grated coconut ( lightly packed )
• 2-3 tsp brown sugar (or Demerara sugar )
• 1/4 cup Rice bran oil
• 1 tsp Sri Lankan Curry powder (recipe HERE)
• 1/2 tsp coarsed ground peppercorns
• salt to taste

Preparation - Take all the ingredients in a mixing bowl. Mix everything thoroughly into a tight dough.

Take a baking tray and line it with parchment paper. Pinch small portions of the dough and shape into flat discs or squares. Put them on the baking tray.

Cooking - Preheat the oven at 180 degrees for 10 mins. 

Pop in the tray and let it cook for 10 mins on the middle rack. 

Remove the tray and flip them over. Put back into the oven and bake for another 6-7 mins. The cookies will have become firm and browned on both sides.

Remove from oven and let them cool down. Store in airtight jars.

Do check out these fabulous snacks by my fellow bloggers -

Parinaaz's Chegodilu or Ring Snacks

and 

Saswati's Nimki !!

Masale-wali Mathri ( And a very Happy Diwali )

Oriyarasoi wishes all its readers a Very Happy Diwali !! May the festival of lights spread the holy light and eliminate the shadows of darkness from your lives !! [ I take this opportunity to thank you people for my FB page has recently crossed 5000 likes. Not a huge number but it seems special as I am a late entrant on the social media bandwagon. And Oriyarasoi is now on Instagram as 'Swetabiswal'. Please follow me for some interesting shares.]

Festival time is the time to give in to all sorts of cravings. And the spate of bad weather in Blore has only increased my desire to munch on various kinds of 'Namkeen' or savoury snacks while sipping endless cups of 'Adrak-wali' chai (ginger tea).

I was first introduced to Mathri during my stay in Pune. My room-mate had a special weakness for fried stuff like Laccha, Bhakarwadi and ofcourse the Mathri. Though I found it to be somewhat oily, I loved snacking on it occasionally. Read on for the recipe -

Preparation Time - 45 mins

Ingredients -

• 1 cup maida ( refined flour )
• 1 cup atta ( whole wheat flour )
• 1 tsp peppercorn
• 1 tsp kasuri methi (dried fenugreek leaves)
• 1/4 tsp ajwain (carom seeds)
• salt to taste
• pinch of baking powder
• 2 tbsp ghee
• oil for deep frying

Preparation - Take the maida, atta and baking powder in a big bowl. Add the hot ghee to it. Rub it into the flour so that the texture resembles bread crumbs. This will take about 5 mins.

Then add the crushed peppercorn, carom seeds and kasuri methi to it. Sprinkle salt as per taste. Mix in. Add warm water little by little and knead into a tight dough.

Smear the dough with a few drops of oil. Cover and keep aside for 5 mins.

Cooking - Heat the oil in a wok.

Roll out the dough into a thick circle ( about 2 mm thickness ). Take the cap of a bottle and cut out small circles ( abt 3 cm in diameter ). Pierce holes into the circles with a fork.

Add 4-5 circles to the hot oil and fry till light brown on both sides. Take out and place on paper napkins.

Repeat for the remaining dough.

Once the mathri had cooled down completely, store it in airtight containers.

Note - This recipe will yield about 30-32 pieces.