I am BACKKKKKKKKKK !!!!!!

Hey All !!

I am back to blogging now.... I might as well, because I had to postpone my graduation by another semester. So y deprive myself of something that I love to do.... no no not blogging... I am talking about showing off my cooking skills :)

Just wanted to post some recent pics of my cooking here. Recently captioned the photos :) !!!

Mexican-Indian Medley (Onion Pakodas and Guacamole - I did not make the veggie crispy chips)

Breakfast Strata (egg-based)

Prepping for White pasta sauce

White pasta sauce cooking

Mixing cooked pasta and the creamy pasta sauce

Creamy white pasta

Pasta and garlic bread

Garlic butter used for the garlic bread (above and below)

Garlic bread (fresh out of the oven)

Not-from-scratch pasta (used canned pasta sauce)

From-scratch Lasagna (sauces were from scratch)

Cooked lasagna

Lasagna topped with extra sauce

Masala Omlet !!

Omlet with toast !!

Prepping pizza base (readymade dough)

Added toppings to pizza base

Topped with cheeses

Pizza fresh out of the oven

Vegetable sevai upma

Corn and Onion Fritters (pakodas)

Prepping breaded eggplant

Baked (healthy) breaded eggplant

Masala and plain dosas with garlic chutney and sambar

Indianized hashbrowns

Seriously do not remember the name of this sweet anymore :P

Sabudana khichdi :)

Aloo wada with spicy garlic sauce

Maddur Vada

I hope to get free enough to post the recipes soon !!

Until then...

Ciao... So

Bread / Garlic Bread Pizza

On request from my close friend, here is the recipe for garlic bread pizza or simply bread pizza....

Ingredients

Serves 2 ( 3 slices each)
Preparation Time (5 -10 mins -- depends on your vegetable cutting speed :) ) 
Cooking Time - 20 mins 

Bread / Garlic bread - 6 slices
Onions - 1 small
Tomatoes - 1 large
Capsicum - 1 medium
Red Pepper - 1 medium


Coriander leaves - few twigs (optional) (finely chopped)
Pepper powder - 1 tsp
Salt - as per taste
Chat Masala and / or Amchur powder - 1 tsp each (optional)


Mozzarella Cheese (shredded) - as per taste
(Remember that different kinds of cheese have different melting times - Mozzarella I think melts the fastest)
Butter - to apply on the bread (not needed if using garlic bread)
Aluminium Foil / Cookie Sheet (for arranging bread slices in the oven)

Method
Pre-heat the oven to 350 / 400 F. When the oven is getting heated, cut all vegetables into thin long slices. 

Prepping for garlic bread pizza

Arrange 6 buttered slices of bread onto a cookie sheet / aluminium foil. Top them with all the sliced vegetables. Sprinkle with coriander leaves and the other powdered ingredients. Sprinkle generously with cheese (for a cheese lover), else as per your taste.


Oven will be pre-heated by this time. Pop the cookie sheet / foil into the oven. Set the timer to 20 mins if the oven setting was 350 or 15 mins if it was set to 400. 

Into the oven it goes !!

Keep an eye on the bread. If the cheese starts to melt, then it signifies that the pizza is almost done. So once more than 3/4 th of the cheese has melted, then you can go ahead and switch off the oven (doesnt matter what the timer shows). Leave the bread in the oven for another 2 mins, for it to fully cook inside out.


Bread / Garlic bread pizza is now ready !!! ENJOY with tomato ketchup!!!

Yumm !!! Baked bread pizza pieces....

Peanut Garlic Chutney

This was my most favorite chutney (after coriander chutney that is) when I was a kid. My mom used to make it for us all the time. Peanuts and Garlic both tend to have overwhelming flavors, but when they come together in this awesome chutney, they tend to form a mouth-watering dish / dip. Here's the recipe.

As per a request from my friend, here is the recipe for peanut, garlic chutney. I made it a few days back and since she had asked for instructions. I took some photos too.

