Kalakand to sweeten mouth this Diwali

My dear blog readers,  I am wishing you a very Happy, healthy and prosperous Diwali.  This Diwali I have prepared Kalakand for my home.  It is very easy to make and the best part is no extra sugar is added to it.
So here is the Kalakand recipe to sweeten your mouth this festive season.

Ingredients:

2 litre milk,  2 tsp lemon juice, 1 can condensed milk, 2 tablespoon milk powder, 1 tsp cardamom powder, 10 pistachio skinned and ground coarsely.

Method:

Boil milk, add lemon juice.  When milk starts to curdle, turn off the stove.  Pass this mixture through a cheese  or muslin cloth.  When excessive water is drained, it will become paneer.  This will be almost 1/2 kg paneer.
Mash paneer coarsely, add milk powder and condensed milk and mix all the three well.
Heat the mixture in a heavy or thick bottomed pan.  Cook on medium heat while constantly stirring.
As the water content will evaporate this mixture will start thickening.  It should not take more than 8 to 10 minutes.
Remove from the fire and spread evenly on a greased plate.
Sprinkle cardamom powder and ground pitachio.
When on room temperature, put in the freezer for 10 to 15 minutes.
When set cut into squares and enjoy.

No Egg Apple Pie

Last week somebody brought a box of apples from Kashmir.  Apples were about 15 Kg.  Even after distributing to some friends and family, we were still left with lots of apples.  We were eating apples in the breakfast and even after dinner we were eating an apple or two.  Just then I decided to bake an apple pie.  Those were auspicious days of Navratri (nine days of goddess Durga) and we avoid eating egg then.  Which means I had to bake an apple pie without an egg..  Here is my recipe for no egg apple pie.

Ingredients for Short crust pastry:
3cups all purpose flour (white flour)
1/2 cup cooking oil
2 tablespoon brown sugar
1 cup milk

Method for the short crust pastry:
1. Combine oil, flour in a bowl, rubbing the mixture with the palms of your hand so that small lumps are formed..
2. Add sugar and milk to the lumps, mix well and now use water to knead it into a dough.  The dough should be little hard kind.
3. Cover the dough with moist muslin cloth for 8 to 10 minutes.
4. Take 1/4 of the dough and roll out to make a big chapati.
5. Line the 9 inches pie pan with the chapati and trim the edges.  Take a fork and prick the pastry dough.
6. Bake the pastry in a preheated oven at 150 degree C for 10 minutes.
7. Keep aside the baked pie line

Ingredients for Apple Filling:
8 apples, cored, peeled and cut into thin slices.
1/2 cup powder sugar
juice of one lemon

1 tsp cinnamon powder

Method for Apple Filling:
1.Take peeled apple slices, add lemon juice, sugar and cinnamon powder and cook in a heavy pan for 5 to 7 minutes till apples are slightly tender.  Do not mash the slices.
2. Arrange the cooked apple slices in the baked pie pan evenly.
3. Roll out the chapati from the remaining dough taking other 1/4 part of the dough.
4. You can either cut strips of this and make a wire mesh for the pie or keep it whole(except make small cuts in this as that helps in baking the pie more crusty).
5.Brush little oil or ghee on the top of the pie.  Bake in the preheated oven at 180 degrees C for 15 minutes.

6. Remove from the oven and serve hot with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. 

Banana Nut Bread

I grew up not liking banana and I don't know why.  Most people love banana because it is rich in vitamins and it is a wholesome breakfast.  One fine evening an aunt of mine made me taste her banana bread and I loved it.  That bread had a very distinct flavor of cardamom almost overpowering the flavor of banana.  She shared her recipe with me.  When I baked my banana bread almost everyone in my family called it a banana cake.  It comes out moist, nutty and sweet and works very well as a coffee or tea cake. So lets try baking one.

Ingredients:
2 ripe bananas, 2 eggs, 1 tblsp ghee(purified butter), 2 cups all purpose flour,  1 tsp baking soda, a pinch of salt, 1 cup sugar (actually little less than one cup), 3/4 cup walnuts (chopped into small pcs),  14 almonds (peeled and chopped into small pcs), 10 raisins, 1/2 tsp of vanilla essence, 2 tsp of orange juice(optional), 3/4 tsp of cardamom powder.

Method:
Pre heat oven to 350 degree F or 180 degree C.
Mash bananas and keep them aside.
Beat eggs, ground sugar, ghee and mix everything well. Add mashed bananas and beat for another one minute.
Put white flour, baking soda and salt into the mixture and mix well with a wooden spoon.
Add walnuts, almonds and  raisins.
Put vanilla essence and orange juice in the mixture.
When it is well blended, add cardamom powder to it.
Pour the mixture in a greased cake or bread pan.
Bake for 45 minutes in a pre heated oven.
When it turns golden brown or wooden stick comes out clean, take it out.
When cool, cut into slices and enjoy.

Less oily semolina Halwa

Every Ashtami(Eighth day) during the Navratras(Nine auspicious days of Goddess Durga) my Mom used to make this Semolina(Rawa) Halwa as an offering to the Goddess.  I think that is one of my favourite sweets.  But the way Mom cooked it, lot of ghee(purified butter) was required.  I often asked Mom if it was possible to make Halwa with less ghee and she said ghee made Halwa tastier. Only last year I tried to experiment making Halwa with less ghee.  Here I want to share my that recipe.

RAVA HALWA

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup of Semolina or Rawa,
Little less than 1 1/2 cup of sugar,
1 tblsp of ghee
15 almonds (blanched,peeled off and chopped)
20 raisins(washed and cleaned)
1/4 tsp of cardamom poiwder(illaichi  powder)
3 cups of water

 
Method:
In a pan roast semolina on slow heat. It takes almost 15 to 20 minutes to roast it. it will change into beige color from off white when roasted.
Add sugar and stir well .
Now add ghee and mix very well.    In the meanwhile boil 3cups of water on the next stove.
While water is boiling add chopped almonds and raisins to the mixture.
Now pour boiling water to the mixture, put flame of the stove on high and stir vigorously.  Please make sure to wear a  kitchen mitten on the hand as boiling water and ghee combination will make it splatter a lot.
Once it thickens, turn off the stove and add cardamom powder.
Now enjoy it hot.