Eggplant Lasagne. My first ever!

 

I’ve cooked pasta many times but never lasagne. At first , it seemed to be a very complicated dish. Cooking the sheets, the vegetables and then lining them seemed to be a lot of work. Little did I realize then that this is what happens with a regular pasta also, and the only thing different with lasagne is that it is baked.

So when I made up my mind to actually cook Lasagne, the search for the perfect sheets began. They had to be eggless, and should not be close to their expiry date (if you shopped in the super markets around Kothaguda junction in Hyderabad, you’d know what I am talking about). After a lot of search, I found the a batch of eggless sheets, which were bought right away. And the keeda to cook lasagne has been fed into this brain of mine.

Last week, when I was clearing up my fridge on a lonely evening, I made a big batch of red sauce, in the hope of it easing my work on a Pasta day someday. It happened to be today, and the entire assembling of lasagne took me exactly 20 mins. And another 40 mins to bake it. There, sumptuous dinner was ready in 1 hour.

I did not follow any recipe to do this, except just the basic idea on how to cook the sheets, the lining of the lasagne and the vegetables in the dish, and the baking time. It was all guesswork on how the ingredients would be lined up, and I think that is what happens in all the cases.
In order to appeal to the Indian palate, I decided to season the eggplants when they were being roasted, so that there would be a distinct flavour and a taste when we get to only the eggplants. I also poured some salt on the cheese to ensure that the cheese does not render the dish salt-less. And that worked in my favour. I also sprinkled some black pepper powder along with the salt to make the cheese have some spice too.

I baked this in a 9x4 inch very thick glass dish, and the contents served the two of us, with a little more left. Guess it will be good for 3 also.

Ingredients
Red sauce (homemade or store bought) – 2 cups
Lasagne sheets – 8-9, cooked per instructions on the box
Eggplants – 8 small sized ones, washed and diced to be thin inch long pieces
Olive Oil – 2 tbsp
Cajun seasoning – 2 tbsp, or a mix of Oregano and Red chilli flakes
Sea salt – Per taste
Black pepper – if required, per taste
Mozzarella cheese – 1 cup
Cheddar cheese – 2 slices



Instructions
Pat the lasagne sheets dry with a kitchen towel.
In a deep pan, heat the olive oil and roast the eggplant slices in it. Add salt and seasoning to this, and let it be on heat for a while.
Meanwhile, pour one layer of the red sauce into a deep baking dish, and line the lasagne sheet on it.
Remove the eggplant from the stove and line a layer of this in the dish on the sheet.
Line the dish with lasagne sheets, Mozzarella cheese, red sauce, lasagne sheets, eggplant layer and a lasagne sheet lining.
At the top, spread the red sauce in a thin lining and top it up with Mozzarella and Cheddar cheeses.

Bake in a pre-heated oven at 185 for 40 mins, or till the cheese gets a golden brown colour.

This particular photo was shot after I was done half eating. I loved the look of the layers in my plate so much that I couldn’t resist shooting this.

The minute I put a fork full of lasagne into the mouth, there was a medley of cheese, tomato sauce, the seasoning on the eggplants and it was heaven. :-)

Chocolate Peanut Butter… yum!

Peanuts have always been a favourite in our house. Apart from the usual addition of peanuts to poha , bhendi curry and peanut butter, I also eat peanuts as they are, with some jaggery. It is a sort of comfort food for me. When I am down, I eat it. When I don’t know what to eat, I snack on it. And when I feel like eating something healthy and yet sweet, this is it for me. It is the best combination, EVER. Trust me.

I got only one box of Nutella into the house so far, and had loved it, so when the comparison of Nutella with this recipe came in, I knew I had to try this, right away.

To suit my storing jar, and my taste , I used the ingredients in a different ratio. The jaggery got liquidy very soon, and I noticed that I needed more than 1/4 cup of olive oil as was given in the original recipe. And since I like chunky peanut butter, I did not blend this into a thick paste.
In short ,this recipe is so flexible that you can change it to suit your taste and style of eating.

