Easiest Pasta Of All Time.

You guys. I posted a pasta recipe waayyyy back and I have been experimenting a lot with other recipes a lot lately. The recipe I will show you today is basically the easiest recipe I have ever devised. The pasta turns out creamy, tomatoey and delicious to say the very least, so yeah, I'm going to stop yapping, so, you can go ahead and read up the recipe.

Ingredients: 

1.100 grams (uncooked measure) of cooked pasta;

2. 1/2 cup of tomato puree;

3. 1/4 cup oat or regular milk;

4. 1/4 cup water;

5. 1 teaspoon oregano;

6. 1/2 teaspoon chilli flakes (optional);

7. Salt to taste;

8. 2 cloves of garlic.

Procedure:

1. Roast garlic in pan until fragrant;

2. Add in tomato puree, water, oregano, chilli flakes and salt;

3. Let cook on medium high heat for five minutes or until the mixture is halved;

4. Turn the heat to medium low;

5. Add in milk and let cook for three minutes;

6. Add in pasta and let cook for five minutes;

7. Optional is adding in roasted bread crumbs for crunch.

I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I enjoyed creating it. Until next time!

Shireen's Baked Beans

Have you ever walked into a British bakery, ordered a plate of baked beans on toast, have a taste of it and think, "I could totally recreate this" but then reality hits you hard and then you realize that you have put in Indian spices into your baked beans but it still tastes dang delicious? Well, that's how this recipe was born.
At first, before tasting it, I was really skeptical. My mind ran everywhere thinking I had majorly messed up a lot of food, it took some courage to take one bite and five minutes to complete one serving. I'm not ashamed and I won't judge if you do the same.
Here goes everything:

Ingredients (makes three servings):

1. 1 and 1/2 cup of  cooked soybeans or any other bean of choice;

2. 3 diced tomatoes;

3. 1/4 cup tomato paste;

4. 1 cup vegetable stock;

5. 2 clove of garlic, finely chopped;

6. 1 large onion, chopped;

7. 2 teaspoons curry powder;

8. 1 teaspoon cumin;

9. 1 tablespoon chilli powder;

10. 1 tablespoon vegetable oil;

11. Salt to taste;

12. 1/2 cup cooked corn (optional).

Procedure;

1. In a medium sized pan, warm oil on medium-high heat;

2. Add in the garlic and onion until garlic is fragrant and the onion is translucent;

3. Add in the tomatoes and salt and let the tomatoes cook for five minutes;

4.Add in soybean, corn, cumin, chilli powder, tomato paste, curry powder and vegetable stock;

5. Stir around and cover with lid for 20 minutes or until thickened and reduced.

6. Serve warm with toast ( I serve mine with toast and cream cheese)

Voila! enjoy some warm Indian style baked beans!

Basil-Mint Lemonade.

SUMMER IS HERE! Well, its been here for a while but I'm still screaming because it's not over yet. Now, if you know me, you know that I am always looking forward to summers, regardless, the time of the year and to be honest I'm not ashamed of it. I look forward to summer because I love staying indoors on hot days sipping on a drink. I don't know about you but the reason I stay in is because I live in a very humid city and getting out during the day in the month of June is nearly impossible, so, I curl up with a book and a lemonade waiting for the sun to set. That being said, I'm here to share my favourite lemonade recipe, the one I sip quite often.
Keep in mind that this recipe yields one serving, so, double, quadruple, if needed.

Basil-Mint Lemonade:

Recipe:

1. 5 basil leaves ( I used Thai Sweet Basil);

2. 10 mint leaves;

3. 1.5 cups or 355ml of cold water;

4. 3 tablespoons ground up sugar;

5. 3 tablespoons worth lemon juice.

Procedure:

1. In a food processor, add in: basil leaves, mint leaves, sugar, lemon juice;

2. Blend until cooperated;

3. Pour out in a glass of choice and add in the water;

4, Add ice if needed.

I hope you love the recipe and find it soothing in this heat, until next time!

Vegan Milks: Almond, Rice, Oat.

