Focaccia Caprese

We Knead to Bake! I joined this group last year and dropped out after a couple of months. Did I not enjoy baking bread? Actually, I did enjoy it very much. And I enjoyed baking with a group. There is so much inspiration and motivation that it becomes tough to resist. I dropped out because I knew I would be traveling, had guests at home and at the end of it all, I was so far out that it was tough to come back. I didn't want anyone in the group to think I was dragging my feet.

This year, I thought I could learn to manage my time better. And I definitely wanted to keep trying new breads. So, I signed up again. With encouragement from all of you and the group, I am certain I can keep up. Or at least I know I will try very hard.

This month's bread is the Focaccia Caprese, adapted from The Kitchen Whisperer. It only took me a few minutes to put this together and it was gone equally quickly. The only waiting was the time that the yeast took to get to work.

For the Dough:

2 tsp Instant Yeast

1 1/2 tbsp Sugar

3 1/2 cups Bread Flour

1 tsp Salt

1/4 cup Olive oil

1 1/2 cups Warm water

A little more olive oil for brushing the dough

For the Topping:

2 Tomatoes, sliced thin

1 6” round piece of Fresh Buffalo Mozzarella, cut into1/4” slices

1/2 cup Fresh Basil Leaves, chiffonaded

For the Herbed Oil:

1/4 cup Olive Oil

1 tsp dried Oregano

1 tsp dried Basil

1/2 tsp Red Chilli flakes 

1/2 tsp Garlic Powder

Salt to taste 

In a bottle, add all the ingredients for the herbed oil and shake well.

Oil a baking tin. Heat the oven to 210C/410F.

In a bowl, add the sugar, salt, and olive oil and mix well. Add the warm water and mix until the sugar dissolves. Add the yeast and mix well. Add the bread flour and mix until everything comes together. Knead for a few minutes. The dough will be a bit sticky at this point. Make it into a ball and cover it with oil.

Cover with cling film or a damp cloth and allow it to rise. This will take about 45 minutes to an hour. Divide the dough into 4 parts.

Take one part and stretch it into the prepared baking tin by patting it down. Stretch the dough as it will tend to spring back. Allow it to rise for another 20 minutes.

Make a few depressions all over the dough with a well oiled finger and brush the entire surface with oil.

Bake for 15 - 20 minutes, until the bread is golden brown. 

Lightly drizzle some of the herbed oil over the bread and then evenly arrange some slices of mozzarella over the bread, leaving very little space between them. Arrange the tomato slices over this and a little sprinkle the chiffonaded basil over this. The topping should cover most of the surface of the bread.

Turn the heat of the oven up to 230C/450F. Drizzle more herbed oil over the bread and place it back in the oven for 5-7 minutes.

Cut it into slices while still warm and enjoy it fresh out of the oven. This bread was gone in no time. Given how easy this recipe is, I know I will make it more often.

Macaroni with Parsley-Peanut Pesto

There was a time I hadn't heard of pesto. Then came the time when I'd heard about it, but knew nothing about it. Then came the time when I first ate it. And then came the present. The time when I've heard about it, I know about it, I've eaten it, I make it and I experiment with different flavours. I've come a long way from asking a friend to bring me pine nuts from the US to using the humble peanut in my pesto.


At one time, I'd substitute pine nuts only with cashews. But I've become a bit more adventurous of late. Any nut and any kind of herb (needn't be a herb) and I've got a pesto going. To make it suitable for a lunch box, I added some mushrooms and some milk.


1 cup Macaroni, Cooked/Boiled with a little oil and salt

1 tbsp Olive Oil
2-3 tbsp Milk
1/2 cup Mushrooms, sliced




For the Parsley Pesto:


1/2 cup Parsley Leaves
1 cube Low Fat Cheese
2 tbsp Roasted Peanuts
2 pods Garlic
3 tbsp Olive Oil
1/2 tsp Chilli Flakes


Salt and Pepper to taste


Grind together all the ingredients for the pesto.


Drain the pasta and keep aside.


Heat the olive oil in a saucepan. Saute the mushrooms for 3-4 minutes. Add the pesto sauce and fry for a few minutes. Add the milk to get a sauce like consistency. Add the pasta and mix well. Season with salt and pepper.


A meal that comes together in minutes. There's not much chopping involved. And since I use a food processor to grind the pesto, there's no pounding to be done either. This is a perfect recipe for times when you want a nice meal and don't want to slave over the stove too much.

I hope all of you had a good Christmas. Happy Holidays!

Macaroni with Tomato-Ricotta Cheese Sauce

When my parents spent a month with us, I realized that I barely cooked. I seemed to cook lunch for S and myself, but Amma took care of almost everything else. One weekend, I decided to drag my lazy self into the kitchen and cook a meal. I wasn't donning the chef's hat yet, so I wanted to be out of the kitchen as soon as possible. So, pasta it was. I got a lot of appreciation for a lunch that involved emptying different cartons/bottles from the refrigerator. Now, who can complain?

2 cups Macaroni, prepared as per the instructions on the pack.

