Beetroot Halwa

Hello Friends!!! It's Shravan month and many festivals are there in a que. Here in Bangalore, people celebrate Varamahalaxmi Pooja. It is mostly done on first or second Friday of Shravan. Ladies perform pooja at home and decorate the goddess Laxmi with new attire and jewellery. Many delicacies are prepared and there is feast at home and friends and relatives are invited. From past three years even I celebrate it at my home. You can see the pics below.

On this occasion I thought to prepare sweet at home. Every year mostly I prepare kheer or gulab jamuns. But this year I thought to make something different to serve goddess Laxmi. I thought of making Beetroot halwa and it was a great hit. The earthy flavour of beetroot blended well with milk and khoya and there was this very nice dessert. You can also make it healthy by avoiding khoya and adjusting levels of ghee and sugar. But since I made it for 'prasad' I added ghee and khoya. The texture was superb. Let's see the recipe.

Preparation Time : 15 mins

Cooking Time : 20-30 mins

Serves: 6

Ingredients:

Beetroot - 1/2 kg

Milk - 1/2 litres

Sugar - 3/4 cup

Khoya - 1/2 cup

Ghee - 2-3 tspn

Cardamom powder - 1 tspn

Chopped nuts - 2 tbspn

Method:

1. Grate Beetroots and keep aside.

2. Take a heavy bottomed pan and add ghee to it.

3. Saute chopped nuts for 2-3 seconds and take them out.

4. Add beetroot in it and saute well.

5. Add milk to it and mix well and cover the pan and cook for 10-15 minutes.

6. Now remove the lid and add sugar to it.

7. Increase the flame and let the milk evaporate till the halwa mixture is dry. (Keep stirring so that the mixture won't burn)

8. Now add khoya, cardamon powder and nuts to it and mix. Reserve few nuts for garnishing.

9. Serve hot or cold.

Here is the recipe video for your reference.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jS8Bz6CyLk

Here is the Varamahalaxmi pooja pic. I decorated it in a quite simple manner. People normally decorate the idols. I decorate the coconut and the kalash (as you can see below).