Eggless Buckwheat Crepes : Health on a plate

Last Saturday, I looked at my dinner plate and I felt "Damn, it should be illegal to eat this healthy on a Saturday night." Yes it was so good that it was bad. And we were watching a brilliant brilliant series to add all the necessary wickedness and spice to this healthy plate. 

You may think food bloggers have proper weekly menus and they are always on the top of what to feed their families every single day. In my case, that's so wrong. I print out menu formats. I order my weekly produce and groceries and think of making a plan that will use them in the most systematic manner. But no, that never happens. I'm best when I'm impulsive. And sometimes there are so many bits of assorted vegetables leftover that even the most creative part of my brain wont figure out how to put them together. 

I've come up with an idea for such situations. One is to make this all forgiving Tamil dish called Poricha koottu where you throw in every possible vegetable (well, not actually, but it works), add mashed dal, a freshly ground masala and you're done. It tastes fabulous with steamed rice or broken wheat or any such grain. The other idea is if there are 3-4 leftover veggies, microwave them individually and then saute them individually in some olive oil and garlic, adding a pinch of salt and lots of pepper in the end. This is much better than 'boiling' them. Microwaving them for a short burst of time with very little water (1-2 tsp) keeps them crunchy while not keeping them raw and then everything tastes fabulous with garlic and olive oil. 

But this post is about buckwheat crepes. Having had the authentic French style buckwheat crepes (galettes) from our local pizzeria run by a French lady and her husband, I was inspired enough to buy a bag of buckwheat flour. I tried making crepes using a traditional recipe (using butter, milk, eggs). While the crepes turned out beautiful, the smell of eggs was not the most pleasant feeling for me. This is my own improvised recipe that's egg free and gluten free, because I've used rice flour along with buckwheat instead of all purpose flour. You do need a good non stick skillet / dosa pan to be successful with this. 

Recipe for Eggless Buckwheat Crepes
Makes 5-6 crepes

Ingredients
1 cup buckwheat flour*
1/3 cup rice flour
3/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup water
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tbsp vinegar
butter or oil to grease pan

Directions

1. In a mixer jar / food processor, add the flours, salt and water. Spin for 30 seconds, open the jar and bring the contents together using a spatula. Run the mixer for 30 seconds more until you get a smooth batter. Remove this into a bowl and keep covered for 30 minutes. 
2. You can refrigerate this if you plan to use this much later.
3. Just before making crepes, add baking soda, add the vinegar on top of the soda and 1-2 tsp of water and beat the mixture well. It will fizz up a bit and the batter will become light.
4. Grease a non stick skillet. Wipe off excess oil / butter with kitchen tissue. When the skillet is moderate hot, take a ladleful of batter, pour it in the centre and with back of ladle quickly make outward circles to spread the batter to an 8" thin lacy round. As soon as bubbles appear all over the crepe (around 45 seconds) turn it to the other side. Cook for 20 seconds, fold it in half and half again and keep warm.

There's another indulgent way to eat buckwheat crepes. Smear Nutella throughout the crepe and roll it up. 
Also, my other favourite way to eat these is with a filling of sautéed spinach and ricotta or feta cheese.

Buckwheat flour is  naturally gluten-free, high in iron, fiber, protein, selenium and zinc. Read about the numerous health benefits of buckwheat.

*Food Shopping Guide:
You get buckwheat flour in the Gluten Free shelf of Godrej Nature's Basket. It's also available in various organic and health food stores. The one I buy from Nature's Basket is ground along with the skins making it healthier and higher in fibre.

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Chai Spiced Mini Pumpkin Mini Bundts with glaze - #bundtamonth

This Diwali, I didn't get down to making any of the traditional goodies. And I managed to find a valid excuse. Being down with the worst cough episode of the year during the festive season is such a dampener. But when loving neighbours get you home-made goodies, you can't help but muster some enthusiasm and make some stuff that you can share with them. 

Since I've been eyeing these pumpkin-spice loaves for quite sometime, I decided to make them into mini-Bundts with a glaze that will go with these flavours. The Wilton Mini-Bundt tray is the cutest baking accessory, generously given to me by my friend, Preethi, and it always makes the prettiest little cakes. 

