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.

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Dieter's Delight - Pesarattu

Having actually hogged and cheated on the diet over the weekend (well, can't really help it when you are part of an event that showcases amazingly exotic desserts), today is back to track with the diet.

On Dieter's delight tonight is pesarattu, an Andhra delicacy. (A variation of this is called MLA pesarattu, which is served with upma stuffed in the center. This apparently is / was served in the MLA hostel in Andhra Pradesh)

Here's how this is made:

Wash and soak green gram overnight. (as I typed this, I realized that my clothes are in the washing machine, waiting to be hung on the clothes line. so be back in a few minutes)

Right, I am back, after having neatly lined up the clothes on the line.

Grind the soaked gram, along with ginger, green chili, a little bit of raw rice, lots of coriander and mint, into a fine paste - along the consistency of dosai maavu. Add some salt, and the batter is ready.

Make pesarattu the same way a dosa is made. Can be served with any chutney or sambhar. This is best had with tomato thokku  (I couldn't use onion today, the day being angarika chathurthi (the sankata hara chathurthi that falls on a Tuesday - oh yes I made kozhukattai ), so I made coconut chutney - the coconut chutney part is NOT dieter's delight)

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What's for lunch

It's a question that stumps me every day. I'm decent at decision making, especially at work,  but when it comes deciding clothes or menu, I am stuck. I look up to S or R for support, and then have never failed me.

Today was one of those days when I was just so exhausted and despite having a fully stocked fridge, was just not able to get myself to make an interesting dabba. As I rummaged through the fridge, I did find a bowl of left over sprouts salad.

The sprouts salad was made by tossing together 100 gm of boiled sprouts, 1/2 finely chopped onion, 1/4 finely chopped capsicum, lots of coriander and a little salt.

This was very easily converted into sabzi, by simply heating oil, seasoning with jeera, 1 finely chopped tomato, 1/2 tsp ginger garlic paste, and dumping the salad into the kadai, and cook covered for about 10 minutes !

Squeeze a few drops of lemon and we now have a good healthy sabzi to eat with hot soft chapatis. I don't have a picture of this, as I was too lazy to do one, when I finished cooking. So may be another day !

Happy lunch-boxing !

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