milk

Spinach Surprise- Pasta with Spinach and Paneer

October 2, 2018

Spinach Surprise is an Italian Pasta dish, which I prepare for my daughters and it is one of their favourite pasta dishes, which is a one pot filling, healthy meal.

In this dish, I normally put 3 layers and then bake it and serve with seasoned bread or garlic bread.

In this, first layer would comprise of spinach pockets, with seasoned paneer filling.

Second layer is Pasta with white sauce and third and final layer is Grated cheese mixed with bread crumbs and a dollop of butter here and there. After baking, I normally serve this with seasoned bread or garlic bread with some tossed and seasoned veggies at the side.

It is a wholesome homemade pasta and comparatively low in calorie as well.

We will see, how I prepare-

Ingredients:

For 1^st layer / Spinach pockets with Paneer filling:

Large spinach leaves – 20 -22

Paneer/Cottage cheese – 100 grams, grated
Butter – 1 – 2 tsp
Onion – 1 small
Green Chilli – 2, minced
Red Chilli flakes – 1/4 tsp
Salt to taste

For 2^nd Layer / Pasta in White sauce:

Pasta – 1 cup
Butter – 2 tbsp
whole wheat flour – 2 – 4 Tbsp
Milk – 2 – 4 cups

Grated cheese – 2 table spoons
Garlic salt (if you don’t have garlic salt, add chopped garlic and salt)

Oregano

Red chilli flakes

If u want to add any vegetables, you can add, or you can make only white sauce as well.

For 3^rd and Final layer:

Bread crumbs – 2 table spoons

Grated cheese – 4 table spoons

Method:

For the 1 st layer / Spinach pockets with Paneer filling:

-Blanch spinach in boiling water, drain, pass through cold tap water and keep aside.

-Grate paneer, chop onion, green chillies.

– Take one tawa, heat butter, fry onion, green chilli, sprinkle some garlic salt, chilli flakes and switch off. Mix in grated paneer.

-Fill this mixture in spinach leaves, fold or roll like a mat and make a pocket.

-Place all this ready paneer filled spinach pockets in a baking dish.

For 2^nd Layer / Pasta in White sauce:

-Cook pasta in enough water, drain and keep it ready.

-Take one tawa, melt butter over low flame, fry whole wheat flour until it turns light brown.

-Switch off the gas, add milk slowly while stirring and make a uniform mixture.

-Heat this mixture and boil. When it reaches the required consistency, add in cooked and drained pasta, garlic salt, oregano, red chilli flakes and grated cheese.

-Pour this over spinach pockets and it is our 2^nd layer.

-While pouring, it should be little runny, after baking, it would turn out perfect.

Now comes the 3^rd and Final layer:

-Mix grated cheese, bread crumbs and sprinkle all over. It should cover uniformly.

-Sprinkle a dollop of butter here and there (I have grated cold butter)

Bake this in a pre-heated oven for 10 – 15 minutes at 180 °C or until light brown and serve as it is or with seasoned bread toast.

How to season a bread:

-Mix one table spoon of butter, one to two table spoons of Hot and sweet tomato sauce or ketch up, 1 tea spoon of oregano.

-Apply this mixture over sliced bread and bake this in a pre heated oven for 5 minutes or roast it on a hot tawa on a stove top.

How to make tossed vegetable side dish:

-Take whatever vegetables you want to include. Dice one onion.

-Blanch beans and drain.

-Now take one tawa, heat some olive oil, drop onions fry for a while.

-Now add all the veggies (I have taken beans, carrots, zucchini, winged beans) and toss for a couple of minutes.

-Add seasoning like garlic salt, red chilli flakes and oregano and serve.

Turmeric Milk /Turmeric Latte:

October 26, 2017

This is an age-old remedy for sore throat during flu season in India. Turmeric is a key ingredient in Indian cooking and has a very important place in our kitchen shelf. It offers many health benefits since it has both anti-inflammatory, analgesic, antiseptic and anti-oxidant properties. It is considered as a “natural aspirin” in Ayurvedic medicine. In our family we combine turmeric and pepper with milk to make concoction to soothe sore throat. Pepper corns is said to help in absorption of turmeric by the body.

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How we prepare –

Ingredients:

Water – ¾ cup

Milk – ½ cup

Turmeric – ½ tea spoon

Black Pepper corns – ¼ tsp (crushed) or pepper powder-2 pinch

Sugar – 1 tea spoon

Method:

-Boil water, add turmeric and pepper and allow to simmer for 10 minutes.

Ribbet collage 1

-Add milk and sugar and heat a bit, sieve the mixture and drink as warm as possible.

-It really gives a soothing effect.

Note: Vegans can use any other form of milk.