Pumpkin and the spices that go into making Chai Masala make a lovely pair. The fragrance and heat from the spices like ginger, nutmeg and cinnamon add a lovely dimension to the bland sweetness of pumpkin. Use the darkest golden colour pumpkin you can find for this recipe. Remove skin, dice into small cubes and boil in some water till soft. Drain and blend in a mixer till you get a fine puree. This can be refrigerated until use. Use in cakes, muffins for moist cakes with minimal use of oil / butter. This recipe uses just 2 tbsp of oil and yet the cakes are extremely moist.

Recipe for Chai Spiced Pumpkin Mini Bundts

Makes 12 - 16 mini bundt cakes

Adapted from : An Edible Mosaic 

Ingredients

3/4 Cup pumpkin puree (explained above)

3/4 Cup packed brown sugar

2 eggs

2 tbsp oil

1 1/4 C all purpose flour

1 1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp dried ginger powder

For glaze

3/4 cup powdered sugar

2 tbsp milk plus some more if required

1/2 tsp cardamom essence or vanilla extract or orange extract

1 tsp Cointreau (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat oven at 175 C.
2. Using oil, grease the cavities of a mini-bundt pan or two mini loaf pans or a 7" round tin.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together pumpkin puree, brown sugar, eggs and oil.
4. In another bowl, with a whisk mix together all dry ingredients.
5. Add the dry ingredients to the wet in two batches. Incorporate well to make a smooth batter.
6. Fill 2 heaped teaspoonfuls per cavity or 3/4 filling each.
7. Bake mini bundts for 15-20 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.
8. Mini loaf pans may take around 30 minutes and round cake tin around 45-50 minutes. Once golden brown on the top and a tester comes out clean, they are ready to come out of the oven.
9. Mix all ingredients for glaze with a spoon until it is of drizzling consistency. Add a few drops more milk if required.
10. When the cakes are still warm, drizzle over them.
11. Serve warm.

Wishing you and your dear ones a very Happy Diwali

I'm sharing this with Lora and Anuradha for their #BundtAMonth challenge Spicy November.

You can check the other lovely Bundts on their blogs.

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Simple cauliflower mash - Gobhi bharta

Dear Readers,
I have managed to update the recipe index and the blog template after ages. Hope the index is helpful and the colours of the template are cheery enough for you to spend time on the blog.
Your constructive feedback is welcome.


Coming to this post, this is one of the simplest ways of preparing cauliflower, as I discovered only recently. A perfect recipe for a beginner and quick to prepare. Delicately spiced by way of a simple tadka (tempering) this mash is a good match for rotis, bread and as a low-carb filling for masala dosa alike. I served it with toasted bread for a light dinner and it tasted just right. 

All this onion-tomato-ginger-garlic fry up with lots of other spices works fine but sometimes you just crave the simple taste of veggies with some essential spices that gently lend their flavour to the dish without getting overwhelming. This is just that sort of recipe. If you are a newbie in the kitchen, I'd highly recommend you try this with the freshest cauliflower you can find and the results will surprise you.

Please choose fresh cauliflower with tightly bound florets and no discolouration as it is the star of this dish.

Ingredients

2 cups cauliflower florets (broken into medium size)

1 medium potato, peeled and cubed

 1 tsp salt

1/4 tsp turmeric powder

2 tsp rice bran or any other cooking oil

Pinch of asafoetida

1 green chilli, finely minced

1 tsp finely minced ginger

1/2 tsp cumin seeds

1/2 tsp mustard seeds

Directions

1. Soak the cauliflower florets in salted water for 10-15 minutes while you cut the potatoes, chillies, ginger and get the ingredients ready.
2. In a pan with a lid, place 2 cups water with the salt and turmeric powder. Bring it to a boil. Drain the cauliflower and add this to the boiling water with the cubed potato. 
3. This will take around 8 minutes to be fork tender. Drain the boiled vegetables, transfer to a bowl and mash with a fork to a rough puree. Do not throw away the residual water. Use it in soup, rasam or dal.
4. In a small wok, heat the oil. Add the asafoetida,splutter the cumin and mustard seeds. Saute the chilli and ginger for a few seconds and transfer the tempering to the boiled, mashed vegetables.
5. Lightly mix around with a fork to flavour the vegetables evenly. Check for salt and adjust if required.

