Carrot Halva (Microwave)

Christmas is over :-( . Hope you all had a good time enjoying all the goodness this festival brings, not to mention good food, gifts, parties and so on. I had a good time too and am having a good time now as well, shopping around in the big sale season! I tell you I love shopping and I do not know many people who do not :-)!

The blogosphere is filled with recipes of Christmas goodies and it made things more festive. May be I will share them sometimes later. Today, I am sharing this Halva which is an all time favourite in my household especially during winters. This Carrot Halva is the microwave version. I had posted the conventional one long back. You can check the recipe here.

This is probably going to be my last post this year.. Lets end it with this sweet dish! Wishing you all the very best in the coming year!

Coming back to today's recipe:

Carrot Halva (Microwave):

Ingredients:

2 cups shredded carrots.
1 tbsp ghee
½ cup milk.
¼ cup sugar or less.
A few strands of saffron.
2 cardamom pods crushed.
Almond flakes and chopped pistachios to garnish.



Process:

1. Add the carrots to a safe microwave bowl and add ghee. Give a good stir so that the ghee is nicely coated on the shredded carrots.

2. Add milk, crushed cardamom, saffron and sugar and mix such that all the carrots is covered by it.

3.Microwave on a high for 3-5 minutes and stir and microwave again for 3-5 minutes.

4. Follow this cycle till done. Mine took 20 minutes. If you are making a lesser amount it will be done quicker and also time differs from microwave to microwave. So adjust accordingly.

5. Finally, garnish with almonds and pistachios. Serve warm or cold.

Sending this off to my event - Winter Warmers held here.

Enjoy!

Banana & Almond Smoothie

Ever since I have developed an interest for cooking, I always check for recipes in cookbooks, magazines and if I like any of them, I just keep the page or jot the recipe in my dairy. I found this recipe in a Tupperware booklet and liked it. Most of the time, I have one or two very ripe bananas that need to be used immediately. Well, baking a cake out of it is a good option but having a lot of it is surely not good for my waistline! So, I find making a smoothie a safe bet. This smoothie is perfect for breakfast and is very nutritious too. Almonds add a very rich flavour to it!

Ingredients:

250 ml low fat milk

2 tbsp yoghurt.

1 tbsp Almond powder.

1 very ripe banana.

1 tbsp honey.

Makes 1 large glass or 2 small ones.

Process:

Add all the ingredients in a blender and blend it till smooth. Pour into two glass. Decorate with a whole almond. Serve.

Enjoy! Sending it off to Veggie/Fruit a month -Banana guest hosted by US Masala. This event is the brain child of Priya

Diwali Wishes and a sweet dish- Kalakand!

Hi Friends,

At the very outset my heartiest belated wishes to you for Diwali! Hope you a had a good time and enjoyed a lot! Actually, I was planning to post this dish on the diwali day but could manage time to do so. Anyways, better late than never! I had made it specially for Diwali. I had referred the recipe from a small booklet of 'Milkmaid'. I have incorporated a few simple changes to the recipe. It tended to be a bit crumbly in the beginning but once properly set it was fine. That's why, you can see that all the pieces of the sweet are not uniform in shapes. But that does not lower the taste. Hope you would like it too..

Before going into the recipe, I would like to say something about this illuminating festival. Diwali is a festival which celebrates the victory of good over evil. As per the Hindus, it is the day when

Lord Rama returned to his kingdom, Ayodhya after 14 years of exile, after putting an end to the demon Ravana of Lanka. In Ayodhya, the people welcomed them by lighting rows of clay lamps. So, it is an occasion in honor of Rama's victory over Ravana; of truth's victory over evil. But, we Jains have a totally different occasion of celebrating this festival. It is the festival of jubilation to commemorate the Moksha attained by our 24^th Tirthankar Lord Mahavira on Amaavashya of Kartika in Pavapuri,India. According to our Holy Scriptures many Gods and Demi-Gods were present on that occasion, illuminating the darkness of Amaavashya. To symbolically keep the light of Lord Mahavira's knowledge alive, ordinary people also illuminated their homes. Hence the name of the festival - Deepawali.

Sweets and Lights are a very important part of this occassion. So, lets see how I made this Kalakand. Kalakand when normally made from milk takes a lot of time. Since I used condensed milk it was considerably quicker!

 Makes 16 peice.
 Ingredients:

1 tin milk maid.

2 cups full fat milk.

2-3 tbsp curd.

1 tsp lime juice.

2 cardamom pods crushed finely.

Few strands of saffron.

Pistachios and almond flakes to garnish.

Process:

Heat a non stick pan. Add milk and boil on a high flame. When it comes to a boil add the curd and take it off thegas for a moment. Give it a good stir. The milk will curdle. Now put it back on heat and add the condensed milk and give it a good stir. Add the lime juice  and stir. It will curdle too. Now add the crushed cardamom pods and saffron threads. At this moment if you want to add a little more sugar to your taste you can. Keep stirring and heating the curdled milk till it dries up. It will take about 25- 30 minutes.

Set it in a lined square tin and garnish it with pistachios and almonds. Let it cool down and then using it pizza cutter cut it into square size. Keep it in refrigerator.

Serve cold!
Sendin g this sweet to PJ's ongoing event- Lets Celebrate-Bengali Sweets,This event is the brain child of Nivedita And also sending it to Mina's Event CMT-Sweets started by Jagruti

Belated Diwali Wishes again! Wish you a very joyous, prosperous year ahead!

Marvelous Macaroons

I was very delighted when Champa had sent me 2 of her baking cookbooks all the way from US around 2 months back. Although I had bookmarked quite a lot of recipes to try from them but had been postponing it till today. All these while I was trying to keep my calorie intake in control!!

Well, since it had been a while since I had baked something new, my hands were literally itching to bake. So, finally I decided upon these 'Marvelous Macaroons' from the book '101+ Hurry -Up Cookie Recipes' sent by Champa. They really turned out 'marvelous'. To be honest, I have never tasted a macaroon before, but, I was happy with my results. The recipe given in the book was for about 40-42 macaroons. So, I scaled it down proportionally to get 12. However, my macaroons turned out to be slightly bigger than those shown in the book's picture.

Needless to say, I am sending these to Champa's Bake-Off and Baking from a book#4 this time being hosted by Ruchikacooks

 I used:

1/3 cup finely chopped/crushed tinned pineapples.

1/2 cup condensed milk.

1/3 cup dessicated coconut.

2 tbsp margarine.

2 tbsp chopped almonds, toasted.

1/2 tsp lemon zest.

2 drops almond extract.

1/2 cup+2 tbsp AP flour.

1/2 tsp baking powder.

Makes around 12 no. 

Process:

Preheat the oven to 180 C. Drain pineapples well and place them in a large bowl. Add milk,coconut, margarine, nuts, lemon zest and almond extract. In a small bowl combine flour and baking powder. Beat into pineapple mixture until blended. Drop heaping tablespoons of dough 1 inch apart onto greased cookie sheet. Bake for 13-15 mins or till lightly browned.

Garnish with whole almond, if desired. Store in covered container in refrigerator.

Enjoy!!