I regret to say that I don't use accurate measurements in my recipes, because for me its a matter of taste and preferences. So all the measurements are just approximate.

Ingredients

Serves 5
Preparation Time - 15 mins

Peanuts - 2 cups
Garlic - 1 whole garlic pod medium sized(8-10 cloves)
Red Chillies - 10 (more if you want it spicy -- remember, spiciness varies with different kinds of chillies)
Shredded Coconut - 2 tbsps
Oil to roast ingredients
Salt to taste
Water to grind

Method

1. Cut the garlic into small pieces or crush them with a back of a ladle, knife or spoon. This is optional, because it is just to facilitate nice roasting of the garlic and to give out the flavor without giving out a raw taste. Keep aside.

2. Heat some oil in a pan, about 3 tsps. Add peanuts and roast them for 3-4 mins on medium flame until they are golden roasted, as in picture. Keep stirring often to avoid over-roasting on one side only. After the peanuts are roasted, keep them aside.

3. If there is no oil left in the pan, add about one more tsp of oil and add the garlic pieces. Stir and roast until golden roasted. They should look crisped and brown. Keep aside.

4. Add red chillies to the same pan (not much oil is required for this stage -- no oil will also work -- red chillies will roast even with little heat). Roast the red chillies until they turn a darker red. Keep aside. The picture doesn't do justice to the chillies :P

5. Add all the roasted ingredients along with the coconut into a blender or a mixer along with around a cup of water and grind to a "not so smooth", "not so coarse" paste, with the consistency of a dip / chutney. It should neither be too thick or too thin.

6. Pour the paste into a serving bowl, and add the required amount of salt as per your taste. Mix well.

Peanut Garlic Chutney is ready to be served.

The dosa in the picture is panpolo (neer dosa) -- recipe will be put up soon.

FOOD FOOD and more FOOD ............... !!!

So, I have been on this whole cooking spree the last few days, mainly because I did not have many vegetables at home (ironic huh !!) and I dint have the time to go grocery shopping.... So, I had to make do with other stuff, like daal, dosas and stuff which you buy at some point of life :) but have almost not used in a long long time (peanuts etc.,)

So, I made the following dishes in the past week or 2 (recipes coming soon....... just click on the food titles for the recipe links).

Panpolo, Peanut Garlic Chutney, Aloo Carrot Curry, Chickpeas Usal with Tomatoes, Benda Sagle, Kyala Koddel

Panpolo -- This is a konkani delicacy, also called Neer Dosa in kannada, which literally means Water Dosa (mainly because its batter is of the consistency of water). Anyway, as I said earlier recipes will follow soon...

Peanut Garlic Chutney -- The bestest (I know double superlative, but still) chutney after of-course coriander chutney.

Benda Sagle, another konkani delicacy with coconut based gravy (Lady's finger / Okra -- had some frozen ones from god knows how long ago - just kidding). This was probably the only vegetable I had that you can call a proper vegetable.

Kyala Koddel (raw banana with a coconut based gravy) --- this I prepared at my friend's place -- she asked me what's the best dish using raw bananas w/o making it feel sweet and this is it.....

Aloo Carrot Curry (Dry) -- A couple of days ago, I had few potatoes and loads of carrots, which I wanted to finish off --- had bought it the last time I made Carrot Halwa.


Chickpeas Usal with Tomatoes -- Today is the last day that I can cook anything at all, because I had just 4 small tomatoes, which I used up in this dish. I absolutely need to go grocery shopping tomorrow. Anyway, this was a very easy and simple dish with a subtle coconut flavor to it.

So the whole point of this post is that, I am amazed to know that if you love cooking and experimenting, you can manage to go a whole year without repeating the same dish. I soon plan to do that ONE DAY :) Also, you can always manage with any small items at home too. You dont always need fresh veggies in your refrigerator to cook something. This is like a week's worth of dishes. There are 6 dishes here, and the one left out day I think I managed with simple daalithoy (konkani style of making daal).

So long guys !!! Keep reading for more recipes.