Health Drink - Carrot Milk

Once spring comes, it brings along with it all kinds of flowers, fruits and veggies:) I normally buy 2 carrots during my weekly grocery shopping. The other day my husband got a 10 lb bag full of carrots from Costco!! I was wondering what on earth would I do with so many carrots. Then I started trying out all the carrot recipes I knew and had heard off. However, after 10 days I had hardly used up half the stock. I preferred making khajar ka halwa, carrot milk, carrot curd pachadi, as these utilize more carrots. When I was discussing this with my cousin Sunitha, she gave me her version of carrot milk recipe. So taking the best of hers and mine here is what I have.

Ingredients:

Makes 4 cups

Carrots shredded 1 cup
Milk 2.5 cups
Cardamom powdered 1 pod
Sugar 5 spoons
Saffron 3-4 flakes
Cashew/almond paste (optional)

Method:
- Soak 2 cashews and 4 almonds overnight and grind to a paste with milk (after removing skin) - keep aside
- Boil carrots and puree
- Boil milk, turn to simmer add cardamom powder and saffron
- Let it stand for 5 minutes, then add the carrot puree and nut paste
- Boil the mixture together for abt 10 mins
- Add sugar
Drink either warm or refrigerate till cold and consume. It tastes better when cold after a bright sunny day. This drink is very healthy with the vitamin A + fiber from carrots, calcium from milk and one of the two "good" fats responsible for lowering LDL cholesterol in Almonds.