Spaghetti with Sweet & Sour Vegetables

Spaghetti with Sweet & Sour Vegetables

It is the middle of the week and I often wonder what can I cook up quickly for dinner instead of the routine Rotis, Vegetables and the likes... It's been a while since I stepped into the kitchen to dish out some 'Indianised-Chinese Food'. So here goes a little experiment gone totally right! Throw in whatever vegetables you find in your vegetable basket at home... A little sweet here, a little tangy there and a tinge of spice...end your day on a tasteful note!

Here's a quick pic-by-pic low-down on the recipe:

SPAGHETTI WITH SWEET & SOUR VEGETABLES

Prep Time: 15 mins | Cook Time: 15 mins | Servings: 2

Ingredients:

1. Spaghetti Pasta
2. Bell Peppers - Red/ Yellow/ Green (either one or all three) - chopped into square pieces
3. Onion - 1 medium sized chopped in quarters with layers separated 
4. Carrot - 1 chopped into chunks/ cubes
5. Zucchini - 1 sliced (I opted for the yellow  zucchini)
6. Baby Corns - 5-6 nos (split at the centre and cut into halves)
7. French Beans - 8-10 nos
8. Broccoli or Cauliflower Florets - 1½ cups
9. Soy Sauce - 3 tablespoons
10. Garlic - 3 cloves finely chopped
11. Ginger - ½ inch finely chopped
12. Tomato Ketchup - 2 tablespoons
13. White Vinegar - 1 tablespoon
14. Cornflour - 2 tablespoons
15. Water -  ½ cup to mix cornflour and 2 cups for the vegetables (you could add vegetable stock instead of water as well)
16. Oil - 1½-2 tablespoons
17. Pepper - ½ teaspoon
18. Sugar - 1 tablespoon
19. Salt - to taste

Preparation:

• Boil and coat the pasta as per instructions and set aside. Blanch the zucchini, baby corns, cauliflower, french beans in water (add a teaspoon of salt) and keep aside

• Heat a wok/ kadhai and add oil. Saute ginger and garlic and add onions and bell peppers and stir fry (on high flame) for about 3 minutes

• Add rest of the vegetables and stir fry for about 4-5 minutes. Mix soy sauce and tomato ketchup in a bowl and add it to the vegetables. Season with salt, pepper and sugar and mix well. Add two cups of water (or vegetable stock) and simmer and cook for about 5 minutes.

• Mix 2 tablespoons of cornflour in ½ cup water and add to the vegetables. Stir quickly and ensure no lumps are formed. Simmer for a couple of minutes till it thickens and round it up with a tablespoon of vinegar. 

Your sweet & sour vegetables is ready to be served with the spaghetti... If you change your mind, you can serve it with steamed rice, plain noodles or fried rice too! Enjoy a different dinner on the weekday! 

A "Date" with a Cake!

Dates and Wheat Flour Cake

My love for quick cakes, thanks to the microwave, is on an upswing! And when instant blends with

healthy, it is literally like 'cherry on the cake'! I jumped at the option of a cake made using dates and wheat flour and the result was... poof... magical - both in terms of its fluffy, light texture and balanced sweetness thanks to the dates. Here's a quick scan on the recipe...

DATES CAKE

Prep Time: 4 hours | Cooking Time: 7 mins | Servings: 16-18 slices

Ingredients: 

1. Dates (seedless) - 20-25 nos
2. Wheat flour - 1½ cup (approx 175 gm)
3. Milk - 1½ cup
4. Sugar - 1 cup (approx 200 gm)
5. Vegetable Oil - 3 tablespoons
6. Baking Soda - 1 teaspoon
7. Liquid Soda - ¾ cup

Preparation:

1. Soak the de-seeded dates in 1 cup of warm milk for an hour
2. Grind the soaked dates and sugar. Add oil and baking soda to this mixture. Add wheat flour little by little and whisk to ensure there are no lumps in this mixture. Add half cup of milk and mix well. Let this batter stand for 3 hours
3. Just before you add the mixture to a greased, microwave safe cooking bowl, add the liquid soda and whisk well.
4. Pour this into the baking container and microwave (without lid) for 7:30 mins.
5. Insert a knife/ fork to check is the cake is baked through and through
6. Slice it once cooled

Notes & Tips:

• This cake can be made using Maida (all purpose flour) as well - for this you do not need to let the batter stand for 3 hours. Once the dates and soaked for an hour, just add the maida to the mixture (dates + sugar) along with oil and baking soda. Add liquid soda and microwave immediately
• Always mix the batter in one direction 
• Always add the liquid soda just before you pour the batter and microwave 

Makar Sankranti Special: Gulachi Poli (Indian Flatbread stuffed with Jaggery)

Makar Sankranti, the harvest festival of Maharashtra is celebrated in different forms (and with different names) across communities throughout the country. Besides marking the start of the harvest festival, it is also the beginning of the movement of the Sun into the northern hemisphere. The day is noted as the beginning of an auspicious phase in Indian culture and people usually dress up in new black clothes, exchange sweets and gifts and fly colourful kites. The significance of wearing black is that since the festival is celebrated in winter, black retains and absorbs heat, keeping everyone warm. 

