I’ll be silent for a week or so. We are off to Delhi for a short vacation. My dear brother in law is soon getting hitched for a lifetime. He'll be getting engaged in a couple of days, so we’ll have big fat engagement ceremonies to be a part of, several families to meet and great, some partying, rasta shopping too and, of course lots of good food to relish.

We've been eagerly looking forward to the roka ceremony, followed by a series of colourful and interesting occasions like shagan and chunni chadhana, so you can imagine how excited the entire family is. After weeks of crazy wardrobe shopping, we have our bags ready, all filled to brim, begging space for more to accommodate. It’s been a crazy week as you can see!

But before I leave, I have this simple recipe for Spaghetti Aglio e Olio, aka Garlic Spaghetti along with a dozen photographs for you to feast. I'll have this auto-post while I'm away enjoying the ceremonies, so I hope that makes up for my absence.

The recipe is so simple that even a novice cook cannot go wrong with this one. I stirred in some homemade Basil Almond Pesto and these were delicious! My little one scraped the bowl clean, licking every bit of the pasta and the sauce. The husband loved the simple, yet fiercely spiced garlicky spaghetti and considered to be made too often. In all the recipe was a clean winner.

Garlic Spaghetti - Spaghetti Aglio e Olio

250 gms spaghetti
4-5 cloves chopped garlic
1-2 tsp. crushed red chilli flakes
1/4 cup olive oil
A bunch of freshly chopped basil
Grated parmesan cheese

In a large pot with boiling salted water cook the spaghetti pasta until al dente. Drain and drizzle a quick dash of olive oil. Meanwhile, place a large skillet over low heat and sauté chopped garlic, basil, and red chilli flakes with olive oil. I used dried whole red chillies and chopped them finely. Sauté till the garlic turns golden in colour. Toss pasta with garlic mixture and butter. Top it with a generous grating of parmesan cheese. Serve hot with a pesto of your choice.

The Garlic Spaghetti is delicious as is, but makes for a great meal if served with a salad and fresh pesto sauce of your choice. Simply toss the prepared Garlic Spaghetti in Basil Almond Pesto and serve warm or at room temperature.

It may sound clichéd, I really hate stating the obvious, but it is insane how quickly a year can fly by. I can’t believe that it’s time an entire year has gone by and we are close to its end. With hardly two days to go we will soon bid a bye to it. I hope you had a great time holidaying this Christmas with your family and friends. In a retrospect to the year 2012, it has been a fantastic one in all aspects that it pains parting away from it. It seems soon, too soon and I can’t come to terms in accepting that we are close to its finale. On a positive note, I am looking forward to the brighter prospects of 2013. My daughter is growing bigger and niftier with every passing day. The coming year she will turn 2 and may be step her first foot into schooling. She’s a quick learner and I am sure she will make waves in years to come.

To retrospect the year, the earlier part of the year has been quite eventful on personal and professional front. Firstly, I switched my job from what was right next door to travelling for hours in distance, yet I am in a sense of great satisfaction, getting what I expected out of my job. Then, as my daughter turned one this March, she moved out from her infant phase to being a high energy, active toddler which has been quite a welcome progress. That reasons why I have been quite lenient in blogging this year, despite taking time off in late evenings to keep my blog going. Strangely, I realized that I have been better than the last year where I had just about 37 posts and this year I crossed 40+ posts. Somewhere in February, I took a huge step when I moved out of blogspot to my own domain, but that was a wise decision, because I still love cooking, sharing, writing, clicking and blogging and all that’s associated with it! Sadly I missed out on many invites to media and blogger events that kept flooding my mailbox. But I realize I cannot stuff myself more than what I can take. So that’s okay.

This time of the year is when most people take a sabbatical, planning week long holidays or partying. What are your plans? The spirits are high, mood is warm and light and one inevitably tunes to being merry as the magical charm of New year steeps in. Hope you too enjoy these festive days with your families and friends and welcome the New Year with new hopes, dreams and loads of prosperity. In absolute desire to bid adieu to this year, here’s a quick pasta dish, Fusilli in Cheese Sauce I’m sharing with you. It’s nothing different than the traditional mac and cheese we’ve grown up eating. But yet, I would never want to replace the macaroni with any other kinds of pasta if I am making these. I always stock macaroni, but on odd days like this one, I ran out of macaroni and went ahead with fusilli. Here I did use fusilli, so I call it as Fusilli in Cheese Sauce, since Mac and Cheese, is Mac and Cheese and nothing else!

