Orecchiette pasta with Cajun Spiced Shrimp and Sausage

Ingredients 

2 cups Orecchiette pasta
1 red Bell pepper (chopped)
3 Bob Evans sausage (cooked and chopped into bite size pieces)
150 gm shrimps
 1 tablespoon minced garlic
2 tbsp Parmesan cheese
1 tsp Cajun spice
1 tsp soya sauce
1 tbsp red chili sauce
1 tbsp shrimp sauce
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp black pepper
Salt to taste
Butter or white oil for cooking

Method

1) Cook pasta in microwave or stove top for 20 minutes or till the pasta is soft enough for cooking.
2) In a bowl, add Soya sauce into the shrimps and mix in. Dredge shrimps with Cajun spice.
3) Heat butter or white oil in a nonstick skillet
4) When oil is hot, add minced garlic into the oil and stir a bit. Once garlic begins to change color, add the marinated shrimps into the oil. Shallow fry the shrimps.
5) Add bell paper followed by Worcestershire sauce, red chili sauce and shrimp sauce. Add black pepper and saute the mixture for 3-4 minutes on medium high.
6) Add the cooked paste and salt. Fold in all the ingredients and cook for 2 minutes.
7) Add Parmesan cheese and fold in. Turn the heat off.
8) Serve hot.

Rice Patties with Leftover Rice

I had some leftover rice from last night that I didn't want to waste. So I made some nice rice patties with the leftover rice and served it over dinner to my son. 

Ingredients
2 tablespoon Lima beans
1 1/2 cup of rice (cooked)
2 eggs
1 celery stalk (rib) (chopped)
1 tablespoon rice flour
1 tsp Cajun spice 
1 teaspoon black pepper
Salt to taste
White Oil for cooking

Method
1)      Apart from oil, mix in all the ingredients together in a bowl.
2)      Heat oil in a non-stick skillet. once the oil is hot, add 1 tablespoon of mixture into the skillet and on medium heat shallow fry the patties.
3)      Turn the patties over and fry on the other side too.
4)      Serve hot.  

Sukha Mutton

Happy New Year to all. Hope the new year brings prosperity and happiness in the lives of everyone.

I have not updated my blog for the last few months because I was really busy with my studies. Since I am enjoying my winter break until my college reopens on 9th January, I thought to share a recipe of a mutton curry I prepared recently with you. I got the recipe from a Facebook video and I changed the recipe slightly to suit my taste bud.  Hope you all will like it. Thanks for visiting my blog.

Indian Style Chicken Nachos

Nachos are a Northern Mexican dish consisting of tortilla chips covered with meat and cheese based sauce. Though nachos are mainly served as a snack, it can be served as a fulfilling main dish if the ingredients added on the top of tortillas are more in quantity. Since I love nachos very much, I decided to try it out at home using Indian spices. Hope you all will like my version of nachos. 

Please don't forget to check out other cool recipes like this:

Pizza Bombs

Chicken Mole Poblano

Stir Fried Prawns in Chilli Garlic Soy Sauce

Croutons

Falafel Fritters

Falafel Wrap

Pizza Bombs

I got the concept of this recipe from Tasty videos, but I tweaked the recipe a bit according to my convenience of ingredients available at home at the time. I have prepared these mini beauties couple of times now, and what pleases me most is seeing my otherwise choosy and fussy 2 year toddler polishing these mini bombs off, 3 or 4 at a time, happily without complaint.  Nothing makes me more happy other than seeing my son delightfully devouring food cooked by me. I am one happy mom !  

Rava Paniyaram

Paniyaram is a popular breakfast item in Tamilnadu. I happened to eat it for the first time at a friend's place. I liked it so much that I asked for the recipe of paniyaram from my friend who shared it readily and I bought a paniyaram pan the very next day to cook paniyarams at home. Paniyaram pan, which shares a resemblance with muffin pan, is easily available at Indian grocery stores. Paniyaram goes well any idli or dosa chutney, but I tried it with tomato garlic chutney. The combination of the two was full of flavorful goodness. 

Bhapa Elish - Bhapa Hilsa

I am yet to meet a Bengali who does not drool over Elish. Two of the favorite foods of traditional Bengalis are mango and Elish. Of the variety of ways my mother cooks Elish, Bhapa Elish is my most favorite. The pungent taste of mustard seeds enhances the sublime flavor of Elish manifold. Earlier I posted a microwave version of Bhapa Elish, but today I am posting the recipe of Bhapa Elish cooked in steamer. I used a normal Indian steamer available in grocery stores. I put the fishes in a tiffin box, snap the lid into it and then put it inside the perforated floor of the steamer. It took about 25 minutes to get the fishes cooked. 

Achari Bhindi

I love potlucks. Potlucks are occasions when people bond over food. Usually when me and my friends do a potluck, the theme remains heterogeneous so that we can enjoy variety in our meal, but last week we decided to keep a homogeneous theme by cooking something using the same main ingredient. Since most of my friends are vegetarians, we decided that we would cook varieties of dishes with the majority's favorite vegetable, bhindi or okra. I prepared Achari Bhindi, which was liked by all my friends who kept asking for the recipe. So here goes the recipe and if you cook it at home and like it, please don't forget to comment. Thank you for visiting my page ! 

