Saturday, November 10, 2007

Yellow (Halloween) Pumpkin Halwa

The food blog world has been agog with Deepavali celebration for about two weeks now but for some inexplicable reason I forgot about Deepavali on Deepavali day, lame excuse for not cooking any sweets for the festival. The pumpkin that DD2 brought home from the pumpkin patch has been sitting on the counter top for a couple of weeks now. We are not big time or small time for that matter pumpkin carvers so after a brief visit outside the house for Halloween night it has been sitting on the counter top. It seemed criminal to throw away a perfectly good pumpkin in the trash. Pumpkin Halwa with the Halloween Pumpking for Deepavali seemed like a grand idea.
When I suggested cooking with it, DD2 was not too pleased with her kumpkin (that is how she calls it) being broken and cooked. So I did the unthinkable when she was sleeping and removed all traces of it. Cracking open the pumpkin is the hard part, once open removing the skin is an easy process.

The Halloween Pumpking thus became Pumpkin Halwa, it did turn out delicious. Add sugar, milk, honey to anything and delicious it has to be by default. But do people cook with the Halloween pumpkins or is it just for carving? Taste wise it did taste perfectly pumpkinish like it should.


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The recipe is pretty simple and comes from this website, followed the exact instructions.
Recipe Source: Easy Indian Food



Ingredients
1. 3 Cups grated pumpkin, skin and seeds removed (the food processor worked beautifully)
2. 1 Cup Milk
3. 1 cup sugar
4. 1/2 cup honey
5. 15 Cashews broken
6. 3 Cardamoms powdered
7. Ghee - 2 1/2 tbsp



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Method
1. In a wide mouthed pan heat about a tsp of ghee and roast the cashews and set aside
2. Add another couple of tsps of ghee and the grated pumpkin and saute till the raw smell goes (about 15 mts)
3. Add the milk cover and cook till the pumpkin turns soft (another 10 minutes).
4. Add the sugar, cardamom powder and honey, mix and cook till all the moisture evaporates.
5. Add the remaining ghee and cook till the ghee starts to separate (another 8-10minutes)
6. Add the cashews and turn off the heat

There lovely Pumpkin Halwa is ready. Hope everyone had a great Deepavali celebration.

26 comments:

  1. Happy Diwali Indo :D. We didn't make any sweets either. It was D's b'day some days back and everyone was fed enough so nothing special for Diwali. But come to think of it, we never made sweets for diwali :D After doing the blog rounds I now realize that Deepavali is held in so many ways across India.
    For us, we just lit up lamps and switched on the pretty string lights on the porch. It was so cold today that we didn't even venture out for the customary kali Puja, which is the community Puja that Bengalis have on the same day as Diwali.

    Your pumpkin halwa looks bright & sunny. Even I was not sure what was to be done with the pumpkin that S wanted to paint for Halloween. It is still standing lonely on the porch. I do not have the energy to transform it into anything, so it won't see sweet days like yours :)

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  2. Halloween halwa sounds so cute and must have tasted great as well! Warm Diwali wishes to you and your loved ones too, dear :).

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  3. I have had white pumpkin halwa..:))
    Thanx for this version of yellow pumpkin halwa...!!

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  4. Belated Diwali wishes dear. Pumpkin Halwa looks truly delicious and it's perfect for the season. I've saved it for later. Thanks for sharing it.

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  5. Love the color of the halwa dear.. Can I add ur post to my 'Halloween RoundUp'?.. that wud be fun..:DD

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  6. hi, wow!!..i tried the same too, and wasnt it lovely..but my source was from VCuisine of Viji...samepinch!!

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  7. Sandeepa, true blogs teach so much, lighting of lamps during Deepavali is not common in my parts. I do agree, one big celebration for a month is more than we can take :)
    I did read up on Himesh :) never heard of him but looks like he has scored music for quiet a few movies

    Musy, thank you, did you have a good Diwali too? sure tasted good as Halwa, I have tried curries before and never liked the texture - stringy.

