Carrot Cream Pudding or Variations on Gajjar Halwa

Well, as I foresaw, my enthusiasm for the cooking marathon remained just that, enthusiasm. Although I feverishly cooked and took photos, I did not have the time to take care of the blog itself so I ended up now with a bunch of nice photos, half of which I can't tell you what went into their recipes. I always make changes to recipes I find either in books or on the net, simply because often I don't have all the ingredients or I know that my family would not like that particular taste combination. Therefore if I do not jot it down immediately, in a few days I have no memory as to what exactly went into it. I suppose that is how other people operate, also, and that is the main reason why we like to put our successful dishes up, just so we ourselves have a record of it to be able to recreate it another time.

I will try to remember and redo some of the dishes of which I have now these nice photos waiting around, ready to be posted. One of them I do remember and will post it here right away for my visitors' edification. :) It is a "fusion" recipe of sorts. A while ago I prepared an Indian gajjar halwa or carrot pudding, following the recipe closely. We found it too rich, too buttery. Now I prepared an in-between dish that I think falls halfway between a carrot halwa and a khir (rice pudding). The family loved it and wants me to put it on the oft repeat list. This is what I did, let me know what you think:

1 kilo (2 lbs) carrots
1 litre (4 cups) milk
3 tablespoon rice flour (I used coarse ground type)
2 cups sugar
2 tablespoon butter
handful of raisins
cardamum powder to taste
pistachios for garnishing

I cleaned and sliced the carrots into large chunks, then cooked it in a little water until I could pierce them easily with a fork. I drained off the water, put the carrots in the food processor (or in two-three batches in a blender) and ground them down, using some of the milk which I preheated in the microwave oven. I poured the mass back into the pot, added the rest of the milk with the sugar, rice flour, cardamom and raisins, and cooked it until it thickened, about 20-30 minutes. A this point you can distribute the pudding in serving bowls, sprinkle some chopped pistachios or almonds on top, and wait until it cools. In my family puddings are usually consumed as soon as they reach a comfortable temperature without burning your mouth. :D