Veganism is a lifestyle many are adopting nowadays and it is catching on everywhere, even, here in India. I have a few friends who have named veganism their primary lifestyle about a couple of months and probably, their main problem with their lifestyle is the lack of availability of non-dairy milks except for soy-milk. If you haven't tasted soy-milk, you wouldn't know that it tastes absolutely disgusting, so, here I have three delicious non-dairy milks for my vegan and lactose-intolerant friends.

1. Almond Milk: 

Recipe:

1. 1 cup almonds;

2. 4 cup water+ extra to soak. 

Procedure:

1. Soak almonds overnight;

2. Blend almonds and 4 cups of water in a blender, till frothy and creamy;

3. Store in airtight container for 3-4 days.

2. Rice Milk:

Recipe:

1. 1 cup cooked white rice;

2, 2 cups water.

Procedure:

1. Blend rice with water in a blender until creamy;

2. Store in airtight container for 2-4 days.

3. Oat milk:

Recipe:

1. 1 cup oats;

2. 2 cups water.

Procedure:

1. Blend oats and water together in a blender until creamy;

2. Store in airtight container for 2-4 days.

I hope you give these delicious vegan milks a try and enjoy them too! until next time!

Student Series: 3 School Breakfast Ideas!

Hey guys! I know it's been a while since I've posted and I apologize for the very long over haul but I had my reasons. I can't really mention what but I promise you'll get to know of it soon, so, stay tuned!

This weeks blog is going to focus on school breakfast ideas. A while ago (long while) I shared two school lunch ideas and I promised a school series and here I am!
Breakfast before school for me was a very alien idea. I am one of those people who doesn't immediately get hungry in the morning, therefore, I skipped breakfast (I couldn't even look at food in the morning) and massacred everyone in school by being hungry and mad for no reason. As time passed, I realized that all of these unpleasant interactions were caused by an empty stomach and that resulted in me forcing myself to eat breakfast in the morning, usually, cereal and milk. Gradually, the idea of early breakfast did not disgust me and I started to enjoy eating while catching up on the latest music videos. This, however, was the silence before a storm. I am a person who gets bored easily and you can imagine me getting bored of the plain old cereal.
The thing you must know about me, is that, I can't be bothered with cooking or prepping in the morning. Partially because I'm a night person and partially because when was at school, I had to wake up at 6:00 A.M. and that wasn't ideal for me to be energetic or fun.
So, I started prepping my breakfast the night before, but don't worry! These recipes still take ten minutes and are absolutely delicious.
Here are my three favourites:

1. Pre-Packaged Smoothie.

Now, the thing about smoothies that makes them adore worthy is their versatile nature. You can add in whatever you like and leave whatever you don't.

The idea of pre-packaged smoothie is simple. You just add in your favourite fruit(s), greens, and frozen yogurt cubes* in a resealable bag, pop it in the freezer the night before and just roll out of bed, throw in the contents of the bag in a blender with half-cup of liquid and boom! no more Monday morning blues.

My Favourite Recipe For A Smooth Smoothie:

1. 1/2 non-dairy/ dairy milk;

2. 1/4 cup washed and shredded spinach;

3. 1 large mango; cubed;

4. 1 cup pineapple;

5. 2 large yogurt cubes.

Procedure:

1. Put everything in a resealable bag, except for the milk and freeze overnight;

2. Add liquid to blender with contents of the bag and blend.

*frozen yogurt cubes: Just scoop some yogurt into ice cube trays and freeze overnight.

2. Energy Bites:

These are absolute life-savers, trust me. Imagine waking up on a Monday, skipping breakfast, slumping your way to school and remembering you have Economics as your first class. Well, that was the situation for me. 

These energy bites are what helped me through every Monday morning Economics class and actually made me pay attention in my classes rather than counting the minutes to lunch break.

Recipe:

1. 10 pitted dates ( I use Barni dates);

2. 1/2 cup oats;

3. 3 tbsps cocoa/cacao powder;

4. 2-4 teaspoons water.

