I know I've not been the biggest advocate for pasta. For the longest time I wondered what all the fuss was about. It was just pasta right? like carbs, like rice. It all depended on the sauce you added to it. So most times, I'd chuck the pasta and use other stuff instead with the sauce. Like when I made my Boozy Pasta Sauce. But over the last one year, I've been taking packed lunches to work and it made so much sense to make simple pasta dishes which would remain sturdy and fresh for lunch. I guess this one's more a salad than a saucy pasta. It takes hardly anytime to make and is not messy to pack and go. And also very good for summer when you don't want to be near a stove too long.

It is not advisable to wash cooked  pasta when there is a sauce to bind the dish together. But in this case, since there is no sauce, I rinse the pasta in cold water just once to wash the excess starch away.

After all this, you must be thinking I've made some awesomely new, outlanding dish here, but read the title. It is not called 'My Simplest Pasta Recipe' without a reason. There is actually no recipe :-)
You only have to be careful with your ingredients.



Serves: one person

Ingredients

70g dried spaghetti
10 cherry tomatoes halved (if you'r counting, else a handful)
10 fresh basil leaves torn
1/tsp chilli flakes (adjust to taste)
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp grated parmesan
Salt to taste

Method

1. Cook pasta till al dente. Rinse once under cold water. Drain.
2. Toss in cherry tomatos, basil, chilli flakes & olive oil.
3. Toss by hand or with tongs to spread all the ingredients uniformly.
4. Season with salt to taste.
*5. You can at this point gently reheat it on a non stick pan. Be careful not to wilt the veggies.
6. Garnish with grated parmesan.
7. Serve immediately, pack for lunch or into the refrigerator it can go to be reheated in a microwave later.

I don't observe step 5. I reheat in the microwave if required.

If you've been following this blog for a while now, you would have noticed some changes, not just in the layout, but also in the content. What started as a dessert blog has more or less changed into a savoury blog with lots of healthy eating options and mostly vegetarian.

Who'd have thunk?!!! Me? Vegetarian? Even I sometimes baulk when I think about being vegetarian. But honestly, I don't know if it's growing up, listening to my body, being ecological or being just time constrained, I prefer eating vegetarian atleast when I'm at home. It's difficult to be vegetarian when I'm eating out in India. Here, in Bombay, I hesitate to walk into a posh restaurant and be happy with the vegetarian fare over the non vegetarian. At home is a different matter, I get to play around with ingredients, flavours, textures and create dishes where meat would actually be superfluous if added.

Though I tend to use seasonal veggies available in my local grocery store, when I do have access to special ingredients, leaves, shoots & such, I'm eager to try them out and see how they taste. I've always loved arugula, but have never been able to manage a regular supply of it. On my recent trip to Hypercity in Malad, I was so happy to see so many salad greens on the shelves. I came back with bags of arugula, micro greens, bocconcini and other varieties of cheeses which I don't always get locally.

I wanted something which focused on the creaminess of the bocconcini, had the bitter bite of the rocket leaves and natural sweetness of winter carrots. Throw in some red onions for a punch and some orange carpels and juice to mellow it down.


It's a recipe made entirely on a whim and that's when I realised I'm really getting the hang of salads. I tried it out for a couple of days, the first two times I had orange carpels which I impatiently pulled out and use, the third time, I just used orange juice in the dressing. And that worked magically. If you do segment the oranges properly, I'm sure it would be lovely. Just that I don't have the patience to do it with the mandarin variety.

Ingredients

2 cups rocket/ arugula leaves
1 winter carrot grated
1/2 red onion sliced
1/2 orange segmented
4 rounds of bocconcini halved.

Dressing.

3 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 tbsp orange juice
salt & pepper to taste.


Whisk all the dressing ingredients till completely mixed.
Toss all the salad ingredients together.
Drizzle dressing over. Serve with a nice crusty bread.

I picked up a red cabbage last week from the veggie rack at the food store. I didn't know what to do with it, but I thought I'd get it first and think later on. This is part of my initiative to eat more veggies (Uh oh I ordered chicken lollipop again tonight) and try new things.

I googled and found this on BBC Goodfood. It's really good. And the peanuts, they taste so good in this salad. So crunchy and so filling. The original recipe asked for groundnut oil, I used the toasted sesame oil I had at hand. It added a nice nutty flavour to the salad.

Didn't I have you at nachos. Didn't I? And aren't you feeling a bit bad that I don't really have nachos in this pic? Fear not. It's because nachos didn't really strike me at all! Not till dinner time and I just felt an extra crunch missing.

This salad is almost the same as a Pico de Gallo except I added peppers cos I was in the mood for them and I had a both red and yellow peppers at home. It's always been a little exotic, these peppers. We never had them when we were kids. And to me for the longest time, I really didn't think there was any difference. But slowly I can differentiate them in taste, though even now I'm really not that confident of a blind taste test.

Are you like me? Did you hear Pico de Gallo and think it was something really fancy? I'd read a lot and a lot and a lot about this and thought it was something really fancy. When I finally got to the ingredients and actually made it once, I realised its certainly YUM, TANGY, DELICIOUS.. all of it in capitals. But...it's a salad or what we call "Challas" in Kerala. Something most North Indians would have with their roti-sabji if they weren't munching through those god-awful, malodorous, thick, onion slices. Yes, I detest those onion slices...