Fusilli in Cheese Sauce

INGREDIENTS

500 ml regular milk
1 onion, peeled and quartered
1 garlic clove
1 bay leaf
200 g macaroni (1 pack)
1 tbsp. butter
4 tbsp. plain flour (30gm)
125 g cheddar cheese, grated

DIRECTIONS

Cook the fusilli pasta in rolling boiling water with salt till its al dente. This will take about 10 mins or so. Drain out the water and then run the pasta under cold water to stop the pasta from cooking further. This also helps in keeping the pasta separate. Add a dash of olive oil, toss well and set aside.

Cut onion into quarters. In a milk pan, heat the milk along with onion, garlic and bay leaf until almost boiling. Remove from the heat, leave covered to infuse for 10 mins, then strain. Reserve the onion and garlic and use them as paste in other gravy dishes.

In a wide mouthed pan, melt butter. Add flour and cook stirring constantly for about a min on medium low heat. This is called as roux and is the base for thickeners. Pour the warm infused milk into the roux until smooth. Simmer for few mins, stirring often, until the sauce has thickened. The sauce is done when its thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon. Check by running your finger through the sauce on a spoon and it should leave a trail. Remove the pan from the heat, then add the cheddar cheese. Then stir until the cheese has melted. Season well with salt and pepper. Serve hot.

I have always admitted my love for Italian food. And I will always. My love for pastas is profound. We make our way out to binge over them at least once a week. And that needs no excuse. And with my little one adding to that bandwagon of cheese and pasta lovers, I deliberate we are growing big as a group.

My little toddler exhibits her fondness for cheese and tang flavors and relishes them exceptionally well. Over the past few weeks, I have sworn by the arrabiata sauce recipe for most of my pastas so much that I safely hang on to it. We kind of ran over boredom with this however. I mean how much of same stuff can you eat over and over again? In a bid to experiment a little more than the usual, I played around with totally different flavors this time.

BTW, I got a pretty bottle of Balsamic Vinegar that looks nothing less than wine and tastes closely similar too. Sort of like vinegar in wine, I guess it’s that. Aged grapes were meant to be wines, weren’t they?

How much I love these BBC GoodFood magazines that I am a regular subscriber of them. As the month end draws closer, I eagerly wait for their monthly edition, couriered and hand delivered, saving me from the menacing task of hunting them down in supermarkets. The magazine is par excellence, with good write-ups, strikingly drool-worthy photographs and wide variety of tried and tested recipes to try out, I am totally convinced it will be my best bed side reading for several nights to come. For 75 odd tried and tested recipes in one book for 100 bucks a magazine, isn’t that cheap? Now that’s what I call a clean deal! All these years I was hooked to their website, now I am glad they are finally in India, I have them my hands on!

I worked with Balsamic flavors in savory for the first time, wondering really how much of body it would render to the vinaigrette, considering pasta itself is bland and void of any flavor. While I am quite confident with a tomato sauce or white sauce that’s thick enough to hold the pasta, I speculated if the pasta would go loose in this recipe. Boy! I was wrong. I’ve known what magic Balsamic does when roasted with strawberries, but to contemplate in dressings, they just make the dish exotic and top notch.

I toyed around the recipe for Spaghetti with Tomatoes and Mozzarella Sauce from the Pasta edition (March month) of the GoodFood magazine (I love owning my copy), making a few subtle changes to the original recipe. Instead of cherry tomatoes I chopped 1 plump tomato, used Balsamic instead of rice vinegar, jalapenos instead of capers, which I did not have at hand and worked with basil instead of mint it called for. Also added olives for more flavor. The outcome was fabulous with burst of fresh tongue tickling flavors from Balsamic, olives, tomatoes and herbs. The Vinaigrette itself was appetizing and delicious. Do anticipate them to be commendable in salads too.

