Friday, April 19, 2019

Easy Recipe: Traditional Pasta

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

 السلام عليكم


 So, yeah. Today was a greatly busy day. I attended Ummi's class (1.5 hours), did an animated  PowerPoint for Abi (a long time) and to add to that - I cooked a whole dish of pasta, recipe handed down from my mother! Pictures below. Anyway - I forgot to keep the sausages out to defrost (they were frozen solid) and when I started it was already 9.30 PM so - yeah laaaaaate dinner! You can substitute it - just add any meats, ETC - chicken, chunks of pre-cooked beef, even pepperoni!

My best friend says she does NOT like pasta and noodles. When did I ask her which vegetables she put in (if I can remember rightly she said,) Do you really put veggies in pasta? I told her we put sausages and broccoli and she said broccoli was one of her favorites. It used to be NOT mine but since we eat it almost every pasta, which is made at least twice a month (even three times!!), I learned to like it.

So hopefully, she will make this! By the way, you might not find any left-overs if your family is BIG. I cooked a lot extra so we have JUST ENOUGH for the next day's dinner (which is today actually!)

I published it on Friday though!

Let's start the recipe:




The instructions won't be very accurate - nor will the pictures. I took it from my Canon IXUS.
Image result for canon ixus

Without further delay - let's assemble the instructions -

INGREDIENTS:

Enough pasta to fill your baking dish (we use a glass dish as you can see in the picture at the beginning of the post)
3 different colors of Bell Pepper (capsicum)
5 baby corn pieces (substitute with 1/2 cup sweet corn)
4-5 medium-sized AmericanaⓇ sausages (substitute with meat pieces)
2 tbsp of Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp of MD Sweet Chili Sauce (available in Sri Lanka and if you are in Qatar do go to Family Food Centre, they should have all MD items.)
 One grated carrot (NOT baby carrot, a large-sized should do)
1/2 cup brocolli
1 cup spinach (we added a bit more)
3 tbsp ghee/melted butter
 1/4 tsp Ground Black Pepper
1/4 tsp Ground Coriander
1/8 tsp Ground Cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt, to taste
Puck Cream 6oz
Three cheddar cheese slices
200g mozzeralla cheese (grated)
RaguⓇ/ any other pasta sauce 12 oz Tomato pasta sauce
RaguⓇ/ any other pasta sauce 4-5 oz Classic Alfredo pasta sauce (no such bottle, but measure it from another bottle)

Let's start!

Boil your pasta according to package directions. After done, switch off heat but DO NOT DRAIN. Stir occasionally.

Grate the carrot and set aside.

Take out sausages/meat, cut into small pieces and set aside. Remember, we used pepperoni instead of sausages!
Chop the baby corn into quarters or smaller if you wish. If using sweet corn, just measure it and set it next to the meat. Chop the bell peppers too into tiny squares (I cut mine pretty badly so ignore that!). Cut the brocolli.

In a large wok, pour in the ghee, or put the butter in (preferably hardened butter). Let it heat up slightly, Gas Mark 5 or 4, alternating when it gets too hot.
Put in all the vegetables except spinach and carrot.
My pasta was halfway cooked when I started. By now your pasta should be almost done.
The meat needs to be quite roasted.. When it looks like this, reduce heat to Gas Mark 4-3 alternating again, even though some have not got roasted. Can you spot the roasted ones?
Put in the carrot but NOT the spinach. Give it a quick toss.
Now, before the carrot loses it's flavour (I put the carrot first once and that's what happened), add the sauces. Sorry for the quality again.... and I actually used a 24 oz for the tomato sauce, but it was half-finished so it's literally 12 oz.


Stir it.
Put in the salt.
Add the pepper, the cinnamon and coriander.


Add the Worcestershire Sauce.
Stir all, then drain the pasta and quickly add it to the mixture. Stir thoroughly
Wash the spinach (if you are getting it NOT in a box), then put it into the mixture. It kinda shrinks when you cook it, so make sure to add a lot of extras!

Stir, then switch off the heat. At this point you can serve OR, the better option, bake it. We almost ALWAYS bake it, just cause it tastes so good.

How to Bake Pasta

 No, you don't pour it all in a baking dish and bake it without anything. First, preheat oven to 180 degrees Celcius which is 356 Fahrenheit.



Then, fill your dish halfway with pasta. Add 1 and a half slices of cheddar cheese on top. Pour half of the small tin of Puck Cream and spread. I didn't use the cream this time because we only had one and my mother wanted to make lasagne, which is basically thin strips of pasta, though prepared in a totally different way.

 Add half the mozzarella which is 100g.



Fill your dish. There might be a little remaining, that's what happened to us. We ate both baked and un-baked.

Spread the rest of the cream evenly, then evenly arrange the mozzarella.

At this moment you might want to add some pepperoni to make it a 'pizza-pasta', or just bake it.

Since it was 10.00 PM when I put it into the oven, you want to wait for about 15 minutes or until brown at the edges.



Out of the oven....
....and ready to eat!

Well, that's it for today, inshaa Allaah see you next time - next post might be a post on Board Book Recommendations - for little kids (toddlers preschoolers, etc). Ramlah is a pre-schooler now!



Maimoonah



2 comments:

Crafty Muslimahs said...

Assalamu Alaikum.

This looks delicious and we can't believe you did it all on your own, masha'Allah! Our favourite pasta dish is definitely Lasagne - your post has put us in the mood for some now!
We don't do that much cooking ourselves; maybe a couple of times a week. But we do most of the baking and dessert making - which you can probably tell already, lol. How often do you cook/bake?

- Hanifah and Maryam

Maimoonah said...

Wa alaikum salaam.
Alhamdulillaah it was great! Jazzakallah Khayr. We don't make lasagne so often though but it is just as nice!
There are lot of complaints here that I'm not making savoury food, so, well, I'd better start! It depends - when we come back from Lulu we have to finish store-bought pastries first. Maybe three or four times every month (baking) and well, lets see, scrambled eggs two times a month, pasta two times, and the rest of the days my mom cooks or we order from a shop.

Maimoonah

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