Pesto!

Simple elegant alternative to Marinara for Pasta, Pizza and bread. It goes really well with whole wheat pasta and makes it a LOT more interesting to consume.

Time : 30 min
Serves : 2

What you need : 

1 Cup Arugula : You can get fresh arugula at Safeway/Whole Foods or you could grow your own ;)

1 Cup Spinach

1/3 cup Walnut : Un-toasted, if you get roasted walnuts, you can skip step one

2 cloves garlic

1/3 Cup Shredded Parmesan -  Crucial to get get quality Parmesan or Pecorino. Don't use dried stuff

3-4 tbsp Olive oil

Red Chili flakes

1 tbsp Fresh lemon juice

1/2 cup pasta water or regular water

Lets get going : 

Toast the walnuts slightly on medium heat. 

Peel the garlic cloves

In a food processor, combine toasted walnuts, garlic, arugula, spinach, parmesan cheese and a dash of salt and pepper

Slowly add olive oil from the top when mixing the ingredients together on low speed

Continue until uniformly ground, you are looking for granular texture and not paste like texture, there is no need to add any water

Heat olive oil in skillet over medium heat

Add chili flakes as desired, listen to them sizzle, don't leave them on for long

Put the Pesto mixture onto the skillet, stand back, its going to splatter

(NOTE: if you wait too long the chili flakes will turn black and give a very bad taste, so do this within a few seconds)

Mix around a little bit and add water or Pasta water and mix

Let it settle down for a minute and add salt and fresh ground pepper

Mix the lemon juice mix, and then turn off the heat.

If you are making Pasta, mix the strained cooked pasta onto the skillet directly

Mix until Pasta is evenly coated and every piece has some Pesto on it

Garnish with a little bit of fresh parmesan

Breakfast Fruit Smoothie

Smoothie's are IN, there are hundreds of recipes out there and limitless possibilities on combinations and variations.

Here is one of our takes on a simple Breakfast Fruit smoothie that really works well for the morning time to grab and go before work. It keeps you full for the entire morning until lunch and its tasty and refreshing and doesn't taste like a health drink at all!

Time : 10 minutes

Serving size : 2

What you need : 

A cup of fruit Yogurt or Vanilla yogurt by Chobani, Danon or similar (we really like Chobani)

1 Banana

1/2 cup Milk

1 Cup Fresh or frozen berry mix (strawberry, black berry ,blueberry  mixes are readily available in the frozen food section)

1/2 cup Frozen or fresh mango

1 Tablespoon Almond Butter (you get this in stores, or you can make your own)

2 Cups Whole leaf spinach (NO frozen, no pre-cut, use fresh spinach it really makes a difference)
(Another interesting variation is to use 1 Cup Kale and 1 Cup Spinach)

Use a Hand Blender (like the Cuisinart 2-speed one found here, or a stand blender with speed settings)

Lets get going:

Start with a nice convenient bowl that gives you enough room to use the hand blender (if you are using a stand blender, you can go to the next step)

Put the yogurt in first

Chop banana into slices and put it in

Put in the berries and mango and add the milk

Start blending at low speed, just a few moments to get things blended a bit

Add spinach (if you are using the hand blender, you will need to use an up and down movement to mix it in easily)

Use the LOW setting until it reaches a fairly consistent stage, finish with high setting to make it a fine smoothie.

Garnish with a sprig of mint

Scrambled Eggs

Simple, tasty, easy, scramby as my wife calls it

Time : 15 min

Serving size : 2

What you need: 

4 Eggs - I like to remove 2 of the yolks to give a good balance between reducing fat/cholestrol and getting consistency to remain. If you like to keep all the yolks in, sure, tastes even better that way :)

1/8 cup Milk

1/4 cup Shredded Cheddar or cheese blend like Mexican 4-cheese

Salt + Fresh ground pepper

Butter (you will need very little of this, stick is easiest to use)

Chopped Spring onion greens or Chives for garnish

Franks Red Hot Original Sauce

How to go about it:

 - Crack eggs into a medium bowl, (remove yolks as desired using hand or spoon)

 - Beat them nicely with a whisk or a spoon, you want it to look like an even uniform mix

 - Add the milk, mix a bit more until even

 - Take a good quality non-stick skillet, place it just shy of medium heat

 - I like to grease the pan with butter, but instead of cutting a piece and dropping it on there, hold it with a butter spreader like THIS or hold the block in your hand, when the skillet is hot to touch spread it evenly across the surface, including the corners. A nice even coat goes a long way in getting this right. You also use much less butter this way by just coating it.

 - Don't let the butter burn or turn color, just let it warm up in the skillet for a bit before you Pour the mix onto the skillet

 - Let it sit there for a couple of minutes, don't disturb, mix, or stir.

 - After a minute, notice the edge, see if it is starting to form. The idea is you want the egg to cook on the underside, and remain liquid on the top side, move to the next step at this point

 - Start from one side (lets say right), lift with spatula and roll it left, do the same thing from the top-bottom, left-right, bottom-up etc gently. When you do this, you will notice the cooked side fold over from the bottom and the liquid from top flow to the sides to fill the gaps.

