Om Shri Ganeshaya Namaha
Wishing you all a very happy and prosperous new year. May God bless you and your loved ones with all the happiness, good health and success in life.
New year brings hope, energy, motivation and much more… In a first few weeks the adrenaline rush is so intense that it feels like its new you! All resolutions are bound to fail but still there are few on list before every new year’s eve. My all time favorite is having a healthy, active life and organized home. The mission is to have a balanced lifestyle for my own sanity and less yelling and chaos at home. And I must admit first month is always like living in a heaven. My home is so clean and organized that you can eat in my bathrooms. Things are easier that way if it just home or work but we live in a society and should follow few rules. Going out with friends or going for shopping, partying late, vacations, guests, sitting and enjoying social media with a cup of tea, telephone conversations with friends or family, or just feeling lazy…these are my “few” sinful temptations that I cannot say no to them. Sometimes I do compromise on my beauty sleep to have more hours in my life so that I can balance home, family, friends, and my own time. But before spring things are always out of control, yelling and chaos at home, always cooking in the nick of time and cleaning of bathrooms are always required before any unexpected guests.
But as the months passes by, there are so many memories that we create between this chaos with my family and friends. The stranger becomes the part of the family at the end of the year, there are more happy pictures and funny interesting stories to share with the world. Celebrating good times and festivals together, and most importantly I have people around who care for me and I can count on them.
Life has ups and downs, bad times passes by but what we cherished and remains in our memories are the good times we spent with our loved ones. I am still looking for a balance in my life but will not compromise on adding these cherished memories in my life.
Moving on to the first recipe of 2017. This is the evergreen classic dessert.
In our tradition ‘Rice” is a symbol of auspiciousness and prosperity. We use rice in all the pujas, havans, different ceremonies and rituals. During weddings the use of rice to bless the couple or the family with the prosperous life signifies its importance in our life. Rice is the first grain that we give our child as a first solid food. Rice is a staple diet in India. During month of Shravan and on Poornima cooking and sharing chawal ki kheer is very sacred and favorable. I know they sound more like the old delights and its hard to charm our new generation with these talks but I believe sharing and caring is never old.
To celebrate the festivity on new year I am sharing the recipe of the classic dessert “Chawal Ki Kheer” as a symbol to start the new year with the auspiciousness and prosperity. This is the one of the holy dessert that is served and represent festivity.
- 2 L Milk (Whole milk preferably)
- 1/2 cup Rice, washed and soaked
- 3/4 cup Sugar
- 1/2 tsp. Cardamom Powder
- 2 tbsp. warm Milk with crushed saffron
- 1 tbsp. Ghee
- 1/2 tsp. Rose water
- 2 tbsp. shredded Coconut
- 2 tbsp. Raisins
- Sliced Almonds and Pistachios
- Chandi ka varak and dried rose petals optional
- Boil the milk in a heavy bottom pan.
- Add rice and cook until the rice is soft and the milk is reduced and creamy on low flame.
- Keep on stirring regularly to ensure no burning and sticking rice at the bottom of the pan.
- When the rice are floating on top and soft add sugar, saffron infused milk, coconut, raisins and half of almonds and pistachios.
- Now add ghee and mix the kheer vigorously to emulsify the milk, ghee and rice.
- Cook it until your desired consistency. I prefer creamy and partially thicker.
- At the end add cardamom powder and rose water.
- Mix it and keep it aside to cool down.
- Serve hot or chilled with garnishing.
