Kesar Peda

It is the time of the year to go crazy over shopping. Usually by this time I would be having my shopping list ready, would have checked the best prices for the stuff on my list and have a mental map of stores to hits on black Friday. But this time around no such list and I have not even looked for the black Friday flyer. What is wrong with me? Have I grown out of retail therapy? or have I reached some sort of saturation buying stuff that I do not need all because they were on sale? or is it that I have grown slightly more sensible? or that I am just trying to be very sensible right now and end up buying cart full of stuff on the actual day (and be stupid!). No straight forward answers for now, will have to wait and watch.
Till then it is more eating. The season of eating continues. Thanksgiving, quintessential celebration of over eating is round the corner. This time where ever we are (company and program not yet decided, but food will be plentiful wherever we decide to go) I am determined not to over eat. (The probability of which will be ever so slight, unfortunately).  These were some Pedas I made the other day. They were Yummy and ran out pretty fast. They are not uniform. I should have paid more attention to the size. But does it not scream "HOMEMADE" and no one will asked me if I made them. It is quite obvious that you do not get Pedas of differing size/shapes in store. Happy eating everybody.

We will need,

Ghee 3-4 tbsp
Ricotta cheese 2 lbs
Milk Powder 1 cup
Sugar 1-2 cups (I used a little over one cup. But if you prefer your Pedas sweet, use 2 cups or more)
Saffron a generous pinch (crushed)
Milk 2 tbsp
Food color (optional, I do not use food color)
Cardamon 2 (shelled and the seeds crushed)
Pistachios 4-5 for garnish (finely chopped)

Method:

• Freeze the ricotta for a day and thaw it on the kitchen counter for a few hours. By doing this we can easily separate the whey from the milk solids and making Pedas will be faster. 
• Line a colander with multiple layers of cheese clothes.Pour the ricotta over the colander and drain as much whey as possible.
• Heat ghee in a non stick pan. Once the ghee is warm, throw in the ricotta, milk powder and sugar. The mixture will be very loose but will thicken pretty fast.Keep stirring constantly to make sure the mixture is not burning.
• Heat the milk till it is pretty warm and soak the saffron in the warm milk.
• Once the ricotta mixture starts to leave the sides of the pan, stir in the saffron and crushed cardamon.
• Remove from heat and once it is cool enough to handle, pinch lime sized (or smaller/bigger) balls of Peda and flatten it slightly between the palms of your hand. 
• Garnish the Pedas with chopped pistachios. It will last a couple of days at room temperature or about a week in the refrigerator.