NOTE:
(((You will naturally break the form and end up scrambling it, if you are not, then you may have overcooked and gone more towards the omelet, if you are unable to turn it however and its too runny, you need to wait a bit longer. Don't force cuts, and don't agitate the mixture, just rolling it at the right time over and over will end up making it into smaller pieces and scrambling it as you go along)))

 - Turn the heat down all the way to low after a few turns, add SALT and Pepper

 - Once you stop seeing free flowing runny egg, add the cheese, turn just a few times to mix the cheese in, turn off the heat

 - Give it a couple of moments to melt the cheese and Serve with a garnish of chives or spring onions greens finely chopped if you like

 - few dabs of "Franks Red Hot Sauce" on top to finish things off

A whole grain wheat toast on the side and this is a great way to start your day!

Quick Bruschetta

Lets start with something super simple, a great snack for the evening after work, or as an appetizer. It takes all of about 15 minutes to do and needs hardly any prep.

Serves : 2

Time : 15 min

Stuff needed:

8 pieces Crusty Bread sliced  (You can even use Ritz crackers if you don't have or want bread!)

1/2 cup Mozarella cheese
( Prefer the ball-o-cheese fresh soft mozarella you get from grocery stores (Safeway, whole foods etc, Galbani makes one thats decent), but if you only have shredded, go for it

2 Fresh Medium tomatoes or a dozen cherry tomatoes
(In order of preference, Sweet cherry tomatoes, Campari, Roma, ideally you want to use something like the Sweet 100 style tomato that has a good burst of tanginess and sweetness and not something you make sauce or soup out of)

Fresh Basil
You can even use dried if you don't have access to fresh Basil, or experiment with fresh rosemary

1 Tbsp Olive Oil
1/2 Tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
Salt and Fresh ground Black pepper ((get a peppermill, its worth it!))


1. Pre-heat Oven or Toaster Oven to 350 F for about 10 min

2. Cut Cherry tomatoes in halves, <OR> larger tomatoes into similar small sized pieces

3. Take a small mixing bowl, mix together chopped tomatoes with olive oil and balsamic vinegar,  just enough to fully cover the tomatoes, you don't want a pool of oil at the bottom. Add salt+fresh ground pepper .

4. If you have the ball of mozzarella, cut it into thin slices and dry it out a bit using a muslin cloth or napkin, then press slightly with fingers to flatten the cheese, you don't want a slab of cheese on the cracker. If you only have Shredded, it makes life a little easier, just sprinkle a layer on top

5. place cheese on top of cracker, make sure they stay within the edges by atleast a few mm

6. with a small spoon or by hand, put as much of the tomato mix on top as you can, try not to get too much oil/vinegar on, whatever is mixed onto the tomatoes is enough

7. spray non stick spray on cookie sheet (VERY IMPORTANT, otherwise you will have a mess)

8. place in oven for 5-10 minutes or until cheese melts

9. Use a thin Spatula to gently lift the crackers off, they will be fragile, so be gentle.

10. Roll basil leaves, then chop with a sharp knife, into threads. Or sprinkle dried basil.

Goes great with a light red wine like a Fruit forward Pinot Noir

Enjoy 

Why? What?

Well for starters we like being Vegetarian, coming from an Indian origin, that's our thing. Indian food is awesome, when you think you've had all South Indian cuisine, you keep finding more, and then all of a sudden, there is North Indian cuisine and bazillion variations on those.

But there are many folks who do a great job at sharing recipes for these Indian wonders, and even guided step by step videos of perfect Veg Biryani's and Channa masalas and Dosa's and heck even Upma's. But what about the rest? The world is full of food, yet focussing primarily on meat as the Entree/Main course. Many a western world chef doesn't even consider a meatless entree a dish, nevertheless add one on the their menu.

Living in California, there is but some hope, there are lots of veg options to be found here and for a change, people you talk to actually know what it means (what a revelation!). Visiting several of these restaurants and watching tons on cooking shows on TV has given us a good understanding and motivation to try out several of these techniques on vegetarian food, to much success or failure at times

That said, what about at home? With so many good farmers markets and excellent grocery stores around and many a tool to help you at home, why should one not explore options when it comes to Vegetarian cooking at home. Over the years I've picked up a lot of tips and trick to make veg food more interesting without sticking to the confines of Indian cuisine and I figured, hey its free to bore people online, why not! If it helps someone at all, its still worth it.

Sure many of you may look at some of this and go bah, its lame, so obvious, easiest thing to do etc, but I tell you, I've seen many folks who just don't think about these things, and don't apply it to their daily meals and once you tell them they go sure its simple why not, this is me telling you that only without my annoying visage staring at you. Lets make life interesting shall we?

Ofcourse, feedback is welcome and appreciated, I am trying this out for the first time and I'm sure there is plenty of room for improvement.

Disclaimer : I am not going to talk about Vegan stuff, sure many things here may well be vegan, but thats purely incidental (hey I'm sounding like the warning message before a TV show). I love cheese, I love milk, and hey I love Eggs, so FWIW, this is Eggetarian cuisine if you want to call it that. There will be some no cheese, no eggs recipes as well though so don't lose faith yet :)

Disclaimer no.2: I'll be talking about wine a bit as well and what pairs well with what, I love wine and there is hardly any information out there on pairing veg foods with wine. Every winery out there will just tell you "goes great with salmon or Halibut" or "perfect for steak", how about the rest of us?