Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
First Bite of the Day
How
many times have we heard people advising us to eat the first meal of the day
like a king? How many of us know one king personally? I would love to share a
meal with a King if I had a chance, but know none in India. I am sure he
must be eating same Vada Sambar, Puri Bhajji or perhaps Parathas for breakfast.
In that case I say “No, thank you!”
I
would rather eat toast and have a glass of fresh fruit juice.
For
toast I would need bread, but who needs to bake bread if they are freely
available at bread boutiques? On the second thought I think I could try...
I like the Baguette,
Image source: http://wholesomemommy.com/french-baguette/
When in Spain, this French Baguette was must-shop item on our
shopping list. The supermarket near our house used to sell these freshly baked and I would finish half of it while waiting at parking lot. Crusty on the top
and chewy within, this long thin loaf was a delight.
Image source: http://www.truestarhealth.com/Notes/1940007.html
This is another favorite choice of breads on the days when I
am too lazy to make chappatis. This has a distinctly tangy and complex flavor
and can be used in the most innovative way. Slice it and top it with vegetables
and cheese or simple have it with stew or soups, a perfect meal by itself.
Now-a-days I normally prefer Multi-Grain bread.
Prefer this multi-grain bread because it is most nutritionally complex of all.
It has less refined flour and more of other grains like oats, rye, millet and
yellow corn. Moreover, it is easily available at the supermarket near my house.
So if my guest plan to spend the night at my house,
multi-grain toast is what she gets as the first bite of the day.
Like this morning, I had
some straw mushrooms in the fridge and I decided to cook it to make a topping
for the toast. In a pan, stir fried garlic, straw mushroom, spring onions,
tomatoes, green chilies and coriander leaves.
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My guests was all smiles from ear to ear, who wouldn't be?
Friday, December 30, 2011
Baked Dish- Macaroni and Vegetables
Just bought a packet of macaroni and have
been longing to cook for somebody, which friend to invite? Has to be some-one
who enjoys my food and is not too critical, not that I am shy of critiques, but
I like to cook at my own pace and if somebody is watching and expecting me to
create a competitive dish, I am sure to disappoint. Some of my friends (and
family too) know that I cannot cook the same dish twice, even if I followed the
recipe to the point, word by word (but
hey, what are friends for,) if they can forgive me for a bad dish and enjoy the
dish that I have made especially for them, I am most willing to experiment.
After all, the main ingredients that we use in every cooking is always love and interest, so understand that if I
love you and I am really interested in impressing you , I am sure to cook a
tasty meal for you..go figure….
Pastas of any kind if mixed with vegetables
can make a complete meal, and it’s is used all around the world. There were records of pasta in Italy 500 years before Marco Polo
returned from China.
Pasta is science and an art. Everybody had their own style of
cooking the pasta to suit their palate. You can call it by different name; it’s
just to identify it by its shape. Visit Europe and you discover spaghetti, gnocchi, tagliatellea, ravioli,
vincisgrassi, strascinati, fancy names with sexy curves of pasta, each with an
identity of its own. Travel to Asia, and
you have noodles of all shapes with an amazing history of its own. Americans not only cook bad pasta but they also use wrong sauce with
noodle. Many are
confused as to which sauce could match with which type of pasta.
Have you sometimes floundered as to when to
add salt? How much to boil? Sometimes it’s too soggy, sometimes too raw and
sometimes an embarrassment. Such knowledge cannot be achieved by reading
encyclopedia of pastas, all we need is to wear our apron and discover it our self.
With experience we learn and with every recipe we discover how to improve it
the next time.
Ah well, all I care is that I need to eat the
pasta that will suit my palate. So this week I dared to make pasta again and it
behaved. I know it did because I saw my guests go for second helping…….
Step 1
Collect all the ingredients:
1 cup macaroni
1 tbsp olive oil
2 pods garlic (grated)
3 green chilies (cut slant wise)
200 grams Mushrooms (chopped)
1 medium carrot (thinly diced)
100 grams corn
1 medium Capsicum (diced)
10-12 leaves Spinach
20 grams baby tomatoes
20grams olives
20 grams white cheese
1 tbsp butter
1 cup chopped spring onions
1 tbsp white flour
1 cup grated mozzarella cheese
Step 2
1. Boil the pasta adding salt and oil,
2. Add in 1 cup of cold water.
3. Keep it aside
Step 3
1. In a pan, stir fry garlic and green chilies in olive oil
2. Add mushroom and mix,
3. Add carrots, corn, capsicum
4. Strain the macaronis and add to
the pan, stir it lightly
5. And add spinach and salt. Mix it well.
6. Transfer it to a baking dish.
7. Garnish with baby tomatoes, olives and white cheese.
Step 4
1. Stir fry spring onions in butter.
2. Add white flour and roast a little.
3. Add milk.
4. Add cheese.
5. Stir till white sauce is creamy.
6. Pour it in the baking dish on the top of pasta and vegetables.
Step 5
Bake it for 45 minutes at 180 degrees.
Serve it with garlic bread and a glass of
orange juice.
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Vegetables Sizzler in Black Pepper Sauce
One thing good about sizzlers is that the food is
steaming hot till the last spoon. Second thing is the novelty of the sizzling
plate that comes shooshing on your table like a steam engine parking on your
space, the smoke from the plate blinding you, the colorful combination of different
assorted vegetables and that slurpy sauce make it even more exotic. More-over
it’s a complete meal by itself and one plateful should suffice for nutrients
required to go all day.
No wonder, sizzler can be made of the combination of your choice and there is no rule as such that
it has to be made in a particular way. You can neatly arrange all the
ingredients side by side or you can place them piled up one by one, the main
taste is in the sauce that you pour over it and there are
various types of sauces that you could
experiment with to give your dish different
flavors
each time.
Ingredients that I used
1
cup rice
For sauce
1
tsp olive oil
2
pods garlic (grated)
2
medium spring onions (chopped)
2
green chilies (cut slant-wise)
1
vegetable cube
2-3
basil leaves
1
tbsp chopped celery
1
tbsp pepper sauce
1
tsp corn flour
For stir fry vegetables
1
tbsp olive oil
200
grams mushrooms (diced)
1
medium carrot (diced slant-wise)
1
medium capsicum (diced)
3-4
Paksoi leaves (chopped)
1
tsp crushed black pepper
Salt
to taste
During arrangement
5-6 Cabbage
leaves
1
tsp vinegar
Now ready to cook:
Step 1
Steam
1 cup of rice adding salt and oil.
Step 2
Keep the plate for heating for 20 minutes.
Step 3
Make sauce
1.
Stir fry garlic in I tsp of olive oil,
2.
Add spring onions, green chilies, add 1 cup of water, vegetable
cube, basil leaves, celery leaves, black pepper sauce,
3.
Let it cook for ten minutes,
4.
Add 1 tsp corn flour in ½ cup water,
5.
Stir till the sauce gets thick,
6.
Keep it aside
Step 4
Stir fry
vegetables
1.
Stir fry garlic in 1 tbsp of olive oil,
2.
Add mushrooms and carrot,
3.
Mix and add capsicum, green chilies, Paksoi leave,
4.
Sprinkle crushed black pepper and salt on it.
Step 5
Arranging the
sizzling plate
1.
Transfer the hot sizzler plate on a wooden base,(from step 2)
2.
Arrange cabbage leaflets on the plate,
3.
Add the layer of white steam rice,(from step 1)
4.
Add the layer of stir fried vegetables (from step 4)
5.
Pour the sauce on the top (from step 3)
Step 6
Dissolve 1 tsp of vinegar in 1 tsp of water and pour on it for
sizzling effect.
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