Like most of you, V fell in love with Ratatouille post the movie. He started bugging me to no end to make the same. For the first version, we made a roasted ratatouille, it was just yum.
He again wanted one but a baked version this time, google came up with this recipe. Zucchini & yellow squash are not commonly available vegetables. I replaced zucchini with cucumber & added yellow pepper to the vegetables.
My arrangement wasn’t as compact as it should have been and there was lot of space left which further became apparent once the veggies shrunk after baking. I also forgot to cover the dish with parchment paper before baking and my veggies are more crumpled looking than should have been. My slices were not as thin as should have been. 🙂
But taste department, this was a perfect hit. Real simple and worth all the tweaking. I would really try again with compacter arrangement & bake with parchment paper.
Pour tomato puree in the bottom of the baking dish. I used a small round dish, you can use a 10″ long oval dish as suggested in the recipe.
Add chopped onions, stir in 1 Tbsp olive oil. Season well with salt & black pepper.
Trim the ends of eggplant. Carefully remove the core from yellow & red pepper, leaving the shell intact. Slice them as thin as possible or use a mandoline as suggested in the recipe.
Arrange the vegetables atop the prepared sauce in a concentric manner and overlapping each other. Try to place them as close to each other as possible with only little edge showing of each veg.
Drizzle the remaining olive oil over the arranged vegetables. Season with salt & pepper & some fresh herbs.
Cover the dish with a parchment paper fitting just inside the dish & not coming outside.
Bake for about 30 minutes till the veggies are tender but not burnt & the sauce has started bubbling around them. Serve hot with cheese or plain.
Ever since our Goa trip few years ago, I’ve been in love with roasted tomatoes. I ate them plenty almost daily for a week then. I have been looking for a simple recipe to re-create the magic. Finally my search ended and here is the recipe.
The only downside is unavailability of fresh herbs so I used dried. This is one of the simplest & tastiest recipes one can cook up. I will be making this often now.
The firm tomato loosing it’s shape was also a very fascinating watch. I’m sure you would agree with whatever photography I have managed. 🙂
to taste – Salt, Black Pepper, Dried Herbs (better to use fresh herbs)
Method –
Heat the olive oil in a saute pan, large enough to hold all the tomatoes in a single layer.
Add the tomatoes along with salt, pepper & herbs. Cook on low flame for 5-7 minutes tossing occasionally till the tomatoes start loosing their firm shape.
Sprinkle with fresh chopped herbs at room temp or hot.
Strawberries are here! yeyeye! There was a time (read: before marriage) when I hated strawberries, well I still do in any form other than fresh. You got confused, I know! I can’t stand strawberry ice-cream, strawberry jam, etc etc, to me they all taste very sweet, very artificial & always leave a very weird, sort of bitter taste in my mouth. But V loves them, so he introduced me to the fresh fruit, I was quite skeptical, ready to hate them. BUT I liked them. Can’t say I love them but ya now I like & enjoy them in the season.
Eggless Roasted Strawberry Pound Cake
Here in Maharashtra, strawberry plantation is a big industry for both local & export market. Strawberries are available by truck load everywhere, you just cant deny buying yourself a box. 🙂 In Mahabaleshwar & Panchgani, it is a common sight for commoners & tourists to indulge in strawberry picking during the harvest season. I’ve tried doing that too once, but that time season was almost over & we didn’t get the best ones to pick. 😦
Eggless Roasted Strawberry Pound Cake
I decided to put these strawberries to a new use (at least for us) – yes a CAKE! Thankfully for our growing waistline, I baked this for a dear friend & not for us. When I came across this recipe & read the reviews, I just knew I had to bake this one. I replaced blueberries with strawberries, silken tofu with equal amount of home-made ricotta cheese & cake flour with APF & cornstarch. I reduced the quantity by half & baked it in a loaf pan.
Eggless Roasted Strawberry Pound Cake
To give a twist I roasted strawberries in honey, olive oil, salt & balsamic vinegar (again home made). It is very frustrating to google recipes and realize that you can’t make most due to lack of ‘fancy’ ingredients. I slowly have started overcoming this by making them (corn syrup, mascarpone, etc) at home as much as possible. This time I conquered Balsamic Vinegar in the best option (cheap & readily available). I increased the quantity of fresh strawberries as they will reduce on roasting. So I took 2 Cups fresh strawberries which gave me about 1 Cup roasted strawberries.
