Holi special Thandai

Whenever we hear about Thandai we connect to the festivals like holi or mahashivratri. A chilled  milk based drink with strong flavours of almonds, fennel seeds, poppy seeds, black pepper. Awesome in taste and it cools you down. This holi I decided to make thandai at home only and it was liked by all. As the original way of making thandai don't mention to reduce the milk , however I did it as ii wanted that natural yellowish colour of the milk that we get once the mil gets reduces and thickens after simmering for a long time. You can avoid this step of reducing the milk as its quite time consuming. I did use few strands of kesar/saffron for the aroma and colour too.

Ingredients:

Milk: 1 & 1/2 ltr full fat milk
Sugar: 5-6 tbsp. (you can increase/decrease the quantity as per your taste bud)
Almond: 10-12 numbers
Cashew nuts: 7-8 numbers
Poppy seeds: 2 tsp
Fennel seeds - grounded into powder : 2 tsp
Crushed and powdered black pepper: take 6-7 numbers of black pepper
Cardamom powder: 1 tsp
Saffron/kesar: few strands - 7 or 8
Pistachios & few more saffron strands: for garnishing



Method:

Soak the almonds, cashew nuts, poppy seeds in water for about an hour or so.

Boil the milk in heavy bottomed pan. After the first boil , add the sugar. Take out 2-3 tbsp. of hot milk in a small bowl and soak the saffron strands.
Let the milk simmer till the it reduces to half by continuously checking and stirring.

In the mean while make a smooth paste out of the soaked almonds, cashew nuts, poppy seeds.

Once the milk starts reducing add the above paste and mix well. Let it simmer for some 10-12 minutes. Finally add the powdered black pepper, powdered fennel seeds and cardamom powder. Pour the saffron soaked along with the milk. Give it a nice mix. After a minute or two put the flame off.

Now you can serve it in two ways , either you transfer the thandai to glasses directly , keep it in refrigerator to chill and then serve OR if you want you can strain the mixture first through a strainer , discard the residue, transfer the thandai to glasses, make it chill and serve. Garnish with pistachios and saffron before serving.

 

Mango Smoothie

Before the king of fruits vanishes out from the market I quickly picked up few of nice ripe mangoes yesterday. As the little girl likes mango but this time she refused saying she got bored eating mangoes now. Then I thought of making some mango smoothies quickly. Smoothies are always tasty and filling as well.

Ingredients:

Mango: 2 ripe mangoes cut into pieces (you can take the mangoes as per your servings)
Milk:3/4 cup
Curd:1 cup
Sugar/Honey: 2 tbsp.
Ice cubes or you can use crushed ice
Cherries and tutti frutti for grnnishing

Method:

In a blender take mango cubes, milk, curd, sugar/honey and ice cubes/crushed ice and blend it for a minutes. If you find it not very smooth, you can give another round of blending. Now pour this chill smoothie into tall glasses. Garnish with tutti frutti and cherries and eat or drink this delicious smoothie . This mango smoothie goes so well with tutti frutti as you get the crunchiness in every sip or each spoon of this smoothie.

Is not that super easy to make? yes, in no time you can make this and serve your guests and family.

Healthy & tasty soft drink for our kidz

This one particular drink is like a regular one at home once the little girl is back from school tired and exhausted. This works like an energy booster for her after a day's hard work at school :)
No special ingredient no use of mixer grinder juicer here. Very simple to prepare, as most of my dishes .

Ingredients:
Orange flavoured Glucon D: 4-5 tablespoon
Juice of 2 1/2 lemons
Honey: 1 tablespoon
Jeera powder: 1/2 tsp
Pinch of salt
Fresh mints leaves: 5-6
Water : 2 cups


Method:

Take a big jar. Take the lemon juices in the jar, add glucon -D and water and stir with a big spoon and mix them well till the glucon -D gets dissolved properly. Now add the honey (you can use sugar also instead of honey), Jeera powder , salt and  crushed mint leaves . Mix them all nicely. Do taste it while mixing in case you would want to add some more sweetness to it. You can add ice cubes to this drink while serving. I prefer to give this to my girl without ice and with natural sweetener honey.

Serve this drink in nice beautiful glasses to your kids when they are back from school to boost up their energy level. Keep the remaining drink in a bottle in refrigerator and consume as and when you require :-)