Rice & Sausage Casserole

My dear cousin has been experimenting away with cooking in her  new city of residence. And has been encouraging me to post my recipes online, so that experimenters like her can benefit from my experience. So thank you dear ARV.

Today's recipe is dedicated to you - Mwuah!

Rice & Sausage Casserole

Ingredients

1. Cooked Rice (I used leftovers) - 2 or 3 cups
2. Sausages (I used chicken sausages, but this recipe will work with just about any kind of sausage), chopped - 2 cups 
3. Onion, chopped - 1/2 cup
4. Oil, for sauteing - 2 tbsp
5. Tomato ketchup -  1 tbsp
6. Cauliflower, cut into florets - 1 small head
7. Carrot, chopped into 1 inch cubes - 3 medium size
8. Butter - 1 tbsp
9. Maida - 2 tbsp
10. Milk - 1 1/2 cups
11. Salt & Pepper - to taste
12. Pizza (Mozarella Cheese)  - 2 tbsp

Method

1.  Boil/steam the vegetables (Cauliflower and carrot)

   

   Veggies merrily boiling away - i used the veg stock also in the recipe ;) shhh... secret ingredient which is not mentioned in the recipe!

2. In a frying pan, heat oil and saute onion. When onion is translucent, add the chopped sausage and stir fry till sausage is cooked. Add tomato ketchup to this, mix and set aside.

   

   Blurred close-up of chopped onions

   
   

   

   Chicken sausages whole

   
   

   

   Onion & Sausage stir fry. Yum, can eat this itself as a meal.

   
   
   
3. Make white sauce with butter, maida and milk.
   • Melt butter in saucepan
   • Stir in maida so that there are no lumps
   • Add milk and keep stirring till milk heats up through
   • Season with salt and pepper

     

     This is a photo of the white sauce after i dumped the boiled veggies in it

4. Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius
5.  In a casserole dish, layer the rice, sausage mix, vegetables and pour the white sauce over all. Top with cheese.

   

   Rice Layer

   
   

   

   Sausage Layer

   
   

   

   White sauce and veggie layer

   
   

   

   Cheese Layer

   
   
6. Bake at 200 degrees Celsius for 10 minutes, or until the cheese has just melted.

   

   And the final product!

   
   
   Enjoy!

Breakfast Pizza

And another recipe!

Had an extra pizza base at home. And was wondering what to do for breakfast. Married the two, and here is the result of the union:

BREAKFAST PIZZA!

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients

1. Pizza Base: 1
2. Tomato Sauce: 2 tablespoons
3. Chilli Sauce: 1 tsp
4. Basil Leaves: a few
5. Black Olives: 5, halved
6. Sweet Corn kernels: 1 tablespoon
7. Mozzarella Cheese, grated: 2 tablespoons
8. Egg: 1

 Method

1. Mix tomato sauce and chilli sauce, and spread on pizza base.
2. Sprinkle the basil leaves, olives and corn over the pizza base. 
3. Cover pizza base with the grated cheese.
4. Bake at 180 C for 7 minutes
5. Crack egg over hot pizza, and place back in the oven for 6 minutes.
6. Check if egg is cooked to your liking.
7. Voila! Breakfast Pizza!

Fusili Pasta in White Sauce with Pepperoni

Here's the Pasta recipe. Please note that my measurements are not precise, cos my cooking isn't! It's only for baking that I use exact measurements (and I can be pretty dedicated then!!!)

So here goes:

Ingredients

1. Fusili Pasta (boiled al dente) - 3 cups
2. Butter - 2 tablespoons
3. Flour / Maida - 2 tablespoons
4. Chicken Stock - 2 cups. If you don't have ready chicken stock, you can also use milk/ water mixed with chicken cubes/ vegetable stock
5. Cornflour - 1 tablespoon (may not need the whole amount)
6. Pepperoni / Salami/ Sausage/ Any meat - As much as you like!
7. Cheese - Again, as much as you like!
8. Salt - to taste
9. Pepper - to taste

 Method

1. Melt the butter in a saucepan
2. Add the flour, stirring all the time. Stir till the butter is incorporated into the flour (or the other way around)
3. Add the chicken stock.
4. Add salt and pepper
5. Add pasta
6. If the sauce is too runny, add cornflour, 1/2 teaspoon at a time, to thicken it
7. Add pepperoni.

Voila! Fusili Pasta in White Sauce with Pepperoni! Serve with grated cheese sprinkled on top! Enjoy!

Dinner Menu

Wanted to share with you all the dinner I made for my family last night...

Sweet Corn on the Cob

Barbequed Chicken Wings

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fusili Pasta in White Sauce with Pepperoni

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grilled Zucchini and Potato

and a decadent dessert.... will upload photo tomorrow.

May write out my recipes later. But for now, happy drooling!

Yay! Kakuli the cook has arrived!

I have good news! I've finally managed to source a cook, who will cook fresh hot food for us every day, except Sundays.

She started this morning, and her food tastes pretty good. And I suddenly have free time in the morning and at night! I was so unprepared for that, but when I got it, it was a lovely surprise... the time, I mean.

Hope to use that time creatively. Will keep you updated on my projects.

Till then, tata.

Love: Yes/No

Today's post is not going to be a commentary. Just wanted to highlight a topic that Aamir Khan brought up on his popular programme, Satyameva Jayate: about how we do not give our young ones in India the freedom to love. Read his view here.

I wonder how I as a mother would behave in the future when it comes to the topic of my young ones falling in love. Will I try to straitjacket them according to the structure I have created in my mind, or will I give them wings to fly? Only time will tell.

Yawn!

Sleep, glorious sleep. I have always needed lots of it, but how the human being amazingly adapts to situations. I now get by on 8 hours of sleep, which is perfect. During my MBA days, have got by on 3 and 4 hours. Couple that with activity-packed days, and I am left wondering... Why didn't I get headaches then? How does the human being adjust to such sleep deprivation for such a long period? Interesting...

(P.S. This was Thursday's post, which as usual, didn't get published from my phone.) 

No guilt!

I missed one day in blogging! Now I'm not going to beat myself up about it, just going to make a public promise that some day in this one-month trial, I will blog twice! That's that. I'm not going to beat myself up about that.

That brings me straight to today's topic: Guilt. As an Indian living in urban Bangalore, part of the Marthomite community and active participant in family matters, why am I made to feel guilty all the time? We are so good at making those boundaries for others. Oh no, you shouldn't do that, no stepping over this line, I don't like you thinking like this... why are we so bothered about others' actions?

The Bible (and I'm sure other holy writings do too) talks about the taking out of the log from one's own eye before pointing out the speck in another's. My friend Sumana writes on the same topic in her social commentary blog This & That. And those closest to me remind me how every person I judge has their own story.

So before I feel guilty about something, let me remember that I am entitled to my own opinion, action and life. That may sound selfish, but I think it's one of my first steps to freedom! Yoohoo!

A Spicy Life

When I was growing up and planning my dream kitchen in my mind, my spice rack looked like this

But you know what my actual spice rack looks like now?

And to think that I am the same person who wondered why people never modernized this part of their kitchen?

Now I have my answer!

Each of the mismatched bottles have history behind them. Oh I remember that haldi bottle. It contained strawberry preserve that Ma got from a Coonoor-based relative. And the salt bottle? My first beef pickle was proudly bottled in that! And the chilli powder now fills the same space that our army jam was in... I can go on and on.

So should I obey my Tupperware instinct or let history live on?