Spaghetti Aglio E Olio with Sauteed Vegetables

Spaghetti Aglio E Olio is a classic Italian Pasta dish made using Spaghetti pasta, garlic and olive oil.  This is a simple but very flavourful preparation and is ready within minutes.

I am not a pasta lover and not much into making Italian food at home. The first time I had this dish was at a  nearby Pizzahut outlet couple of years ago and I still remember the distinct flavour and the inviting look of this spaghetti dish. It was the first time I could finish a plate of spaghetti - a feat very difficult for me at other times...

The traditional preparation has only few ingredients - spaghetti, garlic, oil and chilli flakes but there are lot of variants. The one I liked at Pizzahut also had vegetables like red and yellow peppers, courgettes (zucchini if you are from the USA) and baby corns.

I was craving for this dish since last week and finally managed to make it on Monday night. It is ideal  dish for dinner on a busy weekday.

 

 

Ingredients 

For two servings:

Spaghetti pasta - two measures (1 measure = amount of spaghetti that can fit into your fist)
1 onion - cut into crescents
6-7 garlic pods - finely chopped
1/2 red pepper - sliced
1/2 yellow pepper - sliced
1/2 courgette - cut into matchsticks
5-6 baby corns cut into thin long pieces
Chilli flakes 2 tsp
Italian seasoning - 2 tsp
Crushed black pepper
2 tbsp Olive oil for cooking
Salt to taste

Process

-Take water in a deep pan, add salt and some oil and bring it to boil. In order to cook spaghetti without breaking it into smaller pieces - you need to arrange the pasta so that it is partially submerged.As it cooks, it starts getting soft and falls into the water. Eventually all the spaghetti will be submerged in boiling water and get cooked. Cook until al dente. Drain the water. Keep the cooked spaghetti aside.  

-In a shallow pan, take about 2 tbsp oil. Heat the oil and add chopped garlic. Roast the garlic on low flame taking care not to burn it.  

-Then add the chilly flakes and seasoning. 

-Add the onions and cook till they are slightly softened. 

-Add baby corns and peppers. Stir. Add courgettes and stir. Cook the veggies on high flame so that they get slightly charred. 

-Add the cooked spaghetti and keep mixing till it is mixed properly.

Serve hot with garlic bread  on the side.

Healthy Anzac Biscuits

Anzacs are one of my favourite biscuits for tea-time. I am always in a quest for healthier alternatives to regular baked cakes and cookies as me and family have a sweet tooth. So anything that has wholemeal, multigrain flour or oats tends to attract me. I love the taste of Unibic Anzac cookies which I discovered in my office cafeteria couple of years back and I am still hooked on. An obsessive, compulsive baker that I am I always wanted to try baking them at home. I finally got around to baking them recently.

For those not familiar with these biscuits, they are made from wheat flour ( plain /wholemeal), rolled oats, coconut and golden syrup/molasses.  They have their origin in Australia/New Zealand and they were sent to soldiers fighting in World War 1 by their loved ones from home. They can be crunchy and chewy and have a lovely moreish taste. No wonder they are still popular!

I have baked two batches recently and I followed this recipe first time :

http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/24550/anzac+biscuits

The only deviation from this recipe was that I substituted equal amount of honey for golden syrup and used Wholewheat flour instead of plain flour.

What is amazing about this recipe is the fact that the ingredients are easily available and the process of mixing and shaping the biscuits is quite easy. The recipe calls for melted butter instead of butter at room temperature so there is no wait involved to soften butter. You can mix the dough by hand using a spatula which I find convenient. Also no rolling of dough is involved. Just take small portions and flatten them between your palms!

The first batch didn't last very long so I was enthused to try it second time. This time I tried to make it healthier by using vegetable oil in place of butter and using soft light brown sugar.

Here is my adapted version:

Ingredients:

1 cup Wholewheat flour
1 cup instant oats
1 cup desiccated coconut
3/4 cup soft light brown sugar / caster sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil of your choice or melted butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp honey
1 tsp baking soda dissolved in 1 tbsp of boiling water

You will also need non stick baking tray. Grease the tray if using regular baking tray. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees centigrade.

Process:

- Mix the dry ingredients first : Wholewheat flour, oats, desiccated coconut and sugar. Mix well in a mixing bowl and keep aside.

- In another microwave safe bowl, mix oil and honey and heat it in microwave for 30 seconds until just warm. Add vanilla extract and baking soda dissolved in boiling water to oil and honey mixture and stir it to blend.

