Pizza with nan

Pizza is definitely a comfort food. Who can resist a slice of pizza with a crispy crust, sweet and tangy tomato sauce , hot Jalapeno and to mellow it down some melted mozarella. This is one of those foods which i am totally addicted to.

Being a vegetarian my toppings pretty much remain the same. Onion, peppers, mushrooms and Jalapeño. Since i am not fond of olives,I generally avoid them.

NY has some of the best pizzas i have ever tasted. Thin crust, but generously a big size is sure to please your taste buds.

I make pizza at home with the help of some store bought ingredients.

A perfect replace for pizza dough can be found in Indian nan.

One nan with your favorite veggies, may be a salad and a soft drink can be one ultimate satisfying meal.

I made pizza for Valentines Day. So, what did you guys cook up …..

Recipe :

Nan (From Indian store)- 2

Small onion -1 (cut half inch lenght wise)

Red and green bell pepper - 1/2 each (cut half inch length wise)

Jalapeno- 1 (chopped)

Red crushed pepper

Tomato sauce (any brand, ok)

Shredded mozarella cheese ( I used the low fat) and

Olive oil.

• Take a pan add a bit of olive oil and fry the onion with a pich of salt and crushed red pepper. Cook just until they become little soft . Keep them a side.

• In the same pan sautee the jalapeno, red and green peppers with a pinch of salt. Cook just for two minutes. Keep them a side.

• Now take a nan add a layer of tomato sauce. Top it with onion, red, green pepper and some red crushed peppe. Finally top it with shredded mozzarella cheese.

• Put it in the toaster oven and cook it just until cheese starts melting.

• Since its just two of us, Instead of regular oven i make my pizza in the toaster oven. I dont put any foil or a plate in the bottom of pizza while its cooking. Since the heat comes directly in contact with the surface, you get a nice crispy base.

Note:

• If you are making for more than two, I would recommend making the pizza in the regular oven.

• Don’t over cook the veggies, you still want to have a bite to it.

Panettone Trifle

• If you watch Food Network regularly, then you might have heard about Panettone. All the Italian chefs in that channel rave about this bread from time to time. According to them this bread is very popular during Christmas and involves lot of labor in making. Panettone can be eaten just like that or can be used in bread pudding, French toast and in trifle to name some.

• I heard its an expensive bread, so never even bothered or tempted to buy it. But recently in our local Walgreen’s i happend to see some tiny mini panettones selling for a buck! I was like, let me just buy and taste this so much talked about bread. The one i bought had candid fruit and raisins in it.When tasted,I felt there was nothing different or anything special about this bread.It had the sweetness of a muffin, but more dense and firm bread.This is just my opinion!

• Recently i saw Giada making a trifle out of it. She used mascarpone cheese and coffee liqueur in her trifle. I replaced those with whipping cream and coffee.

Recipe:

(for two)

Mini Panettone ( cut to small cubes)

Bittersweet/ semi sweet chocolate chips- 1/4th cup

Powderes sugar- 1 tsp

Whipping cream- about 1 cup

Black coffee- 10 tsps

chocolate shavings for garnish

• Take chocolate chips in a microwaveable bowl and cook for 30 seconds. Remove mix it with a spatula. Then add the sugar and two teaspoons of coffee and mix. Then slowly fold in the whipping cream.Taste the mixture, if you feel its very chocolaty then add more whipping cream. Same with the sugar, you can add if you want more. For me, since i used semi sweet chocolate chips even 1 tsp of sugar was little too sweet.

• Now take two glasses put few panettone pieces in the bottom, add two tsps of coffee on panettone (make sure you drizzle the coffee on most of the pieces). Now add little bit of chocolate mixture , then cover with whipping cream. Now repeat another layer with panettone, coffee, then chocolate mixture. Now cover the glasses with plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator. Let stand overnight.
• An hour before you serve, leave it on the counter top. It helps the panettone to come to room temperature. If not panettone and chocolate mixture will be thick and hard in texture.

• Right before serving, top it of with a dollop of whipping cream and some chocolate shavings.

(For chocolate shavings: Take a vegetable peeler and peel the chocolate like you would peel a carrot)

• I really loved the trifle, it was a very good treat for a chocolate lover like me. To my surprise Ven who is not a chocolate lover, also loved it! Its a keeper.But next time i may just do the trifle with my trusted companion pound cake!

Panettone Trifle is my entry to JFI Chocolate hosted by lovely Deepz

Recipe adapted from Giada of Everyday Italian.

• Note: Its important that the trifle sits for few hours before serving. If not the ingredients wouldn’t mingle and the taste wouldn’t be the same!

