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Showing posts with label Italian herbs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Italian herbs. Show all posts
Hi yaa, I am posting a third one today!, wanted to send all the posts as fast as possible and not to regret latter that I just couldn't make it, Sneezing like a thousand times, feeling sick, I decided I will do this now! and sleep tight and nice get up late in the morning tomorrow and dish up some Upma and start my chores later on..
I made this a few days back, Pasta has become like a back up for make some sauce and keep it or my daughter's make their own sauce and cook pasta and eat when they come home from school dying of hunger, especially my eldest is it a teen problem or a eldest sybling problem God knows she hates to eat her break-fast and gets on my nerves every morning.. Oops running the morning scene in my head, stop moaning to your friends women and get down to bussiness... sorry..., let me stop it right away and the bed is beckoning me!
PENNE PASTA WITH LENTIL SAUCE
Recipe source: The complete Pasta cook book
INGREDIENTS:
350 to 400 gms of Penne Pasta
250 gms of Dried Brown Lentils
1 Litre of Vegetable Stock
2 to 3 tbsp of extra virgin Olive oil
1 Onion Chopped
2 Carrots
2 Celery stalks
1 Red Pepper
6 to 7 French beans
1/2 cup peas
3 Cloves of Garlic
3 stalks of Fresh Thyme leaves
1 Tbsp of dried Italian Spices
METHOD:
First of all wash the dried Brown Lentils and pressure cook them till soft, these lentils don't need soaking overnight they just cook like Thuvar dal, you can use any other lentils of your choice.
In the Mean time cook the pasta in a large pan of boiling water with a bit of salt and a tsp of oil so they don't stick together until al dente. Drain well and toss with 2 tbsp of olive oil to ensure that they don't stick together.
Slice all the Veggies and keep aside, Make your own stock or use a stock cube to make 1 litre of stock.
Take a wok heat oil then add the sliced onions and crushed garlic fry until they turn transparent. Then add all the vegetables and cook them well over a medium heat for 10 minutes add the stock and then the dried herbs and fresh Thyme. cook for few more minutes until the vegetables are tender. Then stir in the cooked Lentils adjust water let it syrupy at this point, adjust salt and combine the pasta with the Lentil sauce and allow it to cook for 2 more minutes by closing a lid. Serve it with cheese..
My kids just loved it.. hope you too make it and enjoy.
I am sending this to Lisa's kitchen who is hosting MLLA #29 of Susan's MLLA event.
This is the first time I came upon this blog where in they pair bloggers and have to create from their site, I got tempted as usual even though I am not upto date with my postings, This blog Taste and create paired me with Tasty curry leaf, I started to know about this blogger because of an other club I joined, she has some wonderful recipes and a really a versatile blogger who blogs food from all over the world, you must visit her if you had not, I really had a tough time to create something, everyone of them was quite interesting, Here is a recipe I created from her kitchen to mine!!. I have just wirtten exactly in her words about this particular dish where it is from and what is its speciality (that's one more thing you can find from her recipes she does a lot of ground work)!!. coming back to the recipe.....she says....
PASTA ALLA NORMA
Sicily is a largest region in Italy and has contributed much to Italian Cuisine that it is sometimes known as God's Kitchen. Pasta alla Norma is a traditional Sicilian Pasta dish named so after the Norma-heroine of Bellini's Opera of the same name.
She says that in the Legend it says the opera was so successful and the chef who saw it was so delighted that he cococted the dish using all the Sicilian regional specialities and blended it with pasta and to show its perfection named it Pasta alla Norma honouring the opera, the artist Bellini who was born in Catania, Sicily and also the dish itself !!.
This dish uses eggplants, tomatoes and other flavourings and herbs available in Sicily and is blended with tubular pasta like Penne Rigate or even thin string Spaghetti is widely popular in Sicily. Here is her version of Pasta alla Norma.Actually I showed this recipe in her blog and left it for my girls to recreate as my second daughter loves making pasta, both said they would do it!, I helped them to make pasta by just adding the seasonings so I will not be able to write the exact measurments as she always makes quite large quantities and loves keep eating them!!. I have written the exact replica what she has posted in her blog!. Please do check any more details in her blog.
