Shrikhand n Gujarati Thali! & See You In September!

With this, I am taking some time off for summer. See you friends in September! I will be around. No trip plans yet. So I sure will be dropping by your lovely blogs to look at those amazing pictures, to check out those lovely recipes…but I myself won’t be posting on my blog! Blah! Need to get away from the monitor and keyboard and laptop for at least in the weekends..work will be ongoing..but I need to take some time for myself to enjoy beautiful and colorful summer and yes, to try out new dishes, to take lots of pictures to put them up on my blog later on…

Today, I present to you Gujarati thali..as you might know, thali is a platter..in typical Gujarati meal, we have a stainless steel thali, with lots of small stainless steel bowls, full of different vegetables, curries, daals, rice, sweets accompanied by pickles, papadums and salads. Since I already have these thalis with compartments, I don’t bother to use small bowls. And seriously, we can’t even eat that much food in the one go. So why bother?

I made Gujarati Kadhi, rice with peas and cashews, puris, chhundo(sweetened shredded mango jam), dry potato curry, patra(steamed rolls of Colocasia leaves, sliced and sauteed with mustard seeds, curry leaves, sesame seeds and freshly grated coconut), sweet and tangy rasawala vaal(Hyacinth beans in sauce!typical accompaniment with shrikhand) and of course, Shrikhand!

But, I will only talk about shrikhand, one of the favourite desserts of my dad’s and my hubby! And of course, my mother in law's! It is very easy to make and equally complex in calories! Yes, it IS FATTENING! It is nutritious with all the yogurt and nuts that go in it but at the same time, all the dreaded sugar makes it very very unhealthy and I personally try to steer clear from it. So this time around, I tried making it with Splenda. The result was awesome and I really felt good about it. The soft yellow hues from saffron was so inviting. The equally soft, velvety feeling in the mouth was absolutely divine. So here’s how I made it.

Shrikhand

Ingredients

1 lb Greek yogurt
12 packets Splenda
1 tsp cardamom powder
Almond, pistachio nuts, chopped(optional)
½ tsp saffron strands, dry roasted and crushed

How to:

Easy, mix everything together, chill and serve!(I always make it a day ahead)
If you don’t have an access to Greek yogurt, then drain the regular yogurt overnight in the fridge over a bowl, using coffee filter or cheese cloth. And then mix everything.
If you want to use sugar, I suggest use the powdered sugar as it melts with yogurt quickly and keeps the shrikhand thick. You can add strawberry, grapes and/or mango pieces or puree as well. But pureed fruits thin out the shrikhand.

Have a safe and happy Summer!