A Peek into my Life

Last week I tried a couple of new recipes, so I thought this is a good week for a weekly recap to showcase them. I had ordered an energy bar from bigbasket since there was an offer on it. Otherwise, those things are expensive! The daughter loved the bar, so I saved the wrapper for reference to create my version of it. It contained seeds like sesame and pumpkin along with figs. The daughter is not excited about eating seeds on their own and she kind of hates the look and texture of dates. So I looked at it as an opportunity to feed her superfood seeds and dates. I based it on my dates ladoo recipe. Super Seeds Energy Bar (nobake) Seed and fruit energy bar Ingredients: 1 cup mix of raisins, dates, and figs* 1 tbsp ghee 1 tbsp honey 1/4 tsp rock salt 1/4 tsp cinnamon powder 3/4 cup oats 1 cup nuts and seeds* Method Dry roast oats in a small iron kadhai till crisp; about 4 minutes. You can dry roast the seeds and nuts if they are no...

I am not really a religious person. So Shivratri was another reason to try out new recipes; fasting recipes specifically. Shivratri is one of the major fasting days in Hinduism that is followed by a large number of people. My thought process was that it is healthy and tasty to take a break from everyday grains like rice and wheat for a day. Instead of doing it on Monday as per the calendar, we did it on Sunday so that the husband would not miss out on the food. Here's what I made for the day: For breakfast, it was sabudana khichadi. It was certainly not a new recipe. It is our usual Sunday breakfast because the daughter loves it. The trick to perfect sabudana khichadi lies in the soaking technique of sabudana. I learnt this trick from my mom. After washing the sabudana a couple of times, soak it in enough water to cover it by an inch. Leave it for about 20 minutes. The sabudana would have soaked up some of the water by now. Drain the excess water leaving just a couple of table...

Pizza sauce is another sauce where I like to load up on vegetables without compromising on taste. Like the cheesy vegetable sauce , I store this pizza sauce in the freezer too. I obviously use it to make pizzas in no time, but more often, I use it to make multigrain pizza roti for the daughter's lunchbox. Healthy pizza sauce pizza on a homemade base multigrain roti pizza Ingredients: 1 onion 5 cloves garlic half of a small beetroot 1 carrot 10 french beans quarter of a bottlegourd/lauki 7 tomatoes 1 small capsicum/bellpepper 1 tsp salt 1 tsp sugar 1 tsp mixed herbs 1 tbsp olive oil Method Heat the olive oil in a pressure cooker. Add the chopped vegetables in order (onion, garlic,beetroot,carrot, french beans, bottlegourd, and tomatoes), sauteeing briefly after each vegetable. Once all the vegetables are well sauteed on medium-high heat, add enough water to barely cover the vegetables and cook for 3-...

Recently our snack stock ran out. I decided to restock it with some healthy snacks. One for the sweet tooth and the other for the savory. No Sugar Date ladoo with chia seeds Dates provide all the sweetness for this ladoo. They are sweet and full of fiber and nutrition. The nuts and seeds provide crunch and substance while providing good fats. Ingredients: 1 cup dates 1 1/2 cup mixed nuts and seeds * 4 cardamom pods Method Soak nuts like almonds and walnuts in water for about 2 hours. This makes them easier to digest. Peel and chop. This is a time consuming process. This step can be done a day ahead. Using a nut chopper or food processor will make it a whole lot easier. Boil some water. Barely cover the dates with the boiling water in a container. Cover and leave aside for 15 minutes. This softens the dates. This step is optional if you have a food processor. Since I used the blender, I took this extra step. Blend a little bit of dates at a time in th...

I had bought some mustard greens and was thinking of ways to cook them. The obvious one was sarson ka saag. I wanted to go a little simpler. I thought of pairing them with one of our favorite dried bean - black-eyed peas. I based this recipe on the famous palak paneer and followed a similar method. This has become our new favorite way to eat greens. I recently made kale this way too. I am so glad to have found another way to eat greens in a totally yummy way while still being so healthy. It never fails to impress the husband (and of course, me too) with its taste. Think of this recipe as a technique and use it on any of the greens, pairing them with different dried beans. Mustard greens with black-eyed peas Ingredients: 1 bunch (4-5 cups) mustard greens 1 cup black-eyed peas 1/2 cup spinach leaves (frozen) * 3 green chilies 2 inch ginger 1 small onion 4 large garlic cloves 1 tomato 1/2 tsp garam masala 2 tsp milk powder * S...

This year we have been eating a lot of salads. We started out eating salads every day when we were in a weight loss phase. Now that we have achieved some of the goals, we have slacked down on salads. I have been a fan of salads for a couple of years now but did not make them at home. As soon as the weather warms up, I am excited because it means I can eat salads when we are eating out (and get that salad thing going at home too). I did not make salads at home because I thought it was an involved process. Buy the greens, keep them fresh, make dressings. It also required keeping the pantry and fridge stocked for salad supplies. I, like many people, was not sure how much salad I would eat at home, to invest in the supplies. I say, if you enjoy eating salads in good restaurants, you can make salads you like at home too. It is really not that intimidating once you get going on your first salad. One of the big reasons we started doing salads was, to up the vegetable and fruit intake. Ou...