1 cup Pizza Sauce (I used American Garden)

3/4 cup Ricotta Cheese

1 tbsp Olive Oil

1 tsp Garlic Paste

1 tsp Parsley

1 tsp Basil

1 tsp Oregano

Salt and Pepper to taste

Heat the oil. Add the garlic paste and fry for a minute. Add the pizza sauce, parsley, basil and oregao and fry for a couple of minutes. Add the salt and cook for a minute. Crumble the ricotta cheese into the sauce and cook for another 2-3 minutes. Season with pepper and pour the sauce over the macaroni.

Enjoy this with some Garlic Bread or Garlic Toast. And wait for the compliments to come pouring in.

Tried & Tasted: Chickpea Salad

I have been having so many problems with blogger of late that I don't even know where to start. This seems to be the cooking season and I see new recipes, new resolutions and absolutely finger licking yummy food everywhere I look. I had lost my inspiration to cook in between and found comfort in the dal-roti-rice-sabzi routine. My new cab route leaves me with 3-4 hours of time to spare, depending on how much I sleep. In these 3 hours, I have to get ready for work, cook, eat, catch up with S, etc. So, even on those days that I do manage to cook something different, I almost never get around to taking a picture of it, let alone blog about it.

In the midst of this all, I volunteered to host an event. When I agreed to, I had expected November to be a "light" month. It has turned out to be my busiest yet. And it doesn't help that much that winter is here early. It only means that I need to spend extra time applying moisturizer (or end up scratching myself all the time).

Plus, blogger doesn't allow me to leave a comment. That means I am unable to thank someone for inspiration to cook or even tell them how much I liked a certain recipe or even say hello. All in all, nothing seems to be going my way.

And amidst all this, I am still my lazy self. So when I find myself hosting an event which celebrates another blogger and her blog, I spend hours going through her entire blog, for the entire month, only to settle on the simplest recipe I can find because:

• I'm making lunch for just myself
• I have everything on hand
• I like what I see
• I am running out of time for my own event

So, this afternoon I chose to make Sunshine Mom's Tongue Tickling Chickpea Salad with Italian Dressing. The only changes I made to the recipe was to omit the almonds and replace dried fenugreek with paprika. I'm typing this post with a bowl of this salad by my side. Try it and I'm sure you'll find yourself serving this salad quite often. This is my entry to the Tried and Tasted event that I am hosting at The Singing Chef. What are you cooking?

P.S: There seems to be yet another problem here. My pictures don't seem to be displaying here.

Mushroom Capsicum Pizza

This is the pizza I've always spoken so highly of. The pizza we grew up on. Long before Pizza Hut and Pizza Corner or Domino's came into India, this pizza replaced dinner on Monday nights. After talking about it for ages, I bring to you Amma's famous mushroom and capsicum pizza.

For the dough:

1 1/2 cups Flour

1 tbsp Yeast

1/8 cup Oil

1/2 tbsp Sugar

3/4 tsp Salt

1/4 cup Water, boiling

1/4 cup Milk

For the sauce:
1 Onion, chopped finely
2-3 medium Tomatoes, chopped finely
1 Capsicum, chopped finely
4 Button Mushrooms, chopped finely
2 tbsp Tomato Puree
1 tbsp Tomato Ketchup
1 tsp Sugar
1 tsp Oregano
1/2 tsp Pepper
1 tbsp Oil
Salt to Taste

100g Mozzarella Cheese, grated
1 tsp Oil

For the dough:

Take a huge mixing bowl and place the oil, salt and sugar in it. Add boiling water and mix until the sugar dissolves. Add the milk now to bring the mixture to room temperature. Add the yeast and mix well. Add the flour and knead into a dough. Place the dough in a greased vessel and cover it with a damp muslin cloth. Allow to rise until double in size (roughly 45-50 minutes).

For the sauce:

In a pan, heat the oil and add the onions. Fry for a minute or two. Add the capsicum and mushrooms and fry for 2-3 minutes. Add the oregano, salt, sugar and pepper and fry for another minute. Add the tomatoes and fry for 2-3 minutes. Add the puree and ketchup and cook the mixture for a couple of minutes.

To Proceed:

Grease a pizza plate.

Spread the dough over the plate. (You could roll the dough using a rolling pin. I prefer doing this by hand.) Spread the oil over the dough. Spread enough sauce over the base. Sprinkle the cheese over the pizza.

Bake in a hot oven (400 F) for 20 minutes. When done, cut into wedges. Enjoy your meal.

Sunshine Pasta

I love pasta. I love how I can throw in just about any vegetable into it and make the dish look and feel like a million bucks. This pasta was the result of what I had in my crisper one morning. Just like my Green Salad "happened", this sunshine pasta came together with a little bit of this and some of that.

1 cup Fusilli, prepared according to directions on the package
2 Medium Carrots, sliced and steamed
1 Orange Pepper, sliced
1 Yellow Pepper, sliced
1 Red Pepper, sliced
2 Tomatoes, sliced
1 Onion, sliced
1 tbsp Olive Oil
1 tsp Oregano
½ tsp Basil
½ tsp Parsley
1 tsp Chilli Flakes/Paprika
1 pod Garlic, finely chopped
Salt and pepper to Taste


Heat the oil in a pan and add the garlic. After a minute, add the onions and the chilli flakes/paprika. Fry for a minute more. Add the herbs and the tomatoes. Fry for 2-3 minutes. Add the peppers along with the carrots and cook for 4-5 minutes. Toss in the pasta. Season with salt and pepper. Serve hot.

