Avocado Pasta - Ready in 10 minutes

     

  Avocado pasta is a very easy and quick recipe. It is made by mixing Guac (Guacamole) with boiled pasta. You can also add stir fried veggies. The creamy taste of Avocado, The crunchiness of the veggies, The flavour of Garlic, lemon and coriander leaves gives an irresistible taste to this dish. Let us get into the recipe.

Ingredients:

For Guac:

1. Avocado - 2 (medium size)

2. Garlic -2 pods

3. Lemon Juice - 2 spoons

4. Coriander leaves - few chopped

5. Salt

For Pasta:

1. Any pasta of your choice - 1 1/2 cups

2. Water

3. Salt

4. Olive oil

For Stir fried veggies : (Optional) 

Any veggies of your choice.. I added 

1. Onions

2. Capsicums/Bell Pepper

3. Corn kernels

4. Spinach

Recipe:

Youtube link:

              Avocado Pasta

1. Boil water with a little salt and Olive oil.. Cook the Pasta in the boiling water.

2. While the pasta is boiling, scoop the avocado out of its skin in a bowl. Add finely chopped garlic pods, Lemon juice, finely chopped coriander leaves, salt. Mash the avocado well and mix all the ingredients. This Mix is called Guacamole (Guac). Original Guac has finely chopped onion n tomatoes in it. You can also add chilli flakes and other spices of you choice....

3. Mix Guac and boiled Pasta.. That's it! Pasta is ready!

                                                     

3. (optional step) Roughly chop onions, Bell pepper, spinach and saute in Olive oil with corn and salt. Do not saute for more than 2-3 minutes. The Veggies should retain its cruchiness. You can add chilli flakes if you like to have it spicy.

The Same can be done with any type of Pasta. One with Penne Pasta below

Enjoy a quick dinner which could be prepared in a Jiffy!

Mexican Style Veggie-Burrito bowl

                              Veggie Bowl is a Mexican Dish. Mexican food's taste have some similarities with Indian food's taste. May be because both countries are under tropical weather, the vegetables grown in both places are the same. There is no big recipe for this dish. It involves less cooking. Just we have to assemble cooked rice, guacamole, salsa, cooked beans, fajitas, sour cream and the list goes on as per our taste

Ingredients:

1.Rice

2. Beans

    a. Brown/Black beans

    b. Garlic

    c. Cumin powder

    d. Coriander leaves

3. Guacamole

    a. Avocado

    b. Onion

    c. Tomato

    d. Lemon

    e. Garlic

    f. Coriander leaves

4. Tomato-Onion Salsa

    a. Tomato

    b. Onion

    c. Garlic

    d. Coriander leaves

5. Pineapple-Mango Salsa (optional)

    a. Pineapple

    b. Ripe Mango

    c. Onion

    d. Coriander leaves

    e. Chilli flakes

6. Fajitas

    a. Onion

    b. Bell pepper

    c. Mushroom

    d. Cumin powder

    e. Chilli flakes

7. Corn

8. Chopped avocados (optional)

9. Sour cream/Curd

10. Shredded cheese

Recipe:

Rice:

Cook 1/2 cup of brown rice / white rice. I have jus added coriander leaves, lemon juice and salt to the cooked white rice. This is called Coriander rice in Mexican eateries. You can use plain Brown rice/white rice too.

Beans:

Soak 1/2 cup Black bean/brown bean in hot water for 2 hours. Cook the beans with salt, cumin powder, few garlic pods, few chopped coriander leaves for 5 whistles in a pressure cooker. Alternatively, the beans can be cooked in open pot as well.

Guacamole:

Mash 1 ripened avocado, finely chop 1/2 onion, 1/3 tomato, few garlic pods. Mix everything with salt and little lemon juice. Avocado oxidise and gets a dark colour. So adding lemon juice is mandatory. Also it gives good taste to guac (Guacamole is usually called Guac)

Tomato-Onion Salsa:

Finely chop 1/2 onion, 2 small tomatoes, few garlic pods, coriander leaves. Mix everything with salt.

Pineapple-Mango Salsa: (optional)

Finely chop few slices of pineapple, half of ripened Mango, coriander leaves, quarter onion. Mix everything with salt and chilli flakes

Fajitas:

Slice an onion, half of bell pepper, mushrooms(optional) lengthwise. Saute the veggies in olive oil. Season with salt, chilli flakes and cumin powder. The veggies should not loose its crunchiness.

Corn:

Cook few spoons of corn kernels. Dont skip adding corn. It gives a very good crunchy taste while eating.

               Serve the veggie bowl with few spoons of cooked rice, cooked beans, Guacamole, fajitas, salsas, cooked corn, chopped avocado (unripe), sour cream (sour cream can be replaced with curd), shredded cheese.