Eggless Roasted Strawberry Pound Cake
The ricotta cheese was different than our usual paneer, I believe due to the addition of cream – it was creamy in texture & taste. It sure is a perfect substitution for silken tofu.
The roasted strawberry was an out of this world experience. I am going to make them quite often & going to use varied fruits. The color, the smell, the taste was just awesome.
Eggless Roasted Strawberry Pound Cake
The cake rose well & my kitchen filled with wonderful smell of roasted strawberries & baking. Though upon removing from the cake, it did sink little in the center, I’m not sure why. The cake smelled heavenly & delicious. The crumbs tasted absolutely wonderful. I strongly recommend serving the cake with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream. V sulked for not being able to gorge on either the roasted strawberries or the cake. 🙂
Eggless Roasted Strawberry Pound Cake
I would have loved to use some port here to roast strawberries, but my friend is a complete teetotaler & saatvic to the core. 🙂 She is an Ayurvedic Doctor, practicing with an Ayurvedic Retreat near Pune. She became my role model for practicing Yoga during both my pregnancies. She stood by me in my times of need, she became a friend to me in this still ‘alien’ city and have even fought on my behalf with others. Lately we had a small misunderstanding and I’m glad we overcame our egos and made up. I would hate to loose a special friend like her. Thank you for being my friend, Dr. Roli. This cake is for you. Guys I did not send or dedicate this virtually, I personally delivered it to her on the D-day!
1 Cup – Roasted Strawberries (2 Cups fresh Strawberries would give you 1 Cup)
Method –
Pre-heat oven to 180 C. Grease & line a 8 X 6 X 2 loaf pan.
In a small bowl, blend cheese & yogurt well. Add milk & vanilla, mix well.
Sift together, flour, baking powder, baking soda & salt. Set aside.
In a large bowl, beat sugar & butter till light & fluffy, this will take about 5 minutes. To this add liquid ingredients in 3 batches, beat well after each addition.
Now add dry ingredients and blend well.
Add in the roasted strawberries. You can lightly dust them in flour to avoid sinking to the bottom of the pan. Fold them very gently into the batter to avoid further breakdown.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 45 – 50 mins or till toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.
Cool on wire rack for 10 mins, then de-mold on a wire rack and cool completely before serving.
Pre-heat oven to 180 C. Grease & line a rimmed baking sheet.
Hull & slice the strawberries into half or quarter depending on size.
In a small bowl, mix olive oil, salt & honey together.
Place strawberries in a large bowl. Pour the above mixture on it. Toss gently till all the berries are covered.
Spread coated berries in a single layer on the prepared baking sheet.
Bake for 40 – 45 minutes. Keep checking the berries in between as each may vary. It helps to slightly move around the berries a bit for even roasting. Remove from oven before the juices start burning.
Remove the berries & juices from the sheet while still warm and place them in a bowl. Add balsamic vinegar & toss. Set aside and allow it to cool.
Cake Flour – Place 2 Tbsps of corn flour in a cup, fill the remaining cup with APF – yields 1 cup Cake flour
Ricotta Cheese – I quartered the recipe as I didn’t want to end up with so much ricotta cheese on hand since I regularly make paneer. Makes 1 Cup of Cheese.
Warm on moderately high heat, till the mixture starts to foam & bubbly. Do not allow to boil.
Remove the pan from heat. Add vinegar & stir gently for 30 secs.
The mixture will curdle almost immediately.
Add salt & stir for another 30 secs.
Cover the pan with wet towel. Allow to stand at room temp for 2 hours.
Line a large colander with several layers of cheesecloth or muslin, allowing several inches of overhang.
Place the colander on a large bowl. Pour the curdled mixture over the colander.
Let the water drain. After few minutes, gather the corners of the cheesecloth & tie it with a rubber-band. Allow to stand in colander for another 30 minutes. Gently squeeze the cheesecloth to drain the whey.
Open the cheesecloth – use ricotta cheese. I use whey as stock for my soups or gravy.
After I made my first quiche the love for warm pies & tarts was unleashed. Especially since V as well as a neighbor couple who we are friends with loved the first attempt. I was egged [not encouraged ;)] on. My second attempt was this tart. Well let me tell you this recipe was born out of need to utilize the leftover pasta which was little and not enough to be enjoyed by 2 of us as a dish. So I decided to bake this as a tart.