The only thing I changed in this recipe was adding fresh Tomatoes pureed in a mixie which is what I have written in italics, The original recipe is in the Normal font.
INGREDIENTS:
2 Cup Penne Rigatte
1 tbsp Olive oil
1 Small Red Onion
1 or 2 cloves Garlic
1 medium Eggplants
1/4 cup Tomato Puree
1/4 cup Ricotta Cheese
1 and 1/2 cup Fresh Tomatoes pureed in a mixie
Fresh Basil leaves few
Salt as per taste
SEASONING:
A pinch of Dried thyme (I used 2 to 3 sprigs of fresh thyme)
1/2 tsp Red Pepper flakes
1/2 tsp Pepper
1 tsp of Italian dried spices
METHOD:
Chop the onions, garlic, eggplant and keep aside. Take a wok heat olive oil then add garlic, Once it browns, remove them from the wok add chopped onions and stirfry then add the chopped eggplant (she says add salt to the chopped eggplants prior and keep aside for 15 minutes, this helps in removing the bitternes if any but as I had no time to feed my 3 M's I just chopped and fried in the wok) Once they get cooked add tomato pureed in a mixie (I tweaked a little bit I added nearly 300 to 400 gms of Tomato as I had loads of tomatoes which had to be used and I used the tomato puree as said in the reicpe) Yup, quite a lot of tomatoes I added.
Now cook until the raw smell of the tomatoes disappear, and is well cooked, add all the seasonings and cook for few more minutes now the sauce is ready.
Meanwhile when the sauce is getting ready cook pasta as per the packaged instructions till al dante (firm but not hard).
Now add the pasta to the sauce with ricotta cheese and garnish with basil leaves and serve.
My pasta has different look than hers as I added more tomatoes and the kids added lot of cheese it turned into white in colour!!
Anyways the kids just loved it!! as I am not a big fan of pasta, I just tried a little bit (may be I could have more if there was not more cheese in it!!).
Thanks to curry leaf for this lovely delectable pasta just enjoyed both her recipes.
Continuing from my last post, This was our Main course!! Vegetarian Paella, The colour might not be same as the book because they used fresh tomatoes, canned tomatoes give a rich colour to the tomatoes, I think they add some colouring agent in them. The rice had a different spiciness and taste because of the Italian herbs in it!!
Totally it was quite tasty and I was proud of my kids!!, I just thought if I fall sick my kids can manage to cook something for me and for themselves.
VEGETARIAN PAELLA
INGREDIENTS:
4 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tsp Paprika (the book called for 1/2 tsp)
350 gms Long grain brown rice
1 1/2 pints Vegetable stock ( store bought cubes)
6 oz dry white wine ( skipped)
400 gms can tomatoes, plus juice, chopped (used fresh chopped tomatoes with juice)
1 tbsp tomato puree
1/2 tsp dried tarragon
1 tsp dried basil ( used 2 sticks of fresh basil leaves)
1 tsp dried Oregano
1 Red pepper seeded and roughly chopped (used yellow pepper instead)
1 Green pepper seeded roughly chopped
2 sticks celery finely chopped
225 gms Mushrooms sliced
55 gms Mangetout chopped
115 gms Frozen peas
55 gms cashew nut pieces
salt and freshly ground black pepper
chopped fresh parsley,
lemon wedges and olives to garnish ( we were out of these)
METHOD:
Heat oil in a saucepan or paella pan and fry the onion and garlic until soft
Add the paprika and washed rice and continue to cook for 4-5 minutes until the rice is transparent , stirring occasionally
Add the stock, wine, tomatoes, tomato puree and herbs and simmer for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add the peppers, celery, mushrooms, peas and Mangetout and continue to cook for a further 30 minutes, until the rice is ooked, stirring occasionally, add little extra stock, or water if necessary.
cook until everything is well cooked (we closed the lid of our pan to cook)
Sprinkle parsley and Basil leaves and fried cashews to garnish and serve Vegetarian paella with lemon wedges and olives.
The book says you can use Apple juice instead of white wine if preferred, and mixture of brown and wild rice for a change.
Kids mixed all the veggies and spices together close the lid and cooked it like pilauv/pilaf, we ate it with cucumbers and sliced red onions., the dish was full of colourful veggies, and quite an interesting taste.
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