Procedure:

1. Put all the ingredients, except for water, in a blender and blend;

2. If the mixture is dry and doesn't come together add in 1 teaspoon of water at a time, until it is roll-able consistency;

3. Roll it between your palms to form bite-size balls.

3. Crudites;

You cannot get simpler than crudites. Crudites are French appetizers involving sliced raw veggies with a dip. 

You can just chop up some of your favourite raw veggies and serve it with hummus or my delicious yogurt dip.

Veggies I used: Carrot, French beans, Cucumber, Red Bell Pepper and Celery. You can cut the vegetables and make the dip the night before and store them in different air-tight containers. Now, all you have to do is put it all together in the morning in just a few minutes.

Recipe (Yogurt Dip):

1. 1/4 cup of yogurt;

2. 1/2 tablespoon garlic powder;

3. Salt to taste.

And those are all three breakfast ideas. I hope you'll give these a try and enjoy them just as much as I did back in high school.

Until next time!

Now, we all know that nobody knows it all. I love blogging recipes and stuff for you all but I don't know each and every recipe in town.
As a result, I always look up on YouTube to be updated on each and every new recipe. I don't, obviously, copy the recipes; I just understand the basics and create an ambrosia version of it.
YouTube can be tricky, you don't know if the recipes will come out great or not and you don't know which YouTube cook/chef to trust. So, here's a list of my favourite YouTube cooks/chefs; trust me their recipes always turn out great!
(In no particular order)
1. The Domestic Geek

The Domestic Geek is run by this amazing woman named, Sara Lynn. The food she posts are mostly healthy and will make your life more convenient and nutrition enriched.
Must try recipe: Every smoothie recipe!
2. Gemma Stafford:

Gemma is a professional baker who has brought it in her genius baking techniques to YouTube. I find her recipes easy to make and the ingredients she uses readily available in India.
Must try: Her microwave mug recipes and no-machine ice cream recipes.
3. Munchies:

Munchies is a food related show run by Vice. Munchies essentially captures the essence of food and does so by treating your eyes to not only recipes but also, techniques and too by professionals. With Munchies, your taste buds and eyes are in for a treat.
Must try: A standard Five Leaves brunch recipe by the chef of five leaves himself.
4. Brothers Green Eats:

Brothers Green Eats is a YouTube channel run by brothers, Mike and Josh Greenfield. Their food can be defined best as gourmet meets street; something I have looked for for years. The food they cook is simply what I'd call divine.
Must try: 8 simple microwave recipes for gamers.
Now, where is the YouTube tab?
(P.S.: The pictures belong to their rightful owners and are only used for represention purposes.)

Christmas cheer!

So, with the holidays around the corner, there is a merry tone to our surroundings. It is the season of togetherness, be it family, friends or even subtle acquaintances. Christmas is best celebrated when shared, so, for today's blog, I've collaborated with Sukanya, founder of entreetodessert.weebly.com to bring you guys four amazing holiday recipes, now, on my blog, you'll find one of my two recipes and one of Sukanya's two recipes and when you're done reading this blog, head over to Sukanya's blog for another one of mine and another one of her recipes.
Recipe: 1
Shireen's peppermint hot chocolate.
These peppermint hot chocolate are decadent enough to remind of Christmas with every sip, delicious in being, now don't you worry, Christmas calories don't count!

Time: 15 minutes
Yields: 150 ml
Ingredients:
1. 1 cup milk;
2. 1/2 cup cream;
3. 30 grams of dark chocolate/ milk chocolate
4. 1 tablespoon sugar (if using milk chocolate, omit this step.)
5. 2 crushed peppermint candies.
Procedure:
1. In a boiler, add in milk and cream and heat till steam can be seen. You don't want to boil this mixture, boiling will cause the cream to burn.
2. When heated, remove from flame and add the chocolate and the crushed candies, whisk till well combined.
3. Done and done! Enjoy this amazing drink!
Recipe: 2
Sukanya's shortbread cookies.
Time: 20 minutes
Yields: About a dozen cookies
Christmas is all about cakes, cookies and candies! These buttery short bread cookies are absolutely delicious and perfect for Christmas. It is so easy to make and requires only 3 ingredients. Wrap them up in cute boxes and gift them to your loved ones to make their Christmas merrier. 

