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Tortellini with Italian Sausage & Spinach

This meal is simple from start to finish, yet it tastes quite gourmet! 

With such few ingredients {tortellini, sausage, bell peppers, mushrooms, and spinach}, my husband and I were pleasantly surprised by the taste!

Tortellini with Italian Sausage & Spinach – Adapted from Dinner with Julie

Ingredients

  • 1 lb. of fresh 3-cheese tortellini {whole wheat, if you can find it!}
  • 3 mild Italian turkey sausages, sliced into rounds
  • 2 C fresh, sliced baby bella mushrooms
  • 1 medium red bell pepper, diced
  • ~3 large handfuls of fresh spinach
  • 4 garlic cloves, minced
  • 3/4 C chicken stock
  • 1/4 – 1/2 C half and half
  • 1/4 C Parmesan cheese

Directions

Begin by browning the Italian turkey sausage.  We used ground in our recipe – I browned the entire pound and then used half in our recipe.  You can use ground or links – either works.  If you do ground, leave the meat in larger chunks for this dish!

Add in the 2 C baby bella mushrooms (sliced), medium red bell pepper and minced garlic (we used dried minced garlic here).  Saute for 2-3 minutes until mushrooms begin to release their liquid. 

Meanwhile, add tortellini to a pot of boiling water.  Cook according to package directions. 

When the mushrooms are releasing their water, add in 3/4 C chicken broth/stock to the pan.  Scrape along the bottom of the pan to get the good browned pieces up and add flavor to the dish. 

Simmer for 5ish minutes until veggies are tender.  Than, add spinach. 

Stir in the spinach until it’s wilted. 

Drain the tortellini and add the pasta to the dish. 

Add in 1/4 C whipping cream or half and half, warming the dish while stirring. 

Top with Parmesan cheese and stir to melt the cheese. 

Serve warm!

Leftovers reheat nicely too – this makes a great lunch for day #2!

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Armenian Nutmeg Cake

This month for Daring Baker's Challenge Jason from Daily Calender challenged us to make this Armenian delicacy. Actually we were given choice between two recipes. Nazook and Nutmeg were the choice given to us.  Nazook is a pastry filled with sweet filling and Nutmeg Cake is a slightly twisted version of coffee cake.  Although I wanted to make both the challenges, due to time constraints I made only the cake.
As always Daring Baker's Challenges are the best.  The cake turned out really good, it was soft, light and fluffy.  Perfect with a cup of tea.  Although I didn't make Nazook along with this challenge, will definitely try it soon.  Thank you Jason for this wonderful challenge.

Preparation Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 30 minutes
Yields about 8 slices

Ingredients:
Plain flour- 280 gm
Milk- 240 ml
Butter- 170 gm
Brown sugar- 250 gm
Grated Nutmeg- 1 tsp
Pistachios- 50 gm
Egg-1
Bicarbonate of soda- 1 tsp
Baking powder- 2 tsp

Method:
Preheat the oven to 190 degree Celsius.  Grease and line a round cake tin.  Sift the flour and baking powder in a large bowl. Add the brown sugar and give it a mix.  Add the butter and rub it with your finger tips to make it like a bread crumbs.  Add half of the mixture in the cake tin and press it with your fingers. Mix together the milk and bicarbonate of soda.  Crack the egg in to the cake mixture and beat quickly, then add the milk and beat it with a electric mixture or whisk until it becomes lump free and smooth batter.  Pour the mixture in to the tin and sprinkle the pistachios on top.  Bake it in the preheated oven for 30 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.  Take it out from the oven, leave it to cool in the wire rack for about 5 minutes.  Remove the cake carefully from the tin and slice it into wedges.
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Menu Plan–April 29

Wow, friends – another week has flown by!  This weekend was filled with fun and some spontaneous activities:

  • Friday night – my husband and I watched Courageous and The Adventures of Tintin; both were great movies. 
  • Saturday I taught 81 fourth, fifth & sixth graders at a Girls in Science event all about wetlands!  We had a blast making wetlands out of play dough and sponges, green Jell-O and cocoa powder. 
  • Saturday night ended up going over to our friend’s house and played hand and foot {girls lost :( }, and then spontaneously,
  • Sunday we got invited to go to a baseball game with our friends!

The food this week was great too…

This week, we’re planning on enjoying:

Sunday
Veggie Omelets
Grilling… with grilled potato fries!

