Pasta - Indian style

Ingredients:

Pasta – I prefer Barilla sea shell shaped pasta
Pasta sauce – prefer RAGU brand, all the flavors are good, the best I liked till now – tomato-onion-basil
Olive oil – 2tbsp
Medium sized onion – 1
Hot sauce – ¼ tsp
Dry basil leaves – ¼ tsp
Salt and pepper to taste

Making Pasta:

In a pasta pot or regular big pot bring 4 qts water to rapid boil, add 2 tsp salt.
Now add 2 cups pasta, cook until almost soft and drain it.
In a pan add the olive oil, jeera (for Indian touch), chopped onions. Now add the cooked pasta and the pasta sauce approximately ½ cup (if u like pasta to be more saucy, u can add more), very little salt. Stir everything be careful not to break the sea shells…. This version is for kids.

Notes:

For us adults or people who like spicy food the alteration is --- after adding pasta sauce add some hot sauce(I prefer SRIRACHA), ground pepper and some dry basil to top it off.

HINT: Try different fun shaped pastas for kids, the crazier the shapes, the more they will love it.

Paneer and carrot toast or sandwich

This is an easy dish to make that serves as breakfast for us and as lunch for kids , for making it even simpler u can buy grated carrots from the store or keep some carrots grated before night itself in the fridge and make extra paneer so that you can use it for 2 servings. :-)

Ingredients :
½ cup – crushed paneer
1 cup – grated carrot
2 tbsp – chopped tomato
½ tsp – finely chopped green chili
Salt and pepper to taste
Bread slices

Making crushed paneer :
Boil 2 cups low fat milk in a sauce pan, now add ½ tsp vinegar once milk starts to break turn the heat off......strain it and dab it in a paper towel, you can always make extra and store in the fridge.

Making the spread :
Mix all the above ingredients adding salt and pepper.

Making the toast :
Spread little oil or butter on the bread so it is not too dry, lightly toast the bread.
Now spread the mix u prepared evenly on the toasted bread, in the toaster oven heat these until the paneer is lightly browned (when paneer changes to the color of carrot, it’s the sign the toast is done)

NOTES :

• To pack this in kid’s lunch…. what I did is I toasted 2 bread slices, spread the mix only on one slice after taking it out of the oven, covered with the second slice making a sandwich.
• Also I skipped the chilies in the mix.
• And if your kid’s don’t like the crust I would say just cut the crusts before toasting the bread.

Sorakaya appalu

Things u will need:
Sorakaya - 1 whole medium sized
Green chili paste - 3 tbsp or more depending on your taste
Sesame seeds, nuvvulu - 2 tbsp
Rice flour
Oil

Making chili paste:
Wash the green chilies removing the stems, put in the blender adding some salt, make a fine paste.

Preparing the dough :
Grate the sorakaya, no need to peel the skin. To the grated sorakaya add sesame seeds, green chili paste, more salt if needed now mix everything.To this mixture add rice flour as much as the mixture takes until you are able to make nice dough out of it, do not add any water . Depending on the amount of moisture sorakaya has in it the amount of rice flour it takes varies. Once the dough is made taste it and add more chili paste if you want to.

Preparing the Appam:
Make small ball the size of a tennis ball, apply some oil to one side of a ziploc bag. Now using your fingers press it into a nice even round appam shape or you can use a poori press using two ziploc bags on each side of the press.

Frying:
In a deep kadai thoroughly heat enough oil, slowly take the appam from the cover and put in the oil fry it until the edges are little brown.


NOTES:

• And you can eat these with plain sour creama as dip.
• You can make this appam soft or crispy depending on your like. To make soft ones dough should not be too hard and do not fry it for too long. And vice versa for the crispy ones.

COCONUT RICE(Kobbari saddhi- like my MOM used to say)

Ingredients -
Uncooked Rice – 1 cup
Grated fresh coconut or grated dry coconut – 3 tbsp
Garlic cloves – 2
Green chilies – 2 --- chopped into small pieces
Oil – 2 tbsp
Urad dal – 1 tbsp
Turmeric powder and curry leaf
Chilly powder and salt – to taste

Preparing Coconut Rice -

• Cook the rice and allow it to cool off.
• In a small bowl add grated coconut, chili powder, salt and crushed garlic and mix everything.
• In a small pan add 1 tbsp oil, do popu or tadka by adding red chilies, jeera, urad dal, turmeric powder and finally the green chilies, salt and curry leaf, let it fry for 2 mins.
• Add the tadka to the cooked rice then the coconut powder. You just need to mix everything no need to heat it and coconut rice is ready.

Prep time : 15 mins.

And the best thing about this dish u can have it hot or cold.

ALOO BIRYANI

Ingredients you R gonna need:

Mint-2 cups or 4 handfuls
Rice-3 cups uncooked – cook it and keep it aside
Gold potatoes-3 medium size
Chillies-10 to 12
Ginger-garlic paste – 2 tbsp ------ definitely home-made I would say
Oil – 4 tbsp
Bread croutons(optional) – 2 pieces of bread------- make 9 cubes from each piece then fry the pieces in 1 to 2 tbsp oil until golden brown on both the sides
Garam masala – 1/2 tsp ------ I use homemade not the packaged one for this recipe

Preparing Garam masala – 2 tbsp: cloves
2 tbsp:cinnamon
2 tbsp: Sajeera
In a pan roast all the above in the order of cinnamon, cloves and lastly sajeera, grind everything to a fine powder. Save it in a tight container.

Preparing Biryani:

Peel potatoes and cut into 2 inch cubes, wash and drain the water microwave for 3 mins add ½ cup water and cook for 2 more mins. Drain the remaining water
Grind half the mint i.e 1 cup and finely chop the other 1 cup.
Slit the green chillies vertically.
In a big kadai style pan add oil, 1tsp jeera and 2 tbsp Ginger-garlic paste stir it and allow it to fry for a min or so… now add boiled potatoes and green chillies then the grinded and finely chopped mint, allow everything to cook for 4-5 mins. Then add the cooked rice, ½ tsp masala powder, salt to taste, turmeric powder.
Finally add the toasted bread when biryani is hot, so the bread pieces become soft.

Prep time: If you have saved ginger-garlic paste and garam masala from last time, biryani will be ready in less than 30 mins.