Raksha's Kitchen Turns 2, Celebrating with Gajar Ka Halwa

Can't believe it. Time flies so fast. Raksha's Kitchen has just turned 2.
What was started once just as a small hobby to stop playing FarmVille on FaceBook, has turned into a great passion for me now. I am so much in love with my blog and I blog about the thing that I love the most... Cooking :)
No I would not say that I am addicted to blogging, but yes I am in love with it.

I devote time to it and I have got my own identity due to this. People around have started introducing me as "She is Raksha of Raksha's Kitchen" and I really like it.

Being a software engineer with a full time job and a mom to a little toddler, it is difficult for me to blog daily. But I do manage to find time in the weekends, to write my posts. Yes I love writing too. I write my blog by pouring all my feelings into it. This blog has become a part of my life.
Initially I was not too serious about blogging, but now I want to improve my food photography skills too. I realised that it is not very easy to maintain a food blog. Cooking the perfect recipe, presenting it,clicking pictures of it, editing the photo, writing out the recipe into a blog post is not a easy task. It needs a lot of patience, hard work and devotion.

Raksha's Kitchen has given me a new opportunity to write a lot of reviews. Being in the blogosphere has helped me improve myself in a lot of dimensions both professionally and personally.

Some of my friends always tell me improvement ideas for my blog. They also tell me how to innovate new recipes. My hubby is another such person who always motivates me. He helps me sometimes while clicking pictures of food. Recently, he wrote one guest post on my blog. I also found him hunting for things which can be used while clicking photos. My blog is indeed a part of my family now :)

I also found a lot of friends in the blogosphere. They are always ready to help each other with any of the queries related to food blogging.
Apart from having 25k+ visitors per month, Raksha's Kitchen now has 150+ posts, 200+ friends followingon GFC, 285 feed burner subscriptions and  500+ followers on FaceBook and has a long way to go.
I take this opportunity to individually thank each one of you for your support and good wishes.

 I want to present you all with Gajar Ka Halwa on this auspicious eve of my blog's 2nd anniversary.

Gajar Ka Halwa is a North Indian Delicacy and is usually served in winter season to get warmth in the body. This is a traditional dish and is served in most of the North Indian weddings and religious occasions. This is a way of preparing this delicacy by using condensed milk. I will put up another post where I will explain to make the same using khova/mava.

Ingredients:
5-6 Delhi Carrots
1 cup milk
1/2 cup condensed milk ( I used Amul Mithaimate)
10 tablespoon sugar
1/4 cup Desi ghee/homemade ghee
Cardamom powder (made from 4 cardamom pods)
15 cashew nuts
15 almonds
15 raisins

Procedure:
Wash, peel and grate the carrots.
In a wok or kadai, heat ghee and toss in the raisins.
When the raisins swell up, add the grated carrots.
Stir them on high heat till they become soft.
You will notice that it has changed the colour and become brighter.
Now pour in milk, condensed milk, sugar and stir.
Let this simmer for 5 Min's.
In a microwave safe bowl, add the chopped cashew nuts and almonds and boil for 5 Min's.

Keep on stirring the carrot-milk mixture which is in kadai. Add the nuts and keep stirring continuously on medium flame till the mixture thickens. Garnish with cardamom powder.
Check the sweetness, if needed you can add more sugar according to your taste.

Serve warm.