Panettone - Italian Bread

Panettone

 

A slice of panettone with a cup of milk

Tri color Rotini Pasta Salad

When we eat pasta its not necessary that it has to be drenched in tomato sauce or topped with ton of chesse. Try this healthy salad which has lots of veggies,baked beans and fresh tomato. The dressing is pretty simple: Little bit of extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice and a bit of salt, black pepper and crushed red pepper. Toss everything together and you have one satisfying meal. Its so good that you will go for seconds.



Recipe:

Tri color rotini pasta- 1 pound
Carrots-2
beans about 20
green bell pepper- 1
Ripe plum tomatos- 3
Baked beans- 1 can
Garlic pod-1
Red crushed pepper, extra virgin olive oil, italian seasoning, black pepper, salt,parsley/corinder leaves and lemon juice- add according to your taste

Take a deep pot, boil the water,add salt and pasta and cook the pasta till al dente. Strain and keep the pasta a side. Save some pasta water.

In a pan put a tbsp of extra virgin olive oil and add the chopped garlic, beans, carrot, green bell pepper, little bit of salt and black pepper.Sautee for few minutes till the vegetable becomes tender. Transfer it to the pasta bowl.

Now in the same pan sautee the beans with a teaspoon of oil, salt and pepper.

Remove and sautee the tomato in the sameway.

Now combine the pasta, veggies, beans and tomato with some extra virgin olive oil, little bit of pasta water, red crushed pepper, italian seasoning, salt, black pepper,lemon juice and parsley/corinader leaves.

This salad can be eaten either cold/hot.



Al dente: Means where the pasta is cooked through but still has a bite to it.

Note:
I cook the beans for a minute in microwave before sauteeing.
Adding pasta water to the salad reduces the amount to oil you will be using for the salad.
Any veggies will work great for this salad.

Bruschetta with tomatoes and basil

Bruschetta is a light Italian appetizer. I first tasted it when we went to Olive Garden Restaurant and just fell in love with its simple ingredients and its fresh flavors. Usually Italian bread is grilled with some extra virgin olive oil till nice and crunchy and is rubbed with a garlic clove. Then this crunchy bread is topped of with a mixture of tomato, red onion, basil, extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper. It’s simple but ultimate satisfying.

There are different ways of making bruschetta, some add cheese and different kinds of peppers. But the classic way is with the ingredients which I mentioned above.

Recipe:

A loaf of Italian bread

• Red Plum tomato- 6 to 7
• Red onion- 1 ½ tbsp chopped finely
• Small yellow or green bell pepper - 2 tbsp chopped fine (optional)
• Fresh basil- 2 tbsp
• Extra virgin olive oil- 2 tbsps
• Small garlic clove- 1
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Dry Italian seasoning- 2 pinches (optional)

Combine all the above ingredients except for bread and let it sit for ten minutes. This helps the tomato to release some of its juices and get incorporated with the others ingredients.

Mean while cut the bread into half inch slices, apply extra virgin olive oil on to it and grill both sides. You can also use a toaster oven to toast the bread. Once toasted, remove and rub it with a garlic clove. Then put the tomato mixture on top of the bread and enjoy this light snack.

This is my entry to JFI: Tomato hosted by RP of MY Workshop

Baked Rotini pasta with roasted fennel

I make pasta about once a week. We like our pasta with some side dish on the side. Venkatesh is extremely fond of vegetables, so I try to incorporate different kinds of veggies in our diet. Yesterday i made baked tri color rotini pasta with vegetables and to go along with that i roasted fennel bulb.

Coming to fennel, its a native to southern Europe and southwestern Asia. It is used in lot of Italian cooking too. The florence fennel is a collection with inflated leaf bases which form a sort of a bulb. The bulb is the part which we actually cook. The fennel has a strong aromatic herbal smell to it. Some find the smell is too strong to take. more info on fennel click here

Tri color rotini pasta and fennel bulb with fennel fronds (leaves)

Recipe for Baked Pasta:

1. Tri color Rotini pasta (any kind of pasta works) - 3/4th pound
2. Any kind of veggies you like- I used beans, carrot and broccoli.
3. Marinara sauce
4. 2 cloves of garlic
5. Crushed red pepper
6. Grated mozzarella cheese and
7. Olive oil.

In a pot boil lots of water, add salt and add the pasta to it. Cook the pasta, till its about eighty percent done. Don’t cook completely, because we will be finishing the cooking in the oven.

Now take an oven safe pot, add the pasta, olive oil, garlic cloves (finely chopped), crushed red pepper, veggies and the marinara sauce. Toss it, till the pasta is well incorporated with the above ingredients. Sprinkle grated mozzarella cheese on the top, cover with an aluminum foil.

Preheat the oven to 350F and bake the pasta for 15 to 20 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for another five minutes, this helps the cheese to melt. Serve with roasted fennel (or any kind of side dish) accompanied with some soft drink or just cold water.

I steamed the beans for a minute in the microwave before adding them to the pasta and baking it.I do this because beans generally need more cooking.

