Rose Shrikhand | Wishing All A Rosy Sweet Year Ahead

This is a simple recipe easy to make but looks and taste different. A bit like life I feel. I started making this shrikhand with dried rose petals and rose preserve (gulkhand) expecting a rosy pink dish. But it was still pure white thanks to the curd cheese. But one taste it bursted rose in my mouth.

Appearances can be deceiving in dishes as well.:).

But taste is an all important factor and hence my rose version is good to go when you are celebrating Ugadi/Gudi Padva/Cheti Chand. A celebration of the year ahead expecting a happy fun filled or rosy year with little bitterness or thorns thrown in.

Feel free to increase the amount of sugar and rose jam/gulkhand. All depends on the taste/sourness of the yogurt as well. These days yogurt turns sour fast as its hot. Anyway its upto you.The recipe is adapted from Sanjeev Kapoor. The recipe makes 1-2 big bowls depending on how big your bowl is.

Ingredients:
Hung Curd: almost 2 cups
Powdered Sugar: 8 tbsp +

Dried Rose Petals : 3-5 tsp + more for garnishing
Gulkhand/ Rose Preserves: 2 tbsp+

Preparation:
I had drained the normal full fat yogurt overnight and had used around 3/4 cup of the curd cheese for this.

Mix together dried rose petals and gulkhand into a paste and keep aside.

Mix together powdered sugar and hung yogurt/curd cheese to blend into a smooth paste.Mix in the rose petal and gulkhand paste and adjust the sweetness. 

Serve well garnished with remaining rose petals as a sweet ending for Ugadi lunch.

A simple dessert for a rosy year ahead. Don't expect pink colour in this dish. You can use rose syrup for a pink colour and also drizzle rose oil for a more enriching aroma and flavour.

Blueberry Slushy/Ice | Hello Summer

The good thing about summer is the various cold and refreshing items we can consume . The moment heat rises out come the slushies, granitas,sorbets ices and whatnot. When I was a kid, I knew only very few of these. I could see the roads lined  with watermelon and knew then summer was here.Mostly I was happy with the 'sip ups' that where available all the year round and were much needed in summer. But now its gourmet. You get French sorbet, Italian granitas along with Indian kulfis and golas. 

Anyway recently I tried out slushies. I had heard that name few years back in a board in front of icecream parlour. Which left me wondering what it was. Then as usual I completely forgot about it. Then came coffee & tea lounges "on the rocks" drinks. They too were given up by me. Then I saw an episode of Giada's Italian ice. Finally I found out the slushies, "on the rock" drinks and ices are almost the same. They might differ slightly on how they are prepared, but basically they are ice blended/topped with flavours.

I had tried out blueberry slushy/slush/slushie/ice here. Its very simple also. I had blueberry syrup with me which I pulsed together with ice cubes . A simple straight forward recipe.

Ingredients:

Blueberry syrup/puree : 2+ tbsp

Ice cubes: 1 cup +

Preparation:

Blend in an ice crusher or chutney jar of your mixer both the ingredients. You can do the taste test and add sugar syrup as well to adjust the sweetness. 

Serve in glasses garnished with mint along with spoons/straws.

In case you want Italian ice, crush the ice, pour in cups, top with syrup. You can go for your choice of syrup not just blueberry.Welcome summer.