White Sauce Penne Pasta

Pasta is one of my favorite dish! This creamy White Sauce Penne Pasta is so yummy, kids will love it. It has cooked pasta and veggies covered in cream, milk, butter and cheese. Doesn’t this sound tasty & healthy!?

Making pasta is quite time consuming! But it’s worth it! Its taste will motivate you to do it every time!!The taste stays in your tongue! What are you waiting for!? Read the recipe and start cooking! It’s Pasta Time!!!Lemme know your comments. Happy Cooking! Cheers!

Ingredients:

Penne Pasta – 2 cups

Carrot – 1

Broccoli – 10 florets

Cauli flower – 10 florets

Mushroom – 3 nos

French Beans – 3 nos

Baby corn – 3 nos

Sweet corn – 2 tbsp

Capsicum – 1 (green/red/yellow)

Boiled Milk – 1 cup

Fresh Cream – ¼ - ½ cup

Water – ½ - 1 cup

Maida – 1 tbsp

Butter – 2 tbsp

Pepper  - 1 tbsp

Red chilli flakes – 1/2 tsp

Method:

1. In a large pan boil excess of water along with salt and one spoon of oil. Add pasta to the boiling water. In 9 – 10 minutes pasta will be cooked. Do not close the pan while cooking pasta. Once cooked immediately drain the excess water, otherwise it be getting cooked in that hot water. 

Cooked Pasta

2. Cut veggies to eatable size. If all 3 colors of capsicum is available use all 3.Do not steam cook capsicum. Steam cook in an idli pan / steam cook the veggie the way you usually do.

3.Meanwhile heat a pan and melt 1 tbsp of butter, add maida and roast it, once roasted add a cup of milk little by little so that big clumps are not formed. Keep stirring continuously. An egg beater can be used to break the clumps. The milk turn thick and start bubbling. Add pepper, chilli flakes and salt.

4. At this stage add the cream, next add the ½ cup of water. If its too thick add another ½ cup and let it boil. When it bubbles out switch off the range. The Creamy white sauce is ready!

5. By now your vegetables will be cooked.Heat another pan and melt some butter and add chopped garlic to it. Once the raw smell of garlic goes add capsicum and then the veggies and gently turn around so that all the veggies are coated with butter. Switch off the range.

6. Now the pasta, veggies and sauce is ready. When the people are ready at the table take a flat bottomed pan preferably, If not available you can take a kadai / any available pan and heat it add some sauce some pasta and some veggeis, lavishly sprinkle mozzarella cheese and gently turn around. Wait for the cheese to melt. When done, garnish with Italian Seasoning and serve hot. (Italian Seasoning is avaible in all supermarkets!)

Kolukattai

This is a Chathurthi special recipe!Only when kolukattai is made Vinayagar Chathurthi is complete! It is a simple, tasty & healthy dish!

These are soft steam cooked rice flour dumplings. You can make it with idiyappam  flour or kolukattai flour or rice flour. I have shared a recipe which uses rice flour. Because rice flour is always in store!

If you are using kollukattai flour or idiyppam flour you can skip the step 2 mentioned in below recipe. Happy Cooking!Cheers! 

Ingredients:

Rice flour – 1 cup

Moong dhal – 1 tbsp

Coconut – ½ cup grated

Jeera - ½   tsp

Water – ½ cup + 1 tbsp

Sugar – 1 tbsp

Salt to taste

Method:

1. In a pan dry roast moong dhal till colour changes to light brown. Transfer it to a bowl.

2.In the same pan put one cup rice flour and gently turn it around 2 to 3 times and switch of the flame. The flour should be hot and not roasted! 

3.  In a bowl add the rice flour, moongdhal, coconut, sugar, salt,jeera

4. Boil water. And add it little by little to the flour and make a dough as you make for chapathi.(If needed you can taste the dough and adjust salt & sugar)

5. Take small ball size dough in your palm. Bring it towards your fingers and give a gentle press. This gives a nice shape! 

6. Meanwhile heat an Idli pan. When the its steaming hot you can place all the kolukattai and cook it in one batch. If your device is small do it in 2 or 3 batches.

Happy Vinayagar Chathurthi!!

Adai

Happy to share this authentic south indian adai recipe!!

This is one of my favorite dish! It is a healthy dish too! Chana dal is extremely delicious and is full of fiber & nutrition. Urad dal is rich in iron. Small onions, Greens, Rice and every single ingredient used has health benefits.

Every time you are going to make idli or dosa dough in grinder, do make adai dough. After grinding for idli or dosa you can grind adai dough without cleaning the grinder. This saves your cleaning time and makes a tasty dinner too! This dough doesn’t need fermentation so you can grind and make adai the same night!

Do try this and lemme know your comments! Happy cooking!Cheers!

Ingredients:

Raw rice/Pachai arisi – 1/2 cup

Idli rice – 1 cup

Kadalai paruppu  - 1 cup

Thoor Dhal – ¼ cup

Urad dhal – ½ cup

Red chilli – 3

Sombu – 1 tsp

Jeera – 1 tsp

Salt

Gingelly oil for making adai

For Seasoning,

Oil – 1 tbsp

Mustard – 1 tsp

Hing – 1 tsp

Small onions – 15 – 20 finely chopped or Big Onion- 1 finely chopped

Turmeric powder - ¼ tsp

Coriander –  ½ cup finely chopped

Curry leafs – ½ cup finely chopped

Coconut – ¼ cup

Method:

1. Soak Raw rice, idli rice, kadalai parupu, thoor dhal for  5 hours. Soak urad dhal for 2 hours.

2. In grinder firstly add redchilli, jeera, sombu and let it grind for a minute. Then you can switch it off and add the rice and dhal mixture and grind.(If you have enough experience need not switch off, continuously you can grind!)

 3. Dissolve rock salt/salt in water. While grinding you can add this water and grind. Grind it coarsely. This is very important in making adai!

4. Heat a pan, when it’s hot add oil. Add mustard when it splutters add hing, then chopped onion. When onion turns colour add chopped curry leaf & turmeric powder, after a minute add coconut, coriander and switch off the flame.

5. Add the seasoning to the dough,  gently mix it. Adjust water. Dough should be spreadable but not Watery .

6.Heat a dosa tawa. When it is hot, place a saddle of dough in the middle of tawa and spread it to a circle. Add lavish amount of gingelly oil and cook both the sides

Serving Tips:

Serve hot adai with Tomato chutney, Coconut chutney, podi or just plain adai!!

Suggestion:

If you are not going to use all the dough the same day, then add seasoning only to the portion you are going to use. Keep the rest in fridge soon as you grind otherwise it will start fermenting. Next day take it out from fridge, make the seasoning, add it to dough and make adai.