Truth Personified

I must start with apologizing for keeping you all waiting for this round-up. I had laptop issues and had to borrow (R)oomie’s work laptop to finally get this post ready for all of you! I got a lovely round-up and I can’t wait to share them with you…

Divya from Boston blogs at Coconuty Tales, sent us this scrumtious looking Coconut Pasta which I have queued up in my ‘must make’ list…

Shaheen who is from the West of Scotland and blogs at allotment2kitchen literally sent us Summer in a plateful , a Summer Pasta dish of Orzo with Broccoli and Olives.  
 

Janet from Canada, blogs at The Taste Space sent us 15-Minute Zippy Garlic-Basil Marinara with Zucchini Noodles. This recipe blew my mind and I can’t wait to try it out!

Tandy Sinclair who blogs at TandySinclair sent us Calamari Risotto which is very new and exotic for someone like me… What about you? Try it out and let us know!

Madge who blogs at the Vegetarian Casserole Queen sent us a Classic Macaroni salad - which makes me very happy because I don’t need too many reasons to make pasta and if its a salad what more reason do you need? :D

Juli from Georgia, blogs at Pictures of a Princess  sent us this versatile dish which can be made both vegetarian and non-vegetarian called the Chicken and Spatzle with Herb Butter   I learnt about a new ingredient ‘Spatzle’ from Juli and that’s the fun part of a round-up. You get to learn so much!

Sandhya, from United Kingdom sent in 2 recipes which I posted on my blog 

Pasta Pulav has a Indian touch to it and it’s fun cause it mixes up many pastas!

Spaghetti in tomato sauce with falafel and butter grilled vegetables is more like 2 dishes and is such a fun summer dish! Do try it out!

I hope you all have enjoyed this week’s round up! Thank you so much for being a part of it and for being patient too!

Next week Ruth from Once upon a Feast is hosting so please send all your delicious dishes to her - ruth (at) 4everykitchen (dot) com by Thursday, Aug 4th.  If you are interested in hosting you can contact Ruth too!

My previous post would be proof enough as to how excited I am about hosting Presto Pasta Nights… What got me even more excited was having my friends participate - I think I almost blackmailed one into sending me entries. Let me introduce Sandhya, a friend from kinder-garden and a genuinely sweet person. Over the years the only point of contact used to be at a common friend’s wedding and now thanks to the social network we are constantly in touch. Sandhya has been tempting us all with pics of her kitchen adventures and I’ve always seen tons of people ask her for recipes. I tried convincing her to get start a blog without much luck… Hope you’re listening Sandy! :D Without further ado let me share her recipes with you all as entries to Presto Pasta Nights 224!!!

Pasta Pulao.

Ingredient :

Pasta of your choice like penne , fusili , macaroni etc

Onion - 1 finely chopped

4 Garlic pods,

a piece of ginger , and

2 green chilies finely chopped

Potato - 1 large chopped to medium bits

Carrot - 1 large finely chopped

Beans - 10 sticks finely chopped

Tomato - 1 large finely chopped

Peas n sweet corn - 1 cup

Optional - cauliflower n green peppers finely chopped

Water as required

Seasoning : Salt Oil - 2 spoons Shajeera, bay leaf and cloves Coriander powder, jeera powder Method: Add oil in a large pan. Add shajeera, cloves , bayleaf and let them fry for a minute before adding onions , ginger, garlic and green chilies . Let them fry till onions turn transulent. Then add the remaining vegetables and fry for approx 5 mins . Add salt , and the masalas and pasta . Mix well and add water . Note that the water added here should be little more as ur boiling pasta with vegetables . Keep the lid on the pasta-veg mixture and keep stirring occasionally so that the pasta doesn’t stick to the vessel. Cook until the water is evaporated / pasta is cooked . Add water is u feel pasta is undercooked. Add a small stick of butter and garnish with coriander/ cilantro before serving .

