Vegan Halva Chikki (Brittle)

 Halva Chikki (Brittle)

Hi

This recipe came out as an accident but I liked it so much that  I took a photo and want  to share it with you. 

Ingredients: 

1. 1/4 cup Semolina (fine Soji) or All Purpose flour or Corn starch

2. 1/4 cup Veg Crisco 

3.1 container about 12 or 14oz Vegan Coconut Sweetened Condensed milk

4. 1/4 to 1/4 cup sliced or chopped almonds, pistachio, cashew and cardamom powder. 

5. 1 tablesppon rose water

Method: 

1. Mix Flour, Crisco, sweetened condensed milk and heat it on high to medium heat. Keep stirring for 10 to 15 minutes until it becomes thicker. 

2. After another 5 minutes, add Rose water and a teaspoon or two of the melted vegan butter or vegan ghee and keep stirring till the mixture leaves edges and thick enough to roll. 

3. Roll on a plastic wrap with another plastic wrap on top. 

4. Add all chopped nuts. 

5. Let it cool and break into brittle pieces. Store in a cool dry place in a jar. 

By Kalpana Christian Sharma (KC)

Nutrition Facts
Servings 20.0
Amount Per Serving
calories 56
% Daily Value *
Total Fat 4 g	6 %
Saturated Fat 1 g	4 %
Monounsaturated Fat 1 g
Polyunsaturated Fat 2 g
Trans Fat 0 g
Cholesterol 3 mg	1 %
Sodium 12 mg	1 %
Potassium 17 mg	0 %
Total Carbohydrate 5 g	2 %
Dietary Fiber 0 g	1 %
Sugars 3 g
Protein 1 g	2 %
Vitamin A	0 %
Vitamin C	3 %
Calcium	1 %
Iron	1 %
* The Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet, so your values may change depending on your calorie needs. The values here may not be 100% accurate because the recipes have not been professionally evaluated nor have they been evaluated by the U.S. FDA.

Vegan Ice Halva (each with variety of plant based milk type) by KC (Kalpana Christian Sharma)

Vegan Ice Halva 

I have tried different plant based milk products and got results as follows: Almond milk, Cashew milk Evaporated Coconut milk and Soy milk all do a good job. The Oat milk makes it a little more dense consistency, but it tastes good. The red color is the Soy milk variety. I have added red color otherwise the result is the same with other plant based milk. 

Ingredients: 

1. 2 cups Almond milk, OR Cashew Milk OR any plant based milk that you would like to try.

2. 1/4 cup Corn starch (Also known in other countries as Corn flour) OR soji (Fine semolina) Or you can try Maida (All Purpose Flour) 

3. 1/4 cup Vegan melted butter OR Dalda Vanaspati Ghee (Keep a little more like teaspoon or two aside to add later. 

4. 1 cup Sugar 

5. Chopped Almonds, Pistachio, Cashew nuts, Cardamom powder as well as half crushed or some  whole seeds of Cardamom. (to sprinkle as much as you like, like 1/4 to  1/2 cup. I like generous amount on top. 

6. 1 tablespoon rose water. 

(if you like Yellow colored Halva, you can add few saffron strands in a table spoon of warm water or any of the warm plant milk and add around the time you add rose water.) 

Things needed: Heavy bottomed nonstick pot/pan, wooden spatula, sifter, plastic wraps to roll on and cover on top. (approx.20 in x 24 in, just double the ones you get overlapping so it is spacious.) Rolling pin. Parchment paper cut into 4x4 squares. (Some call it butter paper) A stove top that you can adjust heat/flame as needed from high/medium/low. Keep everything ready so when it is ready, you just lay it on the plastic wrap already placed on the kitchen counter or table top and start rolling while it is hot. 

Method: 

1. Sift the corn starch or Soji or flour with a sifter to avoid bumpy lumps. 

2. Mix it with melted ghee/vegan butter, sugar and milk. 

3. Now start cooking it with low heat and mix as it warms up turn to heat high medium. BE attentive making this as it needs your full attention and energy. Keep stirring so it does not stick at the bottom or side. This is important otherwise it will create unnecessary lumps. (Should you find some just slowly remove with a spoon and discard the lumps). This takes about  20 to 25 minutes as you keep stirring and see it thicken.