Makar Sankranti special Gulachi Poli

Like any other Indian festival, the highlight of Sankranti is the special ingredients used to prepare sweets and delicacies - sesame, sugar, jaggery, ghee (keeping us warm) being the main components. We exchange coloured 'halwa' (sesame coated with sugar syrup) or 'til-gul' (sweets prepared using sesame and jaggery) and greet each other with 'Til-gul ghya goad bola'. And what's Sankranti in a Marathi household without the irresistible aroma and flavours of the gul poli (flatbread stuffed with jaggery mixture)! Here's a loud cheer to all the Maharashtrians out there and a step-by-step recipe for the perfect, yummylicious Gul Poli! 

GULACHI POLI (Indian Flatbread stuffed with a Jaggery Mixture)

Prep Time: 1 hour | Cooking Time: 2 hours (to make 25-30 rotis) | Servings: 25-30 rotis

Ingredients:

1. Jaggery - 500gm
2. Chickpea Flour (Besan) - 100 gm
3. Sesame Seeds - 50 gm
4. Cardamom Powder - 1 teaspoon
5. Nutmeg Powder - ½ teaspoon
6. Refined Oil - Approx 75 ml (besan should immerse well in oil while roasting it)
7. For making Rotis (Flatbreads)
• Wheat Flour - 200 gm
• Maida - 200 gm
• Besan - 1 tablespoon
• Oil - 2-3 tablespoons
• Water - to knead the dough (should be stiffer than roti dough)

Preparation:

• Grate or finely cut jaggery and set aside. Roast sesame seeds and finely powder them. 

• Heat a pan and add oil. Roast besan till it turns golden brown. 

• Once the besan is lukewarm, add jaggery, sesame seeds, cardamom and nutmeg powders and mix. Churn this mixture using a food processor or grinder till it is evenly mixed and roll small balls (the size of a pedha) for stuffing into the roti dough. For the dough, mix wheat flour, maida, oil and water and knead to form a stiff dough and roll small balls (slightly bigger than the jaggery mixture)

• Press the dough ball lightly between your palms and slightly flatten the edges using your thumb and index finger. Stuff the jaggery mixture into it and close it. It is now ready to be rolled into a roti.

• Roll the roti lightly, without using too much pressure (else the jaggery mixture will spill out). Heat a skillet or frying pan and roast the roti using ghee. Serve with a dollop of homemade ghee! 

It's a tad bit late, but hoping you all have had a splendid Sankranti and there's no harm trying this yummylicious roti on a cold afternoon - sit back and let the combination of jaggery, sesame and ghee warm you up!! 

Chocolate Cake in 6 Minutes

I always thought microwave cooking is a complex, still worse, a perplexing task - you measure ingredients accurately (something we rarely do in Indian homes, it is mostly our gut feeling or experience passed on from generations), calculate measurements vis-à-vis temperatures (mathematics was never my favourite subject), using eggs to make desserts, people scaring me all the time saying a few seconds here and there could ruin the dish and so on... Over the last few months I was observing a friend dishing out delicious desserts and other recipes and having absolute fun at it... My New Year gift this year was a Microwave - leaving me pleasantly surprised and I was automatically seen making a resolution with myself that I will learn the basics of microwave cooking, and more importantly, enjoy the experience! As long as you love to cook, the method or mode of cooking should be the least of your worries - what is essential is cooking from your heart and dishing out wonders from the kitchen for your loved ones!

Cook up a spongy Chocolate Cake in 6 Minutes! 

