The quintissential CKP Ninaava, a wonderful vegan nutritious dessert

We all know निनावं,  the soft yumminess of it and the melt-in-the mouth-ness of besan and jaggery and coconut milk and cardamom. Well, here's a slightly different (lazier) take on our favourite vegan dessert!

Ingredients: (use organic ingredients for that extra taste and texture, normal is fine if you can't get organic)
1. Besan(chickpea flour): 2 cups
2. Powdered Jaggery: 1.25 cups (or more if you like it extra sweet)
3. Coconut Milk: One pack of Dabur hommade or 2 cups freshly extracted
4. Cardamom: Ground, 2 teaspoons
5. Nutmeg: Ground, pinch
6. Water: 1 cup

Procedure:
1. Preheat oven to 180 deg celcius.
2. Add water and coconut milk to besan and beat until no lumps are seen.
3. Now add everything into a mixie/blender bowl and mix well. The resultant mixture should be runny, NOT thick. Add more water if required. Coarser besan tends to absorb more water, so the quantity of water required may be different every time.
4. Pour the runny batter into a cake mould.
5. Bake at 180 deg celcius until top turns dark brown, approximately 40 minutes.
6. Remove from oven and cool. Cut up into pieces and serve warm.

The traditional ninaava is steamed, not baked. But you need to keep stirring that and that is definitely not what a lazy cook would do :)
My son eats his with a bit of vanilla ice-cream, obviously he's not vegan! But I like to have it plain.

Wheat and nuts ladoo

Well this is not necessarily CKP or even Maharashtrian, it's north indian aate ke laddo, a favourite of my husband's. Maybe it IS essentially ckp, since ckpees are known to have been absorbing food and culture from around them for centuries now. :)

Ingredients:
1. Organic whole wheat flour, 4 cups
2. Ghee, melted, 2 cups
3. Crushed nuts and seeds (almonds/walnuts/cashew/pine/hazel/any/all....half cup)
4. Cardomom, crushed fine, 1/2 tspn
5. Nutmeg, grated fine, pinch
6. Sugar, powdered, 2 cups
7. Milk, half cup

Procedure:
1. Mix ingredients 1 and 2 in a bowl and roast in a tray in oven at 150 deg celcius for 45 min. Mixture should turn golden brown and give off a heavenly aroma by now.
2. Take out of oven and let cool
3. Mix ingredients 3-6 to the golden brown mass.
4. Add milk, spoon by spoon until mixture comes together in your hands. (Note, add only as much milk as required)
5. Laadoo valaa! Make balls of the mixture and press them within your palms to bind well.

Eat them up and share them with family and friends! These are lovely to eat in winter. :) Be sure to run an extra kilometre the next day!