Shankarpali/Diamond biscuits:

October 14, 2017

Shankarpali is a traditional Maharashtrian, deep-fried snack. It was introduced to us by our neighbour aunty. It is a very light, flaky, melt-in-the-mouth, a small, irresistible cookie that is deep-fried and not baked. It has a good shelf life, and one can enjoy it even after Diwali.

Traditionally, Shankarpali is made by using All-purpose flour. Here, I have used Whole wheat flour and oat flour and did not feel any change other than the colour of the final product.

If you want to use All-purpose flour, follow this recipe, replace the flour, and proceed.

Ingredients:

Milk – 1 cup

Ghee – ½ cup

Sugar – ¾ cup ( I have used Brown sugar)

Salt – 1 tsp

Cooking Soda – ¼ tsp

Flour – 3 ½ to 4 cups (as required) ( All-purpose flour OR Whole Wheat and Oat Flour)

Oil – to deep fry.

Method:

-Take one bowl or food processor, beat milk, ghee and sugar until frothy.

-In another bowl, take 2 cups of whole wheat flour and ½ cup of oats flour, salt, cooking soda and dry mix everything.

-Add the mixed flour to the liquid ( beaten milk and sugar), add some more whole wheat flour and make a soft, pliable dough by adding whole wheat flour little by little.

– Cover this bowl and keep it aside for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, Keep the oil on a low flame to deep frying.

-Take a small portion of the dough, roll it into a thick ¼ inch circle, like a Roti. Remove the outer curved portion and make a square. ( it is optional to get only square pieces)

-Take a pizza cutter or any other zigzag cutter and cut this flattened disc. Now deep fry it on a low flame.

-When it becomes light brown, take it out and spread it on a tissue paper laid plate.

-When it is cool, store this in an airtight container.

NOTE: Keep the gas flame to a simmer and maintain the temperature of the oil. If oil is overheated, the shankarpali would turn into deep brown/ half-done and charred.

Creamy Mushroom Curry:

July 14, 2017

This curry is very dear to my heart; I had dished out this recipe almost eighteen years back. At that time, I was not very familiar with cooking mushrooms. I wanted to try mushrooms at the same time; I had no clue how. I decided to keep the curry leaves’ flavour and creamy texture dominant, mainly because of my hubby’s fondness towards these two aspects.

This lightly spiced curry is very easy, and it has no frills attached. It is super simple with mind-blowing flavours of southern Indian spices. It takes less than 30 minutes to make. It is healthy, low fat, mild, and a perfect side dish for any roti, pulka or even bread.

For a vegan and tastiest version, you can use coconut milk and replace milk with coconut milk and if it is thick, avoid adding cornflour.

Ingredients:

Mushroom – 200 grams

Onion – 1 (big)

Green chillies – 1 or 2

Curry leaves – 2 springs

Coconut oil – 1 tablespoon

Cumin – ½ teaspoon

Turmeric – ½ teaspoon

Salt

Pepper powder – ½ teaspoon

Garam masala – ¼ teaspoon

Milk – 1 cup

Corn starch – 1 ½ teaspoon

Method:

-Wash, wipe and slice the mushrooms.Chop onion and green chillies as well.

-Mix cornflour to milk and keep it aside. (If you are using coconut milk, avoid this step)

-Heat oil in a skillet, add cumin, curry leaves.

-Then add chopped onions and green chillies, turmeric and fry for a while.

-When onion becomes transparent, add in sliced mushrooms and fry for two to three minutes.

-When it starts wilting, sprinkle little salt and mix.

-Pour milk and cornflour mixture or Coconut milk and cook until it reaches a creamy texture.

-Lastly, garnish with a little pepper powder and garam masala.

-Enjoy with any flatbread.

Badam Halwa / Almond Halwa :

July 5, 2017

Badam halwa, the name itself brings back so many fond memories of my two kiddos’ as well as of my late father in law. My memories go back to my delivery time. When my father in law heard about my twin daughter’s arrival, he celebrated his joy by preparing and distributing this sweet to our near and dear ones. While growing up, even my kids used to enjoy this sweet and used to refer to this as “Yellow sweet”. After so many years last weekend I prepared this to celebrate my hubby’s birthday and enjoyed every bit of the preparation by cherishing all these fond memories.

I Normally follow this age-old method-

Ingredients:

Almonds – 500 grams

Sugar – 750 grams

Milk – ½ to ¾ litre

Ghee – 1 to 1 ½ cup

Saffron – 1 tsp

Cardamom powder – ½ teaspoon

Method:

– Soak almond overnight.

– The next morning, peel the skin. Usually three fourth of the content will shed their skin, if you mash those swelled almonds inside the water, by using your palm.

