Tomato Cheese Sandwich with Pesto

Blogging Marathon# 66: Week 1/ Day 2

Theme: 3 Veggies that are Fruit

Dish: Tomato Cheese Pesto Sandwich

Tomato is probably the most popular vegetable that is in fact a fruit. Today I have a simple sandwich recipe that needs just a few ingredients but tastes absolutely amazing -- Tomato Cheese Sandwich with Pesto.

This dish doesn't really need a recipe. Assemble the ingredients listed in the name, pile them on bread and enjoy as is or if you like the cheese melted and the bread toasted, then grill the sandwich. I like it toasted, so that's how I served it.

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Three Cheese Potatoes

Blogging Marathon# : Week 1/ Day 3

Theme: Taste of Home Top 100 recipes of 2015

Dish: Three Cheese Potatoes
For the final day of this week's blogging marathon, I made this very addictive 'Three Cheese Potatoes'. My son is a self acclaimed super lover of both potatoes and cheese, so this dish was a hit with both my kids.

The original recipe for these three cheese potatoes on Taste of Home were made on the grill. But since it's very cold to grill, I made this recipe in the oven. Pre-cooking the potatoes before baking makes the dish cook faster. If not just bake the dish longer until the potatoes are tender.

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Spinach Artichoke Lasagna Rolls and Chocolate Risotto.... and a GIVEAWAY!

Can't believe holiday season is almost upon us and I'm very happy to be a part of Colavita and Perugina 'Join our Italian holiday Table' campaign this year. They sent me a large variety of their products including olive oils, crushed tomatoes, marinara sauce, artichokes hearts, olives, lasagna, arborio rice and some absolutely delicious Perugina chocolates. One of you lucky readers will also receive the same amazing products -- scroll down to the end of the post for more details of the giveaway.

Colavita is a family owned company and they have been importing and distributing Colavita Extra Virgin Olive Oil for over 30 years. Colavita Extra Virgin Olive Oil is recognized as the #1 Italian brand in the US and has earned awards from renowned cooking publications such as Fine Cooking and Cook’s Illustrated and general-interest magazines like Men’s Health. Perugina is Italy’s most renowned chocolate maker and Baci are Perugina’s most famous confection. Baci (which means “kisses” in Italian) are perfect as an ingredient in recipes, as a daily indulgence or as a gift for a loved one.

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Eggplant Parmesan for 1

Blogging Marathon# 57: Week 1/ Day 2

Theme: Eggplant Dishes from here

Dish: Eggplant Parmesan

Today I have one of my most favorite non-Indian eggplant dish, Eggplant Parmesan. Fried breaded eggplant slices layered with cheese and marinara sauce makes this dish rich and calorie dense. I've eaten it a couple of times in restaurants and many times at buffet style parties.

I have already posted a lighter version of eggplant parm with roasted eggplant and creamed spinach. Today's recipe has all the components of the traditional Eggplant parmesan but is lighter on calories and it makes just 1 serving. So now I don't have to make wait for a special occasion or party to make this dish, I can make it whenever I feel like it.

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Tomato & Mozzarella Crostini

For this month's International Food Challenge, Priya Suresh @ Priyas Versatile Recipes is taking us on a culinary journey through Campania region of Italy. There are various regional cuisine in Italy and Campania is one among them. Campania is a highly populated region in the southern Italy, located on the Italian Peninsula, with the Mediterranean sea to the west. Best known around the world for its Pizza.

Campania's exuberant cuisine relies on sun-kissed vegetables and herbs, salty capers, dried pasta, and fresh farmhouse cheeses, chief among them water buffalo's Mozzarella. Campania is home to over 80 percent of Italy's water buffaloes, so the Campani produce a number of delicious water buffalo's milk cheeses. Though none as wide spread or beloved as their Mozzarella di Bufala.

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Pizza Monkey Bread

For this month's 'Home Baker's Challenge' we are making Bread. Manjula of Desi Fiesta is the host for this month and she chose 4 different breads for trying. After deliberating on which one to choose, I finally ended up making a quite simple, but super tasty Pizza Monkey Bread. I hope to make the others on the challenge too sometime.

Monkey Bread is usually a sweet, sticky, gooey bread served for breakfast in the US. I went with a savory pizza flavor this time and used a pizza crust for the bread. The bread was so soft and fluffy and tasted great when dipped with pizza sauce/ marinara sauce. To make life easy, you could also use store bought pizza dough and make this monkey bread in a jiffy.

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Grilled Veggie & Cheese Stuffed Rolls

After that decadent stuffed breakfast and indulgent stuffed lunch, I have a light & healthy stuffed dish for dinner. Today's recipe is from King Arthur Flour's Baking Sheet newsletter. In this dish, roasted vegetables and cheese are rolled in a yeasty bread dough and baked to make light & flaky stuffed rolls that are perfect for a meal with some salad on the side or even as a quick pick-me up breakfast. 

The original recipe used roasted vegetables, but I used left over grilled vegetables. Also the original recipe  called for garlic herb cheese (like Boursin) or goat cheese, but I used a combination of cream cheese and grated mozzarella. 

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Baked Manicotti

For Day 3 of BM, I made this hearty and comforting baked pasta dish. Turning on the oven makes the kitchen nice and toasty -- perfect for chilly winter nights, so you know where I spend most of my time in winters ;-). This is a stuffed pasta dish with creamy Swiss chard and ricotta filling smothered in spicy tomato sauce and topped with lots of cheese -- great to please a crowd.

Stuffing traditional manicotti/ canneloni pasta can be tricky since cooked pasta tubes are very delicate and have a tendency to tear. So to make life easy I used no-boil lasagna noodles, an idea borrowed from Cook's Country magazine. Filling recipe is adapted from Giada's Swiss Chard & Pea Manicotti. Here's how I made it.

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