    Raks me too, have heard of the white one but not the yellow one. If you have Halloween pumpkin lying around you should give it a try :)

    Pushpa, thank you.

    Kribha, thank you. Colorful and warm, just what we need for the dark winter :)

    Siri, go ahead, will be my pleasure.

    Kitchen scientist, sure tasted great, for what would have normally ended up in the trash, this seemed like a treasure.

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  8. I have never seen yellow pumpkin here so far. Looks so good. Halwa is yum, great sweet for "forgotten" Diwali!:D

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  9. Dear Indo,

    Here is the link to RoundUp..:)

    http://siri-corner.blogspot.com/2007/11/lets-celebrate-halloween-together-event.html

    take care and cya

    -Siri

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  10. Halwa looks yummy...Happy Diwali to you too.

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  11. Kumpkin? Cho Chweet!!!! :)

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  12. Beatiful color, yeah, why waste a perfectly good pumpkin, when you can convert it to such great looking desserts!

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  13. I'm feeling mischiveous :) I want to pick out all the nuts :)

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  14. WOW.......Great Dish!!!!!

    Delicious dish.:)))

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  15. Himeshhhhhhhhh...lets not talk about him.I didn't know much about him until we had access to the Indian Channels courtesy in-laws. So there is this one very nice Music Program called "Sa Re Ga Ma" om Zee TV(you must have heard about it, we used to watch it even in India).

    Anyway, the program is really good, but this guy is one of the judge or something on it. And his attitude is deplorable. I don't know about his genre of music and he I guessed is pretty famous, but if you see him on the show...shudder....

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  16. Hi ISG,
    Diwali Wishes!!!
    Pumpkin Halwa looks nice and creamy. Thanks for sharing.

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  17. why wasting pumpkin when u can prepare something delicious as this:) it looks so moist and colourful indo.my amma would make pumpkin halwa whenever we had bumper crop. did little one ask for her pumpkin after eating it?

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  18. Asha, the pumpkin halwa made the weekend festive and the forgotten Diwali was forgotten :)

    Siri, thanks. checked the roundup all awesome entries.

    Kalva, Aarthi hope you had great Diwali celebrations too.

    Nupur, Halloween Pumpkin comes out as Halloween Kumpkin.

    Sig, I concur :)

    Cynthia go ahead, enjoy yourself.

    Kajal, wow thanks.

    Sandeepa, Ok lets not, a little bit that I did read about him did not endear him to me either. Yes these satellite Indian channels are a god send for parents visiting but the stuff they show on there makes me shudder.

    MT, hope you had a grand Deepavali celebration.

    Sia, yes the pumpkin Halwa was delicious, I am glad I did not feel lazy and throw it away :)
    She sure checked on her Kumpkin, when I showed her the Halwa she was happy it became a sweet, but after a spoonful she did not want anymore(not too fond of sweet things) but DD1 had a blast, she loved it.

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  19. pumpmkin halwa sound delicious!!

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  20. Hi ISG,

    Once more, it seems I don't get your posts till a day or two later. But it didn't suffer for the waiting -- pumpkin halwa looks rich and delicious! And yes, you can get a sugar pumpkin geared specially for cooking, but I would cook any pumpkin if I had your patience to slice it up and remove the skin :)

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  21. I make carrot halwa the same way.. never knew u could make such a lovely halwa with yellow pumpkins too. thanks and hope u had a great diwali.

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  22. Pumpkin halwa... hmm.. sounds something new to me. Will have to give it a try.

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  23. Swapna and Sagari nice to have you over and thanks.

    Linda, wonder why maybe it has to do with the time you are trying remember my blog is Type A and funcitons best early mornings :)removing the skin was not the hard part it was all the grating :) I am going to try with the sugar pumpkin next time.


    Prema, Diwali was fun, yes first time for me too didn't expect it to turn this good.

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