MY PASTA'S A HIT! SO HERE'S THE RECIPE - ON PUBLIC DEMAND

So here I was terrorised by treat threats from all my buds at Oracle. Yup, When everyone cooks up goodies and you hog on all of that, you have to treat them to ice-creams n pastries. So one month down the line when the threats started surfacing again, I decided to unleash on them the cook within. So here's the pasta I made. Proud to say t'was a hit with everyone. And on public demand, here's the recipe.

PASTA: MA WAY

Ingredients: Any Pasta(My fav: Spaghetti), Olive oil, red chillies, garlic, lots of tomato, all the veggies you like, basil, thyme, any other spices you like.

Preparation: Boil the pasta, add some salt to the water. Once the pasta's nice and soft, drain the water. Now for the sauce- Heat the olive oil in a saucepan(this one's too big for a saucepan). Smash the garlic just enough to get their peel off and the into the hot olive oil. After a couple of minutes slice some dried red chillies into and put them in. Now you can either throw in the veggies along with the tomatoes or stir fry everything except tomatoes separately, adding tomatoes to the pan with garlic and chilly(I like it this way, making the sauce separately). And as I hardly get those juicy tomatoes(Hamesha salad vaaley crisp tomatoes hi miltey hain), you can always use puree, I did it with this one - although home-made tomato pulp's great any day. Once the sauce starts cooking well throw in the veggies, throw in some salt, throw in the spices - lots of basis. Feel the need to add water? Go ahead. Feel like adding olive oil? More the merrier.. but remember, your gonna drizzle some from the top once your done. And of course salt to taste. Keep tasting and keep adding salt or spice as per taste, I also like to throw in some pepper. And once your happy n you know it.. Toss the pasta into the mix let it simmer for some time n Voila! Drizzle some Olive oil now or better still, at the time of serving.

PS: Thanks Jyotsana for making me write this, as this adds a new label to my blog- Recipe.

PICKLE TIME AGAIN! IT'S THE TIME WHEN I FEEL THE PROUDEST OF MY TELUGU ROOTS

Yeehaa..! it's that time of the year again when we put fresh Aavakaaya- and many more pickles, the live-wires that run through the famous Andhra cuisine. Our cuisine has a huge profile of pickles including the great Gongura- a biological cousin of the friendly cannabis. But the big daddy of 'em all just has to be the Aavakaaya. It's a mind blowing amalgamation of tasty green mangoes, the deadly Warangal red chillies and a special Gingelly oil made from de-husked seeds specially for pickles along with lots of mustard seeds and garlic.

Some like it fresh and new, like me, with a zing of raw spice and the hot red chillies spinning their magic. Others like it aged a few months with the juices from the Mango cut by the spicy salty flavours. I'm lovin every time I lick it off my fingers. Mmmm......