Lasagna

It was raining badly yesterday thanks to Jall cyclone and we had to stay indoors all day. With so much of time, we thought of having something special for dinner and zeroed on Lasagna. Lasagna is our favorite Italian food. When I searched for recipes, I got this from Tarla dalal's Facebook discussion board. I altered it to suit to our taste and the ingredients available with me. It is an elaborate process but it was worth it!

Red tomato sauce:

Tomatoes - 4

Onion - 1

Salt - as required

Garlic pods - 10

Chilly powder - as required

Sugar - 1 spoon

Italian seasoning - 1 spoon(contains thyme, oregano, basil)

Prepare a puree with blanched tomatoes and onion. Add salt, chilli powder and sugar and cook in medium flame till the sauce is almost thick. Add the chopped garlic pods. Cook for another 5 mins. Finally add the italian seasoning and switch off the stove.

White/Bechamel Sauce:

APF - 2 spoons

Milk - 2 cups

Salt - as required

Pepper powder - as required

Mozzarella cheese - about 1/4 cup( recipe asked for Fresh cream)

Butter - 2 spoons

Over low flame melt the butter and add the flour. Simply cook it for 2 mins. Add 2 cups of milk to it and continue stirring for about another 2 mins. Add the salt and pepper. The milk will start to thicken. Add the mozzarella cheese to it and cook for another minute.

Filling:

Carrot, Beans, Sweet corn, cabbage(vegetables as preferred) - Boiled about 3 cups

Crumbled paneer - 1 cup

Onion - 2 chopped finely

Salt - as required

pepper powder as required

Kitchen king masala - 1/2 spoon

Add 1 spoon of oil in a frying pan, add the onions and fry till cooked. Add the vegetables and continue frying. Add the Salt, Pepper powder, Kitchen king masala. Now add Panneer to it and cook for 2 mins.

Lasagna sheets:

APF - 1 cup

Cold butter - 1 Spoon

Salt - as required

Water

Oil - 1 spoon

Knead the above ingredients into the consistency of poori dough. Take about a lemon size dough and roll it like a thin chappathi. Cut into broad square pieces. Boil about 1.5 litres of water with a spoon of oil in a wide vessel. Put the thin broad pieces in the boiling water and cook for 1 minute. Take care to put only 4 pieces at a time so that they dont overlap each other in the water. Take the strips out and strain them.

Final Assembly:

I used a circle cake pan. Spread the lasagna sheet first without leaving any space. Apply the tomato sauce on the sheets. Now layer with the vegetable filling. Apply the white sauce over the vegetable layer. Now again layer with the lasagna sheet, tomato sauce, Vegetable filling and finally white sauce. Shred some mozzarella cheese and bake in a preheated oven at 200 deg for 20 mins.

There is a layer of spinach but we couldnt get out and buy it so just left it. This layer is after the tomato sauce.

Oats Almond cookies

This is a low fat cookie I baked almost a month back. I followed the recipe from a little bit more religiously. I didnt have oats flour, so just ground the quick cooking oats and neither bothered to sift as the recipe asks and additionally I added the raisins.

It was a guilt free cookie. Never tasted different from any other cookie with loads of butter and sugar!

I totally forgot to take a snap of the cookie to post here till I packed the last cookie in DH's snack box. Didnt have time in the morning to move it to a plate and didnt bothered abt the angles or anything. Just clicked it!

Vanilla cup cake

I am brave enuf to blog about my screwups now!

I cannot really say it a screw up but it was not upto the mark! Of course edible and already gobbled. Only last few pieces left..

This is the first time I am baking muffins. This can be an excuse as I am a first timer for muffins.

Most of the remakes are not working out in tamil cinema! Exactly same thing happened to me. The original recipe was from Jayasree of Kailas Kitchen. The end product was looking heavenly with chocolate chips and wonderful shape. She has even done a coffee version of that. Mine looked famished. But the taste was good, I am emphasizing again.

Not much changes made. I dint have chocolate chips, so substituted with tutti fruity. I just made half of the measurement just to be on the safer side.

Now time for you to have a look at it:

Can you guess why I have cut the muffin into four?? It got blasted on the top!

There were 4 splits on the top of it.. so i had cut it to make it visually pleasing.

Pizza Roll

When I saw Twirly Whirly Pizza from Madhuram Eggless Cooking, I was very much inspired. I used to make pizzas with my home made base but didnt try this kind of Rolled ones...

I made the cheeseless version for me and the cheesy one for DH.

APF - 2 1/2 cups

Dry yeast - 3/4 tspn

Salt , Sugar, Water -as required

Honey - 1 tspn

Olive oil - 2 tspn

Toppings of your choice

Pizza spread - as required

Mozzarella cheese - as required

In warm water mix the yeast and keep it for 10 mins. To the Maida add salt, sugar, honey, dissolved yeast and a spoon for Olive oil. Knead the dough into medium consistency, not too soft or not too hard. pour another spoon of olive oil over the dough and cover with a moist cloth.

After an hour again knead the dough and cover it back with the cloth. I kept the dough for 3 hours and in between every hour did the kneading.

Spread the dough using the rolling pin into a square shape( I made it thin bcoz if it is thick rolling with the toppings will be a problem). Spread the pizza spread(I used fun foods pizza spread) over the dough.

I used my usual pizza toppings -baby corns, green peas, onion, tomato, garlic, capsicum on the base, rolled them and cut them into 3 inch pieces, arranged with cheese over the final setting.

Baked the pizza in the OTG for 20 mins at 200 deg celcius and they were yummy!

Its raining Cookies..

After Cake I wanted to try Cookies. I searched for simple, tried and tested ones. Finally decided to try Jayashree's Chocolate chip cookies.

All you need is:

Butter 1/2 cup

Sugar- white 1 cup

Vanilla essence 1 tspn

Flax seed powder 2 tspn in 1/4 cup water

Whole wheat flour 1 1/2 cup

Baking powder 1/2 tspn

Chocolate chips 1/4 cup

Cream butter and sugar. Mix Flaxseed powder with water. Add vanilla essence to it.

Add the creamed butter & sugar mixture to the flaxseed mixture.

Sift Whole wheat flour, baking powder. Mix the wet ingredients with the dry one. Finally the best part - add chocolate chips to it. Shape them and bake in the preheated oven @ 190 deg cel for 20 mins.

I didnt had enuf patience for the cookie to cool and so when I broke it was soft. I got really disappointed. I was thinking what was the mistake as I followed the recipe religiously. So I left it and went to tend to my DD.

When DH came he smelt the aroma and asked whats cooking! I told him in a sad tone abt the soft cookies. I gave him one and it was crispier! Do wait for sometime for the cookies to cool and become crispy. Patience always pays.. else you will have soft cookies only!