Stuffed Jumbo shell pasta..Dinner at it's best

This one kept me waiting for a long time. My pantry either had Pasta in stock or fridge had spinach in stock. And I was unable to find the right sized shell pasta for this dish. I could never buy both the items and dish this up. So I had been waiting for quite a while to cook this, it was utterly delicious in Marinara sauce.

This is absolutely veggie stuff. :-)

Swayed and taken away by the massive Black Friday shopping, I am posting this late. I had promised to post this for my friend during the TG holidays but I am late. Hope you will be able to cook this for your boys and gals this weekend.

All you need:
Tip : Use fresh ingredients as much as possible.

1. Fresh or frozen Spinach : 10 oz or 16 oz - more the spinach better your health! Thaw the frozen stuff before you use.
2. Marinara sauce :  2 small cups. I use Classico, roasted garlic. Its very flavorful. If you can make the sauce at home its much better.
3. Mozzarella cheese : As much as you want! Use grated to limit yourself. The fresh mozzarella in bulk slices would be too heavy.
4. Salt and pepper to taste ; Flakes of Red pepper if needed.
5. The USP - Jumbo shell pasta - they are HUGE in size. AFAIK there are 3 sizes, mini, normal, large and then jumbo. We are looking at the massive ones which can hold stuff in it.
6. Olive Oil - 2 tsp for cooking, 1 tsp for brushing the pan

Preheat the oven to 350 Deg F.

Cook the shell according to the package. Save 1/4th cup of pasta water. Drain the rest and run it under cold water to stop further cooking. Set aside.

In 1 cup of boiling water, add spinach. Let it cook for 2-3 minutes. Drain and cut the spinach coarsely.

In a pan, use 2 tsp olive oil, add Marinara sauce to it. Add 1/4 the cup of pasta water. Add salt and pepper to taste. Let it boil for a minute and set aside the sauce.

Take a lasagna pan or any heavy bottomed cake pan (Wilton would do), brush it with 1 tsp olive oil. Spread half the Marinara sauce at the bottom of the pan.

Now make the stuffing for shells. Carefully open each jumbo shell pasta to stuff it with some spinach and then grated mozzarella cheese. Close it.  Stuff 20 shells. Place them slightly apart in the cake pan already filled with Marinara sauce. Now add the rest of the sauce onto the shells placed. Just pour the sauce all over. Add some more grated cheese on top.

Bake it at 350 Deg F for 15-20 minutes. Keep a watch on it. And broil it on top rack for 3 minutes to get that glaze on cheese. Here are the snaps...

As I composed this blog I made this dish yet again for dinner tonight!

Arrival of panini grill makes life easy

This holiday season I had tons to shop for but the basic necessity was for quick and delicious breakfast that's easy and healthy. I in fact wrote about slow cooker already. This time it's grill - panini grill. I always managed to grill veggies using old fashioned oven in broil mode. But never could archive the grill marks on either veggie or bread. I certainly went for a deal on black Friday and bought this $2 grill! Ever since I bought that it's been a 10 minute breakfast session every morning. I am glad I could dish up the very same tomato mozzarella panini for lunch, the grilled squash and egg and cheese for breakfast. Hold your breath I grilled egg too! Sounds crazy? Lol..... not necessarily raw egg. I made an omelette and then grilled the omelette with sprinkled cheese on top for just a minute to achieve that taste. It was worth while. Here is the snap of today's breakfast. 

Much awaited "Crock pot" slow cooker's arrival into my space

Oh Boy! It's been a while I am on the look out (I have been chasing) for a deal on slow cookers.. Especially the original "Crock pot" brand. Last year I missed the thanksgiving deal because of a trip to Chicago, IL. This year, I was looking for a deal but did not have the courage to queue up in front of stores all night long for just this. Luckily I could snatch one online (site to store) from Walmart who leaked few items on BF prices much before BF. I grabbed it for 10 bucks , a 6 quart manual crock pot slow cooker which can serve 7 happy eaters at once! Whoa... That's a sweet deal.

I could not pounce on making the dish right away as we picked up late night from the store. The very next day being Sunday - I used my new electric for making soup. This was kidney bean soup with veggies on a slight tomato base seasoned with oregano, salt and pepper.

I am still naive in the "hours to cook" assumption using slow cooker. I made the soup for 4 hours on high which over cooked the veggies - Thank God they did not lose their shape and size and get mashed but I learned that I had to cook it 1st hour on high and then 2nd hour on low. Then set it to warm.

This is such a versatile tool - it makes life easy when you wanna have good warm food when you are back home after a long day at either a hike or at office or just at shopping!

Easy bean and veggie soup :
1. Tomato sauce or Pasta sauce - 3 tsp
2. Boiled and Drained/Canned kidney beans - a handful
3. 1 Onion - roughly chopped
4. 1 Bell pepper - any color
5. 3 Carrots - cut into thick rounds
6. 1 potato - skinned and chopped into big cubes
7. Pasta - I used mini shells - 1 handful (Just raw)
8. 2 cloves garlic - chopped/smashed
9. Dried Oregano flakes, salt and pepper to taste

Saute onion, garlic, bell pepper,potatoes, carrots in 2 tsp olive oil. Use oregano now. Save the beans for later.Use the pasta/tomato sauce and add 1 cup water. Saute for 2 minutes. Now pour the entire stuff into the crock pot. Add more water until 1/2 of the pot is filled. Add 1 tsp of flour to thicken the texture.Set it on high for 1 hour. And after an hour set it on low fro 1 more hour. Then add salt, pepper, pasta and beans at this stage. Let it be on low for 1 more hour. The soup should be done after 3 hours. Put it on warm if you need.

