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!

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!

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!

Vkusno!

How are you all? I need to tell/ask you guys something: did you know that dumpling has a fabulous Russian cousin? I bet you did, even if you didn't I’m here to tell you guys about it! The name of this dish is call pierogi, it follows the rule of the dumpling filling and the dumpling coat but has a different making procedure, by the way,  I wanted to make my own pierogis and photograph them but I’m unwell and my mother won’t let me out of bed, thank God for laptops, I've made pierogis several times before,so, I can tell with absolute certainty that these will taste awesome!

Ingredients:

For the coat:

2 cups of all purpose flour;

1 cup water.

Filling (Like dumpling, pierogi’s fillings have no confinements, fill in whatever you like!), I used:

1 cup finely chopped boiled baby corn,

½ cup parmesan cheese.

Paprika to taste.

Procedure:

Procedure:

Make the dough, add water to the flour and make moist dough;

Roll out the dough, with the help of a round cookie cutter, make small circles of dough;

Flatten out the circles one by one;

Add filling, be rational with filling, excess of filling might cause the dough to loosen up and open during the cooking process;

Close the opening the dough circles when the filling is satisfactory;

In a boiler, set water to heat up, when the water starts boiling, put the raw pierogis in it;

When the pierogis come up the surface of the water, remove pierogis;

In a pan, heat up oil and add in the pierogis, slow roast them and serve them hot!

Guysss! Important announcement, I am transforming this blog from food to lifestyle and food blog, I don’t know, this might be sick brain talking but I’m actually considering it, I will confirm this next week when I feel a little better!

Anyway,

YEST’ KHOROSHUYU YEDU!

Say cheessseee!

Bum-bum bummmm, Hey guys! How have you all been? Wonderful, I hope. Okay, I need to ask you guys if you like Mac and cheese? If yes, then you're gonna love this recipe!

Pasta in white sauce:

Ingredients:

1. 1 cup boiled pasta of choice ( I used macaroni);
2. 3/4 cup milk;
3. 1/2 cup cheese of choice;
4. 1 chopped onion;
5. 1 teaspoon chilli flakes;
6. 1 tablespoon dried thyme;
7. 1 tablespoon dried oregano;
8. 1 tablespoon butter;
9. 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour;
10. 2 tablespoons water;
11. Salt to taste.

Procedure:

Saute the onion and butter till the onion acquires a brown colour

Add in the milk, keep the heat to medium high

Add the cheese in shredded form

Mix the water and the flour, removing lumps, add in the mixture to the pan when the cheese is melted.

Add in the chilli flakes, oregano, thyme and salt.

Add in the pasta.

Remove from flame when the pasta is thick.

Enjoy!

Swadee-Kaa!

Hey there beloved people, How have you’ll been? I’ll tell you guys a little story, when I was around eleven years old I visited a country called Thailand and since then I’ve been spellbound, I love Thailand, I love the people, the culture, the food and the beaches but let’s exaggerate on the food part, Thailand is kind of home away from home, I visit there really often and the place never fails to surprise me in a positive manner, I begged my parents to take me there this year but they had certain reasons not to, one of them being that my brother just started college and his vacations have been really scarce, I felt kind of (second) home sick, I cannot enjoy the sceneries or the culture sitting back at home but I can recreate the food, so I recreated one of the simplest Thai foods: Som-Tam, now, here we go:

Ingredients:

.    1 cup shredded raw papaya; 

  ¼ cup peanuts;

   2 Thai red chillies; 

      2 cloves of garlic;

    1 lemon; 

      Salt to taste;

  1 tablespoon jaggery

 

 Procedure:

    In a mortar, add in the chillies and garlic and beat with pestle,

   Add in the salt and jaggery, beat till it looks like a salad dressing, and add the lemon juice.

   In a bowl mix the dressing, papaya and the peanuts together.

As simple as that!

ENJOY!