In India, right now, 'tis the season to be holy. Everyone's just winding down from a birthday bash for Ganesh the elephant-headed god, Dussehra's already at the doorstep, and Diwali will be here before you know it. All of this festival fever is accompanied by, quite naturally, a whole lot of food. A lot of it sweet.

It's more than a week now since I returned home to Washington but I am still in an India state of mind. All I want to do right now is go back and squabble with the rickshaw drivers in Chennai about the fares, stare upon a lush landscape in Savai Vere, Goa, and watch a movie with my arm tucked in Desi's at Regal Cinema in Bombay.

Unfortunately life makes it hard to have fun when you want to, and therefore all those plans will just have to wait. So what I have been doing instead is cooking up some favorite Indian foods. And because it is festival season back in my favorite place, some of it is-- you guessed it-- sweet.

I came up with this very easy Besan Cashew Halwa because I was looking for a tastier alternative to a very popular Indian sweet that often pops up at Diwali but which Desi detests-- Besan Laddoo. For those who are not familiar with laddoos, picture them as spherical cookies that, like cookies, are available in a variety of flavors and textures. Apart from Besan Laddoos, made with garbanzo bean or chickpea flour, you have Rava Ladoo which is made with sooji farina, Til ke Laddoo made with sesame seeds, Coconut Laddoo, laddoos made with puffed rice (kurmura) and so on. I had an uncle who ate a laddoo made with a powder of fenugreek seeds (methi) and jaggery every day of his life. Fenugreek seeds are infused with lifesaving nutrients that fight diabetes, cholesterol, and all that bad stuff and Bhau Mama --one of the fittest people I ever knew-- firmly believed this laddoo, among other healthy habits, helped keep him fit. This year he celebrates his 100th birthday and seeing him again-- still healthy and fit -- was one of the highlights of my visit to India.

My Besan Cashew Halwa is perhaps not as healthy as a methi laddoo, although one could argue with merit that chickpea flour is good for you. I added the cashews because I wanted to soften the flavor of the besan which, although lovely to some of us, is not something Desi loves. The cashew powder also helps give a great flavor boost, making the absence of the ghee quite unnoticeable. I have some lovely cashew nuts that I just brought from Goa where this nut grows abundantly.

I wanted to share a few more pictures of my India trip with you all, so I've pasted them after the recipe. Thanks to all of you who enjoyed my travel posts. I could not leave you without a few more glimpses into some of the amazing places I traveled to and the even more amazing people I encountered.

But first, here's the recipe.