– After removing the outer skin, put these in a mixer grinder jar, make paste by adding sufficient milk.

– Soak saffron in half cup of hot milk and keep aside.

– After grinding paste will look like idly batter with grainy texture.

– Put this paste into thick bottomed vessel and heat.

– Add sugar and boil for a while.

– When it starts bubbling, add ghee little by little at regular intervals until mixture becomes glossy.

– At this point, you can add saffron soaked milk and cardamom powder and proceed.

– When mixture starts to leave from the sides of the vessel and edges become dry and bubbly, switch off the fire and keep aside to cool.

– When it reaches room temperature, store this in a stainless steel or glass container.

Gingerbread cookies:

December 26, 2016

My daughter wanted to bake gingerbread man cookies for this Christmas and she was asking for the recipe of the same. I finally gave her a recipe with the ingredients which were available in our pantry.Now I will handover this post to my daughter, who is 15 year old 🙂

Hi all, I am Vinushree. I really wanted some gingerbread cookies this year, and we made this unique version of gingerbread man cookies- but as women. I just wanted to bring out women empowerment. Just kidding, we didn’t have the cookie cutter for a man ;). This was very fun to make and an easy process. Please enjoy.

ginger-1

Ingredient:

All-purpose flour – 3 ½ cup

Cinnamon powder – 1 ½ tsp

Ginger powder – 1 ½ tsp

Salt – ½ tsp

Baking soda- ¾ tsp

Egg -1

Jaggery syrup – ½ cup

Light brown sugar – ½ cup

Cooking Butter – ¾ cup

For Icing:

Cooking chocolate – 4 squares

Nutella – 2 tbl sp

Icing sugar – ½ cup

Vanilla essence – ½ tsp

Milk – 2 tbl sp.

Method:

Mix all the dry ingredients by using wire whisk, like flour, cinnamon, ginger, salt, baking soda and keep aside.
Beat butter and sugar by using stand mixer. When it is done, add in egg, jaggery syrup and beat nicely.
Add dry ingredient and make dough into 3 parts and keep this in a fridge by wrapping in a cling film cover or in a zip lock separately.
Keep this for one hour and remove one of the dough parts from the fridge and keep this outside for 5 minutes.
At the same time, pre heat the oven at 170 degree C and line a cookie tray with butter paper.
Now roll the dough by using Chapati roller, by dusting some flour into ¼ inch thickness and by using cookie cutter and bake this for 12 to 14 minutes.

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After it cools down, make the icing.
Take one microwave safe glass bowl, put icing sugar, chocolate, Nutella, milk and vanilla. Microwave for 1 minute and mix nicely. If it is melted and perfectly blends, start dipping those cookies into it and decorate with any sprinkles. Otherwise heat chocolate mixture for some more time and proceed.

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Dry them in air for one to two hours, and then store them in an airtight container.

Bamboo Rice Payasam

November 21, 2016

Hey, it is my first post and I am super excited!!!

Want this to dedicate all my near and dears who have inspired me to start my own space and pestered me throughout. When I was thinking what to post as a first step, I remembered this recipe!

Bamboo rice is very famous in western ghat region, especially in Wayanad and Munnar region of Kerala state. It is locally known as Mulayari. Usually tribal folks will collect this and supply to the local societies. Now a day I have seen this rice in so many organic exhibitions at Bangalore as well. I had received this unknown ingredient as a gift from my sister, who bought it from her Munnar trip, as a “new item to try” who always encouraged me to try out new recipes and appreciated my preparation throughout.

Ingredients:

Bamboo rice – 1 cup

Jaggery – 1 cup

Water – 2 cups (if you are using tinned coconut milk)

-OR-

Thin coconut milk – 2 cups

Thick coconut milk – 1 cup

Cardamom powder – 1 tsp

Coconut bits – 1 table spoon

Cashew bits – 1 table spoon

Ghee /clarified butter – 1 table spoon.

Salt – ¼ tea spoon.

Method:

-Wash Bamboo rice twice and soak this for half an hour.

– Cook this soaked rice in a cooker for 3 to 4 whistles with sufficient water.

– When it is cooked, it will be soft and you can crush it easily.

-Now add jaggery and thin coconut milk and boil this until raw smell of the jaggery vanishes.

-If you are using tinned coconut milk, add water after adding jaggery.

-When it is done, add thick coconut milk, cardamom, salt. Don’t boil much, give only one boil. Remove from the heat.

-Now take one small tawa, add little ghee, fry coconut bits and cashew separately and add this to payasam.

Enjoy this when it is hot. Don’t cool this in a fridge, outer cover of the rice tends to become hard and chewy.