Spaghetti with Honey Balsamic Tomatoes and Mozzarella

Inspired by BBC GoodFood Magazine

INGREDIENTS

A fist full of Spaghettis
2 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil (I used Colevita extra virgin olive oil)
1 Red onion, finely chopped
4-5 cherry tomatoes, chopped to two (I used 1 plump tomato chopped instead)
4-5 pitted black olives, halved
1 jalapenos, chopped
Juice and zest of 1 lemon
1 tbsp. Balsamic Vinegar (I used Colevita)
1 tsp. Honey / Sugar
Salt and Pepper to taste
1 tsp. Fresh/Dried Basil leaves
Generous sprinkle of mozzarella cheese

DIRECTIONS

Bring a large vessel of water to rolling boil along with a teaspoon of salt added. Add the pasta, taking care to handle them gently to avoid any breakage. Spaghettis have lovely noodle lengths and look pretty when swirled around and served. Boil the pasta till al dante. Drain the water completely, drizzle some olive oil over the pasta and toss gently. Set aside to cool.

In a separate bowl, soak the chopped red onions in a mixture of balsamic vinegar, lemon juice and honey. Season liberally with salt and pepper. Allow the onions to soak and soften for at least 5 minutes. Then add in the olives, jalapenos and chopped tomatoes. Season liberally with fresh/dried herbs (basil or mint) to taste.

Toss this vinaigrette to the cooked pasta. Throw in some mozzarella and toss well gently. To serve, swirl the pasta around the fork and using a second fork transfer it to the serving plate gently so that it holds up nicely. Scatter over the veggies and dressing and serve with fresh gratings of mozzarella cheese.

I don’t actually arm myself in measuring out and following a recipe to the tee where no baking is involved. It doesn’t matter much when you vary ingredients and mess around here and there, it actually brings out your signature taste. Unlike while baking desserts, for savory and spiced dishes I think it’s best to believe in your intuition rather than exactness of the recipe. If you still think exact measurements matter, you can find the recipe here. To make a vegan dish, substitute honey with sugar and skip mozzarella all together.

If sun shines high and you’re looking for a light summer dish that screams for some flavoursome summer time meal, you have to try this. Call it a salad, a main course or just a one pot dish, it’s fresh, light and refreshing with a summery feel.

To forget the real world outside and just being glued to the big screen for three hours, there’s something almost magical about the way movies can whisk you away to another place and time, all without leaving your seat. My husband and I are big movie buffs, that we are often found at the theater on weekends. And no, that does not account for watching a DVD at home. It has to be a theater. Period.

If there's something I miss the most, it's camping at a theater on the weekends. I can probably watch the same movie at home on a DVD, but it can't beat that theater experience. I am eagerly waiting for my daughter to grow up... with a hope that we can go back to watching movies, pick up those nachos and popcorn, sit back and relax to catch up movies in theater together as a family and revive that experience on 35 mm screen. For the moment, there's enough on my plate, that I can't seem to find enough time for movies or other entertainment.

Weekends have been catching on me like crazy, we did pretty much nothing but stayed back at home. Rest, rest, rest, that's all my body cries for... and weekend seems to be the only time I can catch a bit on my sleep, personal space and hobbies. I love it that I have so much in hand, hopping around like a bunny all the time with so much to complete that I have no time to think about anything.

Of-course, I missed baking through the week so much that I promised I would dedicate an entire afternoon doing just that. This Spinach and Mushroom Lasagna was my effort to make a gloomy weekend peppy. I think I was pretty much fruitful at that. :)

Spinach and Mushroom Lasagna

INGREDIENTS

Lasagna sheets, about 8-10 numbers
2 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
3/4 ltr milk
A tsp of nutmeg powder
1/2 cup grated Cheddar cheese
1 pack Button mushroom (about 200 gm)
1 bunch spinach
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS

Prepare the lasagna sheets as per the instructions on the pack.

Bechamel Sauce

Melt the butter in a heavy saucepan over a low heat and stir in the flour and saute until the mixture darkens slightly (about 1/2 min). Gradually pour in the warm milk, stirring continuously until the sauce is smooth and begins to thicken. Add in a bay leaf. Reduce the heat and stir until it boils. Stir constantly as it tends to settle and burn at the bottom if unattended even for a minute. Heat until the sauce thickens to a thick-custard consistency (about 5 mins). Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Mix in generous tablespoons of grated cheddar cheese.

