Getting Saucy, Going Nutty :)

No, no – don’t get me wrong - I am still the sweet person you know and if you look closer you will see that halo (lol)

Be it pizza or pasta, it’s all about the sauces.  I had yellow tomatoes, and red tomatoes ripening on the vine and there were finally enough for a few good sassy, nutty sauces – These ones were purely inspirational like when you stand at the door of an empty room (or a cluttered one) and you get these bulbs flashing brightly ––fresh chilies, fresh chives, fresh herbs, fresh tomatoes, fresh plums (store bought) I am in heaven yo!

Got my thoughts together and knew exactly what to club with what & shazam! I was on my way to making 4 sauces; two with yellow tomatoes, one with red, and an exotic pesto with cilantro. Really simple, quick, recipes that you can throw together in under 30 -45 minutes – that is like the icing on the cake, if you will.

With the sauces, I made the a variety of pizzas & a pasta. The toppings were also pretty exotic – my patty pan male flowers, paneer, spinach, and of course the usual suspects – bell pepper, onions and shrooms.

Without further ado, I present my sauces and the dishes I prepared with them

There are some pizza pictorials to feast your eyes on J

Yellow Tomato Sauce #1

Yellow tomatoes

Green chilies (very un-Italian, my friend would say)

Basil

Garlic and onion chives

Olive oil

Simple Yellow Sauce #1

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Yellow Tomato Sauce #2

Yellow Tomatoes

Handful of Pistachios

Red chilies

Basil

Garlic

Olive oil

Mouse over to see which sauce is which :)

Sauce #3

Pesto With Cilantro

1 bunch thoroughly washed cilantro with the tip of the stems chopped off

Handful of Pine Nuts

Garlic

Olive Oil

Green Chillies (Optional)

Black Pepper (Optional)

Sauce #4

Plum & Walnut Sauce

Plums

Handful of Walnuts

1 clove of crushed Garlic

1 Green Chili (Optional)

1 1/2 inch thick circle of Ginger

Olive Oil

 

                                 

Sauce #5

Regular Red Sauce

Vine Ripened Tomatoes

Hot Green Peppers

Basil

Garlic

Olive Oil

(I made this a couple weeks afo like the yellow sauce #1)

Here is a collage :)

Spicy Peanut Balls/Podi/Chutney

Super Hot & Spicy Peanut Balls

I was making dosai molagapodi ( the spicy powder you eat with idlis and dosas) and I got inspired to make this peanut powder – I have had this in Maharastra in my niece’s house and I want to say I like my version better!

This is the simplest recipe with just 4 ingredients and can be made at a moment’s notice

I found that this adds an incredible taste and added kick to most any dish, including Chinese stir fry, salads, vangi baath, (eggplant rice) with dosas, pancakes and toast – I am sure there can be many other uses for it if I think harder about it but right now, I am experiencing a brain-freeze J

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Can be stored as powder like show above or made into balls to look more appealing

INGREDIENTS

2-3 cups roasted and salted peanuts

20-30 dry red chilies (see picture)

Asafetida –blueberry sized ball/square

Curry leaves 1 cup

Salt

Sesame oil- 1 tbsp

PREPARATION

Wash the curry leaves and dry it in a pan on high heat

Add the chilies, asafetida and the oil

When the chilies are sufficiently browned, add the peanuts and toss once and remove from flame.

Grind into coarse paste

You will notice that the some of it becomes pasty from the oil in the peanuts!

Remove completely from the grinder and make into balls

This way, you can use them sparingly and only in small amounts

Enjoy too with curd rice!!!

Love and ciao!

Zucchini Casserole

This one is a simple recipe post only – sorry, my summer seems more hectic than I ever anticipated! And I have had precious little time to blog let alone blog hop, as I would have loved to – please do not mistake my absences on your blogs – I am now waiting for school to start so that my routine gets more… Routine!

Zucchini continue to flourish in my garden and I have to keep coming up with more new recipes to keep the veggie and the recipe interesting … this is an off the cuff recipe, put together with home grown zukes, chilies, tomatoes and herbs – with the exception of the goat cheese, cheddar and mozzarella J

Here is the recipe

Set oven to 350

Grease a pan with olive oil/spray

Slice the zucchinis and tomatoes (I used my yellow tomatoes – more on this when I post my super deadly pasta sauce)

Break up the goat cheese (you can sub with feta or ricotta if you cannot find goat cheese)

I used oregano & basil, garlic and onion chives

Cut up the chilies and chop up the herbs

Layer the pan like this (look at pictures)

1 layer of zucchini

Top with goat cheese

Top with herbs and chilies

Now layer with tomatoes

Then goat cheese & herbs and chilies

Third and last layer of zucchini

Top this layer with cheddar and mozzarella cheeses

Bake for 30 minutes

Serve hot

A wonderful healthy meal (well, except for the cheese which you can cut back per your taste)

Layer 1

Layer 2

Baked and ready to cut

A perfect dinner entrée for a summer evening

Ciao until next time – will surely try to blog hop this week – love you all!!

Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread

Zucchinis galore and a big scramble for recipes to make these with – came up with 2 winners – this recipe an adaptation of Paula Dean’s Zucchini Chocolate Chip bread and to be blogged a wonderful, very healthy and sumptuous zucchini casserole – please await this J

Paula has nailed it with this recipe – takes about 15 minutes of prep time and 50 minutes of baking – It was a runaway hit with my brother and nephew and my kids undoubtedly lapped it up!

