Vegetable Korma

This recipe is just bursting with flavor and nutrition. What could anyone want more than to eat their vegetables and like them too! You can make this in a pressure cooker or a covered pot. It takes a little longer in the latter. I made it in a pot/pan as I think it gives more flavor.

Ingredients

1. 1 cup cauliflower cut in small pieces
   
2. 1 cup diced carrots
3. 1 cup diced potatoes 
4. 1 cup green beans cut in small pieces
5. 1 cup peas
6. 1 cup small pieces of paneer, fried (I used the store bought paneer and fry it at home)
7. 1/2 cup tomato sauce
8. 1/2 tsp ginger paste
9. 1/2 tsp garlic paste
10. 2 tsp fresh cilantro paste
11. salt and red chilli to taste
12. 1/2 tsp haldi
    
13. 1/2 tsp garam masala
14. pinch of kesar (saffron) in a small amount of hot milk
15. 2 tbsp ghee
16. 1/2 cup milk (I use 2%)
17. 1 tsp cashews
18. 1 tsp lemon juice
19. Some cut cilantro to garnish

Process

1. Add ghee to a large pot. Once it is hot, add the ginger and garlic paste. Fry a little bit and add the cilantro paste. Fry the mixture. Add a little bit of the milk and and keep frying the paste. Add all the milk and make it into a nice paste.
2. Add all the vegetables, tomato sauce, all the spices, the kesar in milk, and cashews. I added the paneer after about 20 mins of cooking as I did not want it to dissolve in all the veggies.
3. Add about 1 or 1 1/2 cup of water, depending on how much of a curry you want.
4. Cover the pan and cook until all the vegetables are cooked. 
5. Once all is cooked add some cut cilantro to garnish.

This vegetable korma can be eaten with rice or naan. The flavor of this vegetable is amazing!!

Gaajar Ka Halwa (Carrot Halwa)

Be ready for a little hard work if you want to do this right.

Gaajar ka halwa is one of my favorite deserts! If not made properly, this dish can taste like sweetened boiled carrots. But if made with little effort (and love) this can be a very tasty and flavorful desert. Some measurements I have given here are approximates because it depends on your taste especially the sweetness.  Although I believe if you are making a desert then make it sweet - don't make it such that it seems like a desert but its not really sweet.....

One word of warning - since I find this desert a little labor intensive I make it in large quantity and freeze half of it for later.

Ingredients

1. 5 lbs carrots
2. 4-5 cups of milk (1% or 2%)
3. One 8-10 oz can condensed milk (sweetened/low fat is what I used) or 1/2 cup Khoya or 1/2 cup powder milk
4. One and half cup sugar
5. Half cup or more ghee
6. Raisins, cashews to garnish

Process

1. Wash and grate the carrots. (I love my food processor for this reason!)
2. Add the carrots to a large stir frying pan and start heating. Add the milk.
3. Cook the carrots in the milk. This requires constant stirring otherwise the milk might stick to the bottom of the pan. I love my non stick pan for that reason, no sticking at this step!
4. Keep stirring and cooking until almost all the water has evaporated.  The picture shows that the milk is still not yet evaporated. See the bubbles?
5. Once the carrots start looking a little dry, add the condensed milk (or khoya, or powder milk), which melts in the carrots to make them watery again. Keep stirring and evaporating the water.
6. Add the sugar at this point. Again, sugar will release water, so keep stirring.
7. I start adding the ghee a little bit at a time at this point. 
8. Keep stirring and adding ghee until nice and thick consistency. Taste at this point to make sure the sugar is at your "bliss point".  
9. Keep stirring (bhuno) the halwa; it will turn reddish as it is getting done. At one point the aroma of the halwa will tell you the halwa is ready. 
10. Add the garnishes now and stir in to mix.

The nice thing about this halwa is that since its cooked well it lasts a while, it can be eaten cold or warm (I prefer hot). The more ghee you add in the last steps the richer it becomes and the better it looks. But just adding ghee without the stirring (bhuning) is not going to give flavor.

It is not advisable to overcook it as the halwa becomes hard to eat.

It took me about 3 hrs to make halwa of 5 lbs carrots :-)