Pesto is Italian sauce. I have been watching many pesto preparations in food network ever since I started watching it. So from this experience, pesto meant a chutney like preparation in which olive oil is used to bring to a required consistency in place of water in our chutneys. I may be totally wrong in this perception, but that is what I have seen on TV. I am always horrified to see the amount of oil that goes into this. What bothers me most about olive oil is, its smell and taste. I am slowly getting used to it, but there is a long way to go :).
The pestos I have seen are usually a bit thinner in consistency than what I am posting here. I did not add any extra olive oil, but since I used sun dried tomatoes that were preserved in olive oil, it still had that taste to it. I made a coarse paste so that I could taste small bits of sun dried tomatoes and also the cheese. It goes well with a freshly baked bread. I think this can also be used as a sauce for some kind of pasta.
Ingredients: 1/2 cup sun dried tomatoes 1/2 tea spn chopped garlic 1/2 tea spn chilli flakes 1/4 tea spn dried basil Salt 1 tea spn grated parmesan cheese
Method: Grind together sun dried tomatoes, garlic, chilli flakes, basil and salt. Add parmesan cheese and grand a bit. Serve.Â
PS: To bring it to more spreadable consistency, add a table spoon or so extra vergin olive oil while grinding.
Serves : 2-3 Preparation time : 5mins
We had some problem with our computer for last few days. Finally it was fixed yesterday. Here, due to electricity fluctuations and other problems, all the electronic appliances go bad every so often. It takes too long to get them fixed as we have to take help from someone from nearby Taluka place Kumta . Also, since ours is the only home with a broadband connection here, whenever something goes wrong in the telephone exchange, it takes a very long time to get it fixed.
It was some 8 years back, my son had moved to Bangalore for his job. Whenever he visited us, he would bring some baked goodies from the famous bakeries there. One such thing he always got for us was ragi biscuits. (By the way, do not confuse these with American biscuits, in Indian English, biscuit means cookies). Then I saw a recipe for these biscuits in one Kannada magazine, we followed it and the result was a disaster. So this time, we made them like nankatayi .
The most important thing to remember here is, roast the flour before making the dough. If this step is skipped, they get a muddy taste. We love these, do give them a try.
Ingredients: 2 cups ragi flour 1 cup powdered sugar 1 cup butter 1/2 tea spn cardamom powder 1 tea spn baking powder
Method: Roast ragi flour in a big pan, on a medium heat, for about 5-10mins (do not burn it). Take off the heat. Now add sugar, melted butter, baking powder, cardamom powder to it and mix well. Preheat the oven at 300F for 10mins. Make small balls of the dough and keep it on a greased or (lined with parchment paper) baking tray. Leave enough space between two biscuits as they double in size after baking.
Bake in oven at 300F for about 20mins. Take off the oven. Cool to room temperature and store in air tight container.
Makes about 2 dozen biscuits Preparation time : 20mins + baking time