You can also add shredded lettuce, olives, green chillies, sliced Jalapeno, pickled Jalapeno (pickled in vinegar), cucumber, diced pepper and toppings like mustard sauce, ranch, sriracha etc

Notes:

1. There is no hard and fast rule for this recipe and ingredients. You can add veggies of your taste.

2. The above mentioned ingredients serves 2-3 people.

3. Make sure the rice is not over cooked. Brown rice suits well for this recipe.
4. Tacos can be prepared by stuffing the same mix in Roti/Tortilla (Roti kind made of corn flour) 

Pasta in Alfredo sauce

                     

                                   Alfredo sauce can also be considered as a white sauce in which heavy cream and cheese is added to the simple white sauce. White sauce is basically white roux(fat and flour) and milk. In this recipe, pasta is combined with Alfredo sauce and stir fried vegetables. We can simply use White Sauce in place of Alfredo sauce for a less fat version. Let us get into the recipe.

Ingredients:

1. Pasta of your choice - 1.5 cups (I used elbows)

2. Olive oil.

3. Salt.

4. Water (to boil pasta) 

5. Vegetables of your choice ( I used onions, broccoli, spinach, corn)

6. Garlic - 2 chopped

7. Butter - 2 tbsp

8. All purpose flour/ maida - 1 tbsp

9. milk - 1.5 cups

10. Heavy cream - half cup (optional)

11. Cheese (optional)

12. Dried Italian spices (Parsley, basil, Oregano etc)

13. Chilli flakes

14. Pepper powder.

The above ingredients serves 2 to 3 people. 

Recipe:

              First, let us boil the pasta. Boil water in a pan with salt and a little olive oil. Add pasta to the boiling water. Once the pasta is cooked, strain the pasta and keep it separately.

               Now, heat olive oil in a pan and saute the garlic. Then add the chopped veggies and stir them with little salt for few minutes. Do not over cook the veggies. Take the veggies out and keep them separately. 

                In the same pan, heat butter and roast the flour. Do not brown the flour. Add milk gradually and keep stirring the mixture. The mixture tends to form lumps. Use a whisk and keep on stirring. Add salt and allow the mixture to cook for few minutes. It will reach the sauce consistency. Add chilli flakes, pepper powder and Italian spices. U can skip Italian spices too. White sauce is ready. 

                 If you are making Alfredo sauce, add grated cheese and heavy cream to the white sauce and simmer it. Add the stir fried veggies to the sauce and cook for 2 mins

                    Add the cooked pasta to the sauce and give a stir. That's it. We are all done. 

Mango Panna Cotta

Panna Cotta(Cooked cream)is an Italian desert. Cream is thickened using Gelatin/Agar-agar. It can be flavored with with Mango, strawberry, coffee or anything of your choice. Here in the recipe I have layered Mango and vanilla flavored cream. Let us get into the recipe.

Ingredients:

For Mango Layer:

1. 1 cup mango juice.

2. 2 cups of Mango puree.

3. 1/4 oz of unflavored gelatin/Agar-agar.

For Vanilla Layer:

1. 1 cup milk

2. 2 cups heavy cream.

3. 1/4 oz of unflavored gelatin/Agar-agar.

4. a pinch of salt.

5. 1/2 cup of sugar.

6. 2 tsp vanilla essence.

7. Glasses/transparent containers to set the panna cotta

1 US cup = 240ml.

Recipe:

Mango Layer:

                           Take mango juice in a microwave safe bowl and sprinkle gelatin/agar-agar on it. Mix it gently and allow it to set for 10 mins. After 10 mins heat the juice with gelatin/agar-agar for a minute. U can do the same in stove top by keeping the juice in a sauce pan. Now pour this juice in 2 cups of mango puree and mix well. You can use fresh mango puree or a store bought one. Place the glasses at an angle. I used a muffin pan.You can achieve this by using egg carton or as per your own idea. Pour the mango mixture till the edge of the container used. Place the complete set up in the fridge and allow it to set for 2 to 3 hours. 

Vanilla Layer:

                           Once the mango layer is set, we can start preparing the vanilla layer. Vanilla layer preparation is similar to that of the mango layer. Sprinkle gelatin/agar-agar in the milk and stir gently. Allow it to set for 10 mins. After 10 mins, heat the milk mixture with salt and sugar. Heat the mixture until everything is well combined. Now add this mixture and vanilla essence to the heavy cream and stir well. Pour the vanilla mixture to the containers with the mango layer and allow the containers to 

set in the fridge for another 2-3 hours.

                            You can add few mango pieces on top while serving. The same recipe can be followed for any fruit. For example, for strawberry layer, use strawberry juice and strawberry puree. Also you can use your own creativity in layering. The above ingredients will yield around 6 cups. The picture is for reference only. I doubled the ingredients and used small containers, as I prepared for a kids party.