Day 1 of Blogging Marathon ~ Oats - Coconut Laddu

Chicago land was the one worst hit by last week's blizzard that had created havoc allover the Midwest. It has created a record of being in the top three blizzards, locally. Most of the areas were covered in about 20 inches or more of snow and there were even driving bans in some of the neighboring counties.
The help we had hired to shovel had promised to come by the evening. I didn't want to end up shoveling ice instead of snow in the evening if he did not show up. I therefore started to shovel with my son’s help though M was vehemently saying not to do it. Later he had to give in and join us. We totally had put together around 5 hours to clear a part of our driveway. It had been extremely frizid since then. Today the wind chill is around - 15 and the temperature when the kids left for school was 2 deg F (-16 deg C). Dreary weather seems to be ruling everywhere.
Shoveling that amount of snow has left me very badly sore. I could not walk up standing staight for two days. Lesson learnt. Never try to shovel manually after a blizzard. :) To cheer up myself and get out of the gloomy mood, I prepared these laddus today. Sweets tend to lift up spirits, atleast mine. :)
As usual, I went with a quick kind. Combined oats to my grandma's rava laddu recipe to prepare this yummy and healthier version. Already I had toasted semolina and oat flour and so these were made in a jiffy.

Ingredients for about 14 laddus:
1 cup shredded, fresh coconut
1/2 cup oats (I used quick cooking oats)
1/2 cup semolina
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp cardamom powder
1 Tbsp ghee, 1 Tbsp raisins & 1 Tbsp cashews

 Making laddus:
* Lightly toast the oats, about 2 minutes. Cool and grind it coarsely.
* Fry the semolina on low flame till it starts to give a strong aroma and turns light brown. Let it cool.
* If using frozen coconut, thaw it.
* Heat ghee in a small pan. Toast both raisins and cashews in the ghee till cashews turn golden brown and raisins turn plump.
* Now combine the semolina, oats flour, sugar, coconut, cardamom and the toasted raisins & cashews in a mixing bowl and leave the mixture covered for about five minutes.
* Make about lime sized balls / laddus out of it and refrigerate them.

Clicked through our living room window, this is how the home opposite to ours looked last week.

And our front yard. We could clear the snow in our driveway to let one vehicle pass through. After the blizzard, we had two more snow falls and our driveway right now looks pretty bad.

When I see some of the bloggers who do blog on a daily basis, I am amazed at their energy levels and interest. When Srivalli mentioned about the blogging marathon, I wanted to see how it goes if I accept the challenge and here I am with the first recipe. I chose to go with 'special one' and today's choice is 'sweet'.

Check out what the other marathoners are doing on the first day!

Azeema, Bhagi, Champa, Gayathri Anand, Gayathri Kumar, Harini, Jay, Kamalika, Meena, Minu, Padma, Pavani, PJ, Priya Mahadevan, Priya Suresh, Priya Vasu, Rujuta, Santosh, Saraswathi, Savitha, Shanavi, Smitha, Sowmya, Srivalli, Usha, Veena

And also I am sending this to Priya's CWF- Oats, an event originally started by Kiran.

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