- Now add the liquid mixture to the dry ingredients and mix with spatula until the mixture is clumpy.

- Take small portions (about the size of a lime)  and shape into a ball first. Then flatten the ball between your palms and place the cookies on the baking sheet.

- Place the baking sheet in the preheated oven and bake for 12-15 minutes until it starts becoming brown on the edges.

- Take out the baking tray and let the cookies cool in the tray for 5 minutes before you transfer them to a cooling rack.

- Once cooled completely, store them in air-tight container at room temperature. They will last for days...

The first batch of cookies using melted butter. The colour is lighter as it has caster sugar.

Easy and Healthy Cous Cous Salad

Cous cous is available in gourmet super markets in India. I read some where that it is not a grain but a type of pasta and is a staple in diet of people from North African countries like Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya etc. Other varieties of cous cous are also consumed in middle-eastern countries.

I picked up a packet of cous cous on my last trip to Dorabjee's, Pune. Cous cous is easy to make and it requires no cooking - you just need to allow it to stand in hot water for few minutes until all the water is absorbed. It fluffs up and the grains can be separated using a fork. It is best to follow the directions on packet for this part of preparation as the time required to soak can vary between different varieties and brands.

On its own, it is flavourless so it can be used with other ingredients to create interesting variations. My preferred way of having cous cous is as salad and it makes for ideal summertime lunch. Last week I prepared cous cous salad for our lunch and we really liked it. I would like to share my recipe here.

Easy and Healthy Cous Cous Salad

 

Ingredients

• Cous cous - 70 gms
• Water - 140 ml
• Chick Peas - 1 cup. Canned or  Soaked overnight and boiled.
• Spinach - handful of fresh spinach leaves, chopped
• Onion - 1 medium onion chopped
• Roasted Almonds - half a cup, sliced or chopped
• Pomegranate seeds - half a cup
• Cumin powder - 1 tsp
• Chilli powder - 1 tsp
• Salt as per taste
• Extra virgin olive oil - 2 tbsp
• Lime Juice - 1 tbsp

Method

Take cous cous in a glass bowl and pour boiled water along with a small spoonful of oil and salt.  Cover the bowl and allow it to stand for 5 minutes. Cous cous will absorb the water and fluff up. Separate the grains using a fork. I followed instructions on the packet for this - would advise you to do the same.

Add boiled chick-peas, chopped spinach leaves, chopped onions, pomegranate seeds and roasted almonds. Mix well. Next add the seasoning - chilli powder and cumin powder and more salt if needed. 

Prepare the dressing separately - take olive oil in a small bowl. Add lime juice and mix well. Pour dressing over the salad and mix again.

Banana Loaf with Streusel Topping

Banana Bread or Banana Loaf is a favorite coffee/breakfast cake of many - popular because of simplicity in preparation and great flavour. Sometimes I buy few extra bananas just so that I can have leftover overripe bananas that can be used for my favorite banana-based desserts.

Sometime back I made a low fat banana bread based on a recipe I found on joyofbaking.com. However I added my own twists to the original recipe as I find it difficult to follow a recipe exactly. This happens either because I usually do not have all the ingredients in the recipe or because I have more than one recipe I like so that I take parts I like from different recipes to come up with my own combination.

This time I decided to take the humble Low Fat Banana Loaf up a notch by crowning it with sweet crumbly topping made from butter, flour, chopped nuts and brown sugar. This crumbly mixture is also known as Streusel and is used for topping cakes and muffins. It adds a nice sweet crunch to soft texture of cakes - I have always believed that adding crunch to sweets makes it more interesting.











Banana Loaf with Streusel Topping

Ingredients

2 big very ripe bananas / 1 cup banana puree
1/4 cup (60 ml) vegetable oil
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
1 cup plain flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup (120 ml) low fat yoghurt
2 eggs
1/2 cup chocolate chips - optional
1/2 cup chopped roasted walnuts - optional
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 tsp cinnamon  powder (I used mixed spice instead. You could even use nutmeg)

Ingredients for Streusel

2 tbsp cold butter (can be used straight from fridge)
1/4 cup plain flour
1/3 cup light brown sugar (I substituted this with a mix of white caster sugar and dark brown sugar)
1/3 cup finely chopped walnuts

Making Streusel

Cut the cold butter into smaller chunks and add the flour and sugar. Rub the flour and sugar into butter using your finger-tips. Then add chopped nuts and again rub the mixture until you get crumbs. Refrigerate the streusel until is ready to use.