Monday
Granola, dried fruit
Pork Chops with Rhubarb Sauce {new} with Roasted Green Bean & Potato Salad

Tuesday
Fluffy Applesauce Pancakes with Apple Topping
Tuscan Lemon Chicken, Wild & Brown Rice, Steamed Veggies

Wednesday
Granola, Yogurt & Berry Sauce
Three Cheese Ziti

Thursday
Banana Berry Muffins
Pizza Pockets

Friday
Granola, Yogurt & Berry Sauce
Leftovers

Saturday
Whole Wheat Blueberry Buttermilk Donuts with Lemon Glaze
Veggie Risotto, leftover chicken

Menu Plan Monday is hosted at Organizing Junkie - stop by for hundreds of menus

Find more great menus at OrgJunkie’s Menu Plan Monday!

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Rajma Masala Rice

In summer although we look out for something cool like ice creams, smoothies or drinks often, still we have to fill our tummy with some food to meet the nutritional requirements for our body.  Since aircondtioning the kitchen is not in reality here, the best way is to keep the cooking simple and quick, at the same time nutritious.
So I always look for one pot meal which is filled with grains, vegetables and pulses, which makes life much more easier.  This is one such meal which can be made in minutes.  Rajma can be replaced with any other pulses or mix of vegetables too.  Well, there isn't much to talk about anything else today, so let's move on to the recipe now.


Preparation Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 20- 30 minutes
Serves 4

Ingredients:
Basmati Rice- 2 cups
Dried Red Kidney beans- 1/2 cup
Onion- 1 big sized ( chopped finely )
Tomato- 1 big sized ( chopped finely)
Ginger garlic paste- 2 tsp
Green chilly- 1
Biryani masala powder- 3 tsp
Cinnamon stick-1/2 inch stick
Cumin seeds- 1 tsp
Coriander leaves- 4 stalk chopped finely
Mint leaves - 2 stalk chopped finely
Oil- 1 tbsp
Salt to taste

Method:
Soak the kidney beans in water for 3 hours and cook it in a pressure cooker for 3 to 4 whistles.
Heat oil in a heavy bottomed vessel or pressure cooker.  Add cinnamon stick and cumin seeds.  Add ginger garlic paste, onion and saute well until the raw smell goes. Then add tomatoes and saute well. Cover the vessel with a lid and cook until tomatoes gets mashed up. Add biryani masala powder, green chilly, coriander and mint leaves.  Add the cooked kidney beans, rice, salt and 4 cups of water. If using a pressure cooker, cook upto 2 whistles.  In a normal vessel, keep the flame in medium to low and cook until the rice is done.  Serve the rice warm with just raita or any curries.

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Healthy Morsels - Pregnancy Roundup

A BIG heartfelt thanks to everyone for your invaluable contributions to Healthy Morsels - Pregnancy. We are extremely happy about your overwhelming response, amazing tips, interesting facts about pregnancy & postpartum diet. We thank each and everyone for sending your recipes relevant to the theme and making it a grand success! As said, Healthy Morsels is an event with u all for us all ! We really felt connected and enjoyed your company during this entire sail.

Also, we are extremely pleased with the lively interactions, question-answer sessions, useful tips being shared in our Healthy Morsels Facebook group. We highly underestimated its role when it was created. But thank you buddies for your enthusiasm, involvement and sharing your thoughts with us :)
Now it's time for the most awaited round-up of Healthy Morsels-Pregnancy. Our special thanks to the non-bloggers who have joined us with their mouthwatering recipes.
Simi Ethiraj has sent a healthy Avocado spread ! She says....
"We have heard a million times that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. But not many of us have the time in the morning rush to prepare a good breakfast, sit down at the table and enjoy it. Here is a recipe that takes hardly any time, yet tasty and nutritious.
1       ripe avocado
4-5    walnuts (chopped)

4-5    cherry tomatoes (chopped)

1 tbsp olive oil

Freshly crushed black pepper

Herbs of your choice (cilantro, parsley, chives, etc.,)

Cut the avocado into half and scoop the flesh out with a tablespoon. Mash it with the back of a spoon. Add the remaining ingredients and mix well. Spread on warm toast and enjoy.

