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I have been in my parents place from past few days and have been gorging on the most beautiful Papayas this time. Most for them are from our backyard and some are form our farm. While I am eating chilled papayas with a squeeze of lime to my hearts content, my daughter has been drinking several tall glasses of fresh milk everyday!

I am totally amazed by children’s palette and their ability to follow their body when it comes to food. I don’t really have set diet or meal timings for my daughter and she loving eating though the day according to what she is in mood for and what her body craves for. She genuinely loves food and enjoys everything she puts into her mouth. You will often see her enjoying a bar of candy before a meal and then happily polishing off a big bowl of white rice and vegetables immediately after. There are days when she wakes up starving and there are days when she doesn’t eat anything other than a banana the whole day. After weaning her off breast milk, she doesn’t have a compulsory glass of milk everyday. When we are in Bangalore, she usually asks me for milk only when she falls ill. I still don’t know the connection between a cold or fever and milk but may be it’s something soothing and comforting for her?

But her relationship with milk changes every time we come to my parents house. Milk here comes from our own cows from our farm and it tastes so different from anything I can ever get in Bangalore. I have been buying Organic Raw milk from Akshayakalpa for several months now as even the thought of commercial dairies makes me sick. I wanted to make sure that even the little milk we consume was from a dairy which is humane and sustainable. But nothing even comes close to the milk there. We know our cows, we know what they eat and how they live.  I remember my grandfather religiously going to check on each and every cow, every single morning. He would stroke their forehead and lovingly talk to them while feeding them fresh grass from our farm. I am sure the sweetness of the milk has something to so with the the love they are showered with. My daughters delicate palette can easily sense the difference in taste. She drinks several glasses of this creamy sweet milk everyday and eats big bowls full of freshly set homemade curd or yogurt. I am sure she feels a different kind of connection with her milk here as every time we go to our farm she spends at least a few hours with the cows. She loves feeding them, talking to them and touching their smooth shiny horns and rough tongues.

I have created with simple, delicate pudding combining our current love, fresh whole milk and papayas. It’s simple with very clean flavors.  It’s basically a variation of the famous ‘Phirni’, with fresh fruits adding a new dimention to it. Can you believe this has just 4 ingredients! It’s wholesome with nourishing ingredients and tastes rich and comforting. It’ll not take you more than 10 to 15 minutes to make this using whole natural ingredients you will always have on hand.

For something so easy, this dessert tastes absolutely lovely and refreshing… creamy mildly sweet milk pudding with fresh sweet juicy bits of fruit in every bite. Serve it as dessert, a light snack or a weekend breakfast.

Notes:

Please use fresh organic whole milk if possible, it does make all the difference in the taste.

You can use raw cane sugar or jaggery if you don’t mind a slightly brown colored pudding.  You can also completely skip sugar and sweeten this pudding with honey or maple syrup also.

You can use many other fruits instead of papaya. Try mango, strawberry, peach or bananas.

I am sure many nut and seed milks and coconut milk will work very well in this recipe for a vegan variation of this dessert.

Top it with nuts of your choice for a interesting texture.

Use only fine rice flour to avoid a grainy pudding.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of whole milk
• 2 tbsp rice flour
• 1/4 cup or less sugar
• One small fresh papaya

Place the milk and sugar in a bowl and let it slowly warm up in low heat. Take about 1/2 a cup of milk in a bowl and stir in the rice flour. After it’s fully dissolved, pour it back into the milk and sugar mixture and stir everything together. Slowly bring this mixture to a simmer, stirring continuously. Let is simmer till it slightly thickens and let this cool completely.

Once cooled, pour this creamy sweet mixture into individual serving bowls and add small little scoops or pieces of fresh papaya into it. Keep it in the refrigerator for 2 to 4 hours for it to set fully.

Serve chilled.