Prepare the vegetables

Pick, clean and wash the spinach and mushrooms. Chop them roughly. Heat some oil in a pan and throw in the spinach. Cook till they are wilted. Add in the mushrooms and saute them for 2 minutes. Do not over cook else they will turn soft and mushy. Season with salt and pepper.

Assembling the Lasagna

In an oven-proof dish, layer the lasagna sheets first, followed by a layer of spinach and mushroom mixture. Follow it up with white sauce and spread it well. Layer lasagna sheets again, another layer of the spinach mushroom mixture, followed by the cheese sauce, then another layer of lasagna sheets followed by the remaining veggies and then the remaining cheese sauce. Top with grated cheddar cheese. Bake in oven at 180 C for about 30 mins or till the top cheesy layer browns.

Cook the pasta a little less than done (al dante), since it absorbs liquid from the sauce and cooks further when you bake in oven. The amount of cheese to be used is your choice, reduce if you are on a diet. But I suggest you use a big helping of good cheese since the paste per se lacks spices, especially if it uses the white sauce (as against my comparison with Indian cuisine), it's only the cheese that offers a rich taste to this dish. The lasagna is a meal in itself. Pair it with salads and they'll make a complete meal for you.

Cooking at home is mostly Indian, a mix of both North Indian and South Indian cuisines. There's little scope to experiment with recipes on week days, since I owe time outside home and kitchen too. It may vary depending on what's on stock in my pantry... from being Rajma Chawal one day to Anna Saaru the next day. My weekends however are reserved to extensive work outs in kitchen... experimenting with more diverse flavors, cuisines that go beyond our comfort cooking, it's an attempt to recreate my favorite cuisines in my own kitchen, be it Indian or international.

Italian cuisine is such a favorite with us that I inevitable end up either making my beloved pasta, lasagna or pizzas at home over the weekends. Be it picking the right ingredients from the store, making pizza dough from scratch or putting together the herbs and spices for ragu, I love it all.

Ever since I first tasted Pasta with Arrabiata sauce, I have been hooked to it. Also, been incessantly on look out for good recipes to replicate them at home. I haven't understood exactly what an authentic Arrabiata sauce is like, since most Arrabiatas that we have had in restaurants have slight variations in flavors. I guess it comes from the herbs used. But yes, arrabiatas have a thing in common and that's the heavy tang from tomatoes, which I totally adore.

While I am a spaghetti person and love the noodle strands, my husband loves pastas in every other form, be it penne, fusilli, macaronis. Give me a choice and I would pick spaghetti. My Mr. finds it too clumsy to swivel the fork around the noodle and pick them. Probably a sound reason why he chooses Chinese Fried rice over Hakka noodles. Anything, other than the noodle shape. Period. Astonishingly, his evergreen love for Maggie noodles still hold strong roots. There's something in there which hooks men to their beloved Maggie!

A few months ago, I lay my hands on the cookbook 'Vegetarian Cookbook', picked from Crossword. A hard-bound book with some good vegetarian recipes from all over the world, some good photography to accompany it, this undoubtedly would you leave you with cravings and hunger pangs. The book has been with me for a couple of months and the recipes are simple, yet worth the attempt. Pasta all'arrabiata was a winner recipe for me, pretty close to perfecting the flavors we get in an Italian restaurant. A little modification was required in terms of ingredients like dry wine and pecorino cheese which is far from my reach here. May be, you should give an attempt to agree to this.

Penne al'arrabiata (pasta in tomato chilli sauce)

(Adapted from Vegetarian Cookbook)

INGREDIENTS

150 ml dry white wine (I skipped this)
2 tbsp sun-dried tomato paste
1 aubergine, chopped to squares
2 red chillies, finely chopped
2 pod garlic cloves, finely chopped
350 gm penne pasta
4 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
Salt & pepper
Fresh pecorino cheese, to garnish (I used grated cheddar cheese)

Sugocasa

4-5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/2 kg ripe tomatoes, finely chopped
Salt and pepper

DIRECTIONS

First make the Sugocasa, the sauce. Heat a tbsp of oil in a fry pan over high heat until smoking. Add the chopped aubergines and cook till tender. Set aside. Again heat the remaining oil in a fry pan over high heat until smoking. Add in the tomatoes and cook stirring frequently for a few minutes. Reduce the heat and cook gently for about 20 minutes, or till very soft. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Press through a sieve and strain to a saucepan.

