Layered Spinach Casserole

Tags

baking, Friday Feast, main course, one pot meal, recipe, rice, spinach, stir fry, vegetables, veggies, vegies

I heart, I love spinach so its made in the household quite often and Ojas seems to like it too makes it even more common and hence I am always on the lookout for some spinach recipes

So when I saw this dish with spinach flavored rice and stir fried veggies in Nita Mehta’s Baking Dishes cookbook I had to make it… a great one pot meal…

Ingredients

For the rice

• 1 cup rice – washed and soaked in salted water for 30 mins
• 2 tsp vegetable oil (the original recipe asks for 4 tbsp butter.. sigh)

For the spinach layer

• 2 cups chopped spinach – pureed in a mixer
• 1 tsp grated ginger
• 1 green chillies (the original asked for 3 though I am sure it would taste awesome I reduced it because of Ojas)
• 1/2 cup curd
• 1 tsp atta (the original asked for maida and the regulars here now my hatred for it very well 😉 )
• 1/4 tsp salt

Stir Fried Veggies

• 1 onion – sliced
• 1 potato  – boiled and sliced into thin fingers (I skipped this and instead added a little more of all other veggies)
• 1 carrot – cut into thin fingers
• 5-6 french beans – cut into 2″ inch long fingers
• 1 capsicum cut into thin fingers (I added this and I personally u can add any veggies to this)
• salt, pepper and red chilli flakes to sprinkle
• 2 tsp olive oil (my addition)

Method

• Boil 6 cups water with 1 tsp salt. Add rice and boil till soft. Strain rice. Spread the rice in a plate to cool. Keep aside
• Heat oil butter in a pan, add ginger and green chilli. Stir till ginger starts to change color. Add spinach puree. Cook for 2 minutes. Remove from fire. Let spinach cool.
• Whisk curd till smooth. Add 1tsp flour to curd and whisk again. Add curd to spinach and mix. Return to fire and cook till thick. Add salt to taste. Remove from fire to cool. Pour over the rice.
• For the stir fried veggies, heat the olive oil in a pan (in the original this is also done in butter… so chose what u like). Add onion, stir fry till pink. Add all the veggies apart from potato incase u are adding it. Stir fry for 3-4 minutes on low heat. Add the potato and stir fro another 2-3 minutes. Add salt, pepper and red chilli flakes to taste.

To assemble the casserole

• Grease a baking dish and spread spinach rice and press down gently
• Spread the stir fry veggies over the rice in a uniform layer
• Bake in a hot over at 200 degrees for 20 mins
• Remove from oven, sprinkle chopped coriander and serve hot. We had it with curd and it was yummy

And it look so colorful and vibrant that u feel like reaching to it and eating 😉

First Step towards my dream

Tags

backyard, garden, gardening, kitchen garden, kitchen gardening, organic vegetables, vegetables

In this world which is fast becoming a concrete jungle I consider myself very very lucky that I have a place where I can manage a garden… some flowers that I showed u here (I have some more snaps of them, coming up soon) and to top it all my all time dream to experiment with organic farming ok well no farming… making a organic backyard is coming true…

Lately I have been growing a lot of stuff in my small kitchen garden and now I am going to do what comes best to a blogger… he he show off the pics here… 😀 so let me take you for a virtual tour of my backyard…

karela aka bitter gourd

anar… i also had a papaya tree which died 😦

chillies… and these ones are really fiery ones… N had gone to a friends house in kerala and bought the seeds from there, apparently these are kerala special chillies… little tangy very hot

the normal chillies

ginger…. i love the smell of the leaves and ofcourse the end product

and this is some fresh ginger… plucked minutes ago 🙂

methi….

my plants in a row!!!

dhaniya………….

ajwain plant……..

care for some lady finger…

and what makes me most happy is the fact that I grow them organically… I make compost at home using kitchen waste and Daily Dump, a very easy home composting unit… and for insects I use neem, haldi and u know even cucumber peel help….

