Carrot Halwa

Hope you had a great Diwali! I am sure most of you living outside of India will agree with me that it is hard to get the same atmosphere as in India especially on Diwali-the diyas, crackers, home made sweets and the visitors at home!As much as I want my daughter to enjoy the same way I did during my childhood and growing up years, I know it is not possible. We try to make it as much fun as possible and as close to Indian Diwali that we can.
We put the clay diyas, wear new clothes (usually that will be just my daughter),light up the sparklers (they are the only ones we can burn in our county) and follow the family tradition of feeding the kids with sweets after they burn the crackers!
We do that for 3 days consecutively and we save a few crackers for Nagula Chavithi which comes after a couple of days of Diwali.We did no different this year.This diwali's sweet in my kitchen is Carrot Halwa.

• 1 Kg (2 lbs) Carrots, grated
• 1 liter of Whole Milk or 1 can of Evaporated Milk+1 can of Sweetened Condensed milk + Milk (about 2 cups = 16 oz) The combination of evaporated, condensed and regular milk should equal a liter, about 32 oz
• ¼ cup sugar
• ¼ cup Ghee
• 1 tsp of ground cardamom
• 3 tbsps Whole milk powder/Mava powder
• Handful of Cashews and raisins fried in ghee, separately

Procedure

• Heat milk and add grated carrots in a heavy bottomed vessel.
• Cook for about 10- 15 minutes until the carrots have absorbed majority of milk/liquids.
• Add Sugar and Cardamom and let it simmer for about 20 minutes until all the moisture from the liquids evaporated and the mixture is coming together.
• Add Ghee and the milk powder.Cook for a few minutes.
• Garnish with nuts
  

Note

• Adjust the amount of sugar to taste, I had a relatively mild halwa as I did not want to add too much sugar but feel free to do so if you like. Also, if you use condensed milk in the recipe, which I did, you may not need too much sugar.
• You can add more ghee if you don't like it dry.

Since I made this anyway, why not send it to FIL-Ghee, hosted by Sanghi of Sanghi's Food delights?

Have fun,