This could be a quick fix lunch or dinner. I love the colours. What about you? Off this goes to dear Aparna as she hosts this month's edition of FIC-Orange, an event started by SunshineMom. That's quite a bit of Sunshine!

Penne in Tomato Sauce

I am a big fan of one dish meals and a bigger fan of pasta. For the longest time, I only ate white sauce based dishes as the tomato sauce versions almost always gave me very severe heart burn. I figured I could make tomato based sauces slightly differently at home. So, now I can make my pasta and eat it too. Just when I figured out a way to make tomato sauce that I can enjoy, S declared his undying love for the bechamel variety. So, this is one of my "once in a while" treats. Simple, easy, quick and filling.

1 cup Penne

2 tsp + 1 tsp Olive Oil
2 Onions, ground to a paste
1 tbsp Garlic Paste
3/4 cup Tomato Puree
1 tsp Oregano
1 tsp Basil
1 tsp Parsley
1/2 tsp Chilli Flakes
1 slice Low Fat Cheese
Salt and Pepper to taste

Heat the 2 tsp Oil. Add the onion and garlic pastes and fry for a couple of minutes. Add the chilli flakes, parsley, basil and oregano and fry for a minute. Add the tomato puree and allow the mixture to boil.

Boil 2 litres of water with a little salt and 1 tsp oil. Add the penne to the boiling water and cook for 10 minutes. Drain.

Add the cheese slices to the sauce and stir briskly till it blends well. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Toss the cooked penne in the sauce and serve hot.

Basil Walnut Pesto

I have experimented with several types of pesto. A few years ago, I hadn't tasted it. Now, it features quite regularly on our menu. While at one time I thought of it as a mere pasta sauce, I now use it as a salad dressing, as a spread for garlic toast, as a dip. What I love about pesto is how the flavour changes with each ingredient. This walnut pesto is a favourite with small bites of garlic bread.

1 cup Basil Leaves

1/3 cup Walnuts, toasted

4-5 pods Garlic

5 tbsp Olive Oil

Salt and Pepper to taste

Grind together all the ingredients to a coarse paste. You may pound them in a pestle if you wish. Add the olive oil a little by little to facilitate the grinding.

Store in an airtight container. You could use this in many ways. As a pasta sauce or salad dressing. Check out little bites of toast at my namesake's blog. While you're at it, do check out the blogs of other marathon runners as well: DK , Siri, Srivalli, Ranji, PJ, Curry Leaf, Medha, Priya, Bhawna, Raaji, Ruchii, Kamala, Roopa, Divya Kudua, Rekha, Divya M, Lakshmi, Lakshmi Venkatesh , Sripriya, Viji, Kamalika, DK, and Pavani

Penne in Corn-Spinach Sauce

It was another weeknight. All I wanted to do was make a quick dinner, eat and hit the bed. S, however, was in no hurry to eat. I found a bunch of spinach in the fridge and suddenly I found myself thinking about the past. The days I spent in Chennai as a working girl. Those years were very different from the ones I spent growing up. I had, after all, left, seen a bit of the world, and then returned. I worked at a place where I thought of few people as colleagues. They were mostly friends. We had loads of fun, had many parties together, and ate out an awful lot. One of the places that we frequented was the Red E Food Court. I loved the casseroles and baked dishes we got there. One of those dishes was white sauce based with chopped spinach and sweet corn. They served it with some garlic bread. Pure bliss.

I had no bread and so I decided to put some pasta into the sauce and make it a complete meal. That's when things changed a bit. I decided I didn't feel like chopping the spinach. So dinner that evening took a green turn. Here's how.

1 cup Penne, cooked

1 tbsp Butter

1 tbsp Flour

1 cup Milk

1/2 tsp Parsley

1/2 tsp Basil

1 tsp Chilli flakes

1/2 tsp Garlic Paste

Salt and Pepper to taste

1 slice Low Fat Cheese (optional)

1 bunch Spinach, cooked and pureed

1/2 cup Sweet Corn Kernels

Heat the butter in a saucepan. Add the garlic paste, parsley, basil and chilli flakes and fry for a minute. Add the flour and fry for a minute without browning the flour. Add the milk and bring the mixture to a boil while stirring continuously. Add the spinach puree and corn. If adding cheese, add it at this point and stir the sauce well. As the sauce thickens, add the salt and pepper. When the sauce is thick, add the pasta and mix well.

I was not sure how the dish would taste as I just turned lazy and pureed the spinach instead of chopping it. But not only was the colour appealing, the taste was wonderful. I suppose it is OK to be lazy every once in a while after all.

Do check out the blogs of these lovely ladies: DK , Siri, Srivalli, Ranji, PJ, Curry Leaf, Medha, Priya, Bhawna, Raaji, Ruchii, Anu, Kamala, Roopa, Divya Kudua, Rekha, Divya M, Lakshmi.

