Minestrone Soup ( Italian Vegetable Soup)

The temperature is dropping day by day and you feel like having something hot which makes you feel better. When winter nears all I could think of is a soup to make me feel warmth in the evening. This one recipe you can always make with the available things from the pantry and guess what you can cook this soup in 30 minutes. This is vegetable minestrone, yes there is no bacon :( but you can always add bacon and replace the vegetable stock with chicken stock. Here goes the recipe!!

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp of olive oil
• 1 garlic finely chopped
• ½ cup onion chopped
• Handful of chopped carrots, potato, celery with leaves, cabbage
• Handful of garbanzo beans or green beans, or any beans of your choice. I used garbanzo beans
• ½ cup – 1 cup of tomato sauce or tomato paste or fresh tomato. I used 1 cup of tomato sauce
• 1 ½ - 2 cups of vegetable broth or water, I used the stock
  
• ¼ cup or handful of short pasta, I used elbow macaroni
• Salt and pepper for taste
• 1 tsp of Italian seasoning
  
• Grated parmesan cheese as per your choice, I added a tsp of cheese while serving

Method

• In a pan add olive oil, garlic, chopped onions, and sprinkle little salt and saute.

• Add the chopped carrots, potatoes, celery, cabbage, and saute them.

• Add the garbanzo beans, and tomato sauce, and saute the mixture

• Add the vegetable stock, elbow macaroni, salt, pepper, Italian seasoning and cover cook for 15 minutes in medium heat.

• Cook another 10 mintues in low-medium heat.

• Serve the soup with grated parmesan cheese

Coconut Burfi

It’s been quite sometime that I participated in blog events. When I read Ashwini’s JFI for coconut , and VKN’s You Can Cook for FAHC Campaign I thought of posting this treasured recipe. I learnt this recipe from my mom, which is quite simple to make and is a delicious dessert. This recipe requires little bit of patience and the end result is worth mentioning. Here goes the recipe!!!

Ingredients

• 2 cups of coconut scrapped
• 1 cup of sugar
• ½ cup of water
• 2-3 cardamom crushed to powder
• 1tbsp of ghee or butter to grease the pan or you can use the foil to avoid ghee or butter
  

Method

• Add water and sugar and cook in medium heat for 18- 20 minutes until the sugar syrup thickens.
  

• Add the scrapped coconut mixed with cardamom powder to the sugar syrup and cook in medium heat. Cook until the consistency becomes thick and proportion is reduced. This will take 15- 18 minutes.
  

• Grease a flat pan with ghee or spread the aluminum foil in a flat pan and pour the mixture and level it using a spatula. After 5 minutes cut them into shapes and allow them to cool for 1 – 2 hours.
  

• Once the burfi cools down and becomes little harder, you can cut them into pieces and store them in a container.

Notes:

Try to use fresh coconut since the end result will be great

Sugar can vary according to preference, I used one cup, you can add 1 ¼ cup or more.

For more shelf life, store in the refrigerator.

I used aluminum foil, to avoid ghee, and cleaning :)

My contribution to VCC Q4 2006 - You Can Cook for FAHC Campaign

and JFI for coconut