Pumpkin Punch - tried and tasted

I always bookmark interesting recipes from my blogger buddies' sites but the ones that actually make it to my kitchen are:

a) easy and doable - what's the point of cooking something that is so complicated that by the end you feel you'd rather sleep than put in the extra effort of eating what you've made! hats off to people who are such natural born, passionate cooks!

b) made with readily accessible and ordinary ingredients - not that most exotic grains, veggies and other edible paraphernalia are unavailable in the supermarket aisles at Muscat, but somehow can't bring myself to buy that for example, 'tiny bottle of natural sugar substitute' for an amount that will easily fetch me a generous portion of jaggery (unrefined indian cane sugar), palm jaggery, or demerara.

c) easy on my already zapped system - deep fried, maida (all purpose flour) made, cream filled , ghee (clarified butter) sploshed, meat laden etc etc are terms that scare me!

d) novel - this does not mean out of the world! merely something that I have had, loved but don't know how to make; or, something i'm not aware of and yet appeals to me.

Recently I came across a 'cool-cool' drink on Cynthia's blog that happily fitted into my criteria - the pumpkin punch! I've, however, modified it to suit my taste. The result was totally yum and my husband could hardly believe he was drinking up something that had the humble pumpkin as key ingredient!

Here's my version:

Pumpkin - 200 gms (peeled,cubed, and steam cooked)
Fat free milk - 250 ml (boiled and simmered to evaporate just a little bit)
Cardamom - 1 (powdered)
Vanilla essence - 2-3 drops
Demerara (or plain sugar) - according to taste

I whisked everything together together with an electronic hand blender till the pumpkin pieces were completely pulverized and the liquid took on a creamy,frothy texture. Chill and enjoy!

Here is Cynthia's Pumpkin Punch . Thank you Cynthia!

I so wanted to send this over to Priya's Cooking with seeds - Cardamom seeds event but am late by 2 days. Sending it over anyways! Hope you accept it, Priya.