Spaghetti in Bechamel Sauce

I love pasta in any form and shape and can eat it any number of times. I have some folks at work who believe that eating pasta is a sign that you are snooty and, hence, look down on rotis and rice. I am sick and tired of explaining to people that I like variety. I am even sicker of explaining to folks that I grew up eating the stuff. Somehow, people are totally unable to believe that my mother made these part of our every day meals. Long before pizza sauces and bases made their appearance in supermarkets, she dished out pizzas from scratch as Monday night dinners. And I don’t count pizza and pasta in my list of junk food. These are full meals and can be as nutritious as you want them to be.

I’ve had some spaghetti lying in the cupboard for months now and somehow never got around to making it. I love spaghetti with tomato sauce and S loves his spaghetti carbonara. In fact, he’d try and order it at every Italian restaurant. I had a lot of milk in the fridge waiting to be used up and dished this out a couple of weeks ago. I loved this dish especially for the colours. (I really wanted to add corn for the yellow, but S didn’t want corn in his spaghetti!)

150g Spaghetti
1 tsp Olive Oil
1/2 cup, Broccoli, steamed
1/4 cup Mushrooms, sliced
1/4 cup, Red Capsicum, sliced
1 tbsp Butter/Olive Oil
1 tbsp Flour
1 cup Milk
1/2 tsp Parsley
1/2 tsp Basil
1 tsp Chilli flakes
1/2 tsp Garlic Paste
Salt and Pepper to Taste
1 slice Low Fat Cheese (optional)

Heat the butter in a saucepan. Add the capsicum and fry for a minute. Add the garlic paste, parsley, basil and chilli flakes and fry for another minute. Add the flour and fry without browning the flour. Add the mushrooms and fry for about 30 seconds. (Do not fry the mushrooms for too long as the water in them gets released.) Add the milk and bring the mixture to a boil while stirring continuously. If adding cheese, add it at this point and stir the sauce well. As the sauce thickens, add the salt and pepper. Add the broccoli and cook for a minute.

Boil 2 litres of water with a little salt and 1 tsp oil. Add the spaghetti to the boiling water and cook for 10 minutes.

Serve some spaghetti on a plate. Pour the sauce over it. Dig in.

Vegetable Focaccia

My father-in-law gifted me a book called "Everyday Light Meals". I have no idea why he picked out a book that has less than 10% devoted to meatless meals. It has 4 main sections: Poultry Meals, Beef Meals, Pork Meals and Seafood Meals. The section on Meatless Meals is almost an afterthought. But it is a gift and while I may never have picked such a book up for myself, it is not like I am going to return it. I might as well make good use of what I can.

I leaf through the Meatless Meals section quite often and one night I decided to make this Vegetable Focaccia. We wanted pizza but didn't have any cheese at home. This seemed like a great way to have pizza with no cheese. I modified the recipe as I didn't have all the ingredients on hand that night.

1 cup Flour

1 cup Wheat Flour

1 tbsp Fresh Yeast

1 tsp Salt

1 cup Water, warm

1 tbsp Olive Oil

For the topping:

3 Tomatoes, chopped

1/4 cup Mushrooms, sliced

1/4 cup Capsicum, chopped

1/4 cup Olives, sliced

1/4 cup Onion, chopped

3 tbsp Olive Oil

2 tsp Red Wine Vinegar

3/4 tsp Salt

1 tsp Garlic Paste

1/4 tsp Oregano

2 tsp Cornmeal

1/4 tsp Pepper

For the dough:

Take a huge mixing bowl and place the oil and salt in it. Add the water and mix well. Add the yeast and mix well. Add the flours and knead into a dough. Place the dough in a greased vessel and cover it with a damp muslin cloth. Set aside for 15-20 minutes.

Meanwhile, combine all the ingredients for the topping and keep aside.

To Proceed:

Grease a pizza plate. Spread the dough over the plate and prick all over with a fork. Bake at 475F for 5 minutes (or until browned). Top with the vegetable mixture and bake for another 10 minutes.

We had this with some red wine and were very satisfied with our "guilt free" pizza dinner. This vegetable focaccia is also off to Anupama's Sandwich festival.

Running strong on Day 6 is the Recipe Marathon. The recipes for today are:

Arundathi: Raspberry and Blueberry
Srivalli: Onion chapathis Lakshmi: Kashayam
Divya: Cauliflower-Peas Poriyal
Ranji: Simple Jhovan
Swati: Mint Coriander Chutney
Bhags: Baked Chapathi
Dhivs: Vegetable Chips
Siri: Tomato Coconut Chutney

Macaroni Salad and Anouncing MBP - May

The heat is killing. Much as I love cooking, it is the last thing I feel like doing these days. I don’t even mind cooking in the morning, but when I get back in the evening, the mere thought of entering the kitchen to dish up a meal is enough to kill any remnants of an appetite.

Monthly Blog Patrol or MBP an event started by Coffee of The Spice Cafe, is an event I participated in totally by chance. That too, because I happened to make something from her blog which fit very well into that month’s theme. After that, I have tried to be a regular. I know I've missed one or two, and then I missed the event itself for a good 6 months or so. I am guest hosting this event this month. And what I am looking for is a host of stuff that I cam make through summer without having to really toil over the hot stove. The theme for this month is Soups and Salads.