Add the tomato paste, the red chillies and garlic to the sugocasa and bring it to a boil. Simmer gently. Add the stir fried aubergines. Taste the sauce. If you like hotter flavor, add more chillies. Adjust the seasoning and stir in half of the parsley.

Meanwhile, bring a large saucepan of lightly salted water to a boil. Add the penne pasta and cook for 8-10 minutes till tender, yet firm to bite. Drain the pasta and transfer to a warmed bowl. Add the sauce and toss well to coat. Sprinkle remaining herbs and garnish with cheese shavings.

Addition of aubergine was not a part of the original recipe. You may add mushrooms, courgette, zucchini or other vegetables of your choice. In case you don't like the bite from chillies, use chilly powder instead like I did. Also, sun-dried tomato paste may not be an easy access to all, hence substitute with thick tomato paste. My pastas are doused in sauce and that's how I like my pasta saucy, so I tend to make a little excess of the pasta sauce always. That's explains why my pasta has a rich red color.

I love to toss my pastas with a dash of mixed Italian herbs, imparting it a nice flavor. While the basic recipe for the pasta remains the same, I have tried the pasta with basil instead of parsley. That too renders awesome flavors with a slight variation in the herbal notes. Serve the pasta hot with garlic bread. This recipe is a keeper for sure and since pastas so often appear on my kitchen counters, I am sure to make this again and again.

Daily Breads is one place in Bangalore where you get amazing salads (atleast I haven't seen any other joints offering salads) where we get to make our choice of ingredients. Select what you want and they make it for you. I have been missing them from the time we moved. I always wanted to make them at home the similar way, so that I don't miss them.

Weekdays are getting hectic and cooking a dinner sometimes does get tiring. Salads are helping me make my cooking easy. Sometime these salads can be so complete that they substitute our dinners. This is one such evening where it was not just the coleslaw, but a lot more added to it to make it nutritious and healthy and moreover complete our meal. Fruits and vegetables all brought together, this is coleslaw with apple potato penne salad. This salad goes well with any lunch or dinner or as is. It's perfectly filling and makes up for a good meal. I no longer miss Daily Breads.

Coleslaw with Apple Potato Penne Salad

INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup finely shredded cabbage
1/2 shredded lettuce leaves
1 apple chopped to cubes
1/2 cup potato, boiled and chopped to cubes
1/2 tomatoes, chopped
1/2 cup penne pasta
4 tbsp mayonnaise
4 tbsp sour cream/ yogurt
Few crisp toasted and broken bread pieces
Salt and pepper to taste
Few parsley leaves torn roughly

DIRECTIONS

Boil penne pasta as per the instructions given on the pack. Toast the bread pieces till crisp and break them to bite sized pieces. Add these to all the rest of the ingredients. Beat yogurt with mayonnaise and add to the above. Garnish with fresh torn parsley and serve.

Pasta doesn't require any introduction :) All know that it roots to Italian cooking. However, there are different shapes and names of pasta, although they are all basically made of same ingredients. My previous post spoke of sheet pasta while this one, Fusilli belongs to the spiral types. Fusilli Delight!

Fusilli Delight!

INGREDIENTS

1 pack Fusilli pasta cooked as per instructions on the pack
2 tomatoes finely chopped
1 onion finely chopped
1 tsp of red chilly powder/paprika
1 tbsp Oil
Salt to taste
Few basil or cilantro/coriander leaves

DIRECTIONS

Pasta should be cooked in boiling water to an extent where it is just about to be cooked. If it is over cooked, the pasta would lose it's shaped and become too mushy. Remove it immediately, drain and wash through cold water so that the cooking is stopped. Drain, add a tsp of oil and keep it aside.