Preparation

- If you are going to add walnuts to banana bread, it is a good idea to roast them first. For this, place the walnuts on baking tray and place it in oven for 8-10 minutes in an oven preheated to 180 C. Once you get the roasted aroma, take out from oven and chop the walnuts into small pieces. Keep aside until ready to use.

- Take a loaf tin and grease it with butter. Then line it with baking parchment. This is not required if you are using a silicone loaf tin. I found that the loaves baked in silicone loaf tin have a tendency to expand more in the middle so that you a bulgy loaf, so I stick to traditional loaf tins now.

- Cut the banana into chunks and place them in a wide shallow bowl. Mash them with the back of fork until you get a lump-free puree.

- Measure the plain flour and whole wheat flour and mix them well. Then add the mixed spice (or cinnamon/nutmeg) and baking powder and mix well. Sift this mixture using a sieve.

- Preheat the oven to 180 C.

To make the cake

- Take the oil in a deep bowl. Add brown sugar and stir well. Add vanilla extract lightly beaten eggs to this mixture and again mix well to get a homogeneous mixture.

- Add the yoghurt to mashed bananas. Stir well. Then add the baking soda. Add the banana mix to the oil-egg-sugar mix and blend it together with a spatula/spoon.

- Add the dry mixture of flours to the liquid mixture and blend it well using spatula.

- At this stage you can add the chocolate chips/walnuts to the cake mixture.

- Pour the cake mixture into the lined loaf tin.

- Sprinkle the Streusel evenly over the cake mixture.

- Bake the loaf in oven preheated to 180 C for 45-50 minutes.

- Take it out from the oven and allow to cool before taking the loaf out of the tin.

Beetroot and Chocolate Brownies

I had heard about the beetroot and chocolate combination but had doubted the taste. Nevertheless I wanted to give it a try. I had some beetroot puree in my freezer and also I have been experimenting with brownies lately, so thought of giving this combination a try... And let me tell you guys - it really works! It is worth a try.

Some pictures to get you drooling....

Beetroot and Chocolate Brownies

Ingredients:

140 gms of dark chocolate - I used two 80 g of Bournville dark chocolate
100 gms butter or butter substitute - I used Nutrilite
3/4 cup plain flour - sieved
1/2 cup dark brown sugar (caster sugar can also be used instead
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips/walnuts
1/4 cup beetroot puree - beetroot boiled and pureed
2 eggs

Procedure:

Melt the chocolate and butter in a double boiler i.e. take the chocolate and butter in a glass/steel bowl and hold the bowl over another saucepan containing simmering water. Stir it after a while to speed up the melting. Once it has melted, add the beetroot puree and stir well. Then add the sugar and vanilla and mix well. Beat the eggs lightly and add it to the chocolate mixture. Again mix it. Finally stir in the flour and fold until combined well. Finally pop in the chocolate chips/walnuts. Tip the mixture in a square 8 inches baking tray and bake at 180 C for about 25-30 minutes until a skewer inserted comes out clean.

Green and Wholesome Dosa

After a long time I prepared dosas for lunch today.  I have always been fond of South Indian food be it dosas or idlis or uttampams and they were prepared at least once a week in my family. My mother and all my elder siblings are also foodies - I remember my sisters collecting recipes from various sources like magazines, newspapers and cookbooks at a time when internet was not common. They used to note down the recipes in notebook/diaries for future use. One such recipe I remember is Pesarattu that we came across in a magazine years ago. Pesarattu is a green coloured dosa made using whole Moong or split moong beans and it derives the green colour from the green skin of whole moong beans.

At some point the Pesarattu also became a regular breakfast staple as we needed more variety than the usual Pohe, Upma, Idlis and Parathas! This healthy dosa belongs to a class of instant dosas where you do not need to ferment the batter. However you do need to soak the Moong beans for 6-8 hours or overnight and you can add more cereals to it like ground rice, ragi (finger millet) flour or oats to make it even more nutritious.

Although I have been making Pesarattu for few years now (though not very often), I made it differently this time. I added oats to Moong when grinding it. We did not notice much difference in the taste which is good for us. I also sprinkled some grated carrots on the dosa. The whole combination tasted nice and makes for a wholesome and tasty lunch option. I think I will make this more often now especially for my little one who has suddenly gone off vegetables and lentils and prefers to eat just plain rice, chapati or bread. He also enjoys dosas and this dosa is one way of giving him proteins along with some veggies!