If you cannot attend to the pot every hour, its better to set it on high for the first 1 or almost an hour before you leave so the food cooks at a temperature at 300 Deg F which cooks any food completely and would be safe for consumption. And then set it to low for the rest of the day and leave.

Come home for an aroma filled kitchen and a warm soup for dinner.

8 ingredients Ribbon Pakoda - Diwali special

This is just a simple, no tactics involved snack recipe. Please sieve the gram flour to remove lumps. I do not personally like doing this dish by substituting gram flour with Besan - chickpea flour. Add cold/normal water to mix the below ingredients except oil, into a thick dough. The dough should be of either pita bread or chapathi consistency. Heat oil in a deep sauce pan, (Tip: Oil should be hot enough to sizzle as soon as you press the dough into it, so that the ribbon pakoda doesn't absorb oil too much).Go ahead dump some dough and press it straight into hot oil. Let it brown and then drain it in batches to remove excess oil.

Tools Needed:
I have no idea how to say this , as it has no English name.
Just take a look at the picture.

P.S: If you do not have this tool, go buy yourself some Ribbon Pakoda from the neighboring Indian store!

Ingredients Needed:
1. Rice flour - 2 cups
2. Powdered Roasted gram (Pottukadalai) - 1/2 cup (Seive it to avoid lumps)
3. Butter - 1 inch slice
4. Sesame seeds - 3 tsp
5. Asafoetida - 4 pinches
6. Red pepper flakes or powder - 1 tsp
7. Oil for frying
8. Salt to taste

I packed some for my hubby's colleagues... This was a super hit!

Kale chips - Green leaf baked into crispy snack

Kale is good for your health. Eat your greens. Ah, how many times have we heard of this and we hated hearing this? I used to make Kale not so often, in my own way - pressure cook it because of its hard leafy nature. I was never able to eat Kale by just sauteing. It was hard for me to chew it down.

I have heard people make Kale chips using a dehydrator. I don't have any such tool and I made up my mind to cook this one in the ubiquitous oven. Bake it until crisp.

There are possibilities that you might end up with just ashes in your tray if you are not gonna have an eye on the baking Kale every now and then. So make at least 2 batches in order to taste some real chips and not ashes.

1. Kale - 1 bunch (Tear the leaves into bite sized approx 2 inches pieces and discard the stem). Wash and dry them on a paper towel for at least half an hour. For a quicker way, press them against the paper towel several times to squeeze out any water. Idea is to have them as dry as possible in order to be crispy.
2. Bread crumbs - Italian style or plain
3. Pepper Jack cheese - Grated - 5 pinches (I hate Parmesan these days)
4. Salt to taste
5. Olive oil - a dash

Heat oven to 450 Deg F. Lay the baking sheet on the tray. Spread the kale pieces on the baking sheet in a single layer. Add a dash of olive oil and make sure every leaf has some on it. Shake some salt over the leaves. Also spread the cheese. Now, be generous with the bread crumbs and spread them on the leaves.

Bake the batch for 10 minutes, peeping into the oven every 4 minutes to make sure they don't burn. 

I am on a soupathon - many thanks to the sick hubby

I am not the one who is fond of baby food : all these understated recipes come into baby food category
1. Soup
2. Kootu
3. Dal
4. Mashed potatoes
5. Rice ; ah ah "Mashed" rice
6. Honey tea
7. Cinnamon tea
8. Vendhaya kanji aka thengai kanji (Fenugreek poridge aka Coconut poridge)
9. Bread with milk
10. Bread and jelly
11. Chicken soup - Hey this is one exception - I can have chicken soup anytime of the year.

Since 2 weeks, I have been busy taking care of my husband who is hosting bacteria in his body! Oh God, itchy throat, running nose, cough and cold keep me on my toes. At the same time, I feel so exhausted - physically and recipeally! Yes I ran out of baby food varieties. Though he is unable to taste & enjoy anything that I serve, he demands varieties. He is just so bored eating the same old conjee and mashed potatoes.

So all I could do was to reach my mom-in-law and find out what she had to offer in terms of recipes. She came up with tons of soups! Oh God, I had never even imagined that I could whip up so many varieties of them without adding spice to any. Thus this post in my blog was born.

To kick start here is the Okra soup.

1. Okra - 10 chopped into 1/2 inch pieces
2. Onion, Tomato - each 5 tsp, roughly chopped
3. yellow lentil - I used Mung beans - 5 tsp boiled and whisked later to mash them.
4. Curry leaves
5. 1 green chilly - slit
6. Salt, pepper and cumin for seasoning

Heat oil in a wok, season it with cumin. Saute onion and tomatoes in it. Add green chilly, curry leaves. After a couple of minutes add the okra. I know it is sticky. But the idea here is to get rid of the stickiness by sauteing. Medium heat, stir, saute without taking off your attention from this. After about 20 minutes you might get an idea of when to drop the boiled lentils in. The stickiness should be completely gone before you add lentils. Add salt and pepper. Let it boil for 10 more minutes.

Remove the green chilly if you think its gonna make it hot. I prefer less lentils, boiled thoroughly in just the right amount of water and then mashed (Tip : Use whisk to turn it into a pulp). After you add the lentils into the sauteed veggie, you can add water to decrease the viscosity - Oh meaning make it soupy. Many more soups to follow. I am trying to collect as many simple coup recipes as possible and put together so next time someone is sick and you are attending, you don't need to run out of recipes or make the same dish time and again.