INGREDIENTS:
1.150g flour
2.1 stick or 100 g butter, cut into cubes
3.50 g castor sugar
METHOD:
1.Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
2.In a bowl mix the flour, butter and sugar. Slowly shape it into a dough.
3.Using a rolling pin, roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface.
4.Cut the dough into desired shapes.
5.Place the cut out dough on a baking tray and bake for 20 minutes or till they are golden brown, depending upon the thickness of your cookies.
6.Let it cool down completely before biting in!
TIPS: Use cookie cutters shaped like hearts, stars and Christmas trees to add more cuteness to your cookies.
Here's a little bit about my collaboration guest :
Recipe by: SUKANYA SAHA
I’m the founder of Entrée to Dessert (entreetodessert.weebly.com) a recipe blog, aimed at making cooking at home easy and delicious. A graduate from St. Xavier’s College, preparing for CA finals, I’ve always been passionate about food. Food, to me, is all about sharing and through Entrée to Dessert, my team of featured columnists and I share easy, tested, fail-proof and delicious recipes. We started out on 1st June 2015 and now, we have a reader base of 2500+ and the numbers only seem to be increasing.

Un-boxing of the Borosil Primus Juicer+ Two of my favourite juice recipes+ Review of said juicer.

There are only a few things in life I'll admit to, one of them being my ignorance towards the usage of a juicer. If and when I needed juice, I could go out and buy myself a pack of pre-made juice and that would be that folks.

Last month or so, I was walking around the mall with a friend of mine, you know, just Saturday afternoon window shopping, since we were bored out of our minds, we visited an electronic appliance shop and almost everything there was on sale, my friend pointed me towards the direction of a juicer which was 50% off but I neglected it and went on ahead. I’ve had my share of second thoughts on that very hasty decision.

So, when Borosil sent over this juicer for reviewing, I was like, “Ya, Okay, let’s see what’s all this about.”

After several minutes of thinking, I realized that a juicer is a useful kitchen asset and saves you those valuable minutes of above thinking. My kitchen is my sanctuary and almost every day, something delicious is created there. I am a huge fan of juice and this juicer came as a huge blessing. Fresh juice is better than packed juice because:

1.       It is free of preservatives and unnecessary sugar;

2.       It is fresh.

My mother wasn’t particularly happy about the juicer because, “saaf kaun karega?” (who’ll clean it?)

 Un-Boxing.

Now, unboxing the juicer was a breeze. The juicer was boxed perfectly and everything was intact, the juicer was pre-arranged to save your life and the instruction manual was as simple as it could be. The juicer, like any standard one, had a pulp collector, juice collector, food pusher, stainless steel micro-mesh strainer basket, feed chute, locking latch and a switch.

 Recipes.

Recipe: 1

I love green juice, probably any juice that contains green vegetables with fruit because then I’d have my nutrition and not have to put gross flavours into my mouth.

My first recipe is “detox and strength”. 

Juicing this recipe was a breeze, I just put all my ingredients into the juicer and dialled my dial to setting no.2 for I had apples in the system and juicing them would require more power. Now, when you’re making this recipe, be sure to layer the ingredients instead of just putting one ingredient after another, this way, you’re letting the flavours meet each other in harmony. Also, with this recipe, you have to juice the ingredients in two rounds because there’s only so much a juicer can take.

Ingredients:

     1 cup spinach;

          2 apples, roughly chopped;

        2 clementine oranges

       Now, just juice on setting no.2 and enjoy your delicious and nutritious juice.

Recipe: 2

I love orange, the colour and the fruit. Honestly, orange compliments all flavours; be it salad or chocolate but we aren’t talking about that today. Today, I’ll be sharing my recipe for a juice that’ll rejuvenate your soul.

-

My second recipe is “Rehabilitation.”

