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Festival food is always in a class of its own. Here are 10 top Indian women bloggers who have shared their festive food recipes, handy for you to make.
Navratri is the time when the 9 days of sattvik (no onion-garlic vegetarian), festive food becomes the staple diet in many households of India. These Indian women bloggers are successfully breaking many misconceptions regarding sattvik festive food – check out their festive food recipes.
Vegan Richa
This blogger behind the blog Veganricha.com focuses mainly on vegan (free from animal products) recipes, which includes festive food recipes. She is an award-winning blogger featured on Oprah.com, Huffington Post, Glamour, Babble, VegNews.com, Rediff.com, TheKitchn, Cosmopolitan, BuzzFeed and many others. Her cookbook Vegan Richa’s Indian Kitchen is the #1 best seller on Amazon. Her blog’s unique feature is that it provides a complete nutrition facts board at the end of each recipe.
Besan ka halwa
It is a dessert made out of chickpea flour or besan. It is Gluten-free and vegan. The recipe is quite similar to normal Suji (Semolina) halwa apart from the suji being replaced by besan. It is quite nutritious with all the dry fruits added to it.
Recipe here.
Chitra’s Food Book
Chitra Ganapathy has been featured in Top Indian Food Bloggers since 2013. Her blog talks about some very basic facts about cooking as she herself was an amateur cook when she started. She believes that food should never be wasted. So she comes with some amazing recipes with the leftover food. Check out her festive food recipes, one of which is here for easy reference.
Mawa Malpua
It is widely popular among Gujarati, Rajasthani, Bihari, Odishi and Maharashtrian cuisines. It is nothing but a special pancake made up of maida, suji, yogurt and milk dipped in sugar syrup. Adding Mawa or khoya i.e. condensed milk powder is a delicious supplementation to the recipe.
Jeyashri’s Kitchen
Basically a homemaker, she is passionate about sharing the traditional recipes of grandmothers, that seem to be lost today. She is also the author of two cookbooks in Tamil. Her prime focus in her website is for kids. For example, the recipes of categories like lunch box recipes; exam time recipes, etc. are easily available on her blog.
Kadalai Paruppu Sundal
Festive food recipes need not be only of the sweet kind. Here is a savoury one – it is the traditional South Indian recipe of chana daal (split black gram) with a mild tempering of some spices and grated coconut on top of it. Few modifications of this type of sundal recipe are that made up of rajma seeds, sweet corn, chick peas, etc.
Sailu’s Food
Sailaja Gudivada is a firm believer of the traditional kitchen-wisdom of our ancestors. She has vast categories of columns in her blog from Indian drinks, Italian, Mexican, Thai, Ayurvedic recipes, etc. She also provides a guest blogger column where guest bloggers can post their unique recipes.
Sweet Pongal
One of those quick to make festive food recipes – this is a classic South Indian recipe of rice pudding that just melts in the mouth. Rice, moong daal (yellow gram), jaggery, ghee (clarified butter), dry fruits are the prime ingredients of it. It is also very easy to prepare. One just has to pressure cook the ingredients with one-two whistles in it.
Raks Kitchen
The owner of ‘Rakskitchen.net’ is a home-maker who turned started at level zero in cooking after marriage and today has definitely gone a long way as a great chef. She has got some unique sections like ‘Bachelor Cooking Ideas’, some ‘Tips’and ‘Facts’ about cooking, ‘Dinner Party menu ideas’, etc.
Namak Para
Its an easy to make, crispy delight of maida with spices fried in oil. It is actually a variation of ‘Shakar Para’ of Gujarati cuisine where the sugar of shaker is replaced by namak or salt. It is the perfect snack with tea or coffee that can be prepared and stored for long time before the festive days arrives and relished on the days of the festival.
Veg Recipes of India
The blog ‘vegrecipesofindia.com’ is run by Dassana and her husband Amit. Dassana is a trained professional in cooking as she has graduated in home science and also worked as an intern in a 5-star hotel. The vast collection of about 1800 recipes shown in a step-wise manner and with the ingredients easily available in the kitchen makes this blog immensely popular.
Vrat ka halwa (fasting dessert)
It is typically a North Indian recipe made up of water chestnut flour (singhare ka atta) and kuttu ka atta (buck wheat flour). Though it is quite similar to suji or semolina halwa, it tastes amazingly different with the different main ingredient.
Madhura’s Recipes
She is an USA resident, started cooking when she was disappointed with the Indian food available in USA. Slowly she discovered her passion for cooking and her blog ‘madhurasrecipes.com’ was initiated by herself and her husband. ‘Good food brings smiles on people’s faces’ is what she cooks for. There are so many categories of food available in her blog like Veg, Non-veg, sweets, bread, cakes, snacks, quick easy, world, healthy, kids, festival, etc. One can also guest post a recipe in this.
Sweet Potato Kheer
It is a very quick, innovative and unique pudding recipe made out of a vegetable. It is inspired by the normal Kheer (pudding) made out of rice with the rice being replaced by mashed sweet potato.
Sharmis Passions
She is basically an IT professional who quit her job to be a full-time home-maker and mother. Slowly, her passion for food and cooking was realized and she the blog ‘sharmispassions.com’ with the support of her mother and husband.
Sabudana Thalipeeth
Another of the savoury festive food recipes, this is a popular Maharashtrian snack during the Navratri made up of sago or sabudana (a great ingredient during the fasts), mashed potatoes and crushed peanuts. Soaked sago is ground in the grinder jar, mixed with the potatoes and all the spices, rolled like a roti by pressing with the hand and prepared like a paratha. It tastes great with all kinds of sauces and chutneys. A variation is the sabudana vada – just roll this into smaller balls than for the thalipeeth, press flat, and deep fry.
Archana’s Kitchen
She started the blog ‘Archana’s Kitchen’ in 2007 that has become tremendously popular among the public for its easy DIY (Do-it-yourself) ideas and and many more for everyday cooking. Living a fit and healthy lifestyle with food is what Archana believes in. Some of her accolades and achievements are: being featured as a Google Entrepreneur on the web, on the cover page of Mint Lounge, as a YouTube Queen in Your Story, etc. She is also associated with many huge brands like Saffola Fit Foodie, Food Panda, Vikas Khanna’s Book Promotion, etc.
Ragi Murkku and Kodubale (Chakli and Kodubale)
It is a super tasty South Indian snack made up of Ragi and Bajra, seasoned with some spices. Dough is prepared out of these ingredients and given various kinds of shapes. After that it is deep fried.
Culinary Xpress
Besides being the owner of the blog ‘culinaryexpress.com’, Alka is a Food Stylist, Recipe developer and a Photographer. She believes that food binds a family together. Some of her achievements as a blogger are featured among the Top 25 Indian Chef Bloggers and Top 100 Indian Food Blogs and Websites with Best Indian Recipes.
Chena Tarkari
It is a classic Odiya recipe made up of ‘Chena’ or home-made cottage cheese. This is prepared without onion or garlic so is perfect for the Durga Puja or Navratri days. Ginger and tomatoes are added instead of onion-garlic paste. It goes really well with rice or chapatti.
Let’s spread the power and vibration of Navratri through food. Let’s eat healthy, stay happy.
Image source: Pixabay
I'm a post-graduate in pharmacy by education and a writer at heart. As
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