PIzza - home made with bread!!

 Sometimes its very important to eat something new. something thats not the run of the mill, standard following the receipe.. just take whats there at home and put them together and hope in hell that the tastes blend together and you can relish and enjoy the fruits of your labour! :D

Enough philosophy, now to food!! :D

Ingredients:
Bread
Tomato sauce/pasta sauce/pizza sauce
Veggies of your choice.
i choose: 

Yellow and orange pepper
Onion
Potatoes

Salt to taste
Cheese if you are a fan. (not me as you can see)

Preparation:
Switch the oven at 180 degree celsius.
Prepare the bread
A layer of the sauce
a layer each of the veggies - order and amount all upto your taste.
salt on top to give it some great taste
put into the oven for 10 mins, till the bread is crisp and golden brown

gobble it away!! :)

Tips:
1. try using green peppers, according to me they taste anytime better. the other colour peppers give a little sweet taste
2. if u add cheese, mozzarella is best. pizza in true style. amounts can be varied as much as u like it. :)
3. Pre-heat the oven for 10 mins, the bread cooks faster!! 

Dal masala - Chakna

the desi (indian) version of a snack with a drink. :) the dal masala all made from ready made stuff.. packets opened and made... :D

little spicy, little tangy and amazing with a good drink!!


Ingredients:
Haldiram packet of spicy daal
Onions
Coriander leaves
Lemon to squeeze


Preparation:

1. Open the packet of haldiram spicy daal packet and empty it into a bowl.
2. Chop some onions and coriander leaves, fine 
3. Mix them into the bowl
4. Squeeze a lemon into the mixture and mix well 
5. The best dish in town is ready... 

all u need are some good friends, a good drink and a great conversation. :D

Bread Poha - my anytime food

Bread Poha is my all time anytime food... its easy to make and fills ur tummy and doesn't need any big fact ingredient list to make it.

people who know me, will say that i always have the mood  to eat something. my favourite line is "mujhe kuch khana hai" (translated - i want to eat something). this something generally doesn't have a name or a food item associated with it. but over the years the time to decide what that something should be has shortened.
Why i am writing this is to give the context of why bread poha is so important to me. if you haven't figured it out, bread poha ends up being my something a lot of times.

Ingredients:
bread
onion
jeera/cumin seeds

Masala:
Haldi
Mirchi

Optional:
Tomatoes
Garam Masala
Dhaniya powder

Preparations:

1. Take some oil and heat it in a pan
2. Add jeera and roast it
3. Add haldi, mirchi, garam masala and dhaniya powder, haldi more, others less
4. Add onions and roast them till golden brown
5. Break the bread - rough or cut squares on bread
6. Mix it with the onions 
7. Add salt, not too much cause bread already has its own taste
8. Mix properly... cook till the bread is crisp
9. Its ready to be served

Tips:

1. Tomatoes add a tingy taste to the bread poha. i dont like it so i dont add it
2. Experiment with the flavours, can add chillies.

Pav Bhaji - the staple mumbai food...

Pav Bhaji

Pav bhaji reminds me of comfort food... every nook and corner of bombay streets had a pav bhaji guy but u would go to that one place where u have been having pav bhaji for ages together...

my favourite place - canon, opp VT station; acheja - ghatkopar and mulund; the road side thela at chembur station, sadguru at chembur station... yummy!! nostalgic talking abt bombay streetfood and my favourite spots... :D




last nights dinner was cause our friend Himanshu was back in dubai and more so important, he was getting food from home... like they say in hindi "Ma ke haat ka khana" .... :D yummy...

anyways,  so with the baingan ka bharta still on the cards, the street food came to my mind... and trust me once street food comes to your mind, its pretty difficult to get it out... :) so the gruesome task of making the pav bhaji started.