Spaghetti in tomato sauce with falafel and butter grilled vegetables:

Ingredients :

Spaghetti - Half a pack boiled as per the instructions / with little oil

Tomato Sauce : Boiled and puréed tomatoes - 2 big or 3- medium

Onion - 1 big fried and paste into paste

ginger-garlic paste - 2 spoons

salt oregano, black pepper and thyme for seasoning

Falafel : 1 big cup chick peas - soaked overnight ( or for 8 hrs min ) and boiled

1 onion - finely chopped

3-4 garlic pods - finely chopped

3 spoons of fresh chopped parsley

1 spoon coriander powder

1 spoon cumin powder

2-3 spoons of flour ( for binding)

salt for taste

oil for frying

mix all the above ingredient in processor until a soft but firm dough is formed. lightly oil your hands and make small ping pong sized balls and slightly flatten them and deep fry .

Method : Boil and blanche tomatoes and fry onions along with ginger garlic paste and grind them together to get onion-tomato purée . Add little oil in a wok and let the sauce simmer and add the seasoning and in the meanwhile let spaghetti cook . Once the spaghetti is done, mix it along with the sauce and serve hot with the falafel balls on the side and butter grilled vegetables like beans-carrots-cauliflowers-broccoli

I am sooper excited to be hosting a food event for the first time ever! And when I say food, it’s PASTA my favourite food in the entire world! ;) Well to be honest it was the fastest, safest and tastiest bachelorette food when I started living alone. As a kid my Mom was forced to make mac and cheese (which is the tastiest form of pasta even now) many many times over the years. 

College days parties were more of Punjabi cuisine and after a while when I started working and could afford to eat out in costlier eateries I started experimenting with different kinds of pastas. I even got my bff hooked! Making pasta at home in India was a rarity and so when I came to live in the US my first month was filled with spaghetti and ragu sauce every day for dinner for about 2 months! Then I got my roomies and they started making amazing Gujarati food at home and I got over my pasta addiction for a bit. I still end up ordering Italian when I go out. 

After I was introduced to prestoastanights, an event hosted by Ruth of Once Upon a Feast  I started experimenting with pasta at home. About a year ago I even got myself papperdelles pastas from a farmers market and loved it. I’m proud to say that every variation of pasta made at our home has made it to prestopastanights! And recently I finally gathered courage to ask Ruth if I could host the event(I’ve never hosted a food event before) and she agreed!

So all my dearies, pasta lovers, food bloggers welcome to the first ever event on my space “The Presto Pasta Nights”

This space this week is for experimentation, creativity and tickling your “italian” taste-buds. Bring it on and send it to me before it’s too  late(midnight 7/28/2011 PST)

All the roundups can be found here. The guidelines are pretty simple:

1) The dish must have some sort of noodle, it doesn’t have to be traditional Italian type pasta, it can be hot, cold, salad, soup, main, dessert, or anything else, but it must have some kind of noodle;

2) If you are a food blogger you must mention Presto Pasta Nights with the link and link me to it as well. This is where you find out who’s hosting for the week you want to enter.

3) Email your entry to me at harinimenonnair@gmail.com (Please copy the email id from here because there is a ‘nn’ which you might miss otherwise)and a cc to Ruth(at ruth@4everykitchen.com) with the link to your post no later than Thursday so I can have the roundup ready on Friday.

4) As for photos: - it’s best to attach a jpeg of your dish in your email. If you wish to use a PPN logo, just copy it from the top of this post.

5) The best part - send in as many entries as you please!!!

Let it pour people!

I’m so crazy about pasta that I even watched an entire Korean Drama(twice) called Pasta(which by the way is now free on Hulu) and picked up tips from some of the episodes too!!! Yes - now you know me ;)

My previous PPN entries: PPN216, PPN212, PPN200, PPN197, PPN184, PPN183, PPN181, PPN180, PPN179 & PPN176

And the round ups: PPN216, PPN212, PPN200, PPN197, PPNR184, PPNR183, PPNR181,PPNR180, PPNR179 & PPNR176