Pasta Salad with Black Beans (Vegan recipe)

Memorial day is right around the corner and if you are looking for a dish to make, then here's an easy to make and tasty Pasta Salad with black beans and veggies. It's completely vegan, if you use vegan mayo but if you have regular mayo then go ahead and use it instead.

I am always looking for opportunities to try new dishes, so last weekend I took this pasta dish when I went to meet my blog buddies, Sushma, Rajani, Usha, Mir and Amara. The good thing about this dish is it can be made ahead of time and chilled until ready to serve, which makes it a great dish to make for picnics. barbecues or for take along lunches.

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Hara Butter Paneer Masala (Spicy Green Curry with Paneer)

Blogging Marathon# 62: Week 4/ Day 1

Theme: No Tomato Gravies

Dish: Hara Butter Masala
For the final day of this week's 'No Tomato Gravies' theme I have an interesting curry made with green pepper and cilantro. Regular butter masala is made with butter, tomatoes puree and cream. This 'green' version is made with butter, green pepper, cilantro and cream.

This recipe is from a Telugu cooking show and it looked too good to pass on. It is very easy to make once you have hara/ green masala prepped. Switch paneer with other protein like tofu, chickpeas or beans and skip the cream and use vegan butter for a vegan version of the curry.

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Pepper Gojju (Mysore style Masala curry)

Blogging Marathon #60: Week 3/ Day 2

Theme: Regional Specials

Dish: Pepper & Onion Gojju (Mysore style Masala curry)

For the second day of this week's BM, I made a lip smacking Mysore curry with peppers and onions. Highlight and the base of the dish is a delicious coconut gravy. 

This recipe is again from Vani's blog, Mysoorean. I made her Kattina dal and this pepper curry for a simple, comforting and delicious meal.

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Pepper Poriyal using Poriyal Powder(Dry Green Pepper Curry)

Blogging Marathon# 58: Week 2/ Day 3

Theme: Dry Vegetable Sautes

Dish: Green Pepper Poriyal

For the final day of this week's blogging marathon, I made yet another poriyal from Dakshin cookbook. This recipe is flavored with a homemade poriyal powder and is quite different tasting from yesterday's masala beans poriyal.

Poriyal podi aka curry powder is made with dals (lentils), coriander seeds and dry red chilies. Making a big batch of this makes it easy to make quick dry curries. It can be used to make potato fry, arbi (colacassia, chamadumpa) fry and so on.

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Salsa Picante

This is one of the condiments that I wanted to post for the mega marathon-condiment week, but didn't know which country to put it under. So I'm posting it today for 'Cooking from Cookbook Challenge'.
Salsa is a condiment made with tomatoes, onions, peppers and other ingredients. 'Picante' is a Spanish adjective meaning 'piquant', derived from the word 'picar' which means to sting, referring to the feeling caused on the tongue.

I usually make fresh salsas, the ones that are basically chopped and mixed together. This one is cooked till the veggies are tender and the sauce is thickened.

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Corn and Pepper Relish (Preserving Summer Bounty)

Buffet on Table: Bloggers Choice

Day 24: Preserving Summer Bounty - Roasted Confetti Corn

We are reaching the final stretch of this month's nonstop blogging for 'Buffet on Table' and the theme for this week is 'Blogger's Choice'. I thought it was going to be a breeze to come up with a theme and do 3 posts.
I couldn't even decide on the theme until last week. I was flip flopping on few themes, I'm going to jot them down here, so I remember them for later --dinner menu ideas, dhaba recipes and Bengali desserts. Then suddenly I thought of posting recipes for preserving the summer bounty/ harvest.

I planted some tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant and chilies in a raised bed garden for the first time this year. I mentioned about my home grown zucchini in this post. Unfortunately after giving me the very large 13" long zucchini, the plant decided to call it a day and die on me :-(

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Muhammara (Red Pepper Walnut Spread)

Buffet on Table: Week 3 -- Condiments from Countries

Day 16: Syria -- Muhammara (Red Pepper Walnut Spread)
Today's condiment comes from Aleppo, Syria. Muhammara or mhammara is a hot pepper dip and is found in Levantine and Turkish cuisines. In western Turkey, muhammara is referred to as acuka. 