Ingredients:

1. Potatoes,boiled and mashed - 4 medium
2. Tomatoes,chopped - 4 medium
3. Onions,chopped - 2 medium
4. Green capsicum,chopped deseeded - 1 medium
5. Cauliflower,grated - 1/4 small
6. Green peas,shelled - 1/4 cup
7. Ginger,chopped - 1 inch piece
8. Garlic - 8-10 cloves
9. Oil - 3 tablespoons
10. Green chillies,chopped - 3-4
11. Pav bhaji masala - 1 1/2 tablespoons
12. Salt - to taste
13. Butter - 3 tablespoons
14. Pav - 8 or bread will do... 
15. Fresh coriander leaves,chopped - 1/4 cup
16. Lemons,cut into wedge - 2

Preparation:

1. it helps to get all the veggies cut,boiled, smashes, grinded etc in place so that u can focus on making the dish... for amateurs likes me, makes a lot of sense not to parallel process with cutting and cooking, i have burnt a lot of things like that... :D 
2. what needs to be done before hand is:
1. potatoes boiled and smashed
2. onions chopped fine, i grind it. saves u from tearing up 
3. garlic peeled, ginger, green chilles - grinder
4. peas soaked, softened and grinded
5. cauliflower - grated. 
6. capsicum - chopped fine
3. start as always with the oil in the pan, heated for roasting onions... 
4. add the onions and roast them till they are light brown
5. add the garlic, ginger and chillies into the onions and cook for a minute so that the ginger and garlic are roasted and dont smell like raw stuff.. :D (ull get used to it once u cook 2 indian dishes.. the smell becomes familiar) 
6. add the tomatoes and cook it till they are soft and can be crushed with the back of your spoon. the recipe said take 3/4th the tomatoes, i put all of them, then cut a little more to add at the end... :D 
7. add the peas, cauliflower, capsicum, potatoes and mix well. 
8. add water so that theres enough to boil and theres a small layer of water on the top of the veggies mix
9. lower the gas/heat and let it simmer. 
10. add the pav bhaji masala and salt and stir.
11. let it cook and reduce till the water is evaporated and the pav bhaji looks like a nice gravy!! :) 
12. butter, onion and dhaniya on the pav bhaji are optional, i leave it to the individual taste of the person eating..
13. roast the bread in butter and enjoy... :D 

Half eaten pav bhaji plate

Tips:

1. The potatoes and tomatoes can be of equal quantities. 
2. Onions half of that
3. The rest of the veggies are just to add the flavour and variety, their quantity can be 1/4 of the potatoes or even less. these proportions worked well for me. 
4. Everest Pav Bhaji masala is the saviour of the day. i likes it.
5. its the pav bhaji masala that gives the pav bhaji masala.
6. grind the peas, ginger, garlic and green chillies.... makes life so much more easy and less chopping... :D i love my grinder... 
7. the street vendors make it so easy.... 5 mins or less u have a plate of AMAZING pav bhaji and steaming buttery pav ready. trust me, its not easy to make. i have a new found respect for them. :D and will cherish every bite of my pav bhaji when i eat it next in bombay. 
8. pav bhaji makes a grt sandwich mix the next day. thats lunch for me today!! :) 

Original recipe: http://www.sanjeevkapoor.com/bombay-pavbhaji.aspx

Quick Fix Sandwich!!

abhi and i were sitting and watching Masterchef Australia and the challenge was an "Innovation Test" to make the best sandwich which included bread making and mast sandwich making..

inspired by last nights cooking influence, my morning breakfast was a sandwich... luckily, i had shopped a few days back extensively for food material so i had ingredients that i could work with.

Ingredients:

practically whatever i got in the fridge, for this one:

yellow peppers
tomatoes
onion

Seasonings:
crushed basil
salt

Preparation:

The filling
1. Heat a pan with a good splash of olive oil.
2. Roast the onions till they are transparent
3. Add the peppers, roast them till they are semi soft
4. Add the tomatoes, roast them
5. Add basil and salt to taste and mix it into the veggies

The sandwich
1. Take the sandwich bread, butter it up
2. Stuff the sandwich bread with the mix
3. Grill the sandwich in the same pan that the mix was made in, to get the flavours into the bread

eat up and enjoy!! :D

Tips:
1. Zucchini also tastes good in sandwiches, plus the usual lettuce, olives, pickles etc
2. buy the right bread for a sandwich... it is very important...
3. even if the stuffing comes out of the bread, its ok... eat it up!! side dish for your sandwich!! :D