A guilt-free affair

The children are here for their summer holidays and its great to have them back. The preparations for their arrival always starts a few weeks in advance. A lot of time is spent in preparing their favorite snacks - they always complain of not getting to eat them in college. They are such night owls that it is essential to have an assortment of goodies stacked away for those odd hours. One thing that I make for sure is pasta sauce because it comes in very handy when I need to rustle up a meal in a jiffy. Somehow the fancy bottled ones just don't taste the same.

When the kids were in school an Italian joint had opened in Khan Market, Delhi and the kids couldn't get enough of it. They had an extensive menu, but their favorite dish was Penne Arrabiata. The USP of their food was that, apart from being good, it also catered to the Indian palate. Their arrabiata sauce was spiced well enough to suit our desi taste buds. I remember making pasta and trying to replicate their taste. Over the years I experimented and developed my own dish. Nowadays, this is one dish that the kids prefer eating at home. On our recent trip to New York  City, when we had exhausted all Thai, Chinese and Mexican restaurants, I suggested going to an Italian place and having pasta but they turned me down saying that the pasta at home "tastes way better" (their words not mine).  Recently I tried whole wheat pasta and it tasted just as good. So now the slight guilt that I had about eating pasta - that it was nothing but refined flour - has also dissipated.

Here's my recipe for Penne in Tomato Sauce with Olives and Funghi (serves 4-6 people)

Ingredients
For the sauce
1 kg tomatoes
2 tbsp olive oil
8 to 10 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 tbsp oregano
2 tbsp basil
salt to taste
1 tbsp sugar

For the pasta
250 gm whole wheat pasta, boiled
Half a jar of black olives
300 gm of mushrooms, chopped
8 green chillies, chopped
4 tbsp olive oil
Oregano
Salt, according to taste
Crushed red chillies, according to taste
Half a cup of fresh cream

Recipe
For the sauce
Boil the tomatoes and garlic. Once the boiled vegetables have cooled down, churn them in a blender, and strain the puree into a cooking pot. Add the olive oil, oregano, basil, salt and sugar to the mixture, and heat until a rich red color appears and the puree thickens into a sauce like consistency.

For the pasta
Take a cooking pan and add the olive oil. Now add the chopped mushrooms, olives and green chilies, and saute till the mushrooms have turned  light brown. Add salt and red chillies accordingly. Pour the sauce into this mixture followed by the pasta, and mix well, till the pasta is coated with the sauce. Now add the fresh cream and oregano. Serve with either French bread or Garlic bread and butter.

Penne in Tomato sauce with Olives and Funghi

The perfect bite

Travel Travails

This was something I had been putting off for a long time, but now there was no getting out of it. This time it was imperative for me to fly to the U.S, after all how could I not not be there for my son's graduation. It's not that I don't enjoy travelling, in fact I love it, but the travel time is quite killing. At least for someone like me who feels claustrophobic in closed spaces. The family suggested that I read up about claustrophobia on the internet - after all there must be something that exists out there than can alleviate my fear. I browsed through a whole lot of suggestions from herbal remedies to flying first class (is this really a rainy day situation?) but realized that they were not working for me, instead were making me all the more nervous. So when booking the flights, we decided to break journey in order to make it more comfortable for me.

The plane took off and after the meals everyone settled in for the night and the lights were switched off - that was my nemesis. Within this closed space and in pitch darkness, I could feel the panic welling up. I had all sorts of images of going into panic mode and I quickly rushed to the back of the plane - the galley. Thankfully the lights were on in there and I felt much better. The air-hostess nodded understandingly when I told her how I was feeling. I think they are quite used to such loony cases. Needless to say, the entire night was spent shuttling back and forth, from my seat to the galley, and from the galley to the seat whenever the seat-belt sign went on (that darned turbulence!). Anyway, in the morning things as usual looked nice and I forgot about my nights ordeal. Now we had reached Zurich and half my travel time was over.

I happily boarded the flight to New York - happy because it was a day flight and by now I had surmised that darkness and closed spaces put together were anathema for me. But after the food service, to my surprise (which was then followed by absolute horror) the blinds were pulled downwards and the lights were switched off AGAIN - it was siesta time. Panic started building up - now what was I supposed to do? I didn't  fancy spending another seven hours in the galley (no offense to the air-hostesses). I looked around and everyone looked very comfortable - nobody looked the least bit discomforted. There was an Italian family  which was sitting nearby. They were really high spirited - talking at high pitch and cracking jokes - a very enthusiastic lot. Right in front were a couple of guys with a girl wearing t-shirts from Hell's Kitchen. One of the guy's spoke non-stop to the girl travelling with him - till now I always thought that we females could chat - but hey that guy could sure give us stiff competition in a chatathon. I got so busy observing my fellow passengers that I forgot about my paranoia. When we landed, the Italian family let out a huge shout of joy - it was clearly their first time to the U.S too.

Now when I look back I feel nice that I handled my fears better - what was this entire fuss about? So my take from this entire experience has been that one should first tackle the monster, and that it can only get better from there.

P.S - Forgot to tell you that the return flight was a breeze.

Musings about Desi khana

At my parents house a lot of emphasis was given to food. My mother was a fabulous cook and even the simplest of things would taste heavenly. She took a lot of interest in her cooking and meal-time was a very elaborate affair. There are so many things that she made such as karela and kathal, that I feel that mine still don't match up to hers, in spite of following her instructions to the T. Since it was a Jain household, onion and garlic was not part of our cooking. My father did not have onions at all so for us children mom used to fry onion and add it to Rajma once it was made. The beauty of vegetarian food is that it can taste good with even the simplest of spices. One such dish that my mother made very often and which was loved by our whole family was kathal ki sabzi and I am happy to see that now when I cook it for my kids they too freak out on it.                                                                                                        

So here is a recipe for kathal ki sabzi without onion & garlic:

Ingredients:
1 tspn oil
1/2 kg kathal (Jackfruit), cleaned and cubed
A pinch of heeng
1/2 tspn jeera
1 tspn coriander powder
4-5 green chillies, chopped
1/2 tspn garam masala
8-10 tbspn sour curd
Salt to taste
1 and a half cup water

Recipe:
Fry the kathal on medium heat in 3-4 batches. After frying the kathal should turn light brown in color. Once the whole batch has been fried, add the oil, heeng, jeera, coriander powder to a pressure cooker & roast the spices. If it is looking too dry, sprinkle some water so that the spices don't burn and get roasted properly.
Add the green chillies and the fried kathal to the cooker & mix well so that the kathal gets coated evenly with the spices.
Now add the salt, mix and add the water, close the lid & let it cook for a couple of whistles.
Turn off the gas, then once the steam releases open the cooker & add garam masala & sour curd. Mix well and serve.
Goes very well with roti, parantha, poori, plain rice & pulao too.
Tip: the gravy might dry up fast as kathal soaks it up, so add some water & sour curd to it before warming it up & serve.

Kathal ki sabzi