This tasted divine to my taste buds and the pure tastes of the vegetables came shining through, with the ginger giving the right spice hit.


Try this for your toddlers to go with rotis or soft bread, I'm sure they will like it too.


A lot of my bachelor friends on Twitter have been asking me to post bachelor-friendly recipes and this one is the first of many to come.

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Wacky Banana Cake

There are some blogs I follow because I know their tried and tested recipes will come to my rescue each time I'm facing a dilemma as to what to cook! Then there are some other blogs which I visit purely for reading pleasure - either because I cannot procure most of the ingredients they use or they write predominantly about meat based recipes. Home Sick Texan is one of them. It gives such a view of Texans whose culture, food and general way of life seems so different from the regular American life. I love to read the stories accompanying each recipe and these are more interesting for me that the recipe itself. But this one time, I found a recipe that made me say ' I must try this RIGHT now'. It was her granny's Wacky Cake recipe. The name itself is so appealing, so cute and so retro, and it is indeed a blast from the past. And what's more - no butter, no eggs, no mixing bowl required. Can baking ever get better than this?

If you ever want to bake with your kids, I can only imagine what a deterrent breaking eggs in front of them is - an invitation to gooey mess and not to mention the fear of salmonella from raw eggs, especially in India where the local panwalla who sells them loose (betel leaf vendor) is the nearest source for eggs in a hurry. This is also the best possible cake to bake in the morning for a breakfast for friends who've stayed over. Waking up to the aromas of fresh home baking will make it an unforgettable morning for them. Also, this is the perfect one if you're calling your girl pals over for tea - considerably low cal, ready in a jiffy and just the perfect sweetness to go with tea / coffee.

I have just wiped my hands off after tasting the first piece and it was soft enough to melt in my mouth (even without butter!!!) and then I had to break my prolonged silence here by posting about it. We're having this for our pre-Diwali breakfast and it makes me very very happy and indebted to Home Sick Texan for sharing this recipe - I finally found a vegan recipe for a lovely cake for DH, who's gotten off eggs for a couple of years now and he strictly abides by his no egg policy even when faced with some delicious desserts in the best of places.

Home Sick Texan's Wacky Cake and Wacky Apple Cake Recipes here
I've used a chopped banana in the apple cake recipe along with a part whole wheat flour replacement, and walnuts instead of pecans. Here's my version.

Wacky Banana Cake
Serves 6 atleast
Time to table - 45 minutes
Adapted from here

Ingredients:
1 cup whole wheat flour (I used Ashirwad Atta)
1/2 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cup of sugar - run for a short while in the mixer
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of cinnamon

1 tablespoon vinegar
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
5 tablespoons of sunflower or any unflavoured cooking oil
1 cup cold water (not iced)

1 large banana finely diced
1/3rd cup crushed walnuts

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 C
2. Combine dry ingredients in flour sifter and sift into an ungreased 8x8 square or a 9-inch round baking pan. You can also use a 9-inch cast-iron skillet.
3. Poke three holes into the flour mixture. In the first hole, pour the vinegar. In the second hole, pour the vanilla. In the third hole, pour the oil.
4. Then pour one cup of water into the pan and mix very well.
5. Stir in the diced banana and nuts - shake pan to level off and sprinkle some powdered cinnamon.
6. Place in the oven and bake for 30 minutes or till done.
7. Cut in squares and serve warm.

You'll find all the ingredients for the plain wacky cake in your pantry, so what are you waiting for??

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Carrot - Alfalfa Sprouts salad sandwich

This month Latha is hosting WBB with combi breakfasts as the theme. Thanks to the enthusiasm and dedication of my fellow bloggers who have kept the event going despite my prolonged absence from the blogging scene. If Latha is ok with a salad in a sandwich as a combi thing, then this is my entry for her.
31st Aug is the last date for sending her entries.

