Pumpkin Halwa

What do you do with the pumpkin you carved after Halloween is done? Cook it of course. I shredded the pumpkin, without having a dish in mind. This being my first time cooking a pumpkin, I had 3 dishes in mind. Pumpkin pie, soup or halwa. The obvious choice was a halwa, since I dislike both the pie and the soup. The halwa was delicious, and nobody would guess it was made of pumpkin. I assume this is a pretty healthy Indian sweet, considering that the 75% of the dish was pumpkin.

Shredded/Grated pumpkin - 6 cups
Brown/White sugar - 1 cup (More if you like it sweet)
Condensed milk - 1/2cup
Milk - 1 cup
Cardamom - 5 pods
Ghee - 4 tbsp
Broken cashews - 1/4 cup

In a heavy bottom pan, melt 2 tbsp ghee and add the grated pumpkin. I used the food processor to shred the pumpkin. Cook on low flame, until the pumpkin is soft and reduces in volume. Add the sugar, milk and condensed milk. Stir and cook on low flame, until the mixture thickens and reduces considerably. 

Fry the cashews in the remaining ghee. Add the smashed cardamom and the cashews and ghee to the pan.Cook till the halwa is thick and starts forming a ball. It will not stick to the pan anymore.

Remove onto a greased plate and cool. Form the halwa into any shape of your choice.

This is our summer beach pumpkin.