Almost everybody from India loves Indo-Chinese food which is the Indian version of Chinese food. The predominant flavors in this type of food are from ginger, garlic and soya sauce. Whats not to love about that. I, for one, love my ginger and garlic and in my opinion they just make everything taste better. This is the perfect meal for a cold evening when you want something comforting, while making your taste buds sing. Usually, Chinese food falls in the same category as greasy fast food. But by making it at home, it can actually qualify as a healthy meal. I have loaded up the fried rice with lots of vegetables (almost as many vegetables as the rice). Instead of deep fried manchurian, I used sauteed vegetables in a gravy. Although, the meal is healthy, it does not skimp on flavor one bit. As long as you take care of the aromatics (ginger, garlic, onions) and the flavorings (chilies, soy sauce, vinegar), your dish will be satisfying and delicious while remaining healthy. Fried r...

I am thinking of trying a new soup every week for the last leg of winter. Last week, I made broccoli soup. There was a 2 for 1 sale for broccoli at my local grocery store. So I had 2 bunches of fresh broccoli that needed to be used up. Most of the broccoli went into this soup and the rest went into making broccoli paratha (along the lines of stuffed gobi paratha). I have to say, these two are our favorite ways of eating broccoli. No one in our house likes eating whole broccoli florets no matter how they are prepared. :) I had garnished the soup with a bit of grated cheddar cheese but the soup itself was so creamy, we felt it was totally unnecessary. The pureed potatoes and broccoli add so much creaminess to the soup. I also added some whole milk to bring the creaminess up a notch and also take the "vegetabley" flavor down. The best part about the soup is the surprise spice hint of cumin. It is unexpected and really took the soup from great to delicious. Creamy Broccol...

I have been making a lot of soups the last few months. This lentil soup is my favourite soup to make and eat. It is comforting and filling like soups and lentils usually are. We love it with a slice of baguette and call it a meal. Today is one of those days that is perfect for this soup. It is cloudy, rainy and cold. I just soaked the lentils to make this for lunch and I am so looking forward to it. I cannot stand the smell and taste of raw celery. The only place I use celery is in this soup (maybe a few other soups too!) because I think the soup just tastes perfect with the celery in it. I peel and very finely chop the celery so I just get the flavor of celery in the soup but not a chunk of it. I do the peeling and chopping for all the celery that I buy and place it in the freezer. So I have to deal with the smell of it just once and then I can just use the prepared celery from the freezer. Lentil Soup Ingredients: 1 cup whole masoor dal 1 onion 1/4 cup fin...

Last week I had my first surgery for removing my gall bladder. This is apparently a very common surgery and it has been made real simple these days. Single incision, little to no scarring and you are back home in half a day. I had a really good team of doctors and nurses at Charlotte Medical Clinic and I am recovering quite well. I first found out about my bad gall bladder while on my India trip in September. Maybe all the "eat all you can" attitude caused the gall bladder attack :) I am glad I got time to come to terms with it before losing one of my organs. I had time to adjust my diet and really think about the food that I eat and serve my family. I always thought we eat healthy food and it was reasonably true. But anyone who has tried to understand food and what is healthy, what is not, knows that information out there is so conflicting in nature. What was seen as absolute truth a few years ago is now a very questionable truth. There were times when I didn't kno...

I like to bake muffins as I have said before. I bake a tray of muffins and freeze the batch. It lasts us about a month. I make them healthy enough to be eaten at breakfast since they make for a quick, portable breakfast. Today's muffins are a tad bit more indulgent. They could pass for dessert if you really try. :) I had an overflow of citrus fruits in my fruit drawer and they were not getting eaten at all. So I made a marmalade to rescue them. The marmalade will have a blog post of its own sometime later. I made marmalade muffins from some of that homemade marmalade. Marmalade Muffins adapted from Poppytalk The citrus zest and vanilla make it one amazingly scented packet. I could love it for just the smell but it tastes delicious too. I think it is a better use of marmalade than even spreading on buttered toast. Ingredients: 1/2 cup all purpose flour (maida) 1 cup whole wheat flour 2 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp salt 3/4 cup milk 1/4 cup mel...

My almost 3 year old does not eat her vegetables. I try to offer her some vegetable everyday with the hope that she would eat it today. On some blessed days, she eats raw baby carrots or some lightly sauteed broccoli. She almost always eats methi in a dal or kadhi. It is no wonder that the biggest question on most mom's minds is how to get their kids to eat more vegetables. The recipe was a result of this ongoing question that I face. Since she loves dosas and pancakes, I thought a hybrid with vegetables might work. She ate two of them which is a big success. And I have noticed that grating vegetables makes them more palatable even for adults. Veggie Pancakes Grated vegetables, flours, egg cover all nutrition groups to make this a complete meal. Ingredients: 4 carrots 1/2 beet 1/2 onion 3 tbsp chopped spinach 1 egg 1 green chilli 1/4 tsp baking soda 1 tsp salt 1/2 tsp black pepper 1/4 tsp turmeric 4 tbsp besan 1 tbsp flax s...

I am not a morning person. Getting up and making breakfast at 7 in the morning is very difficult for me. The most I can manage is toasting bread. But when the husband is out of the house at 7, a real housewife cannot let him go without a real breakfast, can she now? And then there is the question of packing a healthy breakfast for the kid to take to preschool. "How can I pack the most nutrients in what little she eats, without adding any weird tastes", is a question I always struggle with. Anything other than chocolate, milk, plain rice falls somewhere in the weird tastes category for her. Anyway, to help me with the breakfast question, I try to make a few healthy, freezable and delicious options when I have time and my brain is not working at a snail's pace (like in the morning). One of the breakfast which everyone loves is : muffins. All I have to do the night before is, pull a few out from the freezer to thaw in the refrigerator. And they are perfectly ready to eat ...