4. Towards the time it gets thicker, add rose water and keep stirring and scraping off the edges and bottom.  

5. At some point towards the end, add a tea spoon of vegan ghee/butter so it is easy to keep it off from sticking. Adjust heat as needed. 

6. When it turns into almost a soft dough like consistency, it will be softer though, not too hard!

7. Remove it from the heat and spread it on the ready laid out plastic wrap and cover with another plastic wrap and start rolling with a rolling pin. Make it as thin as you like, usually 1/8th inches. 

8. Remove the top plastic and add the chopped  nuts and cardamom powder generously, place the top plastic wrap back and lightly roll again so the nuts go well in the halva. Make it nicely flat and beautiful. 

9. You can let it dry in a cool dry place. In a while after an hour or two you can cut the edges and make squares as you like. Usual squares are 4x4 inches. Soji takes longer to dry 24 to  48 hours. I leave it overnight and once it dries up a little I change sides and after it dries just enough.

10. I stack up each one on top of another with a parchment paper squares in between and store it in an airtight container. Enjoy!

 These are the different types of  plant based milk Ice Halva I have tried. 

Vegan Ice Halva with Almond milk

With Almond Milk

Vegan Ice Halva with Soy milk and added red color

Vegan Ice Halva with Cashew milk

Vegan Ice Halva with Evaporated Coconut milk

Vegan Ice Halva with Oatmilk

Nutrition Facts
Servings 10.0
Amount Per Serving
calories 169
% Daily Value *
Total Fat 7 g	11 %
Saturated Fat 3 g	17 %
Monounsaturated Fat 1 g
Polyunsaturated Fat 0 g
Trans Fat 0 g
Cholesterol 0 mg	0 %
Sodium 48 mg	2 %
Potassium 70 mg	2 %
Total Carbohydrate 24 g	8 %
Dietary Fiber 1 g	3 %
Sugars 20 g
Protein 1 g	3 %
Vitamin A	14 %
Vitamin C	0 %
Calcium	8 %
Iron	1 %
* The Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet, so your values may change depending on your calorie needs. The values here may not be 100% accurate because the recipes have not been professionally evaluated nor have they been evaluated by the U.S. FDA.

By Kalpana Christian  Sharma (KC)

Brilliant at Math, A girl of 1930s and 40s, My Kantafoi (Aunt Kanta)

Hi all,

March is a women's history month. One of my 3rd cousins sent me a pic of our aunt (her aunt and my second aunt). 

I would like to tell this short story that I was told and the little I know of this amazing lady who was brilliant at Mathematics. 

She and my dad were cousins as well as agemates and classmates. Her first name is Kanta. We fondly called her Kantafoi. (Foi means dad's sister)

She was born in 1933 in a village of Navagam in the Gujarat State of India, in a nominal Christian home. She had a sister and two brothers. She would have been 88 years old. Today March 4th 2021 is her 10th death anniversary. Since my dad was the only child who survived he was close to his cousins. 

Years back when I saw her she was a STRONG, beautiful, light skinned, light brown cat eyed, the tallest woman I saw back then; hard working and splitting woods in a village with her might and a lovely smile and, engaging in a conversation with me about how she was close to Nandu, her dear cousin brother, aka my dad! 

Then years later, my dad told me their childhood story. He said with joy yet sadness. He said, they both were in the same class in a nearby, bigger village called Vaso. They sat next to each other as cousin brother and sister. They were close as siblings. He continued narrating: Kanta was the brightest and ace at Math in their class. She topped the class. When the teacher asked a Math question, and you didn't raise a hand with a ready answer you were in for a good whip. Ouch!!! But before anyone else knew she always had the answer ready on her lips and whispered it to my dad with even a quick method how that answer was right. My dad said they would all raise hands sheepishly but after she had given him the answers and the methods he smiled breathing in a sigh of relief, incase teacher called on him to answer. 😀

Now the sad part: when they finished 5th grade, her dad decided it was enough formal school learning for a village girl of that time regardless of how brilliant she was at studying. 😢

So my dad went to the parents and uncle, (gotta love my dad for being there empowering women even in early 1940s to study further) pleading with them to let Kanta continue studying since she was SO brilliant at Math. Sadly they refused and her formal studies came to an end and she continued to learn to settle as girl at home doing house chores. Kantafoi eventually got married in India and had kids of her own.   