Heat a tbsp of oil in a pan. Fry the chopped onions till transparent and is about to brown. Add tomatoes at this stage. Fry for 2 minutes and then add the pasta. Season with salt and red chilly powder. I like this one slightly spicy. Garnish with basil or cilantro leaves.

Do no add water. Tomatoes and onions cooked in oil and seasoned with red chilli powder/paprika is what renders flavors to this dish. This will be done in minutes. Simple, easy and quick! Fusilli delight is ready to be served hot.

Not many know my fetish obsession for Italian food. Even fewer know that I actually love to cook Italian food! Lasagna is a perfect meal for a heart that loves pasta. Perfectly Italian! And what a better way to treat yourself if it's a home-made lasagna pasta! For a pasta lover like me, I had been waiting to try my hands at preparing this delight for long.

Videojug.com is one of the websites that has great videos, step-by-step procedures and clear explanation of how to go about stuffs. It covers cuisines all over the world. I could never imagine of making pasta at home without a pasta-maker had I not come across this video online on Videojug.com to make pasta at home. I want to thank videojug for sharing the recipe in an easy way. I followed it the way they showed and it came out wonderful. Fresh pasta - all made at home! I opted using oil instead of eggs. I think you should definitely watch the video. It's brilliant!

It's not very easy to get a lasagna sheet here in India. Few big malls do have it I suppose. But since the demand is quite low, they usually stocks old products which are about to expire. After all the futile efforts of looking for good lasagna sheets, I decided to make the lasagna sheets at home. It was not as difficult as I expected it would be. The sheets came out perfectly well, so did the sauce and my veggies. The outcome was good and beyond my expectations! My only complaint, I wish I had an oven that could heat to higher temperatures. It seems to take ages for the cheese to brown :( Infact, I ran out of patience and removed it before it could brown well. Anyways, it came out so rich, creamy and cheesy that my husband insisted that I should serve this when we have guests over the weekend.

I have made Lasagna a couple of times. The sauce and fillings can vary. Freshly prepared tomato sauce with mixed herbs, readily available pasta sauce, white sauce, etc can be used in combination. Use as varied veggies like aubergines/brinjals, colored peppers, mushrooms, spinach, tomatoes, zucchini, carrots, baby corn, cauliflower, etc. I opted for a simple one with a combo of mushroom and capsicum as it goes best with white sauce. My favorite however is Spinach Lasagna where cooked spinach and cream are added between layers of Lasagna along with these veggies.

Mushroom Capsicum Lasagna

To make the Lasagna, prepare the following:

Lasagna Sheets
1 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup water
4 tbsp
Oil
Salt to taste

Make a mound on the counter with the flour and create a well in the center. Add the salt and oil. Start pouring in the water slowly, mixing with your fingers between each addition. Add enough water to bring the flour together in a ball. Begin to knead the dough using more dough until it is smooth. At this point the dough should be a stiff dough (slightly more stiffer than). Wrap in plastic and let sit 20 minutes before rolling.

To roll, take a 6 inch ball of dough and place on a lightly floured surface. Begin to roll into a flat disc. Roll from front to back, turning the dough clockwise about 1/4 turn after every few rolls of the pin. Once the dough is stretched and is thin enough for your hand to be seen through, it's done. Cut into rectangles depending on the size of you baking sheets. Cut into rectangular slices of 8x12 cms each. I cut mine to a single 12" x 12" sheet as that was the size of my baking dish. Commercially available lasagna sheets are smaller rectangular stripes.

Bechamel Sauce

2 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 ltr milk
Salt
Freshly ground pepper
1/2 cup grated Cheddar/Parmesan cheese

Melt the butter in a heavy saucepan over a low heat and stir in the flour and saute until the mixture darkens slightly (about 1/2 min). Gradually pour in the warm milk, stirring continuously until the sauce is smooth and begins to thicken. Reduce the heat and stir until it boils. Stir constantly as it tends to settle and burn at the bottom if unattended even for a minute. Heat until the sauce thickens to a thick-custard consistency (about 5 mins). Season with salt and pepper. Mix in grated cheddar/Parmesan cheese.

