Hummus Pasta, an instant mood-lifter!

I love hummus. I love pasta. Well, that’s not news for the readers of this blog, right?
I also love garlic and cherry tomatoes. Sometimes I wonder if I am really born in a community which abhors garlic, and if I was really lifted off someone else’s hospital bed like Mom always claimed. Yeah, the things I love to eat are not what Mom would generally make at home or dream of it. And I don’t even cook or eat meat!
The flavours, the ingredients , the cuisines. All of them. This just strengthens Mom’s case, right? Sigh.
So before I drifted off to talk about my confused origin, I was talking about the flavours I love. I was known to have the biggest sweet tooth on the dining table. Any dining table. But off late, I have discovered quite joyously that the sweet tooth was just an implication of a medical condition which required me to stock on sugars, and that I really do not enjoy desserts as much I thought I do. But yes, the love for pasta and anything Italian , well that’s not changed over time. Thankfully. For me, and for the husband who, once in a while relishes non-Indian food, pasta being one of them.
Yesterday, when I was passing by Q-Mart (In case you don’t know what it is, which means you are not a Hyderabadi, this is an overtly pish-posh grocery store where prices of everything is atleast thrice of what you would get in a regular grocery store. Slight exaggeration aside, this is not a place I go to everyday, in case you were thinking ;-) ), I got reminded that I had to buy one particular species of Dancing Bamboos to add to my Bamboo collection. But Providence has different plans for me (sigh. I’ll never stop being the drama queen, right? :-)) The minute I entered the store, I was drawn to the vegetable section. This place always stocks the freshest of the veggies and greens and I laid eyes on a fresh bunch of basil leaves, which I picked up almost immediately. And then there were a basket of cherry tomatoes there. Needless to say, I picked them too.
Once back home, I made some basil hummus and was wondering what I should make next to use the cherry tomatoes and fresh basil leaves whose smell was wafting appetizingly in my kitchen. Aglio Olio with spaghetti was the first thing that I thought of , its easy to make. Making this with dried basil leaves is good, but there is nothing better than this pasta with fresh basil leaves. Moreover, I can use all the garlic and basil I want, and its a house-favourite.
But then, I also wanted to use up the hummus as the sauce. I remembered reading this recipe by The Cilantropist , one of my favourite food-bloggers and decided to get inspired by it.


Hummus pasta it was, then! With generous amounts of basil thrown in. I generally add a variety of herbs to any pasta I make, but I wanted to just retain the smell, flavour and taste of Hummus and the tomatoes for this one. The thought appealed to my almost-hungry stomach so much that it started rumbling instantly! :)

Ingredients
Basil Hummus - 1 cup, slightly thinned but not pouring consistency
Whole wheat Spaghetti – a fistful
Cherry Tomatoes – 250 gms
Fresh basil leaves – a handful. Chopped.
Garlic cloves – 10-15. (You can change the quantity per your taste)
Olive oil – 2 tbsp. Just enough to roast the Hummus and Garlic
Black pepper – to taste
Salt – to taste
Olives – pitted or sliced, quantity as you desire , completely optional
Red chilli flakes – One tbsp

Instructions
Cook the pasta per the instructions on its cover.

Meanwhile, pour the oil in a pan, and char the tomatoes for about 5 mins with pepper and salt on it. Once its slightly charred, add the garlic and roast a bit. Now add the basil leaves to this and let it be roasted along with the garlic and tomatoes.
Add the hummus to this and let it be on heat for a minute. Now add the olives and pasta and toss well.
Serve hot. And tell me how you like it. :-)

Giant Chocolate Chip Blondies

 

Well, this is not the recipe for GIANT chocolate chip blondies, its just choco chip blondies. Just that, the choco chips I used were sooo big that I had to name it this way. :-)

Only after I opened the Ghirardelli 60% semi-sweet choco chips packet that the husband got from the US did I see how big the chips were. They were the size of our Gems chocolate, and since I did not have anything else handy, I had to use them, all the while wondering if I had screwed up the Blondies with too much chocolate. But as the saying goes, there is nothing like too much chocolate. The choco chips added their gooey texture which in addition to the brown sugar used in the recipe only made this dessert really delectable. Okay, these are not my words alone. Remember, I have a guinea pig at home. One which does not like desserts but periodically surprises me with requests for a second helping ? Well, he did that for these too. So there! :)

