I’ve always been a pasta lover as pasta dishes usually don’t demand any ingredients out of the ordinary. Any veggie or meat in the refrigerator would work and any herbs in the pantry would go well with pasta. If I don’t have any of these, then a simple tomato sauce topped with grated parmesan cheese, it couldn’t get any better than this. On lazy days a bowl of warm home made pasta is good enough to satisfy my stomach and to make my taste buds dance. I always have pasta in fact all kinds including the gluten free ones stored in my pantry as I know it will come in handy any time. I often throw them in salads, soups, stews and I even went a little over board and made pasta pudding. Do I need more reasons to stack up pasta?

The other day when I was planning to make pasta, I felt like trying something different and that day I even had brown mushrooms. So, I decided to skip the meat and combine the pasta with veggies like mushrooms and yellow peppers. I adopted this recipe from All recipes.com. I loved the addition of sour cream to the sauce which gave this dish a creamy texture and it tasted better than the restaurant style pasta dishes.

Creamy Mushroom Pasta

Ingredients:

• Pasta, fusilli or any type- 1/2 packet or according to your needs
• Mushroom, brown large, cut into stripes- 3 no’s
• Yellow peppers, cut into stripes (optional)- 2
• Olive oil- 1 tbsp
• Butter- 1/2 tbsp
• Garlic, minced- 1 tbsp
• Italian seasoning- 1 tbsp
• Chicken stock- 1 cup (or use 1/2 bouillon cube mixed with 1 cup water)
• Sour cream- 1/2 cup
• Cornstarch- 1 tbsp combined with little cold water
• Parmesan cheese, grated- 1/4 cup or according to your needs
• Salt- to taste

Brown Mushrooms:

Preparation:

• Cook the pasta in boiling water along with little salt till it turns tender, drain water and keep aside. To prevent from sticking sprinkle some olive oil.
• Heat a skillet, add olive oil and melt butter to it.
• Add the mushrooms and saute till it turns slightly tender.
• Add yellow peppers and saute for 2 minutes.
• Stir in the garlic and Italian seasoning.
• Pour the chicken stock, let it come to a boil.
• Reduce the heat to low and add the sour cream, combine it well.
• Now, add the corn starch combined in little cold water, gently combine everything well.
• Since chicken stock has salt, you don’t have to add more salt, so taste the sauce and add salt if needed.
• Pour the creamy mushroom sauce over the cooked pasta and gently combine well.
• Serve pasta in a bowl and sprinkle generously with grated parmesan cheese.

I renamed this dessert as “Sweetheart Dessert” and surprised my sweetheart…

You don’t have to wait till Valentine’s day to express your love to your sweetheart, any day would be great for that. With this dessert you could open up your heart to your loved ones.

Panna cotta is my favorite dessert, I can literally have this dessert everyday. I am in love with the creamy texture, the versatility of this dessert and the quickness with which I can make this. I can make this with different flavors and it tastes better each time I make this. Last time I had made orange panna cotta and have made this quite a few times. So this time I wanted to try a different flavor. I had Rooh Afza in my refrigerator and frozen Raspberry in my freezer. Hence I decided to make panna cotta with these flavors. I was not at all skeptical about how it would turn out, I was pretty sure it was going to taste terrific. Only thing that I couldn’t take it was the time it took to set, I felt restless and desperately waited to melt into this dessert. The moment it was ready I gobbled this panna cotta greedily. I sat paralyzed for few minutes and enjoyed the creamy texture, the subtle flavor of rose from the Rooh Afza and the raspberry sauce topped on it.

Sweetheart Dessert

Ingredients:

• Heavy cream- 2 cups
• Rooh Afza or Rose syrup- 2 tbsp
• Sugar- 4 tbsp or depending upon your taste.
• Vanilla extract- 1tsp
• Agar-agar strands or china grass- 1/4 cup (you could use gelatin instead)

For making the raspberry topping:

• Raspberry, frozen or fresh- 1/4 cup
• Sugar- 2 tbsp

Preparation:

• Soak the agar-agar strands in 1/2 cup water for 10 minutes. Heat it in a saucepan and dissolve it completely, strain the melted agar-agar and keep aside. Don’t keep it for long as this would become thick.
• In a saucepan, add the heavy cream, Rooh-Afza, vanilla extract and sugar and heat it over medium heat.
• Let the cream simmer for few minutes, add the melted agar-agar and combine well.

• Remove from the flame and allow it to cool down.
• Grease the ramekins or dessert bowl you are using with non-stick cooking spray.
• Pour the cooked cream into the bowls and refrigerate for an hour or so to set.

• In a saucepan, combine raspberries and 2 tbsp sugar and stir constantly to make it into a thick sauce.

• Cool the raspberry sauce and keep aside.
• When the panna cotta is ready, take it out of the refrigerator; cover the ramekins or bowls with a dessert plate and turn it upside down, tap the bowls gently and the panna cotta will fall onto the plate.

• Pour the the raspberry sauce over the panna cotta and serve.

Tips:

• If you don’t have agar-agar, you could use gelatin instead.
• You could also serve the panna cotta on the ramekins itself, just pour the raspberry sauce over the panna cotta while serving.