Prepare the veggies

1 cup capsicum
1 cup mushroom

Saute a cup of capsicum and mushroom on medium heat for about 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Assembling the Lasagna

In an oven-proof dish start layering with lasagna sheets, followed by a layer of vegetable mixture, followed by white sauce, some lasagna sheets again, another layer of veggies, followed by the cheese sauce, then another layer of lasagna sheets followed by the remaining veggies and then the remaining cheese sauce. Top with grated cheddar and Parmesan cheese. Bake in oven at 180 C for about 30 mins or till the top cheesy layer browns.

You may wonder why I have used raw pasta sheets instead of the cooked ones. If the pasta is pre-cooked and baked, the lasagna may turn out quite wet and soggy. But if the raw pasta sheet is used, it absorbs some moisture from the veggies and sauce and cooks while being baked. The resulting pasta will retain it's shape and make it easier to cut. Otherwise home-made pasta sheet requires less than 3-4 mins to be cooked in boiling water. The best method to serve lasagna is to cool it for about 5 minutes after removing from the oven. Once the top layer is cool, it makes it easier to cut them into pieces without creating a mess. Serve hot with salads or as is. A treat to the taste buds! Loved every bit of it.... so cheesy... cheesy... creamy!

A Perfect Quick Healthy Meal!

Are you feeling tired or lethargic? Or you've been out all day and are back home for dinner, but you don't have sufficient time to cook a complete meal. Do you wish to wrap up a quick meal not wanting to spend too much time in the kitchen? But your better half is hungry and expecting a good meal tonight? I am sure you have been through this sometime. Well, this is what you can do?

The trick here is not to strain yourself too much, but making a meal that looks worth a day effort! Now here's something that can make it look elaborate, but isn't as much as it looks. Adding to it, it's a great meal loaded with nutrition. I started with boiling vegetables on one hand, cooking pasta and making the white sauce simultaneously.

Step 1: Choose a mix of veggies available in your pantry. 1/2 cup each of the following veggies diced and boiled. Carrots, peas, spring onions, cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, sweetcorn or baby corn, french beans, mushrooms, spinach (boil separately as they leave color), etc. Add a finely chopped green chilli for some spice (optional).

Boil these veggies (sufficient for both clear veg soup and pasta) in water. Add salt while cooking. It takes about 10 mins. Cabbage and mushrooms are added just before the other vegetables are about to cook. Make sure that the vegetables are just cooked and they retain their crispness. We don't want them mushy.

Step 2: While the vegetables are cooking, prepare the pasta. Cook the pasta in boiling water with salt and a tsp of oil till they are just done. Drain the water, add another tsp of oil.

Step 3: Using a slotted spoon, transfer a part of these veggies (without the broth) to another bowl and kept them aside for dressing the pasta.

Now for the Mornay Sauce, we require the following

4 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 garlic pods pods
1 onion slit to 4 pieces
4 cloves (pierced them onto each onion piece)
2 cups milk salt freshly ground pepper
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Heat the butter in a sauce pan over medium-low heat until melted. Slowly add the milk to the butter and whisk continuously. Pierce about 4 cloves to the onion. Add this with garlic to the milk. Add the flour and stir until smooth. Turn up the heat to medium and cook the flour for about 6 to 7 minutes. This will prevent the sauce from having a raw flour taste. Whisk continously to prevent lumps. Bring to a boil. Remove the onion pieces and then add 1/2 cup grated cheese to 1 cup of hot sauce; stir over low heat until cheese is melted. Cook for 10 minutes, stirring constantly to prevent scorching, then remove from heat. Season with salt and pepper. Keep warm until ready to use.

Clear Vegetable Soup

Scoop out the remaining veggies with the broth into serving bowls. Add freshly ground pepper to them and serve hot.

Italian pasta in Mornay Sauce

Here's how we can arrange the pasta. It's done in 3 layers with pasta as the base, following the veggies and then the sauce.

Base: Place a layer of steaming hot pasta as the base.
Middle Layer: Layer the next layer with the cooked veggies.
Topping: A nice serving of the Mornay white sauce. Garnish with basil leaves.

Believe me, I just took 20 mins to prepare and serve this one! 5-7 mins to chop, 10-12 mins to boil veggies and pasta and another 3-5 mins to layer and serve. And not just for those lazy days, this one is a sure hit among your family and friends and will be loved by all!