My giant leap in microwave cooking, or 'I-can-control-the-machine-and-cook-something-tasty' Moment sprang last evening when my aunt shared a wonderfully easy cake recipe ("Baking and Easy?!?!" is what I always thought., but this was literally a cakewalk - you don't need a convection/ grill for this one either!) that made my New Year's Eve and surprised all my loved ones at home too!!! My spongy, delicious chocolate cake was ready in literally 6 minutes... Here's a low down on the recipe  

QUICK CHOCOLATE CAKE

Prep Time: 12-15 mins | Cooking Time: 6 mins | Servings: 8-10 big pieces

Ingredients:

1. Maida - 1½ cup (150 gm)
2. Sugar - 1 cup heaped (approx 175 gm)
3. Cocoa Powder - 4 tablespoons (heaped)
4. Baking Soda - 1 teaspoon
5. Water - 1 cup (150 ml)
6. Oil - ⅓  cup (50 ml)
7. Vanilla Essence - 1-2 teaspoons
8. Vinegar - 2 tablespoons
9. Walnuts - ½cup (chopped)
10. Sugar syrup - 3-4 tablespoons (runny, not very thick - mix ½-1 tablespoon of powdered sugar with 3-4 tablespoons of water)

Preparation:

• Sieve the maida, cocoa powder and soda in a bowl and keep aside

Mixture of Maida, Cocoa Powder and Baking Soda to be sieved 

• In a separate bowl, mix water, sugar, oil, vinegar and vanilla essence and mix till the sugar melts completely into the mixture.

Sugar, Oil, Water, Vinegar and Vanilla Essence mixed till sugar melts 

• Add this mix to the dry powder and keep whisking till all lumps are cleared

• Grease a microwave-safe cooking container with oil and flour and add the batter to it.

• You can sprinkle some walnuts on the batter. Now microwave (regular settings) this for 6 minutes (open) and once done, allow it to rest for a couple of minutes. Insert a knife or toothpick to see if any batter sticks - if the knife is clear, your cake is ready

• Once the cake has cooled completely, drop it on a plate and brush/pour sugar syrup on it to leave it moist

Surprise yourself and your loved ones - it is never too late to experiment and cook up easy yet tasty dishes from your heart!

Homemade Pizzas for your Weekend Parties!

Homemade Pizzas, easy on the pocket & easy to cook up too!

Weekend's buzzing, festive fervour in the air, it's time to gang up and party, relish and gorge on sinful food, but we also keep an eye on the fact that it happens to be the last week of the month - ordering out pizzas suddenly doesn't seem like the best choice!! So how about 'Cooking Up' sumptuous, sinful pizzas at home for your weekend gathering?! Don't have a microwave? You don't need one either... Make this one on your regular cookstove with a pan - as long as you add a dash of warmth, loads of love, frolic, fun and dollops of cheese, you are sure to get one helluva pizza that you and your friends would wipe out! Find out how....

HOMEMADE PIZZAS

Prep Time: 15-20 mins | Cook Time: 5-7 mins (per pizza) | Servings: Makes 6 pizzas (from pizza bases available in supermarkets) 

Ingredients:

1. Pizza Bases - 6 nos (available easily at supermarkets)
2. Pizza Sauce - 3-4 tablespoons (or mix some leftover herbs in tomato ketchup if pizza sauce is not available)
3. Butter - 2-3 tablespoons 
4. Green Capsicum - 2 large-sized
5. Onions - 2 large sized
6. Olives - 1 cup (sliced) - optional
7. Herbs/ seasoning - as per taste - around 1 tablespoon
8. Olive oil - 1 tablespoon
9. Salt & Pepper - to taste

Preparation:

• Finely slice capsicums and onions and throw in some sliced olives if you like

• Add olive oil, salt & pepper and some herbs (oregano seasoning/ chilli flakes), mix well and set aside

• Add a few gentle cuts on your pizza base and smear some butter followed by pizza sauce. If you do not have ready-made pizza sauce, you can add some oregano seasoning/ herbs to tomato ketchup and use it as a pizza sauce too! Spread a generous portion of the veggies topping on your base.

• Grate some cheese (you can use pizza cheese - mozzarella or use regular cheese cubes) and top it off on the pizza. In the meanwhile, set aside a frying pan to heat. Keeping it on medium flame, sprinkle some olive oil or butter and place your pizza in it. Cover it with a lid. Keep a check on it after about 4-5 minutes. Once the cheese melts and the base of the pizza is crispy brown, take it off the heat and cut into slices and serve! 

Enjoy your house-party with this easy, cheesy homemade pizza and you can warm up with some freshly prepared tomato and mix veggies soup (shared in my previous post) and do let me know how it turned out! You can also experiment with toppings using other veggies of your choice...

And if you run out of pizza bases, you can always fall back on the good 'ol bread and create small bread pizzas in the same way! Have a pizza-licious weekend! 

Tomatoes & Mixed Veggies Soup

Thick, tasty, healthy tomato and mixed veggies soup!

As the cold wave grips northern India, I am beginning to see its effects here, down south too.. It is an oddly cold, breezy day and the tender sunshine on the terrace is on a mission to play hide and seek. Wrapped in my shawl, I was thinking of preparing a tasty, healthy and delightfully warm soup for snacks this evening. Soups served in restaurants, especially the ones with a tomato-base are usually laced with cornflour to thicken it and I always felt it somehow spoiled the taste... My solution is simple, just add a potato to thicken it as well as to provide a little nutrition that it has to offer! 

