Sweet potato pasta

Sweet potato pasta

Pasta is one of the dishes that both my kids will eat. My older one is usually not too keen on vegetables unless it is from a very small list of his favourites. I find pasta dishes an easy way to get the vegetables in. I make sauces using different vegetables so that when blended, he does not quite know what vegetable it is. This dish can be made using most root vegetables. I use sweet potatoes as it is one of five a day veggies and rather hard to get it into them otherwise and some days I also add carrots. As long as you can decide what colour what the sauce would be, choose vegetables accordingly. Here is the recipe

Boiled pasta, enough for two

1 medium sized sweet potato, cubed

1 carrot, cut into chunks

1 onion, cubed

3 cloves garlic

1 tablespoon butter

1 heaped teaspoon all purpose flour

1 cup milk

Oregano to season

Salt to season

Cooking oil

Heat some oil and add the onions and garlic 

Add the carrots and sweet potato and sauté for couple of minutes. Add enough water and cook the vegetables covered until soft

Allow it to cool and blend to smooth paste

To make the white sauce, heat a heavy bottomed pan and add the butter. Once melted, add the flour and keep stirring and do so until the flour gets a sandy consistency

Add milk and keep stirring until sauce consistency is reached (it will turn shiny)

Add blended vegetables, salt and oregano and then add the pasta. Allow to boil very briefly and serve!

Notes:

1.      1. Make sure you do not brown the flour while making white sauce as you will end up making brown sauce

2.     2.   If you do not keep stirring the milk, it will form lumps and you do not want that

Vegetarian sausage stir fry (Masala Quorn Sausage)

Vegetarian sausage stir fry (Masala Quorn Sausage)

I grew p as a vegetarian and have never tasted non vegetarian food so there is nothing I miss really. However, I guess it is not the case in this part of the world and there is a desire to replicate the non-vegetarian content and make meat substitutes. A variety of such ingredients is made by Quorn. They apparently use a form of fungi to make the meat substitutes. I found no reason to use them in my regular cooking but my kids are used to having them a school or day care as they try to make vegetarian and non veg dishes look similar. My son started asking me for sausages (vegetarian, ofcourse) at home and that is why I buy them now and then. This dish is incredibly simple to make and can be had as a quick snack. You can also use this to stuff inside wraps. The sausage itself, being processed food, has salt in it so I tend not to add any more. I usually add very little salt in my cooking anyway so if you need a bit more, feel free to add.

1 pack quorn sausage

½ teaspoon ginger garlic paste

Turmeric powder

½ teaspoon coriander powder

½ teaspoon cumin powder

Dash of chat masala

1 spring onion, chopped

Cooking oil

Heat some oil preferably in a non stick pan and cook the sausages as per pack instructions. Once done, let it cool and then slice into bite size pieces

Heat bit of oil and add the spring onions, ginger garlic paste, turmeric powder and sauté for couple of minutes until raw smell goes off.

Add the sliced sausages, the masala powder and sauté for couple of minutes and it is ready to serve.

Pasta in Roasted Butternut Squash Sauce

Pasta in Roasted Butternut Squash Sauce

I had not planned to post two pasta recipes back to back but it just so happened. These days I do not go back to my huge list of draft but rather post as and when I make something exciting (atleast for me). I made this dish for the kids today and they seemed to like it. I tasted the sauce only as I am not a pasta person and I must say that if you do not thicken to sauce consistency, it can be had as a yummy soup. You could make it as soup for yourself and thicken it as sauce for kids so they get to eat pasta. I had ordered chopped butternut squash, infact it is the only vegetable I order processed as it is quite a task chopping the squash. Instead, full squash was delivered and I failed to read the substitutes properly so am stuck with them. I managed to chop one up thought I will use them fresh for the kids. There is no reason why only they should enjoy this, ofcourse, grown ups can have it as well. If you run out of time, skip the white sauce, just use the roasted squash puree and a bit of milk to make it little creamy.