Fast forward, her other two brothers studied further. One became a teacher and another a post office employee.  And my dad became a Mathematician 😀🙌with double degrees in Mathematics and Physics and a professor at Gujarat university, and a teacher but later gave it up to teach high school students at grassroots level in the beautiful Degoretti suburbs of Nairobi Kenya, East Africa. 

Before my dad went to Degoretti High School, the Math and Physics students there had suffered a great deal due to lack of a good teaching. The year my dad taught they got 100% pass result and the form 5 and 6 (highschool junior and senior) students carried my dad on their shoulders around the school (I wish I had the photo) thanking him for teaching them with his great Math skills. Many know my dad to be a good Mathematician. But even in his achievements he never ever forgot his dear cousin Kanta. He always said he was no where near Kanta. And till his death he grieved the painful reality of old that she was not allowed to study further just because of her gender. 

Years later in Nairobi, my dad said with a sadness in his heart that had Kanta been allowed to study further, she would have stood first and earned a good name for herself, blessing the world with her brains. I loved hearing about her story from my dad. Yes, she would have, but I still think she taught and blessed my dad even as a young girl till 5th grade and empowered my dad to be a great Mathematician that taught many students who have entered from engineering, to medicine to research science, to businesses and to other fields, impacting and blessing the world! 

Today I want to honor her as a young Math girl and a young teacher of 30s and 40s.

God, we are proud of Kantafoi. Thank you for blessing her with brilliant Math brain. Thank you for my dad too who believed and learnt from her, pleaded for her and stood up for women empowerment even back in those years in a tiny village. 

God's work of empowerment continues in every field, every village and every corner of the world. 

Kalpana Christian Sharma

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Formative vs Deformative Suffering

Hi,

This morning when I read the below copied devotional from Words of Hope devotional, it reminded me of a Christian Coach Leslie Vernick's mention of "Formative vs Deformative suffering". 

Me thinks, some of us are being lumped, others are being kneaded, others on the wheel spinning, while few others are being broken as God reshapes, so HE has to get us out and add more softening agents before putting us back on the wheel; while others are in oven, ouch!!! And it gets hotter and hotter; but remember HIS hand is on the knob and His eyes are on us. When HE thinks less or more heat is needed, HE knows when to turn the knob up or down. And yet others are being seasoned before being painted. So meanwhile wherever we are placed together, it's ok to comfort and talk how painful the process is. God perhpas smiles and says that's ok, keep empowering each other. Later on you'll all be smiling in MY showcase making me and others smile, how beautifully you are shaped. Let the process be hopefully joyful even while it's painful. -KC (Kalpana) 

In the Potter’s Hands

February 14, 2021 

Read: Jeremiah 18:1-11 

Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words. (v. 2) Clay is a complex medium. One careless movement of the potter’s hand renders the vessel under formation unsightly or worthless. Clay is also very forgiving. Of course if the vessel becomes deformed, it can simply be removed from the wheel, watered and kneaded. It is ready to be remade. Unless, of course, it is allowed to harden in place. God compared his people to a lump of clay and himself the potter. For centuries, God’s people resisted their potter’s hands. Their only hope was for him to pick them up, break them down, and reshape them into a vessel worthy of bearing his love. 

We too insist on shaping ourselves. We take pride in designing our identities and dictating the course of our lives. From our perspective, we look well-formed. From God’s perspective, we are incomplete. The more set we are in our ways, the more painful God’s work is. For God to have his way, he must pick us up, break us down, and reshape us. 

