Dieters Delight - Shorabit Adas

The soup made of red lentils - a very traditional Middle Eastern recipe - is loaded with goodness. It's extremely simple to make, not to mention very tasty. There are various recipes to this, but what's given here is the simplest of all, made with the ingredients readily available.

Ingredients (Serves 1)

Red Lentils (Masoor dal) - 1/4 cup
Onion - 1/2 - chopped
Garlic - 1 clove
Cumin - 1 tsp
Salt - to taste
Oil - 1 tsp
Water - 1 1/4 cup
Mint leaves - few

Optional: (these are variations and I didn't use them in my recipe)
Carrots - 1 chopped
Red Pumpkin (parangikkai) - 1/2 cup chopped

Recipe:

Heat the oil in a pan, add the cumin and saute for a few seconds. Add onions, garlic and saute for a minute. Add the washed red lentils and let it absorb the flavor of the onions and garlic. (At this point you can add the vegetables) Add salt. Add the water and pressure cook until soft. (I used an electric cooker and cooked for 20 minutes). Puree this in a blender.

Strain through a sieve. You won't have much of a residue. Return this back to the stove and heat through gently.

This is typically served with warm bread :-)

Read More

Dieter's Delight - Sprouts Tikki

I've been a good girl this past week, haven't eaten out, stuck to my workout regime, and most importantly curbed my sweet craving. and I decided to give myself a little treat, something that was tasty, yet healthy!

So this could actually pass off as a dieter's delight.

Here's your recipe!

Step 1: Grind to a coarse paste (almost like that of paruppu vadai) the following

1 cup sprouts
1 green chili
1" ginger
half an onion
salt to taste

Note: add very little water

Step 2: Transfer to a bowl. Add half a chopped onion, finely chopped coriander and mint, a pinch of garam masala and mix well.

Step 3: Make into tikkis (make a ball of this paste in your hand, and flatten it). Roll these over some rice flour to hold them together.

Step 4: Heat a griddle, add few drops of oil, place a few tikkis, and cook until brown. Turn over to the other side and repeat process.

Step 5: Serve with mint walnut chutney - recipe from Ammee's Kitchen.

Read More

Dieter's Delight - Broccoli Stir-Fry

Broccoli is one of my favorite vegetables. And it's one of the easiest to make. And whenever I can find some fresh broccoli, I make sure I pick up a head.

After all the wedding feast over the last week, I had to take it easy. And the dieter series is revived!

This is a fairly simple recipe and wont take more than 20 minutes including chopping.

Boil a huge pot of water with plenty salt. Add the broccoli florets. When they turn a bright green (after about a couple of minutes), strain and keep aside.

Heat a shallow pan, drizzle some olive oil and when the pan is really hot, toss the broccoli florets. Add the broccoli stems, carrots and any other vegetables of your choice. Keep tossing on high heat for a minute.

Transfer to a bowl.

For the dressing, squeeze the juice of 1 lemon and add some fresh ground pepper. Pour on to the broccoli and dig in!

Read More

Dieter's Delight - Mushroom Mint Salad

It has been a crazy day; How else would you term a day when the carpenter is on full swing, cutting, sawing and drilling, and you can barely enter the house without being showered with sawdust! So yes, I was getting some shelves fixed and that's a 2 day job! Sigh

It was past 8 pm by the time these guys left, and I was hungry. There was a sly temptation to order out - a million thoughts running through my mind - Dominoes is right next door! Or should I call Mast Kalandar (they are 2 km away), or should I call Yo Potato or may be a peta wrap!

And then, I could hear the mind's mocking laugh! To shut it up and not feel guilty, decided to rustle up something quick!

The mushrooms should be used by today, so I chopped them up, set them on the pan, on low heat, along with some lemon juice and salt. Cook covered for about 10 minutes. Let cool and drain the water.

Meantime, finely chop a handful of mint and some coriander. Roughly chop some cucumber. Deseed tomato and roughly chop that too. Toss everything together; add some yoghurt, and we are done :-)

And this is the new entrant in my kitchen - magnetic knife holder :-). (Thanks to S, it sure matches the color of the decor)

Read More

Dieter's Delight - Dal Kichdi

Yes I am on a diet, notwithstanding the fact that I dined at Crimson Chakra tonight. I had soup and dessert (the elaneer souffle, of course; too bad I couldn't resist this one) and I didn't miss my workout. (And I stepped into Gormei Market to say hello to Sriram and he goes - 'I thought you were on a diet?')

This is one of my all time favorite one-pot dish. Absolutely easy to make and tastes pretty good. The below recipe is a variation of the Gujarati Kichdi (served usually with kadhi, achar and roasted papad). Kichdi is a comfort casserole, more like our paruppu sadham or pongal, but loaded with the goodness of dal and vegetables.

This recipe serves 1.5 people ;-)

Wash and soak half cup of moong dal, about 2 tsp rice and a few tsp of masoor dal (red lentils).

Chop vegetables of your choice - typically onion, potato, cabbage, beans, carrot & peas. Saute them in a teeny bit of oil, along with some cumin, one bay leaf (optional), some cloves (optional), salt, 1 chopped green chilli, a pinch of red chilli powder, 1 tsp coriander powder and some turmeric. I also added the left over sprouts & mushroom mixture from last night's dinner.

Now, add all this to one big pot, add about 2 1/4 cups of water, some salt and pressure cook for about 7 - 8 whistles or more. I keep in the electric cooker for 30 mins. Let it rest for a while. Mix (or should I say mash) well and garnish with finely chopped coriander.

Can be served as is, or with raita or achar / papad / vegetables.

Suggested serving: Add a tsp of ghee over the kichdi and watch it melt away into the gaps and make the dish yummier by leaps and bounds ;-) And that's my lunch box in the picture! 

Read More

Dieter's Delight - Grilled Paneer on a bed of sprouts

I have tried lots of ways to lose weight, but what really helped me are eating right and working out right. Having said that, it's not easy to eat right and work out always. There have been pangs of emotional eating, raiding the fridge at midnight (like Nigella - oh she has such a negative impact on weight loss), eating because you go out in a group and you can't help resist temptation (yeah OMG did that to me) and then the bakers shower their love on you by baking these wonderful cakes and you can't help but indulge. 

And suddenly, I've been seeing too many posts on weight loss and a friend also remarked that I'd gained weight :-( So, it's back to basics - firing it away on the treadmill, combined with lots of reps of Surya Namaskar, a zero-carb high-protein dinner and a bit of weight training to balance out the cardio. And Green tea with mint and a dash of lemon :-)

For a vegetarian like me, protein options are limited. Tofu (I really don't like this much), Soy milk, Sprouts and Paneer are easily available and some of the best choices when it comes to eating tasty and healthy food. 

So here's tonight's dinner

Boil sprouts in a microwave (for about 5 minutes on high). Let it cool.

Add finely chopped onions, green chillies, mint and coriander.

Add some salt to taste.

I have a taken recent liking to green tabasco. So I added a couple of drops of that.

Mix well. Rest for a few minutes.

Meantime, slice the paneer into long strips. Brush with some olive oil. I added some chilli flakes, mint, coriander and salt. (I used my MR sandwich maker, dumped these strips in there and let them grill, turning them over at regular intervals)

That's it and we are done. Happy dieting. (Warning: Do not watch Nigella's show when you eat this. I loved the coconut ice-cream she made today and was looking at my bowl of salad and shaking my head in disbelief)

Read More