Ingredients:

1.       1 cup chopped carrots;

2.       2 clementine oranges;

3.       A dash of ginger;

4.       Juice of one lemon

Again, layer the ingredients up and this recipe also requires two rounds.

Juice it on setting no. 2 and blend that rehab of a juice up.

Verdict.

The juicer stands by its promise and gives you fresh juice under a minute. The juicer is easy to use and novices need not crack their brain open; the settings and instructions are clear.

While Juicing my second recipe, the sound made be the juicer sounded a lot like the audio derivation from Jurassic park but it was acceptable for it had to juice up a hard cup of carrots.

All in all, I loved this juicer; it is easy to deconstruct, clean and juice.

Shireen Review; 7/10.

Recommend it!

Student Series: Lunch Ideas For School!

When I was younger, much younger (not two years ago), my mom used to pack me lunch everyday and you might think I'm good at cooking but my mother's cooking is divine. Whenever I opened my lunch box, the food would disappear in seconds flat; this was when I was in tenth grade and we had school from 8:35 A.M to 2:40 P.M. My mum packed me really good food everyday but her food mostly consisted of chapattis and a spiced up vegetable, I appreciated all of my mother's hard work because this food was not only tasty but also filling. Then came 11th grade, this was when our workload lightened up in the form of fewer subjects, our school decided to leave us at 12:45 P.M instead of the regular 2:40 P.M. routine. I then realized that mom's lunch just wasn't appropriate. We have lunch break at 11:00 A.M. and at around 1:30 P.M.(it takes us about an hour to reach home.) our faces had to be thrust-ed with more food (act like you don't eat after school). For the sake of my stomach I asked my mom to resign from the school-lunch maker post. For a few days I attended school without proper lunch (I still do), I hogged on my friend's lunch (sorry, Shatakshi) and ate from the canteen, which isn't the best thing to do, I went online and searched for food options I could prepare easily and were, in comparison, better than cafeteria food, I found several videos but the ingredients mentioned aren't exactly available in India easily or in a cheap manner. I searched again and this time with "India" typed with my search. The results I got, 'Pizza Paratha' NoThankYouVeryMuch. So, I brainstormed and brought out two lunch ideas for school, these food items aren't hard to prepare neither do they require 1/2 of your pocket money, here we go:

 Recipe 1: Corn Salad.

This recipe is a really simple one, it's easy to make and good to go.

Ingredients:

1. Corn kernels (Frozen or Fresh);

2. 1 tomato; finely chopped;

3. Juice of 1 lemon;

4. Few leaves of coriander (chopped);

5. Salt to taste.

Procedure:

1. Boil the corn kernels till they attain a golden colour;

2. Mix the corn in with other ingredient.

Vola!

Oh, and for the side, I just packed some boiled pasta with a bit of salt. (I like it okay. Don't judge.)

Recipe 2: Corn Pizza.

You might want to make this a night before.

Ingredients:

1. 1 cup of boiled corn;

2. 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour;

3. Smoked chicken (optional);

4. 1 tomato finely chopped;

5. 1 and a 1/2 tablespoons Tomato ketchup;

6.1 tablespoon chili powder.

7. 1/4 cup of boiled corn.

Base:

1. Preheat an oven at 180 degrees Fahrenheit for twenty minutes;

2. Blend corn in a blender;

3. Add in the whole wheat powder, making it attain a dough like form;

4. Roll our the dough in a circle with a rolling pin (Chill, it doesn't have to be a circle);

5. Pop it in the oven for ten minutes or until perfectly done;

Sauce:

Okay, my go to sauce is just a mixture of Ketchup and chili powder. It's really good alright.

Procedure:

1. when the base is cooked, load it with the sauce and add the ingredients listed above or you know, improvise!

2. Pop it in the oven for about five minutes!

For the side, I chose two cut-up baby bananas.

Done and Done!

Also, also, also, This is the first installment of many blog posts yet to come dedicated to students, The Student Series!

I hope you guys like and enjoy all of them!

Until next time!