Italian Food it is!

I have always loved pasta.. and using the ready made sauces it was a staple dinner item.
Recently I tried making pesto sauce and the result was awesome. Generally I use base recipe that is readily available on the internet and make my own edits based on the ingredients I have.
For my pesto I used

1 whole pack of basil
2-3 cloves of garlic
olive oil - to make a paste consistency
salt to taste
lemon juice to taste
Crushed peanuts (this is instead of the suggested Pine nuts)
And trust me the result was delicious.. :)

To get to the next level, my amazing pasta needed a salad. Immediately I thought of Caprese Salad, one of my favorite :) I was surprised how easy it was to make it.

Two tomatoes cut in slices (I just used the normal stem tomatoes instead of the Heirloom ones)
Couple of slices of mozzarella cheese
Couple of basil leaf
Drizzle of balsamic vinegar

I wish you could taste the amazing salad, it turned out pretty good
Pasta, Caprese Salad and some wine.. the perfect Friday night dinner!

Summer Rolls

Summer Rolls or Vegetable Rolls are the perfect evening snack. They are easy to make and satisfy the evening hunger without filling you up. The basic recipe for summer rolls is commonly available and has tofu, rice noodles and veggies stuffed in rice paper. Generally I stuff the rice paper with whatever veggies I can find in the fridge.
For this one I used mostly cucumber and carrots.
The standard accompaniment is the awesome "Peanut Sauce" and I love it, but the main ingredient for it is peanut butter and I am not a huge fan of PB. So I developed this 'sauce' to accompany the summer rolls.

Balsamic vinegar
Soy sauce
Sriracha
Olive oil
Crushed peanuts
Sugar

The quantities vary every time. Best way is to keep tasting and adjusting till you have the perfect combination of tangy, sweet, spicy taste. Trust me this concoction tastes really good :)

Carrot Banana Cake

Today as I was cleaning up my pantry I found some carrots and (over)ripe bananas. Perfect ingredients to make a cake.
I found a basic carrot cake recipe here. Obviously I did not have all the ingredients, so instead of going to the grocery I choose to be experimental.
I substituted some of the ingredients

For All-purpose flour I added Pancake mix (one that asks you to add eggs)
For Pineapples, I added mashed bananas.. :)
For walnuts, I added some raisins

Overall I was not sure if I will have anything edible after 20 min in the oven.. But I was completely blown away by the end product. The texture was awesome and the taste was great!
I completely surprised myself. It thus paves the way for more experimentation :D