The buttery taste of avocado with crunchy walnuts and sweet cherry tomatoes makes it a tasty spread. According to whfoods.org, avocado is a good source of folate and walnuts of omega-3 fats. This makes it an ideal breakfast or snack choice for expecting mothers and others alike."
Yasmin has sprouted mung beans for us


2cups sprouted mung beans
1tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 tbsp canola oil or maize oil
Salt pepper to taste
1cup diced red bell pepper
1cup grated carrot
2 spring onions
1/2 cup fresh minced coriander leaves
Juice and finely diced zest of 1/4of a lemon
1/2 tbsp vegetable stock powder
Procedure
Boil the sprouted mung bean with veg stock till just done.
Do not over cook as sprouts get cooked faster than the unsprouted beans and just use as much water just to immerse the sprouts
Mix cider vinegar with oil to the cooked mung sprouts after it has cooled down
Add lemon zest  ,salt , and pepper to taste and mix carefully so not to break the sprouts
Add capsicum ,spring onions , minced coriander and carrot
Give a slight  toss to mix all the ingredients.
Garnish with fresh coriander
One of our facebook group members, Souha Kamand has sent a Syrian Tabouli Salad with parsley.

Ingredients :
3 bunch fresh parsley
4 tablespoons fine bulgur (cracked wheat )
2 medium onion
2 medium tomato
½ teaspoon all spice
1 teaspoon salt
¼ cup lemon juice
¼ cup olive oil
½ tablespoons dry mint or fresh mint leaves


Preparation :
1. Wash the parsley well .
2. Chop the onion finely ,add ½ teaspoon salt and all spice rub onions with your fingertips ,set aside for 10 minutes, soak bulgur in lemon juice set aside until softened .
3. Meanwhile chop parsley very finely ,put in a deep bowl ,chop tomato finely, add to parsley add mint , the rest of salt ( keep some diced tomato for decorating ).
4. Squeeze chopped onion with your hand ,add squeezed onions to parsley, olive oil and bulgur , Stir to combine ,taste Tabouli add more salt and lemon juice if necessary .
5. Put Tabouli in a serving dish decorate with tomato .
Tip : Tabouli is best made as close to serving time as possible.


Thank you Simi Ethiraj, Souha Kamand and Yasmin.
Well now, lets take a look at the collection of our dainties in Healthy Morsels-Pregnancy.Your knowledge and wisdom are safely preserved here, here and here.
Please take time to go through the blogs for foods advisable for increasing the milk supply, foods that strenghthen the pelvic muscles and the backbone, veggies that help lowering blood pressure during pregnancy or traditional healthy treats for the new moms. They are just a few examples from many other interesting recipes we received.
We would like to thank you all once again for your love and support without which we definitely could not have achieved this success. Please accept our sincere and heartfelt thanks by collecting this badge.


Congratulations all, you are now a member of the Healthy Morsels crew !! Hope and wish you continue your contribution and support on the oncoming exciting themes as well :)
Without much waiting, let's now get straight to the nominees for the Healthy Morsels Finals. For those of you who are new, please refer our  announcement page for details. It definitely was a tough job in selecting three nominees from a whole batch of 170! We had zeroed in to 3 entries based on 

* the close relevance to the theme Pregnancy 
* bringing out the nutritional benefits in the posts and finally,
* the number of entries contributed.
So working it out carefully, we came up with the following nominees for the finals, who are honored as a "Member of Hall of Fame" in our Honors Board page in all our three blogs and also in our Facebook group page. The Hall of Fame members in alphabetical order are.....

Archana Vivek of "My Culinary Endeavours" for sharing useful recipes related to Postpartum diet like Milagu Kozhambu

 and as a token of appreciation from the Healthy Morsels Team, she is getting this:

Asiya Omar of "My Healthy Happy Kitchen" for sharing her wealth of knowledge, documenting her pregnancy experience and sending recipes like Moringa Flowers Egg Fried Rice
 
and as a token of appreciation from the Healthy Morsels Team, she is getting this:

and Jaleela Kamal of "Samaiyal Attagaasangal" for sharing essential tips and recipes like Mutton Soup.


and as a token of appreciation from the Healthy Morsels Team, she is getting this:

Many many Congratulations Asiya, Archana and Jaleela !!!!!! Cant appreciate your efforts and your involvement more!



On the whole, it was a most exciting journey with the theme Pregnancy. Stay tuned for the next event very soon!! :) 

Healthy Morsels Team


 
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Friday Favorite Finds #106

So glad you stopped by today!  Please join us as we share our favorite recipe finds from the week. 

Mine include a few sweet treats:
{All images are from the original recipe source, and linked through Pinterest}

 

And, a yummy summer dinner:


As a reminder, if you like these recipes, either re-pin my original pin, or pin the source of the recipe NOT my blog!  The talented chefs that came up with these recipes deserve the credit and traffic, so, please, please pin the source!