Sorry about the break that just kept getting longer and longer. This is an attempt to stick to my promise of getting back before the month of August ends and it is about a refreshing & inspiring breakfast I had this morning.

Alfalfa sprouts are one the most delicate sprouts you will find in a supermarket. I don't usually find them in mine, so when I do find them, I like to bring them home. These are nutritional powerhouses belonging to the pea family. More info here. In short they are very rich in most vitamins, protein and calcium and is a commonly used tonic in homeopathic medicine.

I usually saute them for a few seconds on high heat to kill any bacteria that could be harbouring as a result of water used for sprouting and this reduces their volume considerably.

Although I have stuffed the salad in a sandwich for a hearty breakfast, you can eat the salad as it is along with a soup for a light lunch, or serve it as one of the courses for a dinner party.

Carrot - Alfalfa Sprouts Salad

Time taken - around 15 min

Serves 2 or enough stuffing for 4 sandwiches

Ingredients

2 medium carrots, scraped and shaved / grated

1 cup alfalfa sprouts

1 clove garlic, smashed and minced

1 tsp sunflower /olive oil

1/4 tsp salt

freshly ground black pepper

1 tbsp or more balsamic vinegar

few fresh basil leaves, torn

optional extra: raisins / walnuts / candied nuts

Directions

In a non stick pan, heat the oil. Saute the garlic for a few seconds.

Add the sprouts and saute on high heat for 10-20 seconds.

Toss the grated / shaved carrots in the pan and remove the contents into a bowl.

Let this cool for 5 minutes.

Season with salt and pepper, balsamic vinegar.

Toss in the torn basil and nuts if using.

Refrigerate if serving as salad.

For sandwich, spread your favourite chutney on one slice, load with the salad and eat immediately.

Carrots can be easily replaced by zucchini in this salad and fresh basil with any other fragrant herb of your choice.

I would love to send this to Greedy Gourmet for Snackshots # 6 if it is not too late already :)

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Traditional Lunch Series - Day 5 (Carrot Sambar, Avarakkai Curry)

Here's wishing my dear friend Sig and her partner of 10 years Siv a very Happy Anniversary! Here's to many many more decades of togetherness, love and warmth sweetheart.

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Nothing much to ramble or 'show' today. The menu was an attempt to clear up the Sword beans (English equivalent of Avaraikkai ) my help had chopped up yesterday. The fat sweet carrots found themselves sliced and being thrown into the Carrot sambar...where they swam until they were devoured by us.

Recipe for Avaraikkai Curry (Dry Sword Beans Saute)
Serves 3

Ingredients
3 cups finely sliced beans (first top, tail and remove the stringy fibre if any from the sides)
1 tsp oil
1 pinch asafoetida
1 long dried red chilli
1 tsp udad dal
fat pinch turmeric powder
salt to taste
1 tbsp scraped coconut

Directions
1. Pressure cook the chopped beans in one of the separators of the pressure cooker, for two whistles and on sim for another 4-5 minutes. Take care not to add water to the container in which you are cooking the beans or they will get mushy on pressure cooking. Cooking them dry is akin to steaming and they get soft yet hold their shape at the end of the cooking process.
2. In a wok, heat the oil. Put in the asafoetida, then splutter mustard seeds.
3. Add the udad dal, saute till golden. Throw in the cooked beans with salt and turmeric. Stir to mix well and garnish with fresh coconut.

Recipe for Carrot Sambar
Serves 4

Ingredients
3/4 cup tur dal pressure cooked in 2 cups water, mashed well
3 medium carrots, scrubbed and thickly sliced
1/2 cup thin tamarind puree or 1 tbsp tamarind paste
3 tsp sambar powder
1 tsp oil
Tempering: asafoetida, 1/2 tsp mustard seeds, fresh curry leaves
Salt to taste

Directions
1. Pressure cook the carrots in the other separator while cooking the beans with a sprinkling of water and pinch of salt.
2. In a heavy bottomed pan, heat oil, temper with asafoetida, mustard seeds, curry leaves.
3. Add the cooked carrot slices. Saute for a few seconds. Add the mashed dal and tamarind puree / paste. Bring to a simmer.
4. Make a slurry of the sambar powder in 1/2 cup water, add it to the pan, simmer for 2-3 minutes. Season with salt, taste and adjust.
5. Serve hot with steamed rice and a dry curry.