It is made with smoky roasted peppers, crunchy walnuts and fruity pomegranate molasses. It is a great alternate to hummus that is a usually found on Middle Eastern appetizer platter. Aleppo pepper is usually added to the dip, but you can substitute with a pinch of cayenne.

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Red Pepper & Almonds Pasta Sauce

Blogging Marathon# 50: Week 3/ Day 2

Theme: Different Pasta Sauces

Dish: Red Pepper & Almonds Pasta Sauce

I consider myself at least 5 years behind technology especially social media. The only one that I use is Facebook and that is mainly for the blog and sometimes to share pics of the family. I have no clue where to play and how to play on Facebook. So there you have it -- now you know there is no point in sending me that Farmville request because you got it -- I don't know how to play -- Thank you. But if I compare myself with my husband, I am at least 10 years ahead because he has no Facebook account and he thinks I'm snooping around and violating someone's privacy by reading their status update, hehehe :-)
I digress, coming back to the case in point. I recently started using Instagram, even though I've had the account for almost 2~3 years now. What I'm stumped is the hashtags used in Instagram. Most of the time I'm #totallystuck #havenoclue #howtousehashtags. Any tips, tricks and inputs into expanding my #hashtagknowledge would be highly #appreciated :-) Please leave them in the #comments section below. Thank you.

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Roasted Vegetable Wrap

Blogging Marathon# 50: Week 1/ Day 3

Theme: American Sandwiches

Dish: Roasted Vegetable Sandwich Wrap

For the last day of this week's 'American Sandwiches' theme, I have a quick and easy Roasted Veggie Sandwich wrap. Wraps are less messy and very convenient to pack for lunches. Absolutely anything can go into a wrap, like these sandwich wraps I made for a picnic.

Today's wrap has roasted veggies in it with a healthy smear of mashed bean spread. Any vegetable can be roasted and used here. To expedite the roasting part, broiler is used. But if you want to roast them the slow, methodical way, then roast the veggies in a preheated 450°F for 20~30 minutes. Veggies can be grilled on a stove top or outdoor grill. The mashed bean spread can be easily replaced with some homemade or store bought hummus.

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Migas with Black beans

Blogging Marathon# 49: Week 1/ Day 3

Theme: Brunch Recipes

Dish: Migas with Black beans

Eggs form a very important part in breakfast and brunch menus, for egg eaters that is. So when I'm planning a brunch for my egg eating friends, I usually make a frittata (a big fat baked omelette with lots of veggies) or a quiche (egg based pie). One of my Turkish friend recently introduced me to Menemen (Turkish scrambled eggs with veggies) and that tasted awesome.

While looking for some egg based dishes for this week's Brunch theme, I found this Migas recipe on Pioneer Woman site. This Migas is different from the traditional Spanish & Portuguese migas. In this Tex-Mex version eggs are scrambled along with corn tortillas, veggies and cheese. It is typically served with refried beans and corn or flour tortillas are used to fold all the ingredients into tacos.

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Baby Corn Pepper Fry

Blogging Marathon# 47: Week 1/ Day 2

Theme: North Indian Starters

Dish: Baby Corn Pepper Fry

For Day 2 of this week's blogging marathon, I made an Indo-Chinese favorite. Even though I stay away from deep frying, I couldn't stop myself from frying these yummy baby corn pakoras/ fritters. I had this appetizer way back when in India and have been thinking about it ever since, finally got a chance to try it at home now.

I am not 100% sure if this Indo-Chinese dish is really a North Indian starter, but since it is Indo-Chinese and China is in the north of India, I decided to run with it :-)

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Capsicum Coconut Masala Curry (Peppers in Spicy Coconut Gravy)

It has been a strange week so far. When the weather was bright and sunny, I was in no mood to cook and click. But when I cooked to click, the weather turned gloomy and dull, which means not much cooking or clicking was done this week :-( But I made sure I had a dish ready for 'Cooking from Cookbook Challenge'. I actually made it last week along with the mixed dal sambar.

Today's dish is from a Telugu cooking show. The combination of pepper and coconut sounded interesting and so I tried it right away. It is definitely a different and delicious combination.