A few simple rules to enlist yourself in the patrol:

1. Make a Soup or Salad from fellow bloggers posted recipes, not food sites.

2. Post a picture of the final recipe on your blog linking it to the blogger, whose recipe you made. You can either post the recipe, or just the picture. Any variations to the original recipe will make interesting reading. One final picture and a link to the original recipe is a must.

3. Don’t forget your hosts! Please add a link back to this event announcement and/or the logo below, and to Coffee’s MBP page.

4. Email the following details to onlineraga@gmail.com with MBP – Soups and Salads in the subject line.

• Your name
• Your blog name
• Name of the Soup or Salad
• Permalink to your post
• Permalink to the original recipe
• A photograph of the final dish.
  

5. You may send as many entries as you like.

6. The deadline for this event is May 24th.

I will post the round up before the end of May (but forgive me if I am delayed as I am planning a trip to Madras around then!)


Here’s a simple salad to get you all in the mood.

1 cup Macaroni, boiled
1 Onion, chopped
1 Tomato, chopped
1 Green Capsicum, chopped
1 Carrot, finely chopped
1 tsp Olive Oil
1 tsp Mixed Herbs
1 tsp Chilli Flakes
Salt and Pepper to taste
Lime Juice, optional


Add the herbs and chilli flakes to the olive oil and set aside for 10-30 minutes.

Combine the macaroni with the chopped vegetables. Pour the herb infused olive oil over this. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add a little lime juice if you like. Toss together and enjoy your meal.

Spirali in Basil Pesto

Pesto is one of those things that I love today but didn't quite know about while growing up. The very first time I heard about it was about 5 years ago. A colleague, who had grown up in the US, told me about it one day while recounting her first cooking experience. So, after trying it out at several restaurants, I decided to make it at home. I made a coriander pesto sometime last year. And whenever I could lay my hands on basil, I made basil pesto. I asked a friend to bring me pine nuts from the U.S. And she did. For the very first time I made basil pesto with pine nuts. I didn't pound the nuts in a mortar, but used my food processor instead.

1 cup Spirali Pasta, Cooked/Boiled with a little oil and salt

1 tbsp Olive Oil

1 tbsp Milk

For the Basil Pesto:

1/2 cup Basil Leaves
1 cube Low Fat Cheese
2 tbsp Pine Nuts
2 pods Garlic
3 tbsp Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper to taste

Grind together all the ingredients for the pesto.

Drain the pasta and keep aside.

Heat the olive oil in a saucepan. Fry the pesto sauce in it for a few minutes. Add the milk to get a sauce like consistency. Add the pasta and mix well.

This is one of the simplest dishes I have come across and I make it as often as I can. I'm sending this super simple dish to Mathy who is hosting this month's JFI. The ingredient is one of my favourites: garlic.

Whole Wheat Calzones

I love pizzas. I mean really really love them. But in all the years that I lived alone, I probably ordered pizzas about 5 times. That’s like once in 2 years. Since the time I got married, we’ve ordered pizza exactly once. The day we shifted into the apartment we currently occupy. For some reason, I have never quite liked getting food home. For starters, there’s the minimum order quantity. This means that, in all likelihood, we’ll have leftovers. Then there’s the problem of rotis applying for jobs at GoodYear or MRF. There’s also the problem of transferring food to the right utensils, heating it up, bringing out the plates and cleaning up after the meal. Given the trouble involved, if I don’t feel like cooking, I’d much rather just go out and eat. Somehow, even the hottest freshest pizza goes cold in the 30 minute trip to your doorstep.


How do I tackle my craving for this Italian creation? Earlier, I did this by making enough visits to Amma’s. Now I do so by making it at home. Turning the all flour version to the whole wheat version was one step towards making my favourite food healthier. Making this folded pizza was the next step. I made do with just 5 grams of cheese powder as opposed to the 100 grams that I normally use in an open pizza.

For the dough:

1 cup Wheat Flour
½ cup Flour
1 tbsp Yeast
1/8 cup Oil
1/2 tbsp Sugar
3/4 tsp Salt1 tsp Chilli Flakes
1 tbsp Garlic, chopped
1 tbsp Mixed Herbs
1/4 cup Water, boiling
1/4 cup Milk

For the sauce:

1 Onion, sliced
1 medium Tomato, chopped finely
1 Capsicum, sliced (I used small portions of green, red and yellow capsicum)
2 tsp Chilli Flakes
1/8 cup Broccoli, cut
1/8 cup Sweet Corn

1/8 cup Brinjal, chopped
6 Button Mushrooms, chopped
3 tbsp Spinach, chopped
3 pods Garlic, finely chopped
1 tbsp Cheese Powder
1 tbsp Tomato Ketchup
1 tsp Sugar
1 tsp Oregano
1 tsp Fresh Parsley, finely chopped
1 tsp Fresh Basil, finely chopped
1/2 tsp Pepper
1/2 tsp Olive Oil
Salt to Taste

For the dough:

Take a huge mixing bowl and place the oil, salt and sugar in it. Add boiling water and mix until the sugar dissolves. Add the milk now to bring the mixture to room temperature. Add the yeast and mix well. Add the chilli flakes, garlic, and herbs. Add the wheat flour and flour and knead into a dough. Place the dough in a greased vessel and cover it with a damp muslin cloth. Allow to rise until double in size (roughly 45-50 minutes).