Notes
You can also add raw carrots in stage 3, add some water, cover and let the carrots cook in the pan itself. Pressure cooking makes this very quick, and you can save over 8 minutes while waiting for the carrots to cook in the pan. You can leave the sambar thick or thin it with some water to get a desired consistency.

Making a variety of sambars using the same technique
Sliced radish, beetroot chunks, bitter gourd slices, pumpkin chunks can be similarly used as a substitute to carrot to get radish, beetroot, bitter gourd, pumpkin sambar respectively. Capsicum squares can also be used, but these can just be sauteed in stage 3 instead of being pressure cooked.

Tags: sword beans, avaraikkai, carrot, sambar, tamil lunch menu, tamil recipes, carrot sambar, Saffron Trail, Recipe, Food, Indian food blog, Healthy eating, Healthy living, Mumbai, India

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Traditional Lunch Series - Day 3 ( Keerai Milagoottal, Cabbage Curry )

Yesterday I managed to get some fresh spinach at my local grocery shop. Cabbage is another thing I always pick up on my visits. It is a useful thing for making simple saute curry for lunch, or koottu. For dinners, it adds crunch to our noodles / fried rice - and I even use it to add bulk to left over dosa batter to make crunchy uthapams for breakfast.

Spinach is best used on the same day or at max the following day. That's how Keerai Milagootal managed to feature on today's menu. The ideal partner to this would be a potato roast (always ideal for everything :) or a sliced plantain roast. Since I rarely find the slender plantains suited for this curry, cabbage seemed the next best option.

Milagoottal or Kootan is a Kerala derivative into Tamil cuisine and since my roots are in Tirunelveli which is almost close to the Kerala border, some of our dishes have the 'ubiquitous to Kerala' coconut ground in the gravy of the vegetables. Aviyal is as much our cuisine as much as it is a part of the Keralite sadya. So is the milagoottal, which we call Keerai Kootan at home. This goes well with a mangai pachidi, in which the tender mangoes that have been used to make the vadumangai pickle are removed from the spicy brine, washed and ground to a coarse paste, which is then mixed into yogurt.

For me, there is no better way to consume spinach. Mashed fresh spinach leaves mixed with mashed cooked paruppu (tur dal) and spiced with a mix of fried red chillies-udad dal - black pepper-rice grains is the perfect way to get my dose of iron, protein and comfort for the day!



Recipe for Keerai Kootan
Serves 3-4

Step I - Preparing the spinach
Take 2 bunches spinach. Pluck the leaves and tender stems. Washed thoroughly in bucket of sink full of water, several times. Chop finely. In a heavy pan, place the chopped spinach with a pinch of salt and 1/4 cup water. Boil the spinach till wilted and mash with back of a round ladle. Do not cover while cooking to retain green colour.

Step II- For spice paste
Fry the following in 1/2 tsp oil in a wok till dal turns golden-
1 tbsp udad dal
3 medium dried red chillies
1 tsp whole black pepper
1 tbsp rice (uncooked raw grains)

Grind the above with 1/4 cup of fresh grated coconut, using upto 1/4 cup water into a fine paste. Remove from blender and keep aside.

Step III - Paruppu (dal)
Take under 3/4 cup of tur dal, wash well, pressure cook till very soft with 2 cups water. (2 whistles and on sim for 5 minutes)
Mash this well with a ladle. Keep aside.

Step IV - Assembling all 3 parts and tempering the kootan
In a pan with the mashed spinach, add the mashed dal and the ground spice paste. Stir to mix well. Add salt to taste. Bring to a simmer. Remove from flame.
For tempering - heat 1 tsp oil, to this add 1/2 tsp mustard seeds, 1 tsp udad dal, few curry leaves. Once seeds splutter and dal turns golden, transfer this tempering over the prepared kootan.

