Spaghetti with meat sauce

  Spaghetti is thin, long pasta from Italy.  Here, I used dried form of spaghetti packet, made of wheat durum semolina.  Spaghetti is topped usually with tomato sauce, with herbs like basil and oregano.  Here, I used meat sauce and the result was awesome.  The basic sauce, I used was Maggi's instant pasta sauce.  If you want an home-made one, click here

 

Since, this was my first Italian association, I followed each steps carefully.  These spaghetti were a bit denser than our instant noodles.  I cooked them till they were completely done and it went good with sauce.  They were heavy on stomach. One bite topped with sauce was completely heavenly.  I added both meat and vegetables here, vegetarians can replace the same amount of meat with additional mushrooms.

 

Pataqueta - Baking partner challenge November 2013

  When Swathi announced making of traditional Spanish bread named 'Pataqueta', I was thrilled.  According to Marisa, pataqueta is bread that inhabitants of Valencia's Orchard used to eat when they went to work.  This crescent moon shaped bread, is known since seventeeth century.  It was baked in Moorish oven, later on wood stoves.

 What differs Pataqueta from other bread is they are steam baked.  Yes, that nourishes them with even soft texture with firm crust outside.  I, really enjoyed baking them, along with them, I made pretzel rolls too.  Thanks to Swathi and Marisa.

WORLD DIABETES DAY - November 14th 2013

   Hi all, this day,  November14th is observed as World Diabetes day.  When  Swathi , highlighted this importance and announced the event, I can barely resist myself from joining.  Thanks to her, this event made me go through a lot of learning process and know more about Diabetic diet.  So, with no more delay, I present you two diabetic-friendly dish topped with brief description.

 

 

 

What is Insulin?

Our body cells needs energy in order to perform all our physical tasks.  And this energy is available in form of glucose/sugar that floats freely in our blood.  But our body cells won't easily grab them or digest them.  They need some hormone to help/intake the glucose available, just like my kid, Varsha who wants food, but needs Mommy to feed her :D .  So, this mommywali help is done by Insulin, an hormone secreated by Pancreas.  Insulin helps cells to digest the glucose so that your body cells becomes active and carries on all activities.

What is Diabetes?

    Just imagine your body cells when  not enough Insulin is created, or when Insulin is not recognized by them.  The amount of glucose/sugar stays as such, and increases everytime you have your food.  This results in high level of glucose in blood or  high blood sugar.  This condition is called as Diabetes mellitus. 

Complications

So, when blood sugar increases, there is an urge for blood cells to feed/ to consume, where will they go??  Some try to utilize fat content available as energy source while some degenerate.  Such degeneration of cells throughout they body may lead to severe complications like Heart-attack, Paralysis, Dementia (loss of memory), Blurred vision, Loss of weight, Increased thirst, Frequent urination and other gastric-oriented problems like Nausea, Vomitting etc

No Direct cure

Since there is no direct cure, an diabetic patient must restore to all three preventive measures, given below.

• As key effect, degeneration of blood cells should be prevented.   Medication plays its part here and homeopathic medicines have also shown to have good remedy.

•  Alternatively, body sugar levels must also be controlled.  This is helped by physical exercise.

•  Following an diet with high-fibre, low-fat/cholestrol is also important since this disease may lead to cardio-vascular problems.

Diabetic Diet

Diabetic diet is filled with whole grains(wheat, oats, barley, maize, brown rice, millet etc), fresh fruits, vegetables.  Here, I am going to make two dishes, which are diabetic-friendly in order to highlight this event.  They are Barley vegetable soup & Barley topped fruit salad. 

Barley vegetable soup

Ingredients required are 1/2 tsp amul 'light' butter, 3-4 garlic pods sliced, 1 cup of finely chopped vegetables like  Onions, Mushrom, Carrot, Palak (spinach), 1/2 cup of Barley pearls soaked for 3-4 hours, Salt & Pepper, to taste.

Heat butter in pan, add garlic slices and sauté till they brown.  Add onions and other vegetables and sauté well.  Wash the soaked barley and add in pan. 

 

Add 1 cup of water and pressure cook for single whistle. 

 

Season them with salt and pepper, serve hot!

 

 

Barley topped fruit salad

 

Ingredients required are 1/2 cup of barley, soaked for two hours, 2 cups of chopped fruits like Apple, Papaya, Kiwi, Banana, 2 orange deskinned de-seeded and separated to segments, 1/2 cup of pomegranate seeds, 1 tbspn of lime juice, 1 tsp of chaat masala.

 

Wash the soaked barley seeds, cook them on stove-top with one cup of water.  As you will notice, barley will absorb water and turn soft after it gets cooked.   

 

 

In a large bowl, add chopped fruits, pomegranate seeds, barley pearls, lime juice, chaat masala.  Mix well, finally fold in orange segments. 

 

 

Serve them chilled. 

 

 

Happy cooking!!!  :)

 

 

  

 

Mutton sukka

 

Sukka is a dry, very lightly sauced, preparation of South-Indian cuisine, that goes well with chicken, mutton.  They are served with hot rice and dal/rasam.  Traditionally, they require creamy masala paste, of khuskhus, cashewseeds, and coconut, and are loaded with oil.  Here, I made this sukka with simplest ingredients available on any South-Indian kitchen. Not only, is this simpler, but maintains lesser oil with an best drooling consumption.:D  :D 

 

 

 

I, usually cook two different dishes at week-ends.  One, mild soup for Varsha and secondly spicy curry for Shama.  What surprised us, was Varsha asked an taste of this sukka.  After one bite, she seemed to love it and asked for more and more !!!!!  And by the end she finished having sukka all by herself, Shama had mild soup :D  :D   I didn't know Varsha would like them as such.  Therefore, I can term this sukka as 'kid pleaser' too :)  :) 

Rumali roti/ Zero oil roti - Homestyled

   Those soft, thin roti's you order at restaurant is not so tough to make at home.

  Name originating from 'rumal' meaning Kerchief in Urdu is an combination of maida and wheat flour and is cooked on inverted griddle/tawa/kadaai.  After cooking, these are folded in four and is served hot with sizzling mughalian curries.  Here, I used lesser maida than original composition ie one parts of wheat flour with 1/4 part of maida.  Rotis thus obtained were super-soft and much to my surprise stayed soft for more than six hours.  And most interesting fact is that these are zero-oil rotis, so go ahead and give an try, for you are sure to get praised :)