Right now, I need help. To stop eating this. :)
Tomorrow, it is going to be bread toast with this chocolate peanut butter. :-D

Recipe Courtesy – Chinmayee at Love Food Eat

Ingredients
1 cup Roasted skinless peanuts
1/3 cup jaggery
1/4 cup cocoa powder (I used Cadbury’s)
1/3 cup olive oil (I used extra virgin)
Salt

Instructions
Mix the roasted peanuts, jaggery , cocoa powder and salt in a mixer grinder. Blend it till it reaches your desired powder-y state and becomes powdery. Transfer the contents of the mixer jar into a vessel , drizzle olive oil and keep mixing the ingredients till a jam-like-consistency is achieved.

For more ideas on what to eat this with, and some beautiful pics, check out Chinmayee’s blog!

About

 

Writing stuff in the ‘About Me’ section is very hard. Even for someone who talks as much as I do. Especially if the person in question, in this case the author of this blog, that’s yours truly has a multi-faceted personality. Did I see you roll your eyes? Well, I did too, when I thought of these lines. Now that we’ve brushed the initial awkwardness of the situation under the carpet, lets get to the point. About me, that is.

I have a typical profile – I work for a software firm. I love to read books, and like many women my age, I love to hang out with friends, and love to shop [even if the entire shopping experience is done in 15 mins flat. There is no therapy like retail therapy, babeh!] and I’d like to think of myself as some sort of a geek, so don’t burst that bubble if you figure out I am not. [Did you not notice the header of my blog? Cool stuff, no? :-)] Also, unlike many people my age, I also love to spend time by myself, in my own space.

So I am some kind of an extroverted loner, if that word exists in the dictionary , that is.

And yes, if you are reading this page, you might have already noticed that I own this blog, which means, I also love to spend my time in the kitchen and dishing out some good meals for the husband, and for some obliging unsuspecting friends who take constant risks with their lives by setting foot into our house and asking me to cook something for them. :-P

I love my job and what I do on my desk, and totally love the company I work for. My job keeps me very busy , so busy that I do not have time to cook at all. Which is why I have a cook, who cooks my breakfast, lunch and dinner too. A food-blogger and has a cook at home, something fishy about this, right? Well, the cook is to take care of the stomach. And to ensure the husband doesn’t charge at me with some kind of a club in hand every evening when I am busy working. And what I do in the kitchen, the source of all of these recipes is to take care of the mind. My mind. My stress-buster. My outlet at the end of a tiring day.

To summarize, I set foot into the kitchen to keep myself excited. To answer the question that bothers all of us – What next?

The husband has a pretty cool name for it – he calls it The State of Perpetual Anticipation – SPA. [Go ahead, use this term if you like it. The idea is to get it into urban dictionary ;-)]

That’s what this is about. In fact, that’s what everything I do is all about. I like to keep myself guessing what I will do next. I like to plan what my next day will look like. My Kindle has lists of books that I will be reading, and more often than not, I am planning my next vacation when I am already on one. My OneNote page has a hundred must-try recipes, and at least ten work-projects that I would love to spend my time on. That’s what I do – ensure that I do not host a devil’s workshop up here, in my head.

Well, I digress. This blog was started when I pleasantly rediscovered my interest in the kitchen after years of neglecting it. Initially it was a way for me to keep track of my recipes, but if it helps others too, am not complaining.

It also happened to be the time when I met some awesome food bloggers online and in real life, who are more or less an inspiration to me. [Check them out on my Blogroll] Like they say, there are no coincidences in life, right?

I started with baking, and graduated to cooking themed meals. And now I’ve realized I enjoy cooking better. I can innovate, experiment and create some good meals without them turning into disasters. I do not follow instructions or measurements from the recipe the dish is inspired from. I just go with the flow. Which is why I cannot often reproduce the same dish twice. [And now I make quick notes on my phone as I am adding the ingredients, so that I can blog about them later :-)]

Baking requires anyone to follow instructions, quantities and think about a dozen other parameters. These days, I bake only when I need to – visiting a friend’s house, a friend’s birthday or having people over. And sometimes baking is a better stress-buster than cooking is.

All the recipes I post on this blog are personally tested by me on the guinea pig, the husband. Some of them are inspired by recipes I read online, and some of them are my own creations. In the former cases, I will always give credit to the original recipe, and I would very much like it that you give me credit too if you are to post one of my recipes in your blog. And I will be glad if you let me know when and if you do so, I would love to check it out. :-)

If you have any questions on any of the recipes, ask them in the comment box, which I'll answer there, which might help the future readers.

I am a vegetarian, and I do not eat eggs and I am as close to being a vegan as possible, which is why you’ll find only vegetarian and eggless recipes on my blog.