Serve hot with rice.

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This is the simplest possible preparation of cabbage which my mom makes often and beautifully well. Readers will be aware that I keep ranting about how Tamil Brahmin cooking keeps things basic, utterly simple and yet superb to taste. No over cooking, no over spicing and not much oil either - all working towards bringing out the true flavour of vegetables. As I say, we are not afraid to taste the real vegetable in the dish :)


Recipe for Cabbage Curry
Serves 3

Ingredients
4-5 cups finely chopped cabbage
1 tsp oil
2 dried red chillies
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp udad dal
1/2-1 tsp salt
2 tbsp fresh grated coconut

Directions
In a large wok, heat the oil. Splutter mustard seeds, fry the broken red chillies and udad dal for 30 seconds.
Add the finely chopped cabbage, salt and stir for a few seconds.
Sprinkle some water, cover and cook for a total for 8-10 minutes taking care to open, sprinkle water and stir every 2 minutes so that the cabbage does not burn.
Once cooked, remove from flame, garnish with fresh coconut and serve hot.

Lunch Series so far

Day 1 - Vengaya Sambar, Vendakkai curry, Potato Roast
Day 2 - Peerkangai thuvaiyal, Red Chauli
Day 3 - Keerai Milagoottal, Cabbage curry

Tags: South Indian, Tambram cooking, tamil lunch menu, keerai koottan, milagoottal, spinach, cabbage curry, cabbage, Saffron Trail, Recipe, Food, Indian food blog, Healthy eating, Healthy living, Mumbai, India

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Shaved carrot and pear salad with curry vinaigrette

To pick a pear recipe for AFAM Pears, I tried food blog search, Epicurious, the USA pears website and finally settled on Food Network's simple salad recipe from Giada's treasure of recipes. As much as I was tempted on making a coffee cake, or muffins or pears poached in wine and served with ice cream, keeping in mind the summer attack in Bombay, an easy salad (easy on the waist) and that tastes good cold, was very much top of mind, which is what made me choose this.

I have written several times about my love for fruits in a salad. The give a sweetness and a change in texture that makes a salad even more satisfying. So here's another vegetable-fruit combo salad with an interesting vinaigrette. Curry powder in a vinaigrette? The French may turn their pretty noses at this one, but the taste is completely new and wonderful. If the world loves our curry, they will surely love this unusual flavour in a dressing!

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Shaved carrot and pear salad in curry vinaigrette
Time taken - Under 10 minutes
Serves 2
Adapted from Giada Laurentis's recipe.

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Ingredients and Directions

1 Red anjou pear, halved and sliced very thin (use any pears you have on hand)
2 large carrots, shaved with a vegetable peeler into ribbons
2 tbsp fresh parsley or 1 tbsp dried parsley
2 tbsp pine nuts or walnuts or sunflower seeds

For dressing - whisk together

2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp lime juice
1 tbsp honey
1/2 tsp ground pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp curry powder (sambhar powder in my case)
1 tbsp olive oil

Place the shaved carrots, sliced pears and parsley in a large bowl. Pour dressing over salad, add nuts, toss and serve chilled


Other salads from the summer of 2007

Chilled mango salad
Yellow lentil and raw mango salad
Herby tomato salad with pine nuts and cheese
Fattoush
Cucumber sesame salad
Indian carrot peanut salad

And while humming ' I will survive' I am sending this off to my dear friend Raaga who is hosting the event A Fruit a Month, started off by Maheshwari

Tags: salad, summer recipes, fibre rich recipe, carrots, pears, Saffron Trail, Recipe, Food, Indian food blog, Healthy eating, Healthy living, Mumbai, India

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Eggless Date Walnut Cake

Who can forget Shilpa's Date Cake, that spread like wild fever in her Aunt's circle! Well, it is tough to resist such a well tried and tested recipe, and I'm all for simple recipes...

