I woke up this morning so late at 12.30, okay that’s really afternoon Oh yes! I love to cuddle up as late as possible. Looking out of the window I was excited and refreshed to see the snow showers hitting the ground so heavily and beautifully. Oh yes! snow showers always put a smile on my face and makes me go crazy. Here is a picture of my backyard wrapped up with snow…

Woke up really hungry and the first thing I thought was to order lunch for delivery. Walking downstairs, it smelled really aromatic. As I entered the kitchen, to my surprise I found my hubby having some cooking fun. HOLY MOTHER OF GOD!!! He was giving the final touches to Thai Carrot Coconut Chicken. When he served it I felt like a princess and I couldn’t have done anything more than indulging in the Thai Carrot Coconut Chicken.

Thai Carrot Coconut Chicken Recipe:

Ingredients:

• Chicken, boneless breast, cubed- 1 pound
• Carrots, diced- 3 large
• Onion, chopped-1 large
• Garlic, minced-1 tsp
• Ground Cinnamon- 1 tsp
• Thai Red Curry Paste- 2 tablespoon
• Coconut milk- 3/4 cup
• Skim milk- 1 cup
• Water- 1 cup
• Olive oil- 2 tbsp for sautéing veggies
• Salt- to taste

Preparation:

• Clean the boneless chicken breast and cube it into small pieces.
• Cook the chicken in a large pot covered with its lid.
• When the chicken has turned tender, remove from the heat and keep aside.
• Place a large non-stick cooking pan over medium heat and add 2 tbsp oil.
• Add the chopped onion and the diced carrots, add salt and cook till the veggies turn tender and slightly browned.
• Add the minced garlic and saute for a minute.
• Add the ground cinnamon and Thai red curry paste, combine well.
• Pour the coconut milk and skim milk, combine well and let it come to a slight boil.

• Remove the pan from the heat and transfer the mixture into a food processor and puree until smooth.
• Pour the puree back to the pan and place it over medium heat.
• Add the cooked chicken into the puree, add 1 cup water, mix everything together.

• Let it cook for about 3-4  minutes.
• Serve it in a bowl.

Tips:

• You can use Ground Cumin instead of Thai red curry paste.
• If you want to make this more like a soup, feel free to add more coconut milk, skim milk or water.
• We had this just like that, if you want you can have this along with Jasmine rice.

Yay, this is the 100th post of Cooking with Thas, let me sweeten up this post with Carrot Halwa…

Among the root vegetables, I admire carrots the most. Probably, this is the only root vegetable I don’t have to always worry about cooking or baking to perfection. Just a well washed raw carrot packed with Vitamin A makes a good snack. I wasn’t aware until recently that there are different varieties of carrots, ranging from the common orange, red, yellow, purple, white and black carrots. Oh ya, even black carrots! Even though they belong to the same family, they were originated from different countries and each of them offers different health benefits.

When grocery shopping, first thing I always pick is a bag of regular carrots and a bag of baby carrots. I have never seen any one of the carrots going wasted from my kitchen. Baby carrots, a healthy snack to munch on whenever I get the sweet craving and the regular carrots which is thrown blindly into almost any cooking pot. They will be seen in Soups, Stews, Stir fry, Salads, Fried rice, Desserts, Cakes, Smoothies, Milkshakes etc basically carrots are all over…

Last weekend, I turned my carrots into a mouth watering halwa. Carrot halwa is the most famous dessert in North India. Making carrot halwa in your kitchen is very simple and when you make it you have the control over pouring of ghee. You can decide how sweet and how much ghee your carrot halwa should have.

Here is my version of Carrot halwa, I’ve tried to reduce the amount of ghee and condensed milk. There is absolutely no precise amount while adding these, you could pour according to your desire, of course keep tasting it.

Carrot Halwa

Ingredients:

• Carrot, grated- 2 cups

• Milk- 1 cup
• Sugar- 2 tbsp
• Condensed milk, fat free- 4 tbsp, or according to your needs
• Ghee- 4 tbsp, or according to your needs.
• Cardamom powder- 1/4 tsp
• Roasted Almonds- 2tbsp
• Roasted Pistachios- 1tbsp
• Roasted Raisins- 1tbsp

Preparation:

• Roast almonds, pistachios, raisins in 2 tsp ghee and keep aside.

• In a wide non-stick pan, cook carrot along with the milk and sugar over medium heat until the raw smell of carrot goes away and it turns tender.

• When the carrot has cooked well and the milk almost evaporated, add the condensed milk and stir constantly.

• When it starts to thicken, add ghee little by little and continue to stir to avoid sticking to the bottom.

• Add cardamom powder and combine with the carrots.
• When you have added all the ghee and when the carrots start to turn light golden brown, add the roasted almonds, pistachios and raisins.

• Combine everything well and transfer the halwa to a dessert bowl.
• Press the top layer of the halwa with the back of a spoon to make it even and let cool down for sometime.

• When it has cooled down, run a sharp knife through the sides of the halwa to loosen up the sides, cover the bowl with a dessert plate and turn upside down, gently shake the bowl, set halwa would fall on the plate.

• Serve warm or you could even chill it in the refrigerator which makes it even more tastier.

Tips:

• Add condensed milk and ghee according to your needs.
• You could also add a pinch of Saffron soaked in 1 tbsp of milk to the halwa for nice aroma and color.
• You could even use baby carrots, if so you need to be careful while adding the condensed milk or sugar, as baby carrots are already sweet.