The only changes I made to Paula’s recipe were the spices – all spice instead of cinnamon and orange extract instead of vanilla extract

Click here for the original recipe

But for those who do not believe in clicking away, here it is …

Ingredients

•    3 cups all-purpose flour

•    1/2 teaspoon baking powder

•    1 teaspoon salt

•    1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

•    1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

•    1 teaspoon baking soda

•    3 eggs

•    2 cups white sugar

•    1 cup vegetable oil

•    2 teaspoons vanilla extract

•    2 cups grated zucchini

•    1 cup chopped pecans

•    1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

•    1 tablespoon orange zest

•    Whipped cream, for serving

•    Zucchini ribbons, for serving

Preparation

Preheat oven at 350 degrees F. Grease (2) 9 by 5-inch loaf pans.

Sift together flour, baking powder, salt, spices and baking soda.

In a large bowl, beat eggs until light and fluffy. Add sugar, and continue beating until well blended. Stir in oil, vanilla, zucchini, pecans, chocolate chips, and orange zest. Stir in sifted ingredients. Pour into prepared loaf pans.

Bake for 50 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Remove loaves from pans and cool. Chill before slicing. Serve with whipped cream and ribbons of zucchini.

Good to eat as it, take for a picnic (like we did) or anytime of day when you want a satisfying snack!

Zucchini Blossom Fritters (Bajjis)

Zucchini & Patty Pan Blossoms (squash flowers)
FROM THIS TO....

Served with  Hot and sweet sauce (YUM)
THIS :P

Before I get into my post, I want to thank all the people caring to follow this blog J A big thank you Gita Jaishankar for making me reach an awesome number of followers. I am sorry I did not take notes on who made up the first three centuries ): but I will in the future! So thrilled, so humbled – did I say So thrilled already?

Too beautiful to NOT eat (lol)

This is probably the third summer that we have not traveled to India or anywhere abroad (yet) and I have taken immense joy the luxury of starting my own veggie patch and seeing the fruits/veggies of our effort. Zucchinis, Patty pans and Tomatoes and more recently chili peppers have been delighting us in abundance! Each day I would see these wonderful yellow blossoms from both my patty pans and zucchinis and saw, wow another veggie in the offing until this wonderful Italian friend of mine thanks to whom my summer has been a blast, told me that these could be made into fritters and are ever so popular in Italian cuisine! When we got together she made them Italian style with all purpose flour and eggs. For those who know me, you are aware that if I can avoid using eggs, I do and IF there is a possibility of adapting recipes to Indian or vice-versa, I am all for it – right?

How to distinguish MALE flower?

But my friend also taught me to distinguish the “male” flower from the female, squash bearers. The male flower blooms brightly in the morning and do have a pistil that rather resembles the male reproductive organ – Sorry to be “green” about this folks, but the look for the penile projection! The male flowers are the tasty ones and are the ones to be used for this recipe. So if you have your own garden and are growing zukes or patty pans, you can make yourself this delicious treat.

Fry away

Close up

Ingredients

Male Zucchini/patty pan blossoms / oil to fry

NOTES

Wear GLOVES since these stems have a million small and very mean thorns

PICK Flowers EARLY in the MORNING

Cut the flower at the head of the stem,

WASH them thoroughly, because there is a veritable bee/ant fest happening inside!

DRY thoroughly with paper towels

Store in Ziplocs and refrigerate until ready for use!

For batter

1:1 besan/ chickpea flower: rice flour

Salt

A dash of asafetida

Curry leaves

1 tbsp Homemade chili powder or sambar powder (adjust according to preference)

To maintain some Italianess, I added some fresh rosemary and basil (also Homegrown – told you I’d be using that word a lot this summer)

MIX all these with water to a smooth flowing consistency!

Washed and drained

Preparation

Dip and drop – dip the flower in the batter and drop in hot oil
Note:: It can splutter a lot since no amount of drying gets rid of all the water! SO be aware of this and take precaution!

Cook until golden brown

Serve with chutney/ketchup or enjoy by itself

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Presenting Zucchini Blossom Bajjis, folks J

Cheers until the next post

Garlic Spinach Stir-fry Noodles

From the stove to your plate in 5 minutes FLAT! No kidding

This is the easiest meal you can ever prepare, and probably the tastiest, seriously – how many of you like Indian- Chinese food? You can see my hands way up there J This recipe came about after a pasta meal I’d made the previous day and had some angel hair remaining.

I also had some fresh leaf salad spinach – the big boxes you get at Sam’s! Two hungry kids and one quick thinking mom namely moi (:  and all happy! A whole lot healthier than Maggi and a whole lot yummier too!

Start to finish 5 minutes not taking into account the time to cook the noodles. You can make this individually so it can be served hot (like dosas(:

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INGREDIENTS

Angel hair or thin vermicelli (even if you have no leftovers, this takes 5-10 minutes to cook at the most)

Fresh Spinach leaves

Garlic 1-2 cloves depending on how much you love it

1 Red chili crumbled

1 tbsp sesame oil

1-2 tbsp Schezwan stir-fry sauce (this is vital folks)

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PREPARATION

In a shallow wok/pan heat the sesame oil

Crumble the chili in it

Next, crush the garlic or add crushed garlic

Now throw in the spinach and spin a couple of times. The spinach will almost immediately get soggy

Add the noodles and the sauce over it

Toss a few times until all the noodles are drenched in the sauce

Feel Free to garnish with peanuts!

Put on your plate and dig in hot (:

Optional: you can also crumble some spicy peanut balls on it or add some roasted cashews (it is delicious as is though)

Cheers until the next recipe!