What did you find this week? 

Please link up to a post containing your list of recipes to try -- do not link up individual recipes please, your links will be deleted.  Links that do not follow the guidelines will be deleted.  Be sure to leave a link back here to Finding Joy in My Kitchen.

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Any One Can Cook: Series 47

Hello Foodies,

This is our 47th succesful series.  I would like to thank everyone for making this event as a successful series.  As I already said there are only few more weeks left for voting, so if you haven't entered this event so far, still it's not too late, you can now.  If you are not sure what's going on here or interested to know more about the event click here and here.
Coming to the selected recipes from last week series:
Yummy Shrimp Omlette by Shirley's Luxury Haven.

Cornflakes mixture by Variety is the very spice of life

Crispy and Tangy Tofu by Foodeterian

Thank you again everyone for linking your recipes and making this event a successful one, looking forward to more participation in the oncoming weeks.  If you would like to get featured in this event, link your recipes which suits the event in the link given below.  If you find any trouble in linking your recipes, mail me your recipe link to ayeesha.riaz@googlemail.com
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Home made Nannari Sherbet from scratch

It's summer here in India, actually not just summer, it's ssssummmmeeer.  Why I want to stress the summer is, summer isn't much of fun here, although it's summer vacation for kids, it's like visiting friends and family, couldn't enjoy it to the most.  The Sun has started showing the heat at it's peak, couldn't help about it, since we can't fight with nature. Along with this the frequent power cuts which makes it much more worse. Now we could do nothing with nature, either the power cut.  So all we can do is just intake something to reduce the body heat, to avoid all scorching and scratching.
  After taking gallons and gallons of water, still doesn't seem to satisfy our dry and sore throat.  So we need something something else more than water to balance the heat here.  Yes, it's hot and humid here but still there are few solutions which can manage the heat to some extent and reduce the body heat.

Tender coconut water is one of the best thirst quencher, it also acts as a natural coolant for our body, apart from that melons which are available in abundance everywhere here, which is again one of the best thirst quencher.  Now coming to the hero of our story, Sherbet.  There are many different type of Sherbets and Squash are available, the one which is most common and popular here in India is Nannari Sherbet or may be only in South India.

Nannari or Sarsaparilla is a root which  acts as a natural coolant for our body.  Nannari is good for many skin infections, it also purifies the blood. Regular intake of it reduces the burning sensation in stomach.  Our ancestors have made this   syrup using nannari root, jaggery and lemon juice.  After years , jaggery is been replaced with sugar.  Although Jaggery is a better version, there are some myths that jaggery increase the body heat which may be even true.  So I made the syrup using sugar and added a bit of colour to give the traditional look of Nannari Sherbet, a bright vibrant red colour.  Nannari Sherbet which is available in markets are normally tinted with yellow, orange or red.  You can leave it without adding any colour, which would be a perfect glass of healthy drink. 
When you have a bottle of syrup ready, add a squeeze of lemon juice, some water and few ice cubes, time to chill out...

Preparation Time:5 minutes
Cooking Time: 15 minutes+ 8 hours soaking time
Makes nearly 400 ml of syrup

Ingredients:
Nannari root- 5 to 6 pieces
Water- 1/2 litre
Sugar- 5 tbsp
Lemon - juice of 4 lemon
Few drops of food colouring of your choice (optional)

Method:
Break the nannari root with the mortal and pestle.  Break the outside hard and take the inner part of the root.  Powder it in a blender.  Heat the water until it starts boiling.  Take it off from heat, add the powdered nannari.  Cover it and let it rest for 1 whole night or minimum of 8 hours.
After 8 hours, strain the liquid through a fine filter or muslin cloth.  Add the sugar to the strained liquid and heat it again.  Stir continuously until the sugar dissolves completely.  Let it boil until it reaches a sticky consistency.  Take it off from heat, add the colourin and  let it cool down completely.  Add the lemon juice and stir well and store it in a sterilized bottle.  This can be kept for upto 2 to 3 weeks in the refrigerator.

To prepare the juice:
Nannari syrup- 1 tbsp
Water- 200 ml
Lemon- Juice of 1/2 a lemon
Sugar if needed
Few ice cubes
Basil seeds- 1/2 tbsp (soaked in water)

Method:
Add everything to a tall glass, give it a good stir and enjoy .

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