There is a big story of my experience with preparing this dish first time.
We were in Sydney and invited by one of our friends for Ganesh Chathurthi. We thought of taking some sweet with us. But I did not know how to cook any sweet (because I don’t like any sweets). Then I found “Gajar ka halwa” recipe somewhere. But I did not know how much carrot should be used for that.
We asked one of our friends, and he gave us an idea that 2 kgs of gajar(carrot) will be sufficient, because after cooking, the quantity of halwa will reduce (how convincing). So we bought 2 kgs of carrot & started grating with a tiny cheese grater borrowed from another friend. Believe it or not, I took almost 4-5 hrs to grate the carrot. By the time I finished with it, my hands were paining like anything. We had to reach their house for pooja at 11. It was around 9.30 and I realized the grated carrot was too much. But still I thought I will use all of them. At that time, I realized we were not having such a big vessel. One big vessel was there and that was used by my other friend who had prepared some pongal in that. I told her to remove the pongal from vessel, after that it took me around half an hour to clean the vessel!!!. Then I started cooking halwa. I absolutely had no idea how much time it will take. By some guesswork, I started adding all the ingredients. I did not know whether carrot was cooked or not(because at that time I did not know much of a cooking).
So finally by the time I finished my halwa, it was 12. When we reached their house it was 12.30 and the pooja was already finished. They had a nice laugh when I told my adventure. But the halwa turned out to be superb. It took 10 days for us to finish the remaining halwa, which we kept in refrigerator.
So now whenever I cook this I remember that incident and have a whole hearted laugh.
Without further boring you with my stories, now goes the recipe,
Ingredients: Grated carrot 2 cups Milk 3 cups Sugar 2 tbl spns Cardamom powder 1/4 tea spn Saffron 4-5 strands Ghee 1 tbl spn Cashew nuts 1 tbl spn
Method: Heat milk. When it is boiling, add grated carrot. Cook till carrot is 3/4th done. Add Sugar and ghee. Stir continuously at this stage. Cook till carrot is completely done and halwa becomes thick. Add saffron and cardamom powder. Garnish with cashew nuts fried in ghee. Serve hot or cold.
Serves : 3 Preparation time : 30 min
This time when I went to Price choppers, I saw mushrooms and could not restrain myself from buying them. I love mushroom curry, mushroom pulav or anything made of mushrooms.
After trying all my usual recipes, I still had some remaining in my refrigerator. So thought of trying out something new.
From last one or two months, I prepare different kind of soups almost alternative days.
Actually I have got big collection of recipes with me these days…Thanks to my pappa(daddy), who had cut all the recipes from kannada weekly magazines(like Tharanga, Sudha) and neatly bound it into a book. I think it has more than thousand recipes. I call it my “recipe bible”. Along with so many recipes, it has other information like household remedies for small problems, beauty tips etc. Only problem is there is no index in the book. So the next task in my “to-do” list is to create an index into that book.
Needless to say, I have picked up this recipe from that book and made some modifications which will suite our taste.
Ingredients: Mushrooms (cut into pieces) 1 cup Tomato 2 Carrot 1/2 Potato 1 Cabbage pieces 1/2 cup Garlic 2 Ginger 1″ piece Cinnamon(dalchini) powder 1/2 tea spn Pepper powder 1/2 tea spn Butter 2 tea spns Salt as per taste
Method: Cook carrot pieces, cabbage, tomato, potato, ginger and garlic in cooker adding 4-5 cups of water. Grind them to get a smooth mixture. Heat butter and add mushroom pieces. Fry till mushrooms are cooked. Add the ground soup and all other ingredients. Cook for 5 min to get a thick soup. Serve hot.
Serves : 4 Preparation time : 30min