For the sauce:

In a pan, heat the oil and add the garlic and onions. Fry for a minute or two. Add the capsicum, corn, brinjal, mushroom, spinach and broccoli and fry for 2-3 minutes. Add the parsley, basil, oregano, chilli flakes, cheese powder, salt, sugar and pepper and fry for another minute. Add the tomato and fry for 2-3 minutes. Add the ketchup and cook the mixture for a couple of minutes. This mixture should be much drier than pizza sauce.

To Proceed:

Grease a pizza plate.Divide the dough into 4 equal portions. Spread each portion into a circle on a greased plate. Place a little sauce on one side of the dough and fold the dough over. Seal the edges and press down using a fork. Make slits on top.

Bake in a hot oven (400 F) for 20 minutes.This is so easy to make that I wonder why I didn’t try this earlier. It tasted great at dinner time and was just as good the next day at lunch too. It would be great to take on a picnic or during travel.

This one dish meal goes to Meeta for her Monthly Mingle. The theme this month is One-Dish Dinners. Other one dish meals at The Singing Chef can be found here.

Potato Gnocchi in Garlic Butter Sauce

A houseful of guests. And then an empty nest. We weren't exactly "relieved" to come home to an empty house. We weren't exactly feeling terrible about it. Mixed feelings would best describe what we felt on the evening of the 31st of December. Almost two months of having guests at home made us "get used to" the idea of having more than just us in the house. And at times I felt as though everyone should have just stayed on till New Year's and celebrated the end of the two month long party that started around Diwali.

We had no plans for New Year's Eve. We were not sure about what to do and where to go. I was at work the entire day and just wanted to get back home as soon as possible. The roads felt like all of Delhi was heading to Gurgaon to party. And I didn't want to be stuck somewhere on the road from Delhi to Gurgaon. Thankfully, we reached in about the same time that we normally take. I wished my colleague a happy new year and rushed home in the biting cold.

S had requested Italian food. I thought about a lot of things. And then decided to make it special. I had seen a recipe for lasagne on the net and I can't remember exactly where. So, the "Italian" bit fit really well into the evening's plans. I also wanted to make some sort of finger food. We had some bottles of fruit wine stashed away and cheese is usually what we love with our wine. But I thought there'd be too much cheese, what with the lasagne and all that. So, I made some gnocchi instead.

For the gnocchi:

1 cup Potato, boiled and mashed

3 tbsp Flour

Salt to taste

1 tsp Salt and 1 tbsp Olive Oil for boiling the pasta

For the Garlic Butter Sauce:

2 tbsp Garlic, finely chopped

2 tsp Chilli Flakes

1 tsp Mixed Herbs

1 tbsp Butter

1 tsp Olive Oil

Salt and Pepper to taste

Knead the potato, flour and salt lightly into a dough. Make small balls of this dough and flatten them using a fork. Boil plenty of water and add the salt and olive oil. Drop these flattened rounds into the water and remove them when they come to the surface. Drain completely and keep aside.

Heat the butter and olive oil in a pan. Add the garlic, chilli flakes and herbs. Add the cooked gnocchi and the salt and pepper. Toss around a little and take off the flame.

I really didn't think I'd pull off something quite as fancy as a cozy candlelight dinner for two. I actually set the table, got the candles out, lit them. Poured the wine into the glasses and had everything ready before S returned from the boys' party at his boss' place.

It was an evening to remember. OK, the lasagne got burnt a little, but so what? In my opinion, it beat any party that we were invited to and didn't attend. No hotel, restaurant or pub could have given us a better deal.

I'm sending this to Sunita for her monthly event Think Spice - Think Garlic.

Pizza and a milestone

I have been baking for a really long time. And I started baking with yeast only in the last 3 months. I've tried a variety of buns and breads and have been more successful than I thought I'd be.

Amma makes the yummiest pizza I've ever eaten. And I'm not the only one to think this. My best friend was visiting India for the first time in the 2.5 years since she moved to the U.S. A couple of weeks before she landed in Madras, we were on the phone with her and Amma asked her what she should make for her when she's here and she said, "Pizza" without thinking twice. Amma asked her, "Aren't you tired of eating Pizza there?" and she said, "But nothing is like what you make, Aunty!"

I'd never ventured to try and decided that eating Amma's pizza each time I visited my parents' place was more than enough. I do end up going at least 4 times a year so I can't really complain. (Even though this is at their dinner table every week.) But Amma was always asking me why I couldn't make this myself. I was scared of how it would turn out. And she'd say, "You make all kinds of bread, how can this intimidate you?" Anita also suggests that one can start baking breads with the easy pizza base. I finally summoned the courage to try this out last weekend. I started chopping vegetables to make pasta and halfway through decided to make pizza. I didn't have mushrooms in the fridge (it's usually a staple in our fridge, but when it is selling at Rs. 250 a kilo, I don't have the heart to use it as often!) and added whatever I could find. So, I did deviate a lot from Amma's original pizza sauce recipe. I'm not complaining!