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Vegetarian Pupusa

Blogging Marathon# 37: Week 1/ Day2
Theme: National Dishes from around the World 
Dish: El Salvador -- Pupusa

Years ago when I first started watching Food network, Rachael Ray used to make dishes from different countries/ cuisines and called them 'Passport meals' to those countries. Which means you don't need a passport to visit those countries physically, all you need is a well stocked pantry and you can easily transport to that country by enjoying the local dishes right at home. That is how my interest in trying different cuisines started.

So today I made a Passport meal to El Salvador by making their national dish, Pupusa. This is another dish that has been on my to-make list for a while now. I used the recipe from Viva Vegan by Terry Hope Romero.

Pupusas are stuffed, grilled tortillas from El Salvador. The fun of pupusas is in the combination of hot grilled masa harina, tasty fillings, tangy tomato sauce, and cool Salvadorian style coleslaw known as curdito. So this dish has quite a few components and can be time consuming to make. But luckily the curdito and the tomato sauce can be made up to 2 days in advance.

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Austrian Vegetable Strudel

For this month's International Food Challenge, our host Briju Parthasarathy is taking us on a culinary tour of Austria. She gave us 4 Lower Austrian dishes to choose from and I picked the Austrian Vegetable Strudel.

Some wiki gyan about Strudel: Strudel is a type layered pastry with a -- most often -- sweet filling. Strudel is most often associated with Austrian cuisine but is also a traditional pastry in the whole area of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The savory strudel is filled with crisp tender vegetables and cheese. It almost sounded like the veggie pastry we used to get back home at the bakeries. Original recipe had rutabaga, parsnip etc, but I used vegetables I had on hand; sweet potato, carrots, green beans and red pepper. Also to add some protein, I added some soy granules as well.

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Indian style Stuffed Peppers with Potato Curry

Blogging Marathon# 34: Week 1/ Day 3
Theme: Cooking with Capsicum/ Peppers
Dish: Stuffed Peppers with Potato Curry

After a spicy pickle and a creamy pesto recipe with peppers, I have one of my favorite childhood stuffed bell pepper dish. My mom used to make it years ago and I loved the little capsicum boats stuffed with yummy potato curry. So for this week's 'Cooking with Capsicum/ Bell Pepper' theme, even though I had another dish in mind I ended up making this stuffed capsicum curry.

I have a paneer stuffed peppers cury already on the blog, but that is a rich dish with paneer and heavy cream. Today's dish is very homey with potato curry stuffing that is slightly spicy. Peppers in India are much smaller and the whole pepper can be hulled out and filled just like a plum tomato. But in the US, peppers are huge and so I halved them and stuffed the halves, then pan fried them until tender.

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Bell Pepper/ Capsicum Avakaya

Blogging Marathon# 34: Week 1/ Day 2
Theme: Cooking with Capsicum/ Peppers
Dish: Green Pepper/ Capsicum Avakaya

Day 2 of BM# 34 and today I have a spicy hot Andhra pickle made ith green bell peppers. I'm just learning that every vegetable can be used to make avakaya. I asked my mom what to make for this week's 'Cooking with Bell Peppers/  Capsicum' theme and she said let's make 'Avakaya'.
I wasn't sure how it was going to taste, but went ahead with her proposal. It was sure spicy and tasted just like hmmmm.. avakaya should taste like but with milder bell pepper instead of sour mango. I guess you can use any color pepper, but we used green pepper here.

I think any veggie can be made into 'avakaya'. I saw someone on a cooking show make 'eggplant' avakaya which by the way my mom and I tried right away. It tasted great to me (you know my love for eggplants.. don't you?? if not check my collection of eggplant recipes), but just OK to everyone else. May be one day I'll make it again to post here.

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Quick Tawa Rice

Blogging Marathon# 33: Week 2/ Day 3
Theme: Favorite Celebrity Chef Recipes
Dish: Tarla Dalal's Quick Tawa Rice
One of my favorite Indian Chef is Tarla Dalal. I still remember watching her show on Sony TV from 12~15 years back and noting down the recipes. I used to bug my mom to buy the ingredients from super market to try the recipes. I love the way she makes all the dishes so simple and easy to make.
So for Day 3 of BM# 33, I made this quick Tawa rice by Tarla Dalal. I used to print out recipes from Tarla Dalal.com some 6~8 years back. I neatly them put in a binder and kept it safely in the basement. While looking for recipes for this week, I looked through the binder, but couldn't find anything to make with the ingredients I had on hand. A quick Google search landed me on this recipe and Tarla Dalal's Youtube video. I made it right away for lunch and really liked it. This dish is going to be on our meal rotation going forward.

