Indo-Italian Non-Cheese(!!) Dinner

Tired after a long day of work and are now faced with the chore of cooking dinner ? Then how about a Indo-Italian dinner. As always, let us whet our appetite by examining possible results of time spent efficiently in the kitchen. (err..I was truly hungry the night I made this, as evident from the missing end of a bread piece in the picture below)

Spicy Cellentani with Italian Bread & Tomato Ketchup

Cellentani + Dark red Kidney Beans + Tomatoes + Onions

Italian bread (or any forgotten bread in the fridge) + herbs

Optimized Method of Preparing the meal in less than 40 minutes

Timer begins at 00:00 (m m: s s)

00:00 - Add a packet of Cellentani ( I like the Barilla brand) in a pot full of water. Place this on the stove at medium heat. Also add 1 tsp of salt and 1/2 tsp of oil. This allows for the cellentani to absorb the salt from the very beginning. The oil ensures that they don't stick together.

05:00 - Open the can of dark red kidney beans ( a light red variety is also fine, as long as they are kidney beans) and wash them of all their preservatives. This is more popularly known as rajma in Indian cuisine. Add these beans to a saucepan of water and little salt. Place this on the stove at medium heat. Also, cover the saucepan as we want the beans to soften.

10:00 - Now that the beans and cellentani are cooking, prepare the ingredients for the sauce.
Dice 1 large onion (preferably red onion) and 2 red tomatoes (can use canned tomatoes too). I use a little chopper from Black & Decker to dice my onions. Saves me some tears!

15:00 - Get that bread out of your fridge and cut it into the shape that delights you most. I chose triangular cuts as that is about as fancy as I can get. Please, do keep stirring the cellentani and the beans at regular intervals. Take another pan, add some margarine/butter to it. If you like garlic, you can pound 2/3 pods and add that too to the pan. Then immediately, add the bread pieces and fry them. All this on low heat. We don't want charred blocks of carcinogenic disasters now.

22:00 - Check on the beans. They should be soft enough now. Take them off the stove and drain the water.

25: 00 - The bread should be golden brown now. Since, I did claim it was a fusion meal it is time to add some zesty Italian herbs to the bread. I have a ready mixture of basil, oregano et al. So let your imagination run riot. Add all the herbs you have within reach to the bread and stir.

28:00 - Take the bread off the stove. Cellentani should be done by now. Note that we have cooked it for about 1/2 hour, unlike the TV shows where they seem to be magically ready in 10 minutes! Drain the water and get ready to make the sauce.

30:00 - Use the same pan that boiled the cellentani to prepare the sauce. Add margarine + cumin seeds + diced onions and fry well. All this on medium high.

32: 00 - Add red chilly powder + salt + coriander-cumin powder (readily available in any indian stores; better known as dhaniya-jeera powder) and a little garam masala. The quantities of these spices are dependent on your tastes. For the chilli lovers I recommend about 3 tsps of chilly powder.

34: 00 - Add diced tomatoes and beans and stir.

36:00 - Now add the cellentani to the mixture and keep stirring well.

40:00 - Spicy cellentani with no cheese should be ready to eat now. I find it delightful with tomato ketchup and the mildly flavored bread pieces.

Since, this is a true representation of a real time cooked meal I do not pretend that it is also possible to make a dessert within the alloted 40 minutes. At this point, the critics shall go to the freezer and tuck in some yummy ice-cream.