Vegetable Pasta

This is one of my kids' favorite dish and very simple to prepare. Whenever there is a party at school, my kids vote for this dish. No wonder if I'll be named as Pasta mom :-). Here is the preparation with pictures of the ingredients and preparation.

As the name says, you need Pasta. I go for colored Pasta when I run out of vegetables or in a hurry. But most of the time, I use the plain pasta with lots of vegetables.

Here is the plate of colored vegetables that'll be added at different points of the preparation. You can add olives, beans and any other vegetables you like.

Add Pasta, carrots and salt to boiling water.

 

Check if Pasta is almost cooked. Add Capsicum and baby corn before 2 minutes of taking it off from the stove. This preserves the color and crispiness of the capsicum and baby corn.

Add mushroom at the end and let it stay for 1 minute in the boiling water. Don't boil it too much.

Drain the water.

In a bowl, add Olive oil and Pasta sauce.

Now add Pasta and mix well. That ends the process. Isn't that simple?

Other alternative is to use Salad dressing and Olive oil.

If you want, you can season it with Oregano. I save the Oregano seasoning that comes with Domino's Pizza for the same purpose.

Not just my kids, even my mom (who prefers only South Indian food) likes it too. Hope your kids like it too. Enjoy the Pasta...astalavista!!

Multipurpose Dosa batter

I call it multi-purpose batter as the same can be used to prepare many other items. I'll append the list as I post them on my blog.

Ingredients   

• 3 cups rice (I usually use either Sona Masoori or Kolam, but you can use parboiled rice)
• 1 cup skinless split urad daal (black gram)
• 1/3 cup cooked rice
• 1 tsp fenugreek seeds(methi seeds)
• Salt to taste
• 1/4 tsp Baking soda  

Directions   

• Wash rice, urad daal and fenugreek seeds and fill the bowl with enough water. Soak it overnight. 

• Add cooked rice and grind to a slightly grainy paste. Don't add too much water as this batter can be used for Idli and other items.

• Cover the batter and keep it in a warm place for 6-8 hours. After fermentation, add salt and baking soda and stir the batter well. It is now ready to make Dosas and many more.

 

Boiled corn

This is a simple snack and most of the kids love it. All you need is fresh Corn cobs, water and salt. Take corn on the cob and shuck it.

Take out the silk with hand and then clean it under running tap water. Cut corn cobs into desired pieces and boil them in pressure cooker with water and salt.

Boiled corn is ready :-).

 

If you want, you can dress it up with pepper and butter.

Soya Pulao

It's been two weeks since I touched this blog. Feels like 24 hours are not sufficient. Anyways, this weekend we had lots of fun as our big brother (my super senior in Masters) visited us from Hyderabad. Kids kept him busy all the time...poor Dada...he has lots of patience in entertaining kids and I got some extra time to blog :-).

Today our lunch menu was Soya Pulao, Aloo mutter curry, Rotis, Salad and curd. As the title says, this blog post is for Soya Pulao and here you go....

Ingredients:   

• 1/2 Cup Soya chunks
• 2 Cups kolam/sona masoori/basmati rice
• 1 Onion
• 2 Green chillies
• 10 Garlic cloves
• One inch ginger
• 1 tsp Garam masala
• 2 tsp Biryai/Pulao masala
• Salt to taste
• 2-3 tbsp oil
• 2 bay leaves
• 3 cardamoms
• 10 cloves
• Cilantro(Dhaniya leaves)/Mint leaves

Preparation:   

Wash and soak Soya chunks and rice in water for 10 minutes. I usually get small size Soya chunks for Pulao and bigger size for Soya curry. Drain Soya chunks and rice.

 
Heat oil in a pressure cooker. Add chopped onions, green chillies, ginger, garlic, cilantro leaves, bay leaves, cardamoms, cloves and saute till onions are soft. <I ran out of Black pepper seeds. If you want, you can add those too.>

 

Now, add garam masala and Biryani/Pulao masala powders.

Stir well till the masala is well sauteed (4-5 minutes). Add 4 cups of water and salt. Stir well and cover the pressure cooker and cook till done. Soya Pulao is ready :-)

Soya chunks are good alternative for non-veg and it tastes great and healthy too. Read more at: http://www.funalso.com/Health-Beauty/soy-protein/402
    
Here are the other items in our lunch menu:

Aloo Mutter Cauliflower curry

 

Colorful Salad

Garam garam Rotis (my cook was patient enough while I was disturbing her with pictures)

Curd/Yogurt

And here is the fun part.... eating with our big brother Rajesh Da. But Dada missed one thing... tummy hugs with my husband ;-).

Tofu and vegetable tikka

At last, I got sometime to write my first cooking blog post. Hope parents don't mind my crazy cooking ;-).

OK. I prepared this dish for the first time two months back... after Harshita's request to prepare Paneer Tikka from Sanjeev Kapoor's cook book that was lying on my refrigerator's top...with Sanjeev Kapoor smiling and asking us to use the book.

Like their father, my kids love grilled food and Paneer tikka is one of their favorite. So prepared this dish with Paneer and also tried with little bit tofu. But we settled with Tofu...now preparing only Tofu tikka ....the healthy version of Paneer tikka :-).

Here are the ingredients used:
- Tofu
- Mushroom
- Colored capsicums
- 3 tablespoons gram flour
- 1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
- 1 tablespoon ginger garlic paste
- little bit lemon juice
- 4 cardamom's powder
- 1/2 teaspoon fennel powder
- Few saffron threads
- 1 cup yogurt(curd)
- 1/2 teaspoon chat masala
- 1/2 teaspoon white pepper powder
- Salt to taste

And here is the preparation with pictures. Thanks to Harshita for patiently taking all the pictures and inspiring (actually bugging) me in writing this blog. Before writing preparation steps, let me add pictures of Tofu and vegetables to make it complete.





- Cut vegetables and Tofu into half inch squares

- Roast gram flour on medium heat until fragrant, add turmeric and mix well in a bowl.
- Add ginger garlic paste, white pepper powder, salt, lemon juice, cardamom fennel powder, saffron and yogurt, mix and prepare a batter.


- Add Tofu pieces and marinate for at least one hour. (we added chat masala for the picture ;-))


- Thread Tofu cubes and vegetable pieces (dipped in batter) onto the skewers. Roast in a grill or microwave (with Tandoori setting). Sorry... I can't give exact timing and temperature. Just try it out... the way you do for other grilled food.


- Roast them until cooked.


- Stick them to toothpicks and serve to your kids.


It took me one hour to prepare...but just one minute for kids to finish it off. I love it and my kids love it. Hope your kids love it too....

I would like to dedicate this blog post to my DEAR FATHER who is a great inspiration behind all my cooking. His motto...EXPERIMENT and if it tastes good...carry on...