Recipe for roasted fennel:

1. One medium sized fennel bulb
2. 2 tsps of olive oil
3. Crushed black pepper
4. Grated Parmesan cheese
5. Salt and
6. Chopped fennel fronds( fennel leaves)- 1tsp

The fennel bulb is pretty hard in texture. So I prefer cutting them long and thin. Refer the picture for the size. This helps the fennel to cook fast and it also significantly reduces the cooking time. So, it’s very important to cut them thin.

In a baking dish, arrange the fennel. Sprinkle salt, pepper, olive oil and parmesan cheese and ½ a tsp of fennel fronds. Mix well, cover with the foil and bake at 350F for about 20 minutes. Remove and check if it needs more cooking. Now add the remaining ½ a tsp of fennel fronds and serve. Roasting the fennel in the oven makes it soft, moist and sweetish in taste.

I cooked my pasta and fennel together at the same time.

Baked pasta with roasted fennel

Fennel can be found in any supermarket in the U.S. It’s generally near the greens section in the vegetable aisle.

Black eyed peas cutlet (Alasandu cutlet)

I adopted this recipe from paula deen of food network. It is definitely a healthy snack and could be made with just the ingredients we have in the pantry. I am very fond of black eyed peas, i use them in many of my dishes like- sambar, curry, snack(sauteing it with some oil and chillies) and of course these cutlets.

These cutlets are very soft and must be handled with gentle care.

Makes about 10 cutlets.

Ingredients:

• Black eyed peas(alasandu)- 1 cup(uncooked)
• Medium green bell pepper(capscium)- 1
• small onion-1
• garlic cloves-2
• all purpose flour(maida)-few teaspoons
• crushed black pepper- 1/4 tsp
• Red chillie powder- 1tsp
• cilantro

Procedure:

• The black eyed peas have a thinner skin, no presoaking is required before cooking. Pressure cook the black eyed peas, it should be soft but still hold its shape.
• Drain the water and squeeze the peas just a little.
• Now add finely chopped green bell pepper, onion, garlic, red and black pepper, cilantro and salt.
• Mix it well, taste and re-season accordingly.
• Now make a pattie, dust both sides of the pattie with all purpose flour(maida).
• Take a non stick pan, add few teaspoons of oil and cook the pattie for three minutes on each side.
• Serve with some tomato ketchup or maggi hot & sweet tomato sauce.
• These cutlets are little soft immediately after cooking. If you prefer it little firm, just leave the cutlets for few minutes and then serve it.

Black eyed peas (Alasandu) cutlet with tomato ketchup

Spicy black bean sandwich

                       

                                      Salad, fries, pickle and sandwich

I think Sandwich is one of the comfort foods available around. It could be dressed up as sophisticated as possible in a fancy restaurant and at the same time it can be as simple as having 2 slices of bread with some veggies in it. I remember i ate my first sandwich ever in a burger place in Vijayawada, A.P when i was in the college. A sandwich with a veggie pattie cost-ed us about 26 Rs/-, we were six altogether and you will be surprised to know that we all used to share just one sandwich with lots of ketchup on the side.

To make my job little easier, i generally bring my veggie patties from the super market. They are generally in the freezer section. The most common ones which i use are from the morning star brand- tomato basil, spicy black bean and the veggie burger.I serve my sandwich with homemade potato fries and salad on the side.

Ingredients for the sandwich:

• cucumber, tomato and red onion- cut in round circle
• lettuce
• mayonnaise
• tomato ketchup or tomato hot & sweet sauce(available in the Indian store)
• few pickles
• spicy black bean pattie and
• sandwich buns        

Procedure:

Microwave the pattie for a minute. Take a non stick pan, grease it and cook the pattie for about thirty seconds on each side.

Toast the sandwich bun, apply mayonnaise and some ketchup on both sides. Put the pattie, cucumbers, tomato and onion with some salt and pepper and finish it of with  few lettuce leaves and pickle on the side.

Potato fries:

I am not a big fan of deep frying my food. So, i cook my fries in a nonstick pan. And they tastes pretty good, and most of all they are healthier than the deep fried once.

Procedure:

Wash, peel and cut the potato into long thin wedges. Take a non stick pan, add two teaspoons of oil. Once the oil is hot enough add the potato with some salt and cook them in medium heat. When they are almost done, add some chillie powder, salt and turn the heat off.

                              

Salad:

Ingredients:

• Lettuce
• cucumber
• grated carrot
• croutons
• pumpkin seeds
• dressings- fat free Italian dressing                                                                                    lite honey mustard

Procedure:

I use about 40 % Italian and 60 % of honey mustard dressing in my salad. Toss everything except for croutons thoroughly. At the end add the croutons, mix it again and serve. 

                              

                           Salad, fries, pickle and black bean sandwich ( our lunch today)