Sphagetti el pesto

Pesto is an Italian word which means to crush or to grind. A Sphagetti made with a sauce of crushed herbs/ tomato/ nuts & cheese is Sphagetti el pesto. The pesto sauce has several variants and can be used to cook sphagetti or pasta or like I tried, it can be used with rice too!!
The pesto sauce is generally made by hand-crushed herbs like basil (tulasi), mint (pudina), rucola along with pine nuts / walnuts/ cashew nuts, garlic flakes, cheese.
More about pesto sauce @ Pesto sauce. 
I tried this delicacy for the first time in an authentic Italian restaurant Perla porto . I was in love with the aroma of the herbs and the cheese blended together! So, I decided to make this at home... Simple, tasty and classy it was.. So here goes the recipe.

Ingredients
5-6 table spoons -Basil, Rucola & Pine nuts pesto sauce (available in market)
3-4 tea spoons -olive oil
250 gms of raw Sphagetti
3-4 mint leaves for garnishing
Parmesan cheese (optional)

Procedure

Cook the raw sphagetti with about 3/4 lt of water. Drain the sphagetti and keep it aside after cooking it for 5-8 mins.
In a heated cooking vessel, add the olive oil. Now add the cooked sphagetti and the pesto sauce. Mix till the sauce blends finely with the sphagetti. Turn the stove off now and transfer the content into a serving vessel. Garnish it with grated parmesan cheese and mint leaves. Serve it hot.

Kheer

Ingredients 
Vermicelli - 1 cup
Ghee - 1tsp
Roasted nuts (Cashew, badam, raisins) - 3-4 tsp
Milk - 2 cups
Water - 1 cup
Sugar - to taste
Cardamom powder -  a pinch
Saffron leaves - a pinch soaked in 2-3 tsp of hot milk

Method

1. Roast the vermicelli in ghee until it starts becoming brown.
2. In a thick bottomed kadai, bring milk and water to a boil. Now add the roasted vermicelli.
3. Once it is cooked, add sugar, cardamom powder, saffron. You can add condensed milk or MTR Badam feast too.
4. Keep stirring it until sugar dissolves.
5. Remove it from fire and garnish with roasted nuts.

Serve hot or chilled. Both taste very good.

Ambode/Vade

Ingrdients

Chana dal - 2 cups soaked
Coconut grated - 1 cup
Green chillies 3-4
Coriander leaves - 1/2 cup Finely chopped
Curry leaves - 1/4 cup chopped
Hing
Salt
Red chilli powder - 1/2 tsp
Oil - for deep frying

Method

1. Coarsely grind the Chana dal in a mixer. Do not use water while grinding.
2. Grind the green chillies to a paste.
3. Mix the ground chana dal, green chilli paste, coriander leaves, curry leaves, coconut, hing, salt and red chilli powder.
4. Make round small sized balls out of the above mixture.
   Grease your hands with a little oil and flatten the balls lightly by pressing them in between your palms.
   Deep fry them in hot oil until golden brown (on both sides). Drain the excess oil on tissue paper and serve hot.