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!

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!

REMINISCENT.

So, today is the first day I review a food product, soo yyyaayy! The food product I’m going to review today is more like a drink product; I’m going to review three flavours of the paperboat drink franchise! The three flavours up for reviewing today are: Aamras, Jaljeera and Jamun kaala-khaata. These are the only three flavours I could get my hands on to, paperboat has a variety of drinks AND even ice teas, I will try to find some.

Let’s start with review, shall we?

1.    Aamras: Aamras had a really thick and velvety texture which makes your throat joyful, the smell reminded me of the sweet mangoes of summer but the taste disappointed, it tasted like every other mango drink in India.

Retails for: Rs. 20

Content: 200ml

1.       Jaljeera: I have mentioned this before but I’ll mention it again, I grew up smack in the middle of a metropolitan but, and here is the big but, my roots do not belong here, every once in a while, during summer vacations, we visited my grandparents’ town, me and my cousins played around in the heat and quenched our thirst to the jaljeera wala’s jaljeera, the taste still rides on my tongue, paperboat’s jaljeera drink will not disappoint you, trust me, it will remind you of childhood and the beautiful moments it contained.

Retails for: Rs. 20

Content: 200ml

1.       Jamun kala khatta: No words for this flavour, this flavour will remind you of the kala-khatta baraf ka gola from childhood, again, leaving you in nostalgia, this flavour is my personal favourite, and I recommend it!

Retails for: Rs. 20

Content: 200ml

Well, that’s it for today; I’ll see you guys next week!

ADIEU!

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!

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!