Navratri or Navaratri is Hindu festival, workship of Durga or Sakti in all different Avatars. Navratri (means nine nights) is one of those festival celebrated across India in different forms with Pooja, fasting, dancing and of course lot of good food. Though navratri comes 4 times a year but the most signficant are Sharada (shard means cold) Navaratri in the month of Puratashi (September-October) and the Vasanta Navaratri (March-April) of the Vasanta kala.
Sharada Navratri is celebrated with much fun and fare cause that bring Diwali, lights, crackers, family, friends and again good food. For me Navratri means Durga Pooja going to various pandals, full night sitting & listening to Katha that’s fun too or dance away the evening with dandiya or adore the cute little dolls displayed in Golu.
Along with Navratri comes the fast and fasting food, there are again different ways of doing fasting some do without water for 7 days or 8 days and some people drink water and/or eat fruits, even the food restrictions vary that I have seen. Today I’m posting one of the popular fasting food Sabudana Khichadi which is very simple to make and can be done in jiffy if we have done the prep work.
Ingredients: [Serves -2 ]
Sabudana/Sago/Tapioca - 1/2 cup [ after soaking it becomes 1.5 cups of sago]
Roasted Peanut - 1/4 cup
Potato - 1 medium
Green Chillies - 2
Curry Leaves - 1 sprig
Cumin Seeds - 1/2 tsp
Lemon Juice - 1 tsp
Cilantro - few sprig
Ghee/Oil - 1 tbsp
Rock Salt (Sendha Namak) - to taste
Method:
1. Rinse and soak sago for 4 hours with just enough water. The water should be just above the sago level, if used too much water sago will be soggy, drain water and keep aside.
Now the soaking time vary depending on the type and variety of sago we are using, some needs soaking for 2hours or 4 hours, 6 hours or over night. If the sago is of very good quality then even 30 minutes is enough. So how we know what time is correct, it’s simple soak the sago as mention above and keep a eye when the sago becomes fluffy and double in size, and it should get sticky then it’s has soaked enough, with practice you will learn how much time your sago needs for soaking but generally it takes 4 to 6 hours or most of the people soak over night.
Here I used 1/2 cup of sago and after soaking for 4 hours it become 1 1/2 cups, so you got the idea?
2. Roast Peanut (if using raw peanuts) de-skin and powder coarse in a mixer or blender.
I just crush a little and have a coarse powder (like to bit peanuts while eating). But if you want go ahead and make peanuts into fine powder choice is yours.
3. Chop green chills, peel potato and dice it.
4. In a wok or pan heat ghee/oil add cumin seeds and allow it to crack. Add curry leaves, green chillies and sauté for 30 seconds. Now add potato, cover and cook until potato gets tender.
5. Now add sago, peanuts mix well and cook with lid on for 5-7 minutes on medium flame. Add salt, cilantro, lemon juice toss well and cook for a more minute.
Our sabudana khichadi is ready.
Variations ~
1. You can add boiled diced potato instead of raw.
2. You can add 1/4 tsp of turmeric powder.
3. If you are making this while not fasting then you can add 1 chopped onion. You can use normal table salt too.
4. Add 1 tsp of sugar for a sweet, sour taste. And for better taste and flavour use ghee.
5. If you are making this on a Friday fast, skip the lemon as mostly tangy things are not used during Friday fasting. If you don’t take green chillies during fasting then skip that and add freshly crushed black peppercorn to taste.
Have a good day ~~
Did you ever tried a combination of chicken and potato in curry form? No? Then it's time for you to do it. Chicken and potato comes together wonderfully and potato adds extra taste to the curry. I learnt this from my SIL whom makes this really very good this is not exactly her recipe I made it my way but the idea is same. When we have functions, festive time, family gathering and there are around 20 people then it's a big task to prepare so much of food and my SIL will add potato along chicken to increase the curry quantity, also kids love to eat potato so it's bonus for them.
Aloo Badi is something I do when I ran out of veggies I always have different variety of badi/wadi stock up thanks to my in-laws specially my sister-in-laws whom never forget to make my portion and keep aside. As I mentioned in my how to make badi (wadi) post these wadiyan it's from one of aunt famous for her beautiful badi. One can add wadi in any vegetable of choice and the most common and famous combo is classic potato and wadi or potato, eggplant and badi. 
In Sindhi cuisine one of famous dish is Sindhi Kadhi, at least I think so! I had first time sindhi kadhi in Kailash Parbat during my friend's birthday lunch meet (this was almost a year and half ago) and I didn't liked it cause they made it just plain bad. But since my friend was going ga-ga over her neighbor aunt famous sindhi kadhi and how good actually it suppose to be I thought of trying and I have also heard only good things about it. What makes Sindhi Kadhi unique is no curd(yogurt) is used which is a key ingredient in any kadhi and on the other hand vegetables are added which normally doesn't happens in kadhi so it's very different from any other popular kadhi. 
so I just do this way using white or brown bread.