Pasta for 2-3 adults, cooked as per package instructions

2 handful of butternut squash, cubed

1 onion, diced

3 cloves garlic

1 tablespoon all purpose flour

1 tablespoon butter

Salt to taste

Oregano or other dried herbs to taste

½ cup milk

Cooking oil

In an oven proof dish, put the butternut squash, onion and garlic, drizzle few drops of oil and roast at 170degC for 30 minutes, until cooked. Sprinkling very little salt will help speed up the process and enhance flavour. The squash should become tender

Cool and grind this to a fine paste

Heat the butter in a heavy bottom pan and add the all purpose flour and keep stirring until raw smell goes and it just begins to brown, keep the heat low

Add milk and keep stirring else it will form lumps and still keep on low heat

The white sauce will be ready when it becomes thick but nice and shiny. Now add the squash onion paste, oregano, salt to taste and some water as well and bring to boil stirring now and then.

Add cooked pasta and let it boil once. Sprinkle some cheese and serve!

Pasta in Lentil sauce

Pasta in Lentil sauce

I have the routine of making red pepper sauce on Thursdays and spinach sauce on Fridays for the kids. Apart from the fact that I was running out of red pepper today, I thought I should make something more different today. I was going to make lentil with spinach for us so decided I will make a lentil based sauce for pasta for kids. I must say that the Indian dish, dal dokhli, was an inspiration to come up with this dish. I quite liked how it came out and was satisfied that good quality protein is going down tiny tummies.

1/3 cup moong dal or red lentils, well cooked

1 onions, chopped

2 tomatoes, chopped

Dried oregano and basil as required to flavour

Dash of turmeric powder

3 cloves garlic, chopped

Salt to taste

Cooking oil

Pasta to serve about 2-3 people

Heat a skillet and add oil. Once oil is hot add the garlic cloves and onions and sauté for couple of minutes

 

Add the tomatoes and turmeric powder and cook until it turns mushy, adding bit of salt would quicken this.

Along with the cooked lentils, grind the onion tomato mixture into fine paste and put back in skillet. Add the dried herbs and required salt and bring to boil.

Cook the pasta as per pack instructions and add to the lentil mixture, mix and it is ready to serve

Corn and Spinach Pops

Corn and Spinach Pops


I saw a recipe on Tarla Dalal’s website and knew I wanted to try it. I was quiet sure I could not follow the recipe to the letter as it involved many steps and would have taken a few dishes to make it. I decided to simplify it and make my way but keeping the essence of the dish. The original recipe suggested making white sauce with plain flour, I replaced this with mashed potato to provide the binding as potato is complex carbohydrate. Ofcourse, I also skipped the deep frying and stuck to my method! I made it as an after school snack and thought it as a kid’s recipe but how wrong I was. I could have helped myself to more if only I had made more. It was a hit with my son

1/3 cup corn
1 large potato, cubed
Handful of spinach, washed
¼ cup grated (cheddar) cheese, could add bit more if needed
½ teaspoon jeera powder
Salt to taste
Turmeric powder
1 cup bread crumbs
Cooking oil
Breadsticks

Boil potato in a pan and once it is nearly done, add corns and boil until cooked. Then add washed spinach and boil for couple of minutes

Drain and let this cool just so you can touch. Mash the mixture after adding jeera powder, turmeric powder, salt and cheese. Make sure you do not add too much salt as cheese tends to be salty as well. If it is a bit too soft and you are unable to make balls, add some breadcrumbs so it absorbs moisture. Mixture should now be like soft dough

Make little balls, about lime size, roll in breadcrumbs and fry with dots of oil in kuzhipaniyaram koodu (Danish cake tin I think). Once it gets a nice golden colour on all sides, put them on a plate and insert breadsticks to make them like lolli pops

Serve!

Chocolate and Cherry Palmiers

Chocolate and Cherry Palmiers

Palmiers or elephant ears, is a dish of European origin, not sure if it is French or Germans that originated it. Does no really matter as it just tastes so good you would not want to research the origin but just the recipe. These are so easy to make if you have puff pastry in your fridge. I do not make my own puff pastry and hey, don’t judge me for that, even the best of bakers like Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood once confessed they don’t either. I actually made them for the first time to offer to my son’s friends who were meant to visit us for navaratri. However, I had to cancel their visit due to my daughter’s illness. Anyway, the point is that even if they had come, I did not make near enough of these as it turns out. They literally go flying and I kept making them throughout navaratri as we had a constant flow of guests. This is one version of this dish and I intend to post more of these so you get a variety of flavours.