For the dough:

1 1/2 cups Flour
1 tbsp Yeast
1/8 cup Oil
1/2 tbsp Sugar
3/4 tsp Salt
1/4 cup Water, boiling
1/4 cup Milk

For the sauce:

1 Onion, sliced
2-3 medium Tomatoes, chopped finely
1 Capsicum, sliced (I used small portions of red and yellow capsicum)
2 tsp Chilli Flakes
1/8 cup Broccoli, cut

1/8 cup Sweet Corn

1/8 cup Paneer, cubed
3 pods Garlic, finely chopped
1 tbsp Tomato Ketchup
1 tsp Sugar
1 tsp Oregano

1 tsp Fresh Parsley, finely chopped

1 tsp Fresh Basil, finely chopped
1/2 tsp Pepper
1/2 tsp Olive Oil
Salt to Taste

100g Mozzarella Cheese, grated

1 tsp Olive Oil

For the dough:

Take a huge mixing bowl and place the oil, salt and sugar in it. Add boiling water and mix until the sugar dissolves. Add the milk now to bring the mixture to room temperature. Add the yeast and mix well. Add the flour and knead into a dough. Place the dough in a greased vessel and cover it with a damp muslin cloth. Allow to rise until double in size (roughly 45-50 minutes).

For the sauce:

In a pan, heat the oil and add the garlic and onions. Fry for a minute or two. Add the capsicum, paneer, corn and broccoli and fry for 2-3 minutes. Add the parsley, basil, oregano, chilli flakes, salt, sugar and pepper and fry for another minute. Add the tomatoes and fry for 2-3 minutes. Add the ketchup and cook the mixture for a couple of minutes.

To Proceed:

Grease a pizza plate.

Spread the dough over the plate. (You could roll the dough using a rolling pin. I prefer doing this by hand.) Spread the olive oil over the dough. Spread enough sauce over the base. Sprinkle the cheese over the pizza.

Bake in a hot oven (400 F) for 20 minutes. When done, cut into wedges. Enjoy your meal.

This is a recipe I've been wanting to try and post for ages. It took 6 months of food blogging to get this very special recipe out. I just completed half a year of blogging and have all of you in the food blogosphere to thank for making a smooth sailing for me. Along with family and friends, you've all egged me on. Thank you all for your support and love.

Spaghetti with Tomato Cheese Sauce

A meal that is about as simple as can be: Spaghetti. I sometimes tend to think of Spaghetti as being more American than Italian. Quite the same way as I think of Pizza.

While I was introduced to Macaroni in the comfort of my own home, Spaghetti was a whole new experience. The first time I saw it was on the supermarket shelves in upstate NY. But I didn't pay much attention to it. Think about it: an 8 year old from India in the US for a very first time, despite the fact that her parents spent a lot of time there, in fact met there and decided to get married, walking through the aisles of the supermarket, taking in everything from Mars to Juicy Fruit to more cheese and vegetable varieties than she even knew existed. Spaghetti would hardly have been the thing to draw her attention.

But when Amma brought home a can of Spaghetti and cooked it on a day when only H and I were having lunch (my parents skip one weekday meal as a way of giving thanks - they belong to very opposite cultures and married at a time when marrying on your own was taboo enough, let alone marrying someone outside your homestate, culture and clan.) I think I was hooked since then.

Here is the simplest way to make Spaghetti at home. (Apart from buying readymade sauces!!)

150g Spaghetti

2 tsp + 1 tsp Olive Oil

2 Onions, ground to a paste

1 tbsp Garlic Paste

200g Tomato Puree

1 tsp Oregano

1 tsp Basil

1 tsp Parsley

1/2 tsp Chilli Flakes

1-2 slices Low Fat Cheese

Salt and Pepper to taste

Cheese Powder for serving

Heat the 2 tsp Oil. Add the onion and garlic pastes and fry for a couple of minutes. Add the chilli flakes, parsley, basil and oregano and fry for a minute. Add the tomato puree and allow the mixture to boil.

Boil 2 litres of water with a little salt and 1 tsp oil. Add the spaghetti to the boiling water and cook for 10 minutes. Drain.

Add the cheese slices to the sauce and stir briskly till it blends well. Add salt and pepper to taste.

To serve:





Serve some spaghetti on a plate. Pour the sauce over it. Sprinkle with cheese powder and enjoy.



We were watching "The Pursuit of Happyness" and I actually made this in fifteen minutes between parts one and two. I like the fact that with stuff like tomato puree so readily available, even an "exotic" dish takes little effort.

I am sending this to Paige from Chef Girl will be hosting the Weekend Cookbook Challenge for August. Paige has chosen a super theme - Dinner and a DVD.

Macaroni and Vegetables in White Sauce

Given the number of times in a month we eat pasta at home, it is difficult to believe that at one time I actually hated the stuff. Rewind to about 23-24 years ago. A time when macaroni wasn't even easily available in India. I always looked at the bottle on the top shelf that had some small twisted straws. I couldn't reach it. But I'd ask her each time I looked up at it, "Amma, taen kallen?" (Amma, what is that?) And she'd tell me, "Macaroni". "Macaroni mhalar kallen?" (What does Macaroni mean?) And she'd try to explain in the best way she could to a 6 year old. Then one day she made it because I was so enthusiastic about it. And I hated it. I ate it, but almost swore never to touch it again.

