Badam Kheer/Badam Milk/Almond Kheer

Badam kheer or badam milk is one of my family's favorite and these days I am making it often as we all are craving to drink or eat something cold due to high temperature here.This badam milk can be served chilled or hot but we always prefer to drink chilled and used the 2% milk.The use of whole milk gives a rich and creamy taste to the kheer.Now to the recipe..........

Ingredients

Ingredient	Quantity
Almonds/badam	1/2cup
Cashews/mundiri paruppu	2tbs
Sugar	1/2cup
Milk	41/2cups
Cardamom powder/ellakai podi	1/2tsp
Saffron	6-7 strands
Yellow food color(optional)	a pinch

Method 

                       Soak the almonds and cashews in water separately for 2-3 hours.Peel the skin of the almonds and grind both almonds and cashews to a paste with 1/2cup of milk.Soak the saffron in a tbs of warm milk and keep aside.
In a sauce pan boil the milk in a medium flame till it becomes thick,now add the sugar and and bring it to a boil.

Add the ground paste and cook it till everything gets blend well with continuous stirring to prevent burning.

Finally add the saffron and cardamom powder and put off the stove.

Refrigerate for 3-4 hours once it becomes cool down.
Chilled Badam Kheer is ready to serve.Garnish it with finely chopped pistachios.

Enjoy........................................

• The color gets deeper on cooling as the saffron gets soaked in the milk and I didn't use any food color. 
• Grind the almonds and cashews to a bit coarse consistency.
• To get a rich and creamy consistency 2-3tbls of condensed milk can be added.