As the story always goes behind me trying out something new for the first time, there is a long yet boring story for this too. I had an especially long and stressful day at work and I returned home with a pounding head. With my cook agreeing to come in the evenings also, I did not need to cook dinner myself. I wanted to bake something to unwind, and suddenly remembered the Blondies A&N baked. Some curiosity, link hopping and Googling got me to this page which had a decent recipe, and I got to work. And like it claimed, I put together all the ingredients in 10 mins, and got them into the oven. It was all done in exactly 35 mins, and I had piping hot, gooey blondies at hand. Very very tasy! :)

I replaced the egg in the recipe with orange juice, because I always wanted to bake something chocolately and orangey. You can also use thick yogurt or cream instead of this. Just keep the quantity same. Some day I will muster up more courage and bake a full dessert with chocolate and orange in it. Some day!

Ingredients

1/2 cup of butter, melted (I put it in Microwave for 30 seconds)
1 cup of tightly packed dark brown sugar
2 tbsps orange juice
1 teaspoon of vanilla
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon of baking soda
Pinch of salt
1 cup of all-purpose flour
1/3 cup of butterscotch chips (chopped walnuts and chocolate chips are equally tasty)

Method

1 Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly butter and flour an 8X8 pan. Whisk together the melted butter and sugar in a bowl.

2 Add the egg and vanilla extract and whisk.

3 Add the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt, mix it all together. Add the butterscotch chips or other mix-ins.

4 Pour into the pan and spread evenly. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool. Cut into squares and serve.

Recipe Courtesy – Simply Recipes

Cherry Vanilla Muffins

 

Its a weekday, and I am generally in a happy mood. I had some stuff that I have acquired over a period of time through the US travels. I wanted to bake something because its been too long. And did I mention, I am generally in a happy mood?

Well… I didn’t have the patience to do anything heavy duty, but wanted something nice, hot and baked. Nothing chocolatey (though I have quite some choco chips waiting to be used) , nothing with coffee and no fruits either. And what better than a nice batch of muffins. I could just think and experiment with muffin batter like the sky’s my limit… :)

So last night, when I couldn’t sleep, I made a mental list of all the ingredients I had at home, and I was itching to use. The ones that stood out were the box of extracts that a friend sent from the US, and the dried cherries, blueberries and cranberries I had in the pantry. Some late-night-on-the-phone-Binging on all these ingredients gave me some good ideas.

And hence the thought of a Cherry Vanilla Muffin. I had not baked anything with cherries in it so far, and my bottle of vanilla extract tempted me to try this. Some more Binging and I bumped into this recipe to which I promptly made some customizations.

So back from work, with a hungry rumbling stomach with the sandwich and Baileys only increasing my appetite, I got on to the job of making these.  One look at my pantry revealed some very tasty and aromatic fruit infusions, and they were used too. The muffins baked in precisely 18 mins, and it took me a total of 40 mins to put them all together.

Here is the recipe -

Ingredients
1-2/3 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tbsp Fruit infusion – I used strong Strawberry tea. You can use anything by Twinings.
1 cup yogurt
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup dried cherries, chopped, soaked in Strawberry tea for about 15 mins

Procedure:

Preheat the oven to 200 C and line the muffin pan with the paper muffin cups.

Sieve the AP Flour, baking soda, baking powder, Sugar and Cinnamon powder together in a big bowl.

In another bowl, mix together the yogurt, fruit infusion, vanilla extract and oil, and beat them till they almost blend. At this point, the yogurt might curdle a bit, but I noticed that they made the muffins softer.

Mix together the wet and dry ingredients very gently, without beating the air off the batter. Pour spoonfuls of this batter, decorate the top with some left over cherries if you like, and bake these for 15-18 mins.

This recipe makes about 20 medium sized muffins.

There was a very gentle fruit flavour , the  yogurt had made the muffins very smooth, and the sugar was still a bit crystalized, adding the crunch to the muffins.

In short, they truly served their purpose – ensuring that I stay alive till I cook dinner, and get that wide grin on the husband’s face :-)