Garlic Breadsticks

 Continuing with another Italian favorite of our family - garlic bread sticks. My daughter wanted me to recreate olive garden menu for her birthday, and I had made eggplant parmigiana, breadsticks, minestrone soup and pasta. The link for each can be found here - 

• Minestrone soup
• Eggplant parmigiana
• Pasta 

Coming to the recipe - Breadsticks are nothing but bread in different shape… may be little less fluffy. Prepare the dough, after proofing, shape them in the form of breadsticks. Once they are done baking, brush them with garlic butter. That’s it! Make sure to brush butter generously though, I didn’t as seen in the picture below. 

I followed this recipe online while looking for Olive Garden breadsticks and was very happy with the results(link given below).

Enjoy!  

Eggplant Parmigiana

 Last year, my daughter asked me to recreate olive garden’s eggplant parmigiana for her birthday. 

The recipe is not hard to guess, but I still googled to see if there is anything fancy. I found one in olive garden’s own website(I think) and it was just as easy as I thought it would be. I replaced their egg dip, with maida dip. And it turned out the same. But frying eggplant took forever! Then I found this recipe(link given below) for airfryer. Since I don’t own an airfryer, I did half frying on stove top and remaining in the oven. My friend Ashwini helped me by giving me tips on how to get the airfried effect from the conventional oven. 

If you own an airfryer, I think making this would be extremely easy. I am still debating if I should just buy one. I see all drool worthy recipes online, but don’t know how much it'll help with my style of cooking. Don’t want to use up my counter space unnecessarily. Anyways, for those who own one, this is the method mentioned in the blog - After the patties are coated well and ready to be fried, line them on the airfryer tray without crowding them and bake at 390 F for 10 min. Turn them mid point. Once done, put the toppings and bake them again until cheese melts. For more details you can follow the link below. 

Enjoy!  

Baked Squash Chips

 I hardly experiment with things I know, leave alone stuff in completely unknown territory… 

When my cousin gave me squash from her kitchen garden, I was completely clueless what to do with it. Upon talking with friends and googling, I found this extremely easy, hard to resist recipe. You just cut squash in slices and bake with some cheese. 

Tada! 

It turned out very flavorful, and the whole batch got over in no time. 

An easy appetizer to go with pasta. 

My daughter was very eager to cook something in the kitchen, so I let her do this completely by herself. 

Pizza

 I used to bake before, but there was always some reservation and I would refer to couple of videos before baking anything, even for the ones I had baked before. All the videos I referred always stressed on getting everything right to get the results right, making me more anxious. 

But then cooking goddess Ashwini entered my life 😄 She has practically tried cooking every cuisine in her kitchen, and knows all the dos and don’ts. And more importantly she has the knack to explain things in simplest of the simplest way possible. 

When I told her that I plan to make pizza sometime and I need to prepare myself for that, she was like “adrallenide.. heege maaDu.. haage maaDu.. ashte!”(what’s the big deal, do this, do that, done!)

And that’s exactly what I did. Result was perfect! And now I don't fear baking! Thank you Ashwini! I really wish you start making cooking videos :) 

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Instapot Spaghetti/ Pasta

I had seen somebody make pasta in Instapot and I liked the convenience of it. I searched for the same online for spaghetti, since that was what I had on hand(got it from Costco and it doesn’t seem to get over😭😭), and found one with good description(link given below). 

This is an ideal meal for quick weeknight dinners. Hassle free. One pot meal. Gets done in few minutes. Add some veggies and call it healthy. Do try!

Minestrone Soup

What better to savor than hot minestrone soup on cold winter nights. Especially when it can be done in less than 30 min hassle free in Insta Pot. Add everything, set IP for 6 min on high and piping hot soup is ready to be savored. Pair it with some garlic bread and you have a filling, quick lunch/dinner. You can pressure cook this too. Same procedure. 

Happy Thanksgiving!