Almost, but not quite! Many years later, Amma decided to make the dish again. Macaroni and vegetables in white sauce. Suddenly, the same dish, made quite the same way, was yummy to say the least. I make it very often. I have modified the dish greatly from the time I learnt it. At times, my sauce is so creamy that I don't even bother adding cheese to it.

But the recipe is a keeper. Filling, nutritious and tasty. What more can one ask for in a meal?

Ingredients:

1 cup Macaroni (Cooked/Boiled with a little oil and salt)

1 cup Mixed Boiled Vegetables (Carrot, Beans, Peas, Cauliflower, Potato), chopped

1/4 cup Mushrooms, chopped

1/4 cup, Mixed Capsicum, chopped

1 tbsp Butter/Olive Oil

1 tbsp Flour

1 cup Milk

1/2 tsp Parsley

1/2 tsp Basil

1 tsp Chilli flakes

1/2 tsp Garlic Paste

Salt and Pepper to Taste

1 slice Low Fat Cheese (optional)

Heat the butter in a saucepan. Add the capsicum and fry for a minute. Add the garlic paste, parsley, basil and chilli flakes and fry for another minute. Add the flour and fry without browning the flour. Add the mushrooms and fry for about 30 seconds. (Do not fry the mushrooms for too long as the water in them gets released.) Add the milk and bring the mixture to a boil while stirring continuously. If adding cheese, add it at this point and stir the sauce well. As the sauce thickens, add the salt and pepper. Add the boiled vegetables and the macaroni to the sauce.

If you like, you could transfer this to a baking dish, sprinkle grated cheese on top and bake for 10 minutes at 450 F. I go through the trouble only if I am making it at dinner time and can enjoy it with Garlic Bread. This is something S and I have enjoyed at Ten Downing Street. This is my third feature on Eating out while eating in. The earlier ones being Kothu Roti and French Bread Pizza.

This is my entry to Waiter There's Something in My...Sauce, and hosted by Andrew of Spittoon Extra.

French Bread Pizza

Until a few years ago, there was a quaint little restaurant in Bangalore, near the junction of Residency Road and Brigade Road, that kindled my curiosity enough to walk in and the experience there made me go back. Again and again. This restaurant was French Bread Pizza.

All items on their menu were pizzas. Only they were made using the famous baguette as a base. Think of this as a large, really large piece of garlic bread with all the toppings. They served these little wonders on wooden holders specially designed to hold the baguette. When I finally moved back to Bangalore 2 years ago, the place, much to my utter disappointment, had shut down and given way to a Chettinad restaurant. Maybe it wasn't viable enough a business. I hope they come back into business because they've given me several moments of satiated happiness. The kind that only comes from having eaten a good meal.

Last evening, we went to Galleria, a shopping complex close by and walked in to the Grand Plaza bakery. There we found some fresh baguettes. I remembered that I had everything at home to recreate the French Bread Pizza magic at home. Ever since my trip home last month, I've been preparing to make Amma's signature pizza at home. But the incidents of the past 2 weeks didn't allow me to make anything so elaborate. This seemed perfect.

Ingredients:

1 Baguette

For the sauce:

1 Onion, chopped finely

2-3 medium Tomatoes, chopped finely

1 Capsicum, chopped finely (I used small portions of all 3 colours)

4 Button Mushrooms, chopped finely

2 tbsp Tomato Puree

1 tbsp Tomato Ketchup

1 tsp Sugar

1 tsp Oregano

1/2 tsp Pepper

1/2 tsp Chilli Flakes

1 tbsp Olive Oil

Salt to Taste

2-3 Olives

100g Grated Cheese

Some oil/butter for glazing the bread

Slice the baguette in two and chop in half. You will be left with 4 quarters. Apply some butter or olive oil to the flat surface of each piece and grill for 3 minutes.

In a pan, heat the oil and add the onions. Fry for a minute or two. Add the capsicum and mushrooms and fry for 2-3 minutes. Add the oregano, chilli flakes, salt, sugar and pepper and fry for another minute. Add the tomatoes and fry for 2-3 minutes. Add the puree and ketchup and cook the mixture for a couple of minutes.




Spread the sauce over the grilled bread pieces and add the olives on top.

Sprinkle grated cheese over the slices and bake in an oven at 220 C for 7-8 minutes and then on grill for 3-4 minutes.




Enjoy this when hot with a glass of milk, coke, beer or breezer. I am sure that a glass of iced tea will go very well with this too.

This sauce is Amma's signature sauce and I will soon be putting up the recipe for her pizza as well. Initially, her sauce used to be only onions and tomatoes and any other toppings, we'd put over the sauce and then sprinkle cheese on it. I suggested to her that if she adds them in the sauce, they would imbibe the flavours of the sauce. The addition of ketchup was also my idea. Last night, I went ahead and added some puree and some chilli flakes to the sauce. No one was complaining!

This is my entry to Waiter There's Something in My...Sauce, and hosted by Andrew of Spittoon Extra.