I shoot all the photographs on my blog, and I watermark them to assert that. Needless to say, the photographs are entirely my property and any unauthorized usage of the pics will be inviting my wrath.

I am a Mangalorean (Udupi/Shivalli, to be precise) living in Hyderabad

You can read more about me on my other blog – The Green Tea Evenings.

If you still have not had your fill of me, here are some links -

• Book reviews – Only Books, Goodreads Reviews
• Goodreads profile – Link
• Twitter profile – Link [Follow me there!]
• My mother tongue is Tulu, and at times I feel a need to belong…
• Flickr page – Link [Add me as a contact!]

Thanks for dropping by to check out the recipe, and being interested enough to actually know about the author. And drop a comment or two if you would to talk to me more.

Thai weekend, may be?

Turns out its not really a alone weekend for me then.
The husband has decided to make guest appearances amidst all his travels, and I have plans lined up with friends. But then, when isn’t that the case! :) (I know… even at times when I feel that I need some time for myself, I cannot but think how lucky I am to be blessed with so  many friends, that I can never be lonely. Alone yes, lonely, never! :) )

Since guest appearances have to be honoured with something special always, and since this particular guest also has all meals of his day this weekend planned out, I did not want to overwhelm his stomach with anything heavy. Not making anything wasn’t an option, coz I still had to eat. And cooking for one is not really fun if you have to do it 5 times in the same week. So I decided to go with something light on the stomach.

Now, Hyderabad is not as chilly as I would’ve liked it to be, but people say its quite cold. The first time this season I felt the chill was when I was having dinner with a friend in a roof-top restaurant. She said she was cold, and I said it was quite pleasant. (Oh well… I am someone who has stayed out in the night at 10 PM in Seattle with nothing on me except a thin T-shirt and linen shorts , on what was the coldest night that week. I didn’t even have cash or a mobile phone at hand, but that’s another story. And yes, I lived to tell the tale.)

And every blog I go to talks about making pumpkin soup to beat the chill… and yes, I got piqued. Pumpkin is something I have not worked with before. I have never tasted a pumpkin, and I do not even know how to say if it is ripe enough or not. But this morning at the vegetable market, I saw Shal, my friend buy a slice of pumpkin. I asked her what she did with it, and she went on to give me options on what all you can do with it. And that’s how I got thinking. I asked the vendor to cut me a slice of ripe pumpkin and got home thinking about what to make with it, and what herbs would go well with this. Oh yes, I have been thinking about what should get into this soup since morning, and by evening I had a pretty good idea. I know, I know… the processor is kinda slow that way :).

It had to be something spicy, something with stuff I had at home and had to adhere to the weekend rule. The rule that says -

Thou shalt not spend more than 30 mins in the kitchen on a weekend.

So I grabbed the stuff I had in the fridge, and in my kitchen garden (yeah, I am a big show-off that way :-P ) and got to work.
Since just a soup isn’t enough to feed two people for dinner, I also decided to make some salad. And since the garden largely supports the Thai theme, that was what it had to be.

The guest who also happens to be my alpha, beta and only tester , testified that he loved both the soup and the salad. The spices were just-enough and he loved the blend and taste of pumpkin. So then, pumpkin is here to stay in the household afterall.

Thai Pumpkin Soup

Ingredients
Pumpkins – diced and cubed – 2 cups
Onion – small sized, sliced – enough to fit in 1/2 cup
Garlic cloves – diced – 6
Turmeric – a pinch
Cumin seeds – 1 tbsp
Red chilli – 1
Olive Oil – 1 tbsp

Thai Basil leaves – 10-12 – shredded
Lemon Grass – 1 stalk
Diced Coconut – 1/4 cup (or coconut milk)
Coriander seeds – 1 tbsp
Onion – small sized, sliced – enough to fit in 1/4 cup
Red chilli - 1
Salt – to taste

Instructions

Microwave the pumpkins at full power for 2 mins, so that they are slightly cooked and do not take a long time to cook on the stove.
Heat oil in a pan, and sauté the onions, garlic, cumin and red chilli in it. Add the microwaved pumpkin pieces to this , sprinkle turmeric and cook for about 5 mins, or till the pumpkin is roasted/cooked. Once cooked, remove this from heat and let it cool.

In a blender, mix the onion slices, coconut, coriander, another red chilli and the roasted/cooked pumpkin till it becomes into a pulp. You might have some coconut pieces even after the pulp is all done, let them be as is.