Its not a easy job but when after all this hardwork u eat what u grow the taste is out of the world……..

PS: coming up soon are my tomatoes, brinjals, brinjal, cucumber and pumpkin 😀

and yes if u are wondering about the title this is my first step towards my ultimate dream in life… step up a organic farm………..

A day for Baking

Tags

banana, bread, choclate chip, Friday Feast, muffins, pasta, recipe, vegetables, veggies, whole wheat

Myself, N and Ojas all of us love Pasta, and this is the simplest and frankly the most delicious pasta recpie… Works well with almost all pastas…  I have tried it with Frafalle, Penne, Fussili, Alphabet Pasta, the shells and it tastes well with everythin… ofcourse the colored alphabets are Ojas’s favorite are colored alphabets 😀

Ingredients

• 1 cup pasta (I use whole wheat/semolina)
• 1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese
• 1 cup chopped and blanched veggies (cabbage, capsicum, carrot, baby corn or whatever u like) also if u like ur veggies crisp skip the blanching I blanch more for Ojas
• 1 onion chopped
• handful of fresh oregano, thyme and basil (incase fresh is not there u can use dried variety)
• Red chilli flakes and salt to taste
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 1 tsp butter

Method

• Boil pasta as per instructions
• Heat olive oil and butter in a pan
• Add the herbs and onions and fry for 3-4 minute, the onions wont really turn brown because of olive oil and butter
• Add the veggies and stir fry for 3-6 minutes depending on whether u blanched ur veggies or not
• Add salt and red chilli flakes
• Fry for another 2-3 minutes
• Transfer to a baking dish, sprinkle the grated cheese
• Bake in a preheated oven at 180C for about 5 mins till the cheese is nicely melted
• Serve hot

I usually take out my portion, spice it up with more chilli flakes, Tabasco before baking the rest…

I was in a baking mode today and also made yummy Banana muffins courtesy the Baking Buddies, I modified her recipe a little though…. instead of all maida… I made it 3/4 whole wheat flour and 1/4 maida and increased the eggs to 2… the result was healthier and still yummy muffins…

I also experimented with bread the first time in life… again with Mandy’s recipe… but what a disaster it was…Its edible but doesnt have the bread texture at all… My bread is shouting for help Mandy…. feel there was some problem with the way I handled yeast or the yeast I bought because the dough didnt raise at all even after keeping for 4 hours… we have to use dry yeast only na? Mandy, Smitha help please here…

Announcing Friday Feast

Tags

baking, cheese, egg, omelette, recipe, vegetables

So the verdict is out, The results I got by the poll were almost equal and left me even more confused. And man which one of you voted for the last option, sigh because someone did 🙂

I really like Sol’s idea though and I am going to start a Friday Feast series here and see how it goes. So every Friday I will take you down the culinary road and try to make you drool and motivated enough to go to the kitchen 🙂

And today I present to you the Baked Omelette.

Some days back I was chatting with Goofy and she told she is heading to the kitchen to make baked omelette, a recipe that she had seen on a show, I liked the idea a lot and while I was on a diet kept looking for an opportunity when I could make it and then came my birthday and I made it for breakfast, everyone in the house really loved it and for a change even Ojas gobbled it down

Ingredients

• 4 egss
• 1 chopped onion
• 1 chopped tomato
• 1 finely chopped capsicum
• 1 cup grated cabbage
• 1 cup grated cheese
• 1/2 tsp dried oregano
• 1/2 tsp dried rosemary
• 3-4 jalapeno peppers
• 1 tsp milk
• salt, chilli flakes, pepper and Tabasco to taste

Method

• Beat the eggs well along with the milk, adding milk to the eggs makes them more fluffy and the dish comes out softer
• Add all the other ingredients apart from cheese and Tabasco mix well
• Pour in a baking dish
• Bake in a preheated at 200 degrees for about 4 mins till the eggs are about half done
• Spread the cheese and sprinkle Tabasco on top now and put it back in the oven for about  5 more mins or till the eggs are done and the cheese nicely melted