The dry red chili - garlic paste gives this dish so much flavor and it smells heavenly while cooking and even after cooking. My addition to this dish is a spoonful of pav bhaji masala, other than that I kept it close to the original.

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Pasta with Asparagus, Mascarpone cheese & Walnuts

Blogging Marathon# 33: Week 2/ Day 2
Theme: Favorite Celebrity Chef Recipes
Dish: Giada's Pasta with Asparagus & Mascarpone cheese
My Celebrity chef of choice for Day 2 of BM# 33 is Giada De Laurentils. She is an Italian chef and is a regular on Food Network. Her Italian recipes look doable and easy to make with every-day available ingredients.
I learnt a lot of Italian recipes watching Giada's shows. One of the fancy ingredient I started to buy after watching her is Mascarpone cheese. She uses it in both sweet & savory preparations like cheesecakes, pastas etc. I buy a tub on mascarpone cheese when on sale and use it in various dishes.

Today's dish is Giada's Farfalle with Asparagus & Mascarpone. I was making this for my sister who doesn't eat mushrooms, so I used peppers instead. Also I jazzed up the recipe with sauteed onion and garlic for added flavor. Addition of walnuts was the highlight for this recipe and I really enjoyed the crunch. Final dish was colorful, creamy and filling.

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Mango Chutney

Blogging Marathon# 33: Week 2/ Day 1
Theme: Favorite Celebrity Chef Recipes
Dish: Mango Chutney
We are starting 2nd week of blogging marathon# 33 today and my theme for this week is 'Favorite Celebrity Chef Recipes'. For the first day, I have Alton Brown's Mango chutney that I actually made couple of months ago in the middle of summer. Saved it in the drafts and totally forgot about it.
Alton Brown is one of my favorite chef / cook on Food Network. I love to watch Good Eats show where he explains the science of cooking in a way that is easily understandable to everyone. He's very knowledgeable and very funny.
My husband and I love mangoes (husband LOVES them way more than me) and we make sure to buy ripe mangoes when in season. We bought a pack of 6 from Costco and the first one we tasted was so sour that both was us were very disappointed. Since it was almost impossible to eat them raw I wanted to turn them into a yummy chutney. I had bookmarked this recipe from Alton Brown quite sometime back and after a quick trip to the grocery store made this spicy-sweet mango chutney.

I bought mango chutney for this recipe and a small jar costs a fortune. I've used that chutney in salads, sandwiches, also great with naans and even quesadillas. So instead of buying a small jar, I now have 2 jars full of my home made mango chutney.

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Savory Kugelhopf

For this month's International Food Challenge and for this month, our host Shobana @ Kitchen Secrets and Snippets wanted us to explore the Alsace-Lorraine region. This is a multi-cuisine region which inherits partly German, partly French culture and so their recipes are influenced from both the countries. Alsace and Lorraine are separate regions in France's north-eastern corner, and share borders with Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany and Switzerland. Alsatian cuisine, somehow based on Germanic culinary traditions, is marked by the use of pork in various forms. Traditional dishes include baeckeoffe, flammekueche, choucroute, quiche lorraine and fleischnacka. Southern Alsace, also called the Sundgau, is characterized by carpe frite (that also exists in Yidish tradition).
Out of the many prominent dishes from the region, we were asked to pick 1 of the 3 dishes: Tarte Flambe/ Kugelhopf & Quiche Lorraine. I chose to make Savory Kugelhopf.

Kugelhopf or Gugelhupf is a yeasted soft -- a hybrid between cake and a bread. Usually kugelhopf is a sweet bread that contains raisins, almonds and is flavored with citrus. Some also contain candied fruits and nuts. A lesser known version of the Kugelhopf is its savoury Alsatian version called the Kugelhopf aux Lardons. “Lardons” is the French word for bacon, and this version is typically made with onions, ham/ bacon, walnuts and herbs.

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