Awards & A Special Sweetdish!

I love eating sweets, ice creams, desserts and interesting sweet dishes...but sadly these are oh-so-very sinful delights and I have to keep a watch on calories and weight:) Anyways, the festive season is still lingering...so here's a sweet dish which is my favorite(I guess for others too!). It is called Chhanar Payesh or Cottage Cheese Pudding. Try it and satisfy your taste buds!

You will need: Cottage cheese(100 grams), milk(500 ml), Condensed milk 1 tin, Sugar(2 tsp), 1 cup water, 2 tsp almonds(cut into pieces), Raisins(2 tsp), Pistachio( 2tsp).

Directions: Prepare a thin syrup with sugar and water. Add the cottage cheese in the syrup and mix it well. Boil the milk now for 2 minutes after adding the condensed milk to it. Now pour this milk into the cottage cheese in little quantities at a time. Stir and mix well. Add diced almonds, raisins and pistachio to the mix and keep in fridge. Serve cold.

Awards time!

My friend Shama of Easy2cookrecipes has presented me with this cute Good Job award.
Three of my other friends have honored me with these lovely awards! Kitchen Flavors was absolutely right when she passed me on this "I'm a Chocoholic" award...I have a passion for chocolates:)
PJ of Seduce Your Tastebuds and Adlaks' Tiny World has thought of my blog as one of the coolest ones and passed me on this Butterfly award. Thanks a ton all of you for thinking about me!!The rules of the award are:

Put the logo on your blog. Add a link to the person who awarded you. Nominate 10 other blogs. Add links to those blogs on yours, and leave a message for your nominees on their blogs.

I would like to pass the Butterfly Award for the coolest blogs I know to:

Vegetable Platter
Andhra Flavors
Indian Khana
Essence of Andhra
Recipeswap
Plantain Leaf
Sweetbites
Holy Cow
Spice and Curry
Mom's Cooking

Payesh/Payasam

Lakshmi Puja is celebrated in almost every home in West Bengal right after Durga Puja. This is a special day when different types of food are offered to the Goddess. One of them is Payesh or Payasam as it is known throughout India. Though many people prepare it with vermicelli, we prepare it with rice on this special occasion.

Here's a little bit different way of preparing this traditional dessert:

Ingredients: Basmati rice 100 grams, Milk 2 liters, Raisins 50 grams, Sugar 500 grams, Cashew nuts 50 grams, Pistachio(few), Ghee 1 tsp, Cardamom 3/4.

Procedure: Soak the rice and raisins separately for half and hour. In a hollow bottomed pan, heat the ghee and add the cardamoms. Now add the rice and stir lightly. Add milk. Now keep on stirring till it becomes thick. Then add sugar, raisins, cashew nuts, and when it becomes thick, remove it from flame. When it cools down, garnish with pistachio.