Whole Wheat Pasta with Pesto

There are so many varieties and so many shapes of pasta and again their permutations and combinations.
What I have here is a Whole Wheat variety in Rigatoni shape. Not just that it comes with a 'good for health' tag, but I do like the flavour of whole wheat pasta than the regular one. The texture is also different and nice.


Whenever I need to make a quick yet special/exotic dish, I run to my fridge and grab the Basil Pesto jar that I got from SF. It adds so much flavour to the dish minus the effort. Not that making pesto is a tedious job. Only thing is fresh basil should be available somewhere around the place. In Bangalore, we can get fresh basil in Namdhari, but not all the time. Anyways...since I have the readmade pesto, I might as well use it.

Boil the pasta in good amount of water with salt. Meanwhile chop the onions and saute them in a teaspoon of olive oil (i use the oil that floats on the pesto in the jar). Add 1/2 a cup of sweet corn and saute. You may add sundried tomatoes or olives too. Then add the cooked pasta, stir for 2 minutes and add a tablespoon of the pesto and mix well. Take it off the heat after a minute.
Serve with grated cheese sprinkled on top.

Banana Pancakes

My love for bananas goes up another level when it comes to banana pancakes. It's a perfect weekend breakfast. Pancakes are usually made of maida or refined flour. But I make a healthy version of it using whole wheat flour and also kicked it up a notch by adding roasted oats :). So to sum it all, its banana, milk, wheat and oats!

One ripe banana, 2 cups whole wheat flour, 1/2 cup roasted oats, little jaggery or sugar, milk, 1/2 teaspoon baking soda and not to miss ... 1/2 a teaspoon of salt.
Put them in a blender and get it into a smooth thick batter, not watery.

Carefully pour 2 laddle-fulls of the batter onto a nonstick pan and spread it evenly. Leave for a minute. When you see the holes forming on the surface, give it 30 more seconds. Then flip it. You will see a golden colored pancake. Wait for the other side also to turn golden, and then remove from the pan.

Stack them all and pour honey or maple syrup on top. Cut through the layers and stuff it in your mouth. I cannot tell you how heavenly that feels....ummm.
Wanna kick it up another notch? Add some butter! umm umm umm...sinfully heavenly!

note: Click on the images to get the bigger versions

Macaroni and Broccoli in Not-So-White Sauce

I call it not-so-white sauce because it's not made of Maida/Refined Flour. I made it with Whole Wheat Flour and an organic one at that :)

This is our weekend brunch. And once in a while I don't mind indulging in cheese and butter. Not that I have used a lot of it in this dish. I use far less than what is traditionally used in this type of dishes.

Broccoli, Beans, Chives and Onions from the veggie section. Skimmed Milk, Whole Wheat Flour and a small cube of butter for the sauce. Cheese, Chives and Sun-dried Tomatoes for the garnish.
I forgot to click the pic of the sauce before adding it to the dish :(

Before and After adding Cheese and microwaving for 2 mins.

Now, just by the look of it, one would think it would taste bland, since there are no flavourings added. But nope. I have not added flavourings on purpose, because I wanted the flavour and taste of broccoli to shine through. And it did! Also, I have added a lot of sun-dried tomatoes that would give a tang to the dish.

Recipe in a nutshell:
Saute the onions, beans and broccoli in a teaspoon of peanut oil. Then add the boiled macaroni and saute for five more minutes. On another pan, make the sauce by sauteing 3 tablespoons of wheat floor in a small cube of butter till the raw smell is gone. Now add skimmed milk gently while stirring and let it cook till you get batter like consistency. Add salt once done. Pour this sauce over the macaroni & veggies and transfer to a microwave safe bowl. Add chives, sun-dried tomatoes and cover with grated cheese. Microwave on high for 2 mins or till the cheese melts. DONE!

I have a confession to make. I don't know how to make white sauce without lumps :(. So I take the help of my mixie. After adding the milk, I transfer the entire thing into the mixie jar and blend it well. Then I transfer back to the pan and cook till it thickens.

Dalia

As a working woman and being in the software industry, my timings are erratic most of the time. So dinner would be something quick and easy. Which is rice and subji.
I've been hearing a lot that it's better to eat roti at dinner than rice. So I try and make rotis as often as possible during week nights. But the times that I return home late, and have no energy left to knead the dough and roll the rotis, , I fall back on Dalia - Broken Wheat. This way I would still be eating wheat and not rice. Add some veggies to it and there you go...a one pan dinner which is nutritious as well as less tedious to make. I also reduce some more effort by using dried herbs and powdered masalas like ginger powder, garlic powder etc.

But there is one problem here. My hubby dear scorns on anything that is tagged as "good for health"...like dalia, ragi, whole wheat, low cal, low fat etc. So I have the additional burden of making these things extra tasty and lure him into eating them. So I keep trying out different ways of making Dalia. This time I have taken the help of dried basil and rosemary.

Carrots, Beans Harikot, Onions, Green Chilli, Ginger Powder, Garlic Powder, Dried Basil, Dried Rosemary, Organic Dalia and Fresh Corriander for garnish.

Jaggery

This is my favourite kind of Jaggeries. Its organic jaggery that I bought from a store in Iskon Temple. It gives such a wonderful color and flavour to the dishes its used in. I've almost stopped using sugar and substitue this one. Even in my morning cereal and oatmeal! Parvannam goes to another level in heavenliness when made with this jaggery.

Few healthy varieties of rice

Aaah finally got to this blog to post something, thanks to Indira. I wanted to show her some of the other forms of rice we get here in Bangalore. While thinking where to post these pics, I remembered this poor little abandoned blog of mine. So, here goes.

I usually use the regular sona masuri rice, but the red rice packets in the supermarket always intrigued me. When I researched around a bit, I learnt that they are actually better than the white rice in terms of nutrition. Anything that comes with a tag of "good for health"... I jump up to get it. So I bought one. It was not a pleasant experience :(. The moment I started washing the rice, all the color went off and i got normal white rice. Anyways that was a bad store guy. I threw it back at him the next day.
Later I tried different varieties of red rice and loved them. One thing to admit is, it makes your food taste bland. So I always make some tangy /spicy curry along with this, like Vankaya Pulusu with some extra tanginess.

These are raw red rice varieties. Not the Kerala boiled / par boiled rice.


This one is a simple Red Rice
Unpolished Raw Red Rice. You can guess by the look of it. But this is quite nice to eat. Better than the one above.
This one is quite interesting. Its Organic Unpolished Rice. Its the best variety I've ever tasted. Don't mistake the look of it to be husky, it's actually soft and tasty after cooking. You wouldn't get any husk in your teeth. Plus, the best part is, it doesn't need any help from the curries like in the case of previous two varieties. It tastes great on its own and even enhances the taste of the curries. I just love it.
I get this one at 'Namdhari Fresh' store in Bangalore and nowhere else. It isn't that pricey. Comes for Rs.25/- a Kg. Almost as much as regular sona masoori.