5 Minute home-made pizza-Deliciozo!!

I love hosting dinners and lunches at home. The feeling of having your friends surround you, hearing stories about home, talking about home is just precious. Everytime we have friends over, I try to come up with atleast one new dish. Well, in a sense, apart from hubby dearest, they too become guinea pigs to some of my culinary adventures. Till a few weeks ago, we met up with our friends every weekend incessantly. Just like the soaring temperatures in the month of Kathiri (the hottest period in Summer in TamilNadu), our ‘eating-out’ expenses soared sky-high! So we decided to have them over for a weekend to work on a cultural event. As usual I decided to come up with something…I decided on the 5 minute home-made pizza slices as a evening snack. This was something I saw on Sandra Lee’s show.

Although I am not a major fan of making something out of processed food, I don’t mind it on such occasions as it reduces the time of preparation and allows more time to spend with friends. But sadly, our friends left soon after lunch that afternoon(after having been subjected to the horror of 3 meals at my hands!). So the following week, I decided to try the dish on my favorite (‘coz most of the times, the good man that he is rarely complains!) guinea pig…hubby dearest. His reaction was a smack of the lips and followed by a “Bellissimo!”.

Here goes the recipe for this easy-breezy, lip-smacking snack.

Pillsbury crescent roll-1 pack

Pasta sauce-1/2 cup

Black Olives, sliced – 3-4 nos

Roasted/Fresh red bell pepper-1 no

Mozzarella Cheese, grated-1/4 cup

salt-as per taste

red chilli flakes-as per taste

oil-1 tsp

Heat oven to 400F. Line a baking tray with parchment paper or just a dab of cooking spray. Thaw the crescent rolls as per instruction. Separate the individual rolls and lay them out on the baking sheet in their triangular shape. Spread a few drops of oil on the crust. Then spread a spoonful of the pasta sauce followed by the grated cheese. Lay the vegetables on the sauce. Sprinkle with salt.

Bake for 10-15 minutes or till the crust turn golden. Garnish with chilli flakes. Serve hot.

Pilsbury Reduced fat Crescent roll-$3.40, pasta sauce-$3.49, Part Skim shredded mozzarella cheese-$5.49, Expressions on your hubby's face after the first bite-Priceless 🙂

Low fat black bean soup

As most of you might have guessed, my husband and I are gourmands which is great for our taste buds but not so wonderful for our waist line! 😦 But since our families back home are extremely health-conscious, we sometimes feel the guilt of not following their lead. Those are times when we try our ‘diet-foods’. But sadly, these bodhi-esque moments don’t last too long! And our taste buds are back to having a PAARTAY!

One such moment happened to me sometime ago. That’s when I decided to get inspired by my BIL who has lost loads of inches and looks absolutely fab! All you single girlz out there–watch out ;). We started out on a week’s diet of soups for  lunch and dinner, much to the chagrin of hubby dearest! And finding soups that are low in cal is not too difficult. The previous week, a friend of mine had a black bean soup at a nearby sandwich chain. Since I was in no mood to eat (which doesn’t happen very often), I skipped even tasting it. So I decided to make my own version of the black bean soup. We discovered to our utter delight that its a simple, extremely low cal and amazingly comforting dish.

For four large servings:

Black beans-1/2 cup

onion, medium, chopped-1/2 no

tomatoes, medium, chopped-1 no

corn-1/4 cup

green chillies, chopped-2 nos

cilnatro, chopped-7-8 sprigs

cumin powder-2 tsps

chilli powder-1/2 tsp

salt-to taste

Soak the black beans in water for atleast 8 hours(preferably overnight). Pressure cook all the ingredients except the cumin, chilli powder and salt. Once cooked, add the powders, salt and water (if the consistency is too thick). Simmer for 5 to 10 minutes or till it comes to a boil.

Serve with a dollop of yogurt (I substituted it for the sour cream that was served in the restaurant) and fresh mint leaves.

Apart from the nutritional value of this dish, the flavor of this dish is so simple, mild and refreshing.