Heat this on the stove in the pan again. Knot the lemon grass stalk and put it in the pulp mixture. Add half the basil leaves to this and salt to taste and bring this pulp to a boil. You can add water to dilute it and suit your consistency.

Garnish with the remaining basil leaves, and serve hot. This recipe make 2 big cups of pumpkin soup.

Cucumber salad (with Thai dressing)

Ingredients
Cucumber – peeled, cut into 1 inch long sized pieces – 1

For the dressing
Juice of half a lemon
Soya sauce - 1/2 tsp
Roasted peanuts – crushed – 1/4 cup
Red chilli flakes – 1/2 tsp

For the Garnish
Green pepper & Oregano – enough to sprinkle on the salad
Coriander (Cilantro ) leaves – Just a handful

Instructions

Mix all the ingredients for the dressing and pour it on the cucumber pieces. Toss and garnish. Serve cold.

Tomato Cream Pasta and a good life…

 

Apparently this is the Cook-For-Self-And-Eat-Alone-Week at home, starring yours truly.

So instead of sitting and moping around the whole weekend all by myself like a lazy bug on the couch, I’ve lined up a zillion activities to do, most important of them being a spa appointment and planning to make an entire Lasagne for myself :) And when one has such important activities to do in a jam-packed weekend, one has to plan in advance. And that planning started tonight.

All through the drive back home from office, I kept on thinking on what I’d like to have for dinner (oh yes, food is on my mind ALL.THE.TIME! Either am thinking about what to cook, or how a particular dish tasted or generally craving for food. Basically, I think I only think about food! :))
Something that I really love to eat which the husband doesn’t greatly love. Something savoury , coz after having polished off an entire loaf of Banana bread this week I was in no mood for  any more dessert. And Providence gave me the answer – Pasta, of course! :-D
But tonight, I wanted to make something I haven’t made before, something new. I scrounged through the Must Try page of my Recipe notebook in OneNote (a very clever product placement, right? :)), and found some pasta recipes that I had wanted to try. And when you have great plans like this, and zero patience to stop at the farmer’s market en route home and your fridge tells you in not so many words to STFU about making anything fancy and stick to something basic because it can provide only for that, and you gotta listen to it, which is what I did, obediently.

What I could salvage from the fridge could provide for a tomato based pasta. So I decided to go ahead with it, but with a slight twist. Something creamy, and yet tomato-ey. And with lots of herbs. And something that will be done in 10 mins flat.

The recipe is a very basic creamy tomato sauce recipe, and I did nothing new except of course alter the amount of ingredients to suit my taste. Which means, more garlic and oregano and aaaah basil!

Ingredients

Fusilli – 1 cup
Tomato paste – 1 cup (I just put the tomatoes in a mixer to get the paste)
Thick cream – 1/4 cup
Olive oil – 1 tbsp.
Mozzarella cheese – For garnish
Garlic cloves – 4-6, chopped very small or crushed in a mortar-pestle
Oregano, Red chilli flakes, Basil, Black pepper, Sea salt – All per taste

Instructions
Boil a pot of water, and add salt to this once the water starts boiling. Now add the fusilli to this and let this boil for 8-10 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a pan, heat the oil and sauté the garlic. Add some oregano, chilli flakes, pepper and basil to garlic and let this mixture become roasted in the oil.
Now add the tomato paste to the oil, and let it boil. Once the paste starts boiling, add the cream and boil more till the paste thickens. You can add the herbs and spices again now if you wish, for some enhanced taste.
Season this sauce with some salt and add the boiled pasta to this sauce. Toss this well till the pasta is coated with the sauce.
You can garnish this pasta with any of the following - fresh basil leaves, parsley, cheese, pepper.
Serve hot.

And when I was making this pasta, I also made a big bowl of red sauce, hoping it will ease my first time lasagne efforts. Lots of onions and garlic, the tomato paste and all the herbs I could lay my hands on yielded me this sauce, and I cannot wait till I try it out.

The entire house is now smelling of fresh tomatoes and basil, I just licked off the remaining sauce from the plate, Kolaveri is playing in the background on the laptop as I am typing this, and I have enough books that will take another 20 years for me to read.

