Soon Navratri is coming, which is a festival of worship, dance, music and of course - food. ...and like most years, we ( me n hubby) are planning to do the 9 days Navratri vrat, i.e, fasting. The fasting food is all so yummy, that it  itself is a motivation to do fast . ;)  During Navratri fast , we can eat , what we call Faalhari Food only, i.e, fruit based one. So what all comes in faalhari, all fruits, dry fruits, potato, tomato and flour made out of fruits, like singhara (water chestnut), also known as kuttu ka atta, phaphad etc. Soon i shall be posting other upvas recipes too, so can know what all we can eat. :) . This year navratri is from 28th Sep to 6th Oct 2011.

Firstly ,starting with a dessert, here's is dry fruit mix kheer,

Ingredients:

Milk 1 L

Dry fruits:
Makhana cut in halves, 2 cups
Almonds 15 – 20, slivered
Cashew nuts 15 – 20, broken in small pieces
Chironji / Chiraunji 2 tbsp
Raisins 10-12
Pistachios, 10-12, slivered

Cardamom powder 1 tsp
Saffron threads a few
Sugar 3 tbsp (or as per taste)

Method:

Soak saffron threads in 2 tbsp of warm milk.
Put 1 tsp ghee in a heavy bottomed pan, and stir fry all the dry fruits.
In the same pan heat milk. When it comes to a boil, add all the dryfruit mix.
Let it cook on low heat, stirring occasionally.
When the milk thickens and reduces to almost half add sugar, saffron threads and cardamom powder.
Keep stirring till the sugar is mixed completely. Let it cook for another 3 – 4 minutes.
Serve hot or chilled.

Tips:

Makhana ,are referred to as Popped / puffed Lotus Seeds/ fox nut.
Chironji is also referred to as Chiroli.
Can reduce milk by 250ml, and omit sugar and instead can add ¼ cup condensed milk.
Instead of frying, also can just soak raisins beforehand or also can just add all dryfruits in boiling milk.