Butter Corn Pasta - Easy Pasta Recipes

Category: Pasta / Macaroni 
Preparation Time: 10 mins  
Cooking Time: 15-20 mins
Servings: 1-2 servings

Yummy Cheesy Pasta

Butter corn pasta is one of the easy pasta recipes and a favourite among the kids. 

If we have pasta sauce in hand, we can do this in a jiff, if not we can also use finely chopped tomatoes or pureed tomato. 

Butter Corn Pasta

We can also add finely chopped bellpeppers to it to make it more nutritious and colourful. 

Adding cheese is an optional here, it tastes good even without the cheese.

Ingredients:

• Pasta - 1 cup (I used small Ditalini Pasta)
• Sweet corn, frozen - 1/2 cup 
• Pasta sauce - About 1/2 cup (use as needed)
• Butter - 1 Tbsp
• Basil leaves / Italian seasoning - to taste
• Salt - to taste
• Pepper powder - to taste
• Mozzarella cheese, grated - as required (Optional)
• Water - as required

 Notes:

• This time I have used store brought Organic Garden vegetable Pasta sauce here and you can find one of my home made pasta sauce recipe here: Homemade Pasta Sauce
• If we are not having pasta sauce in hand, we can replace it with pureed tomatoes or tomato paste. In that case, add finely chopped clove of garlic while sautéing and a little more Italian seasoning at the end
• For make it more interesting and colorful, we can add finely chopped coloured bellpeppers along with the sweet corn

Easy Vathakuzhambu using Vathakuzhambu Podi

Category:  Easy Kuzhambu Varieties
Preparation Time: 5 mins  
Cooking Time: 20 mins 
Servings: 3 servings

Vathakuzhambu is a spicy tamarind based gravy made with dried veggies (Vathals) like Turkey berry (Sundakkai), Black night shade berry (Manathakkali). There are lot of variations - we can use small onion and garlic or we can also prepare without onion & garlic. With regard to masala, we can either use freshly ground masala or just sambar podi / sambar masala or vathakuzhambu podi.

Sundakkai Vathakuzhambu

Here I made the easiest version of Vathakuzhambu using Sundakkai Vathal and home made Vathakuzhambu podi. 

Manathakkali Vatha Kuzhambu

You can find the recipe for the podi in our blog: VathaKuzhambu Podi

Vathakuzhambu Podi

With this podi in hand, making Vathakuzhambu is a breeze and we can use any Vathal for this. If we are not having any vathal, we can just use the sambar onions and garlic.

During this pandemic season, getting fresh Indian veggies was bit difficult so we often made this vathakuzhambu:) 

For me, the perfect combo is Hot rice with Spicy Vathakuzhambu, vegetable kootu and appalam.

Ingredients:

• Sesame oil - 1-2 Tbsp 
• Sundakkai Vathal (Dried Turkey Berry) - 1/4 cup
• Tamarind - lemon sized (Adjust as per taste)
• VathaKuzhambu Podi - 2-3 Tbsp
• Mustard seeds - 1/4 tsp
• Split urad dal - 1/2 tsp
• Curry leaves - few
• Asafoetida - a pinch
• Salt - to taste
• Water - as required

Vatha Kuzhambu Podi

Category: Home made Powder
Preparation Time: 5 mins  
Cooking Time: 15 mins
Servings: yields around 1 cup

Vathakuzhambu is a spicy tamarind based gravy made with dried veggies (Vathals) like Turkey berry (Sundakkai), Black night shade berry (Manathakkali). There are lot of variations - we can use small onion and garlic or we can also prepare without onion & garlic. With regard to masala, we can either use freshly ground masala or just sambar podi / sambar masala or vathakuzhambu podi.

Vatha Kuzhambu Podi

I usually prepare this vathakuzhambu podi once in a month or two months and store it at room temperature. With this podi in hand, making Vathakuzhambu is a breeze. Not only for vathakuzhambu, we can use this podi for all varieties of pulikuzhambu and for puliyodharai / Tamarind rice.

During this pandemic season, getting fresh Indian veggies was bit difficult so we often made this vathakuzhambu:) 

For me, the perfect combo is Hot rice with Spicy Vathakuzhambu, vegetable kootu and appalam.

Ingredients: 

• Channa dal- 1/4 cup
• Toor Dal - 1/4 cup
• Whole Urad dal - 2 Tbsp
• Coriander seeds- 1/4 cup
• Dry Red chillies- 10 - 15 nos (adjust as per spice level)
• Cumin seeds- 1/2 Tbsp
• Black Pepper- 1/2 Tbsp
• Fenugreek seeds / Methi seeds -  1/2 Tbsp

Method:

• Heat a wide pan, add the Channa dal and roast it in low flame for 1-2 mins

2 in 1 Pongal - Sweet Pongal & Ven Pongal (Instant Pot version)

Category: Pongal Recipes / Festive Recipes
Preparation Time: 10 mins  
Cooking Time: 30 mins  

Servings - About 4-5 servings

2 in 1 Pongal

During festivals we would be making different types of pongals, especially Sweet Sakkarai Pongal, Kalkandu Pongal and Spicy Venpongal. 

Instead of making it separately and also to save time, we can just cook the rice and dal in instant pot/ pressure cooker and use it up to make two different pongal.

Sakkarai Pongal

This also helps when we plan for making ven pongal but kids want sweet pongal :) Or when we want variety for a special day.

Ven Pongal

This is not a recipe as such, just an idea to make easy & save time :)

Ingredients:

• Raw rice - 1 and 1/2 cups (Ponni rice / Sona masoori rice)
• Yellow Moong dal - 1/2 cup (can use upto 1 cup)
• Water - 6 cups 

For Sweet / Sakkarai Pongal:

• Jaggery - 1 cup
• Water - 1/2 cup
• Cardamom powder - 1/2 tsp
• Ghee - 3-4 Tbsp
• Cashews, broken - 10-15 nos
• Raisins - 2 Tbsp

For Ven pongal:

• Ghee - 3-4 Tbsp
• Cumin - 1 tsp
• Black pepper - 1 tsp