Moong Oats Pesarattu

You will need the following:


1 cup whole Moong beans / whole split Moong beans (split with the green skin intact) - soaked overnight or for 6-8 hours.
1/2 cup quick cooking oats - I used Quakers Oats.
3 Green chillies
1 inch piece of ginger cut into small pieces
1 dried red chilli
Few fenugreek seeds (about 1/4 tsp)
Few fresh curry leaves (8-10 small leaves)
2 tsp cumin - dry roasted in a pan.
Grated carrots/chopped onions for topping - optional

This is how you prepare it:

• Wash the whole moong beans and soak them in water for 6-8 hours or overnight.
• Drain off the soaking water and add the soaked beans and all the other ingredients to a food-processor or mixer container
• Add some water to the contents of mixer and grind for few minutes until the batter is smooth. You can make a coarse batter if you prefer it that way.
• Heat a non stick flat pan/griddle and coat it with little oil.
• To prepare the dosa, pour about half a cup of batter and spread it out quickly to make a big circle. Add grated carrots or any other vegetable of your choice and this is optional.
• Add few drops of oil on dosa - this prevents the dosa from sticking to the pan as it is being cooked.
• When you see that the edges are turning brown, you need to flip the dosa over and cook it further for few seconds.
• Serve it hot along with chutney of your choice.

Mediterranean Food at Home

Recently we dined at a Mediterranean restaurant called FresCo located in the Ambience Mall, Gurgaon. It offers a very sumptuous buffet spread of salads and desserts and there is a a la carte sitting area as well. We opted for a la carte as we were feeling tired after shopping and felt like relaxing. The a la carte menu was equally interesting and we were spoilt for choice. But we decided to steer clear of the usual Italian fare like Pizza and Pasta and ordered Bruschettas for starters and a Mezze platter. The friendly waiters also offered a complimentary selection of bread rolls which our little one enjoyed thoroughly. The restaurant ambience is very cool and refreshing light blue and white giving you the impression of being by the seaside. We really had a good time there...

Earlier I used to associate Mediterranean food with the Italian and Greek cuisine but my perception changed after dining at this place as they also included Mezze which I thought comes in the Middle-Eastern category. So I started digging up more information on this cuisine and found out that Mediterranean food indeed includes food from the eastern side of Mediterranean - Lebanese, Turkish etc.

I came across this website http://www.dedemed.com/ which has videos on the Mediterranean food preparation - the recipes are very authentic and I was really inspired to try out some of them. I made Hummus based on the recipe on this website and was very happy with the outcome. I did not follow the quantities specified in the recipe but my hummus still tasted great and my hubby enjoyed it thoroughly, the latter being more important to me :-)

I repeated the Medieterranean menu at home last Sunday:

Homemade Hummus served with Toasted Pizza Triangles

Recipe Source: http://www.dedemed.com/index.php/Vegetarian-Recipes/Hummus.html

To serve the hummus, I spread it out in a wide and shallow bowl and sprinkled some cumin powder and chilli powder. Then poured a swirl of Extra Virgin Olive Oil and added some Pomegranate seeds at the centre. Pomegranates go well with the Middle Eastern theme, so I decided to use them for garnishing.As it was windy that day, my garnishing spread out a little bit!

The ideal accompaniment for Hummus is Pita bread however I served the hummus with toasted Pizza triangles (I had couple of Pizza bases in the fridge). To make the Pizza triangles, brush the Pizza bases with olive oil on both sides and grill them for few minutes. Cut them into triangular shapes (wedges) to serve.

Italian Bruschettas


These mini Bruschettas have been inspired by the ones we had at Fresco. I used a French loaf for this. Slice the French loaf using slant cuts so that you get a elongated (oval) slice. Brush olive oil on both sides of the slices and grill them for few minutes turning them over once. Rub some fresh garlic on the toasted bread to give it a garlicky taste. Here are the toasted slices ready to be served.

I used a very simple topping - chopped tomatoes, crushed garlic, Italian seasoning, salt, pepper and extra virgin olive oil - all mixed well. You could also add some finely sliced basil. Rest the mixture for few minutes to allow the flavours to develop. To make Brushchetta, add a tablespoon of this mixture to the toasted slices just before serving.