Life is good! :-)

Masala Milk

 

Every Sharad Purnima, this friend of mine hosts a fabulous dinner party for some friends of hers. We chit-chat a lot, eat dinner and have the masala milk , my favourite part. She reduces about 10 litres of milk to approximately 7 litres, adds a lot of spices that make the milk taste yummy and serves them hot. I fell in love with this milk the first time I had it, but never thought I should/could try it. This time, I stood by her when she was adding the masalas, pestered her for the recipe, promptly forgot it and came back home to try it.

I am not sure if this is the recipe for the masala milk she served, but it tastes similar, and I love this taste. Now this is a regular in my after-Sunday-night-dinner menu. I reduce about 3/4 litre milk to be 1/2 litre, the exact measurement of my milk mug, sit with this in front of the TV or the computer and get on to work. My favourite part of the evening, it is.

Ingredients
3/4 litre milk
1 tbsp MTR Badam Milk powder
1 tbsp sugar
2 tsps nutmeg powder
1 tsp cardamom powder
2-3 strands saffron

Instructions
In a thick bottomed saucepan, heat the milk. Add the sugar, Badam milk powder, half the nutmeg, the cardamom powder and heat the milk. Keep the milk on the stove till it reduces to 1/2 litre. Let the cream on the milk mix into the milk again. (I know this adds to the fat content of the milk, but trust me, it makes the milk taste heavenly). Mix in the saffron strands, and boil the milk some more.
Pour it in the mug, garnish with the mug. Sit back and enjoy the milk.

Carrot Muffins

 

Carrot muffins were on my head for a long time now, and when I bumped into this recipe, and saw the ingredients, all of which I had at hand, I had to try this. I just didn’t do the maple cream cheese frosting, and followed the recipe to the T except for the egg and apple sauce. I used coconut milk instead of apple sauce since I wanted to see if the slight coconut flavour would work with the carrots or not. Trust me, the coconut flavour worked as a perfect replacement for the apple sauce and yogurt always worked for me when I had to use eggs.

Recipe Courtesy – Cilantrophist’s Recipe

Ingredients
2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsps baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp ground ginger
2 cups sugar
1 cup Coconut milk(I used the Dabur brand)
1/4 cup vegetable oil
8 tbsp thick yogurt
3 cups peeled, grated carrots
1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts

Instructions
Preheat the oven to 185C and line the muffin tray with the muffin cups.
Whisk together the yogurt, coconut milk, sugar and the vegetable oil. Sieve together the flour, baking soda, salt and the spices.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix just enough. Fold in the grate carrot.
Pour one scoop each into the muffin cups and decorate with the walnuts. Bake for 20 mins.

This yielded 16 muffins. Soft, surprisingly light and moist, these muffins were super for a after-dinner snack, which is what I did with half of them. Took them to work to accompany me and the team when we would be attending the late night call.
After filling out 12 muffins , I mixed some rum-soaked raisins, another half a cup of grated carrots (since I didn’t want to leave just that much in the refrigerator) and baked the rest of the 4 muffins. The muffins were dense , moist , delicious and smelled of rum, which was awesome, again!

Healthy Chocolate chip muffins

 

The banana muffins I baked for this friend’s toddler last time did not reach the kid at all. Blame it on our schedules or whatever, but eventually, when we did meet, the muffins shouldn’t have been given to a toddler. So I had to make up for it , by making a new batch of muffins, this time Chocolate Chip ones. And since the main audience was a toddler, I decided to make these as healthy as possible.

Recipe inspired from Madhuram-Eggless Cooking's recipe here.

Ingredients

1 cup oat flakes, coarsely grounded in a blender
1/2 cup milk
2 bananas , mashed, to yield 1 cup banana puree
1/4 cup oil
1 teaspoon Vanilla extract
3/4 Cup brown sugar
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon Baking soda
1/4 Teaspoon Baking Powder
1/4 Teaspoon Salt
1/3 heaped Cup Mini Chocolate Chips

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 185 C. Line the muffin paper cups in the muffin tray.
Measure the banana puree and milk so that they both together are 1.5 cups. To this liquid, add oil, sugar and vanilla extract and keep aside.
Sieve the grounded oat flakes, wheat flour, cocoa powder, salt, baking soda and baking powder together.
Now pour the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and mix just enough. Gently fold in the choco chips Do not over mix.
Scoop spoonfuls of the batter and pour in the muffin cups.
Bake for 18-20 mins or till the tester comes clean.