Macaroni Pasta Tart
I tried working on things which had not gone well in my first quiche. One of them was getting the edges nice & curvy for my tart but as you can see I did a terrible job. 🙂 I also decided to try a new dough recipe & found one at Joy of Baking. As always her recipes are bang on. The dough easily came together. I skipped salt as I used salted butter. I also halved the recipe to suit my pan size. This time I blind-baked the pastry & made the pasta at night and quickly baked the tart for lunch.
Macaroni Pasta Tart
It was high butter to flour ratio so the crust was buttery, flaky & tasted absolute yum. The pasta was the best I’ve ever made. Younger V ate just the pasta as he is very fond of it. Older V ate more than half the tart all by himself. The neighbors drooled over the photos so much that I baked a pastry & gave them to make their own filling & enjoy the tart. The pasta tart was a big big hit & I recommend everyone to make it once!
100 gms – Butter, cold & cut into 1/2″ cubes (I used salted)
1/2 Tbsp – Granulated Sugar
2-3 Tbsp – Iced Water
Method –
Lightly grease the 6″ tart pan.
Combine flour, sugar & butter & bring together using your fingertips till it roughly resembles bread crumbs. I used potato masher. You can use a food processor. Do not handle the mixture too much.
Add about 2 Tbsps of water & bring together the mixture to form a dough. If necessary, add more water. Again do not handle the dough too much.
On your work surface, make the dough into a ball. Flatten it a little to form a 5″ disc using your palm. Cover in cling film & refrigerate for 30-60 mins.
Remove dough from refrigerator, lightly flour your work surface & rolling pin. Roll out a pastry about 3 ” bigger than your pan size. Keep rotating the pastry as you roll for evenness & to avoid sticking to the surface.
Once the desired size is achieved, then gently roll the pastry onto your rolling pin & place it onto the pan with an overhang. Gently press the pastry in the pan. Do not stretch the pastry as it will shrink while baking. Flute the edges of the pastry.
Chill the pastry covered in cling film and pre-heat the oven to 210 C.
Remove from refrigerator, use a fork & make some holes in the pastry to avoid ballooning of pastry. Now lightly grease one side of aluminum sheet & place the grease side down on the pastry. Fill the pan with rice or beans or pie-weights.
Bake in pre-heated oven for 15 mins. Remove the pastry from oven, remove the aluminum foil & rice.
Return it to the oven & bake at reduced temp. of 190 C for 10 mins. Allow it to cool.
If you have read my first few posts (Focaccia, Spaghetti & Eggless Tiramisu), you would know that Italian is a favorite with both of us & invariably we end up having it on all our special occasions. This time again for V’s bday, we circumvented to making Italian at home – we started with no Italian this time, to Italian again this time. Such is the love, what can we say!
I chose Creamy Spinach Pasta from Vidhya of Vidhya’s Goodeats for the special dinner. She is my blog hop partner this Wednesday. She has some very interesting & good recipes from World Cuisine on her blog. It was tough to decide what to make. V is partial towards pasta so I chose that & spinach I’ve never used in pasta before so it was going to be a novel experience. I didn’t change the recipe much except omitting eggs & garlic & using dry basil in place of fresh ones. I halved the recipe & used macaroni as I’d a packet at home.
Cook pasta as per instructions on your package or check here.
Saute onions in olive oil till golden brown.
Stir in spinach, tomato, basil, chilli flakes, salt & pepper. Cook for another 5-8 mins, stirring occasionally.
Add cream & cheese. Allow the gravy to come to a boil.
On low flame, add pasta. Mix well. Cook for 4-5 mins till uniformly heated.
Serve hot with garlic toast.
Usually I make pasta in red sauce or white sauce, this is the first time I made using cream & spinach. It was a wonderful & fork licking dish. Pasta won hands down. Everyone loved the pasta & V also said that this is the best pasta I ever made. Thank you Vidhya for such a wonderful treat.
Sending Spinach Macaroni Pasta to Presto Pasta Nights, a weekly event hosted by Kirsten of Kirsten’s Kitchen to Yours. This event was initially started by Ruth of Once upon a Feast. I’ve been waiting for a chance to participate in this event as I love pasta & this was a great platform to come across awesome pastas. What a virtual treat!
Catch other Blog-Hoppers here to see what they have done for their blog hops. If you wish to join contact Radhika of Tickling Palates. Happy Hopping!!
Lemon in Ginger 