Recipe for Orange Panna cotta: Click here

Healthy lasagna??? Are you kidding me? How could that be possible? Isn’t lasagna supposed to be layered with cheese and topped with extra grated cheese???

Aren’t these the questions that popped into your mind when you read the title, healthy lasagna? I warn you, don’t underestimate lasagna; it does have a different face that only few people might know, a healthy humble one. Most of us haven’t had the chance to meet with this healthy version. We always come across the extra cheesy, extra unhealthy version and these obviously make it extra delicious. Do you know the reason why you haven’t met with the healthy version? It’s simple; you haven’t yet made the effort to meet that one. If you did, you wouldn’t be still hanging out with the unhealthy version.

I’ve had lasagna in restaurants – just a couple of times though! Both the times, one thing I’ve done while eating lasagna is removing most of the cheese from the lasagna and trying to cut down fat. When I am done, a heap of cheese was found on my plate. Now, you may ask: “Did you really do that?” and my answer: “Yes, I had to do that”.

When I was almost successful in removing most of the cheese from the lasagna, there came the waiter and asked me politely: ‘Madam, would you like some grated parmesan cheese sprinkled on your lasagna?’ I wasn’t surprised a bit to hear this, as my dear hubby sitting on the other side of the table enjoying his lasagna without any guilt.

I know, those of you reading this, especially lasagna lovers may have started throwing tomatoes on me or may have left this page by saying: ‘screw you and your healthy lasagna’: P Thanks for the tomatoes, I would be making tomato soup tomorrow, lol.

No offense meant to lasagna and lasagna lovers. I had been trying to figure out why I give so much disrespect to lasagna. Am I ignorant on eating lasagna by not enjoying all the cheese? May be! Honestly it’s just that I can’t handle that much cheese. If I force myself to eat all the cheese, I get dizzy and there would be a fair chance that I would act insane after that. So lasagna lovers, please pardon me for not enjoying the lasagna in its proper way, pretty please?

I’ve always thought that lasagna can only be made with layers of cheese on it and in the unhealthiest way. Hence, I never cared to go through the trouble of getting different kinds of cheese and making it in my kitchen.

It was on January 19th, 7.35 PM I realized all these years I had misinterpreted lasagna. When I finally met with the healthy version of lasagna, I literally froze. It tasted extremely delicious and guess what? This time I didn’t worry about removing the cheese. I enjoyed it like everyone else.

How did I come up with the idea of healthy lasagna?

Jan 19th, Time: 5.30 PM:

While flipping through the TV channels, I landed on a channel that discussed about lasagna. After watching that program, my mind was full of lasagna. I felt that, being a food enthusiast if I don’t make lasagna in my kitchen at least once, it’s a big shame and an embarrassment. I made up my mind and I started whipping up lasagna my way. When it was ready, it turned out to be a healthy, nutritious and delicious lasagna with the goodness of spinach, kale and tofu in every bite. Not much cheese to worry about.

Now that I’ve met with the healthy version lasagna, there is no going back to the greasy version.

Healthy Lasagna with Spinach, Kale and Tofu

Ingredients:

For making the sauce:

• Onion, minced- 1
• Garlic, minced- 2 tsp
• Tomato sauce, no salt added, 8 oz can- 3
• Oregano, dried- 2tsp
• Basil leaves- 3
• Olive oil- 1 tbsp

Preparation:

• Heat a sauce pan over medium heat, add the olive oil, add onions and cook it for about 4 minutes, stirring occasionally, until tender.
• Add garlic, oregano, basil leaves and saute them for 1 minute.
• Now, add the tomato sauce and simmer for 10 minutes.
• When it starts to boil, remove from the flame and keep aside.

For layering:

• Tofu, firm, drained- 8 oz
• Spinach, fresh or frozen- 1/2 packet
• Kale, fresh or frozen chopped- 2 fresh leaves or 1/2 packet frozen
• Uncooked lasagna noodles- 6
• Parmesan cheese, grated- 1/4 cup + to sprinkle at the end, 2 -3tbsp

Preparation:

• Preheat the oven to 350F.
• Drain the water from the tofu and crumble it in a large bowl.
• Stir in 1/4 cup parmesan cheese until well combined.

• In a wide pan, cook spinach and kale by adding little water to it  until they are tender. Cool and squeeze out excess water and set aside.

How to assemble:

• To assemble lasagna, cover bottom of a 13×9-inch baking dish with half of the prepared tomato sauce.

• Arrange 2 sheets of noodles on the sauce.
• Layer pasta with half the cooked spinach and kale.
• With the back of a spoon, gently spread half of the tofu-parmesan mixture on the spinach-kale.

 

• Top with 2 layers of lasagna noodles, remaining spinach-kale and tofu-parmesan mixture.
• Layer remaining 2 sheets on top.
• Spread remaining tomato sauce on top.

• Cover the baking dish with aluminum foil.

• Bake at 350F for 1 hour.
• Uncover and evenly sprinkle 2-3 tbsp grated parmesan cheese.

• Bake about 15 minutes, until cheese is melted.
• Let stand for 15 minutes before serving.
• Here is the healthy, nutritious, easy on cheese lasagna. When you have a bite of this you will realize that this tastes almost like the estaurant style.

Tips:

You could make as many layers as you want, increase the amount of the ingredients accordingly.