My Notes
1. These probably are the healthiest muffins I will ever bake. Wheat flour and oat flakes add to the fibre content, bananas make up for the fruit and wet ingredient thus eliminating the need to add any more fat into this.
2. Next time , I will add rum soaked raisins to this , just to up the taste content. Bananas, Chocolate and Rum seem like a great combination in my head
3. My muffins were baked in 18 mins at 185C, but to be extra sure I baked them for 8 more mins at 170C. You can check what works for you depending on your oven.
4. The muffins were slightly dense because of all the heavy banana puree, and very moist the day I baked them. But since both oat flakes and wheat flour tend to get dry if not mixed with adequate amount of liquid, there was a slight dryness to the interiors of the muffin. So the next time, I will add a 1/4 cup more liquid and see how the muffin feels the day after baking.

Seasoned Cornbread casserole

 

Oh well, there is no story behind this dish. I was just browsing through the Wine & Dine section of NYTimes and saw some gorgeous Thanksgiving recipes. Though that is not a festival celebrated in India, and it is still weeks away for the actual festival, I thought, why not make it this weekend !Also since the winter is finally arriving in Hyderabad, making something with cornmeal sounded just appropriate.

And there… I tried this, and loved the way it tasted. Its like a whole package – taste with great health packed in it.
Since we are not vegans, I did not feel the need to use applesauce or non-dairy milk. Yogurt did the trick for me, as usual.
Also, I didn’t have any Cajun seasoning at hand, so I reached out to my herb tray (one of most favourite items in my kitchen. This tray full of dried herbs – oregano, sage, thyme, rosemary, dill, parsley, chilli flakes, two varieties of basil, some seasonings, couple of varieties of pepper – most of these from Keya) and mixed the seasoning per the family’s palette, and that worked too.
By the time the vegetable mixture was made, the whole kitchen started smelling curry-like, and very appetizing. :-)

Original recipe here.

Ingredients
For the vegetable preparation-
Tomatoes , medium sized – 6, diced
Onion , medium sized – 2, diced
Garlic cloves 6
Bell pepper –1 seeded and diced
Mixture of kidney and chick-pea beans - 1 cup , soaked for atleast 6 hours and pressure cooked
Olive oil – 2 tbsp

For the cornbread-
Cornmeal or makkai ata – 1 cup
Baking powder - 1 1/2 teaspoons
Pinch of salt
Yogurt – 1 1/4 Cup
Garlic – 3 cloves, finely chopped
2 tablespoons Cajun seasoning (commercial blend, or make your own)

For the seasoning -
Equal measures (atleast 1 tbsp) of the following -
Coarsely ground black pepper
Coarsely ground white/green pepper
Dried Basil
Dried Oregano
Dried Thyme
Ground Coriander
Ground Cumin
Red chilli flakes
Chilli powder

Instructions

1. In a skillet or a pan, heat the oil and sauté the onions and bell peppers till they are cooked. Add some seasoning, approximately 2 tbsps to this so that the vegetable mixture has its own flavour.
2. Add the boiled kidney beans and the chick-peas and mix well and take the skillet off the heat.
3. Now prepare for the bread. Preheat the oven to 200 C
4. Mix the corn bread, baking powder, salt, finely chopped garlic and the seasoning. Add yogurt to this and mix well. This mixture should be spreadable.
5. In the baking dish, pour the vegetable-bean mixture and press well.
6. Now spread the bread batter on top of this evenly and bake for 30 mins, or till a tester comes out clean

My Notes

1. Since cornbread was never a favourite in the house, the next time I make it, I will add more seasoning to the cornbread batter. And also some green finely chopped green chillies, may be some roasted onions and some cilantro leaves. This is just to remove the very corn-like smell from the corn-bread
2. In an attempt to salvage the nutrients in the tomatoes, I did not drain out the water from them. This , thankfully , did not make the bread soggy but all this water settled at the bottom of the dish, along with the vegetables. So next time around, I will add some salt to the tomatoes and let the water drain by. May be I will drink the water just as it is, like how I did to the water left over from the boiled kidney beans :-)

Peanut-sesame-ish Chinese pasta

Its been a while since we had pasta, and today being a holiday, me having a pack of Lomein Chinese pasta that a friend got from Hong Kong, and craving for something peanut-y, all inspired this pasta. Some search on the internet for an inspiration, and viola, this recipe was born!