The true sign of a devoted potter is his refusal to let an unformed vessel harden in place. The true sign of God’s devotion to us is that he never stops working on us. Paul wrote, “We are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Eph. 2:10 NIV). Our Lord is the master artist. If we let him, he will make us his masterpiece. —Ben Van Arragon 

As you pray, commit your life to the potter’s hands. Words of Hope devotional

Jeremiah 18:1-11 (NivUK)

At the potter’s house

18 This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2 ‘Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.’ 3 So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. 4 But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.
5 Then the word of the Lord came to me. 6 He said, ‘Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?’ declares the Lord. ‘Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel. 7 If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, 8 and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. 9 And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, 10 and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it.
11 ‘Now, therefore, say to the people of Judah and those living in Jerusalem, “This is what the Lord says: look! I am preparing a disaster for you and devising a plan against you. So turn from your evil ways, each one of you, and reform your ways and your actions.”

Faith that works!

I have been pondering on this Bible story of the woman with the 12 years of blood issue. 

Matthew 9:20-22 New International Version 

20 Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak. 21 She said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.” 22 Jesus turned and saw her. “Take heart, daughter,” he said, “your faith has healed you.” And the woman was healed at that moment. 

Mark 5:25-34 New International Version 

25 And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. 26 She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. 27 When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28 because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” 29 Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. 30 At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?” 31 “You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ” 32 But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. 33 Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. 34 He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.” 

Luke 8:43-48 New International Version 

43 And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years,[a] but no one could heal her. 44 She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped. 45 “Who touched me?” Jesus asked. When they all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you.” 46 But Jesus said, “Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me.” 47 Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed. 48 Then he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.”   

__

Here are some great points that I see. 

She had faith.

She didn't passively accept her suffering as her lot.

She didn't blame God. 

She chose to overcome shame. 

She tried all she could to get well. 

She spent all she had to get help from EVERY physician she heard of. 

She tried all measures and cures. NO change! But...

She was not a quitter. 

She didn't give up. Then.....

She heard of this kind, caring, dynamic Yeshua, the Healer, who instantly healed people. So different, so simple, so down to earth! Ah!!!! Hope revitalized.

She decided she was going to try this. She had faith and she put it into action. 

Catch this: She didn't even think she needed to send a "messenger" to request a healing meeting. No advanced booking, no appointment needed, no $ to pay, no new diagnosis nor new prescriptions. 

She mustered up courage and went. 

She saw a huge crowd. She wondered if she will make it nearer as it's a large crowd. She plotted the best way to get nearer. 

She pressed through. Anyhow, requesting, excusing, scooting and, pushing she managed to cut through a LARGE crowd! 

She self-talked, she ONLY needed to touch the hem of his garment. 

She didn't seem to want to disturb Him or His trip. She was aware of His busyness. 

She didn't even want to be noticed. (Hmmm!)

So resolutely, she came from behind and touched the edge of his cloak. And...voila!!! 

Her faith healed her. (Woohoo!)

Wait! To top it, Jesus wanted to ALSO publicly recognize her, her faith, declare her clean and restore her standing in the society. NO MORE shame! 

Jesus was actually on His way to heal a 12 year girl and enroute, willingly chose to stop, recognized her, her faith and restored her dignity after healing. She was suffering for 12 years, each year the little girl had lived, the woman had suffered. (JESUS healed both, first the lady suffering for 12 years and then the little girl of 12) 

Many of us have spent years of time, energy, $, emotions and, reasonings etc..to get the help. We have tried to fix, our ways while God is trying to fix us through His unconventional ways! God will equip, stablish, secure and strengthen us. When fiery darts come our way, God strengthens and rebuilds our core defense mechanism to fight it God's way. Or God will take us from strength to strength. And make is a blessing to others. 

That takes me to my second point: we are taught "Don't air your dirty laundry," well, here, Jesus incited her to air her already washed up laundry.  God invites us to openly talk about the message that springs from the mess, for His glory, for our good and for the edification of others. 

-Kalpana Christian Sharma @