Please don't forget to check out the recipe of another amazing bhindi preparation, Spicy Bhindi.  

Paneer Lababdar

'Lababdar' is a Hindi word meaning strong craving for a food. The recipe I am going to post today is of Paneer Lababdar, which is one of the popular restaurant style paneer preparations in northern India. Indeed, the exquisite taste of a lababdar preparation rich with creamy buttery gravy makes one experience seventh heaven at every morsel. Please leave a comment below if you try it out at home. 

Please don't forget to check out the recipes of other delicacies in this blog:

Chicken Lababdar
Paneer Fried Rice
Paneer Malai Kofta
Paneer Bhapa - Steamed Paneer
Paneer La Jabab
Palak Paneer

Soya Chana Kofta Curry

This is one of my favorite soya chunk preparations of all time. Both soya and chana are full of nutrition and when these ingredients combine into a curry, it becomes a powerhouse of nourishment and wholesome goodness. Please don't assume that chana is a lentil product. I know chickpeas are popularly called 'chana', but this 'Chana' in Bengali refers to the fat extracted out of curdled milk. All you need to do to produce chana is to curdle the milk and separate the whey water. With the help of a muslin cloth or strainer, then the milk fat or the chana needs to be completely drained of water. You may let the chana dry for one or two hours in open air before proceeding with making the koftas. The moisture or the water content in chana will then completely evaporate, making it easy to work with. 

If you like this recipe, please check out other soya chunk recipes in my blog:

Baingan with Soya Nuggets

Soya Malwani 

Eggless Semolina Mango Cake

The season of mango is in. Now is the time to try a variety of dishes cooked with mango, either with raw mangoes or ripe ones. Back home in India during mango season, my father used to bring home cartons of mangoes. My mother used to keep the mangoes in rice jars so that the mangoes ripen and once ripe, we used to make a hole in the middle of the fruit and suck the juice out of the mangoes directly. The juicy succulent taste of the ripe mango pulp would take one to seventh heaven. Lest we got tired of eating ripe mangoes, my mother in a bid to add variety to our consumption of mangoes used to cook Mango Kheer with ripe mangoes. With the raw ones, she would Hilsa Mango, Aam Diye Dal, Rohu Mango Curry and Aamer Aachar. The beauty of mangoes is that it enhances the taste of a dish manifold, be it dessert or curry.

The recipe that will be posted today is of Eggless Semolina Mango Cake. I prepared this cake last Sunday when I invited a group of friends over dinner. Since they are vegetarian, I prepared this eggless cake that they savored delightfully. I was especially carried away when the my friend's daughter, who just turned one a few months back, happily polished this cake off asking for more. Now what else can express a compliment so purely other than a child's desire to have more of your food.

Strawberry Cupcakes topped with Homemade Strawberry Frosting

Finally I have completed half the quantity of strawberries that I brought home from my last visit to the local strawberry farm. The number of items that I prepared with strawberries over the past few days are Strawberry and Cream, Homemade Strawberry Ice Cream, and Strawberry Cupcakes topped with Homemade Strawberry Frosting. The beauty of strawberry desserts is that you will never get bored of eating strawberries for the variety of preparations that you can do with strawberries is never ending. The favorite thing of mine concerning these cupcakes is that these gems are super moist. Glazed in homemade frosting, these cupcakes have a melt-in-mouth texture that makes eating them a pure heavenly experience. I bet you cannot stop at eating only one. That is guaranteed. I for one polished off 4-5 cupcakes at one go. Now that's an appetite !! 

If you love the recipe of Homemade Strawberry Ice Cream, please don't forget to check out other cool recipes of strawberries on my page,

Strawberry and Cream

Strawberry Sponge Cake

Homemade Strawberry Ice Cream

Homemade Strawberry Ice Cream

In the summer months when the mercury rises, nothing beats the heat and humidity as much as ice cream does. During my childhood days, while coming back from school, I would have at least one stick of ice cream on my way. Growing up, as I became more figure conscious, I started giving ice creams a deliberate miss to keep the intake of extra calories at bay. However, the love of ice cream is not lost yet, as I run out to buy ice creams drawn by the catchy jingle played in the cart of the ice cream vendor who visits our complex almost every afternoon to sell ice creams. My son, who just turned two, has developed a fondness, just like his mother, for ice cream, and whenever we take him out in the scorching afternoon of the ongoing summer, he gulps one whole ice cream down leaving me agape with surprise given the amount of troubles he otherwise gives me while feeding him. 

Due to our last weekend visit to the strawberry farm, we have a few pounds of strawberries in the refrigerator. Though I am up to preparing all the delicacies imaginable with the strawberries, one item that is a special favorite of mine is the homemade strawberry ice cream. I love homemade ice creams, because they are fresh and free from any unknown chemical or preservatives added to the store bought ice creams. Another advantage of preparing ice cream at home is one can control the amount of sugar added to the ice creams and thus make it of reduced calories. I for one added sugar substitute Truvia in my ice cream. 

If you love the recipe of Homemade Strawberry Ice Cream, please don't forget to check out other cool recipes of strawberries on my page,

Strawberry and Cream

Strawberry Sponge Cake

Strawberry Cheesecake