Recipe Courtesy – Broadly inspired from the Lomein recipes off the internet

Ingredients

For the sauce -
Roasted peanuts - 2 fistfuls
Sesame seeds - 2 tbsps
Soya sauce - 2 tbsps
Vegetable broth - 1 cup
Red chilli flakes - 2 tbsps
Sesame oil - 2 tbsps
Salt - To taste

Preparing the vegetables & pasta -
Onions - Length wise sliced - 1 cup
Spring onions - 1 bunch - inch-wise pieces
Green Capsicums - 1 - Chopped in one inch pieces
Carrots - sliced into thin pieces - 1/2 cup
Red chilli flakes - 1 tbsp
Garlic - 8 cloves - crushed in a mortar pestle
Lemon juice - 2 tbsp
Roasted peanuts - 2 tbsps
Sesame oil - 2 tbsps

Lomein pasta - 2 fistfuls, cooked per the instructions on the cover

For Garnish -
Cilantro/Coriander leaves - chopped
Roasted sesame seeds

Instructions

The sauce -

Grind the peanuts and the sesame seeds in a mixer-grinder. Heat the broth in a pan and add the soya sauce. Once the water+soya sauce mixture reaches the boiling temparature, add the peanut mixture, red chilli flakes. Add the sesame oil to this and whisk this mixture. Heat this till the sauce thickens. Remove this from the stove and let it cool.

The vegetables -

In a deep thick-bottomed pan, heat the oil and add the onions, garlic, chilli flakes, capsicum and carrots in that order, and heat them till they are all cooked. Crush the rest of the peanuts and add this to the vegetable mixture. Add salt to this mixture. Add the sauce to this vegetable mixture and mix well so that all the vegetables are coated with the sauce. Now add the cooked pasta and toss well. Remove from heat and add the lemon juice.

Garnish with cilantro leaves and serve hot. Super hot! :)

Banana muffins… finally!

If you’ve been to this blog before, am sure you would’ve noticed my love for any dish which involves Bananas.
As a kid, I wasn’t a great fan of the fruit. And any mention of the word Banana would ensure that I run 500 ft away from the spot. As a grown up, I would eat it only for its high potassium content , but with a grimace on my face. But as a baker, am in love with this wonderful fruit.

How can you not? Mashed bananas are such an awesome way to introduce some fruit into the dish. Coupled with walnuts, they are awesome in a cake. Add chocolate chips to this, and there, you have a perfect dessert. Cake, bread, muffins… everything that has bananas in it tastes awesome.

So when this friend insisted that I bake something for her little boy, something healthy and with fruit in it, I decided to go for it. Banana muffins. I had baked banana bread a zillion times. Banana marble cake another zillion times, and banana cake was a regular till I decided to not make it for fear of not liking it after over-exposure.  But muffins, I hadn’t. I guess the banana muffin idea sprang up after the decision to not make any more banana based stuff. But for this little boy, I decided to go back on the no-banana-decision. And boy, am I glad I did that! With this, banana has made an official return to my kitchen :)

Simplest of the recipes, takes only 30 mins to put together and another 30 minutes to bake and cool, this is just the perfect way to start a day. Or end it, if you love having a little sweet snack after dinner, like me. :)

Recipe

Ingredients

All purpose Flour – 3/4 Cup [I mixed AP flour with multi-grain flour]
Vegetable oil – 1/4 Cup
Bananas – 2 , mashed with a fork till they are liquidy
Sugar – 1/3 Cup
Baking powder – 1/2 tsp
Baking soda – 1/2 tsp
Vanilla extract – 1/4 tsp
Choco chips – 1/3 cup
Chopped walnuts – 1/6 cup

Instructions

Mix the sugar and oil to the mashed bananas and mix well. Add the vanilla extract to this and keep aside.

Sieve the flour with the baking powder and soda

Mix the dry with the wet ingredients gently, ensuring you don’t over mix this. Add the choco-chips to this mixture and fold in.

With a spoon, pour this batter into the muffin cups lined in the muffin tray. Ensure that the cups are 3/4 full.

Bake in a preheated oven at 185 C for 25-30 mins, or till the skewer comes clean

It was just perfect. The medley of almost-melted-chocolate-chips with walnuts, and the frequent banana pieces play on your tongue, as the entire muffin melts down. Yes, indeed that good ! Try it. and tell me if you don’t love it! :)