½ sheet of puff pastry

2 tablespoon or so of chocolate spread like nutella

5-6 glace cherries, chopped

Spread the puff pastry sheet and smear it with the chocolate spread evenly, upto the edges. Dot with glace cherries here and there and use more if you want.

Roll both sides of the pastry so each half then meets at the centre, gently press. Wrap it and refrigerate for atleast 30 minutes or put in freezer for 10-15 minutes. This is important as puff pastry always needs to be cold and has to go in a very hot oven, else, it will not puff.

Cut into about 1.5cm thick slices and place on lined baking tray with good space between them. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 200degC for about 8-10 minutes, until golden.

Cool and serve!

Nutella cookies

Nutella Cookies

What a day it has been!! I have barely slept in several nights, thanks to the kids becoming poorly one after another. Not to mention that has not left me with my usual energy levels, however, when special days come around, one just has to find the energy from somewhere. So what was special about today, it was my kid’s first day at school! I wanted to make something that he would like to have as an after school snack and thought a chocolate cookie is unlikely to go wrong. I wanted it to be reasonably unhealthy as well and not pure indulgence so I added millet flour and wholewheat flour. I tried dusting the cookies with icing sugar before baking them hoping it will have a nice white appearance when baked but it did not turn out as expected as it melted in the oven. However, it did give an interesting texture and taste and was not all too wrong afterall. You may want to try it or skip that bit.

4 tablespoon nutella

80 gram i.e. 1/3 cup butter, softened

½ cup sugar

½ cup wholewheat flour

½ cup ragi flour (if you do not have any, you could use any other millet flour or more wholewheat flour)

½ cup all purpose flour

¼ teaspoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon soda bicarbonate

1 tablespoon milk, if needed

2 tablespoon icing sugar

Preheat the oven to 180 degC. Line the baking tray with greaseproof sheet

Cream together the butter, nutella and sugar

Sift the flours with the soda bicarb and baking powder. I also added a tablespoon of coco powder to make it more chocolatey. Mix to form a soft dough, add a bit of milk if needed. When you pinch a ball and roll, it should just about hold comfortably

Pinch small lime sized balls and flatten with your hand by pressing down. Dust the cookie in icing sugar and line on the tray with atleast an inch between each other

Bake for about 8-9 minutes. Be careful as i is hard to determine if the cookies have browned as the chocolate is already brown. I usually go with the smell. By eight minutes, it is aromatic, utmost a minute more would usually be enough.

Leave on the tray outside for about ten minutes as they will be very soft. Then cool completely in a cooling rack

Nutella Pinwheel Biscuit

Nutella Pinwheel Biscuit
It is customary to take some gift when you visit people in their house but I do not find it particularly easy buying something especially if we barely know our host. You never know if they will like it, if it will be useful, if it is appropriate etc. and for that reason I have started resorting to home-made gifts, especially edible ones! Just gobble it, like it or leave it. On one such occasion, I decided to make a variety of biscuits to make an assorted biscuit box. One of the varieties was this pin-wheel biscuit. It is actually very easy to make it, although you may not believe me until you read the recipe. It can be a bit misleading as it appears quite small before it goes into the oven but grows inside, thanks to all the butter and rising agent. So make sure you leave enough gap between them while placing on the tray. Here is a simple yet delightful biscuit.

1 ¼ cup flour

½ cup butter

¼ teaspoon soda bicarbonate

3-4 tablespoon nutella

½ cup sugar

Cream together the sugar and butter

Add the flour and soda bicarb and make a soft dough

Roll it into a disc about 5 mm thick and spread the nutella. I placed this on cling film and rolled flat so it becomes easy to roll it up.

Roll it up and refrigerate

Cut into about 5-7mm thick discs and place it on lined baking tray, atleast an inch apart.

Bake at 170degC for about 8-10 minutes, until sides become light brown.

Cool completely and store in air tight container