Experiments in my mom's kitchen

Some big changes happened in my life since my previous post. For one, I am unemployed right now and totally enjoying the break. I am at my mom's place for about 2 weeks and using her oven for my experiments.
The first experiment is not really an experiment. I made a baked pasta dish. Made it in 3 parts, first were vegetables, I sautéed onion, tomato, corn, cauliflower, basically whatever was at hand with salt and sugar. The second part was boiling the pasta in salted water. The third was white sauce. About a tablespoon each, of olive oil and butter. Some whole spices: pepper, cinnamon, clove. Added 4 tablespoons of flour and roasted it and added a cup of milk, some salt and pepper and a bit of water as the whole thing started getting thicker. Take care not to cause any lumps. In case you are lazy to avoid lumps, just run it in the mixie and you have a smooth sauce, just like me. :) In a borosil glass dish, add the veggies and pasta, mix and pour the white sauce on top and spread some cheese over it. Bake it in a hot oven for 10 mins and delicious pasta is ready. I think it would taste equally good even if its not baked.

The other experiment was baked bread rolls. Bread rolls here are the potato stuffed bread which are generally deep-fried. But deep frying bread completely puts me off. So I just stuffed the bread with the usual potato stuffing, applied oil over it with the brush and baked it for a long time in the oven. It doesn’t look as brown like the deep fried version but definitely better than oil sticking in your throat. Usual potato stuffing : boiled, mashed potatoes, grated ginger, chopped coriander leaves, salt, dhaniya powder, bit of garam masala.

The third was truly an experiment. Biscuits, which can be eaten for the fast or "upwas" as it is called. And this being the "Shravan" month of the Hindu calendar, lot of religious fasting is done, though I don't follow this. I took equal amounts of shinghada and rajgira flours which was about 2 and a half cups. Added 3/4 the cup sugar, 1/2 cup beaten ghee, one and a half cups of chopped pista, cashew, dates, dried apricots, 1 tsp of baking powder, some cardamom powder and mixed everything up. Added some milk to get dough. Shaped it into rounds and baked for about 10 minutes. They tasted divine, obviously considering the tasty ingredients that went into it.

Pav Bhaji meets Pasta?!!

Sounds like a weird combination and it’s not what I had in mind when I started making it. All I wanted to do was make it taste completely different from what I have tasted before :) After thinking about how I should make the pasta this time for the whole day, this is what I did. I boiled a combination of bow and spiral pasta in salted water. While it was boiling, I added a small onion, two small tomatoes, a small capsicum, walnuts, olive pickle (made by me), some olives, and garlic into the food processor and made a coarse paste out of it. Then I heated olive oil in a pan and added the paste into it and sautéed it for a while. Then added some milk, cream, oregano seasoning and chilly flakes (the small packets which you get at dominos, I put them to good use) :) Added the pasta and some corn, covered it with cheese slices and covered the pan and let it warm for 10 mins till the cheese melted.
The verdict: Anurag says it is kind of like pav bhaji meets pasta.
I say it was one of the better tasting pasta I have made. The only problem was the paste was more in quantity compared to the pasta.
Try it at your own risk ;)