This recipe is uncomplicated, simple and wholesome! Go ahead and enjoy that hot bowl of soup while you watch your favourite TV show or while you simply sit and chat with friends and family! 

TOMATOES & MIXED VEGGIES SOUP

Prep Time: 15 mins | Cook Time: 10 mins | Servings: 6

Ingredients:

1. Tomatoes - 5-6 nos (firm, red medium-sized)
2. Beetroot - half (of a medium sized)
3. Carrots - 2 nos (baby carrots)
4. Spinach leaves - 7-8 large leaves
5. Bottle gourd - about a 3 inch piece
6. Potato - 1 medium-large sized
7. Yellow split moong dal - 1-2 tablespoons 
8. Black Pepper Powder - 2 teaspoons
9. Cumin Powder (Jeera) - 1-2 teaspoons
10. Sugar - 2 teaspoons
11. Butter - 2 teaspoons
12. Salt - to taste

Preparation:

1. Wash and clean the moong dal and all the vegetables. Peel and chop carrots, bottle gourd, beetroot and potato into large chunks. Cut tomatoes into chunks of 4. Pressure cook all the vegetables along with the dal and set aside for cooling. Considering beetroot takes slightly longer to cook, around 5-6 whistles should be adequate.
2. Once the vegetables are cooked, blend them in a mixer or blender. Remember and DO NOT throw away the water from the pressure cooker used for cooking these vegetables since it contains most of the nutrition from the vegetables and dal.
3. Empty the blended vegetables into a vessel and set it to heat. Depending on how thick or liquid you like your soup to be (I like mine slightly thicker), add the water (saved from cooking the vegetables) to the mixture.
4. Add pepper and cumin powders along with salt, sugar and better and bring to boil once.
5. Take it off the heat and you may garnish it with a little parsley or a spoon of cream and serve hot with bread-sticks, garlic bread or simply gulp bowls of soup! 

Quick Notes:

• The moong dal and other vegetables make it nutritious
• Potato thickens the soup and is a better alternative than cornflour
• I restrict the use of spinach to a few leaves because it has a strong flavour of its own which most people may not like
• You are free to add more vegetables like beans, cauliflower etc if you like

Using tomato as a base gives it its tang and flavour along with a beautiful red colour, adding that little sparkle to your Christmas winter evenings! Bon Apetit! 

Gajar ka Halwa - The Quintessential Indian Dessert!

With the winter chills setting in, vegetable stores and streets are full of delicious, long, juicy, flavoursome

'Delhi Carrots'... And what better to start your winters than some steaming hot and delicious Gajar ka Halwa - a dessert pudding associated with northern India and served at most festivals and functions. This light and popular milk-based, nut-laced dessert is also finding its inroads in other parts of the country and has become quite a popular choice at various functions! I welcomed the winters this year with my first plate of Gajar Halwa and here's a hassle-free recipe to cook up this delicious dessert for your next party!

GAJAR KA HALWA

Prep Time: 15 mins | Cook Time: 30-40 mins | Serves: 6

Ingredients:

1. Delhi Carrots - 1 kg
2. Ghee - 3 tablespoons
3. Sugar - 3-4 tablespoons
4. Condensed Milk (Milkmaid) - 1 tin
5. Cashews and raisins - 1 cup for garnish

Preparation:

• Boil a vessel of water as you peel and cut the carrots into about 3-4 inches long pieces. Par boil the carrots (once the water boils, take it off the heat, add the chopped pieces of carrots and cover it with a lid for 5-7 minutes)

• Once the carrots begin to soften slightly, take them off the hot water and grate them

• Heat 3 tablespoons of ghee in a pan/ kadhai and begin to roast the grated carrots till its moisture evaporates and its raw smell wears off. Once the moisture has evaporated, you can add about 3 tablespoons of sugar. Mix and roast till the sugar melts and the carrots begin to change colour slightly (turning orang-ish). 

• Add one whole tin of condensed milk (about 400 ml) to the mixture and stir continuously. Keep mixing it till the condensed milk thickens and blends well with the carrots and the halwa begins to thicken and shine and leave the sides of the kadhai (this is an indication that the halwa is done). 

• Once done, add a generous helping of raisins and shredded cashews to garnish the halwa and serve hot! 

Traditionally, Gajar Halwa is cooked in a mixture of water, milk and sugar while stirring continuously. With this recipe, you can eliminate the process of using milk and sugar and use condensed milk instead. In case you like your halwa generously sweet, you can add sugar additionally.  Parboiling the carrots before roasting them in ghee will help cook them faster too.