I made a few substitutions in the original - increasing milk to one cup and oil to 1/4 cup, plus using whole wheat flour (atta) - and the result was a very soft cake. I guess the date puree itself gives a soft texture, for the same reason as applesauce.

Also I used organic jaggery instead of sugar, pureeing it with the soaked dates. Next time, I will lessen the jaggery used - as the dates provided enough sweetness as it is.

I also topped the entire cake with shredded coconut and plenty of walnuts, adding some chopped walnuts to the batter. The taste of the walnuts cut through the sweetness of the dates, and the smelling of toasting coconut shreds while the cake was baking was pretty heavenly.

This is a kind of cake you can send in your kid's lunch box as a snack. The dates and jaggery make it an iron rich, high-energy snack.

Do check out the original recipe at Aayi's Recipes and I'm sure the fever will continue to spread!

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Announcing my other blog and the Aunt inspired soup series

Heartfelt thanks to your warm, kind and soothing words. I do feel glad I shared my feelings with my blog sisters - you are a wonderful bunch of people. And now I keep my promise of sharing with you my positivity blog - I've called it The Feel Good Blog. Every little thing that makes me feel good, everything I'm grateful for will go in here. It's just two posts old, so you haven't missed too much. Please bookmark this site and I would love you to share with me all things that make you smile. It's my little endeavor to share happiness and the feel-good feeling that we can all do with.


So much for my health conscious cooking, I wonder why I was so step-motherly to soups until now. It's just like when you never get down to doing something, it's so out of your mind anyway. My soup reminder came when I was at my mom's place for a while. My mom gave me the gossip that Aunt G has been making soup each evening at 6 - and each day it's a new soup, something like Soup of the Day in those nice little cafes. This was enough to spike my interest. And when she said yesterday's Soup of the Day was Cucumber soup, I told her let's go, check on Aunt G now!

My mom's sister and my granny live a couple of buildings away, and it goes without saying that when I'm there, I drop by my aunt's house in the evenings to catch up on what's happening (what's cooking rather). She's one of the most innovative cooks in the family and she's always upto something interesting in the kitchen. At least most the times, lets say! So that evening, it was a tomato-carrot-lentil soup. OK, so I stole the lentil idea for my soup from her, but hey mine is a more exotic combination. See below.

By the way, if you end up trying my recipe below, please tell me if you didn't go WOW on seeing the colour of the soup, when it came out of the blender! Do NOT forget.

Just to show you the colour - Yeah I know the photo is terrible, but blame it on the lack of practise, the steam and the shaky hand.

Soup of the Day - 1
Category - Soup, Quick dinner, No fat
Time to table - Under 20 minutes
Serves - One greedy person

Ingredients
1 cup packed spinach leaves, washed thoroughly
1 medium beet, peeled and cubed
1 small carrot, cubed
1/2 cup cooked yellow lentils (tur dal)
1 medium tomato, quartered
Seasonings - see below


Directions

1. In a pan, place 1/2 cup water. Bring to a boil, throw in the beets and carrots. Cover and cook for 10 minutes, till the veggies are nearly tender. Then add in the spinach leaves and tomatoes, covering and cooking for another 2-3 minutes.
2. Drain the veggies and let cool. Reserve the drained liquid.
3. In a blender, puree the tender veggies, cooked lentils till very smooth.
4. Remove this in the same pan with the reserved liquid, add some water to thin out the soup if you wish. Bring to a simmer.
5. Serve into a large soup bowl. Season with lots of pepper, pinch of salt and some lemon zest (and a dot of Amul butter too)

Nutrition notes

• My aunt likes to add some milk in the end to most soups, to give them a creamy taste and also to get an interesting colour. However I am against mixing dairy with green leafy vegetables as it makes iron absorption difficult.
• The lentils gave a nice body and an different dimension of mellowed out taste to the soup. You can use any leftover cooked lentils, or anything you've reserved in the freezer.
• In my opinion, lemon zest gives a nice flavour when beets are used, as they give a sharp edge to the metallic taste of beets and spinach.
• A trial proved that people who start their meal with a low cal soup, ended up consuming 20% less in the entire meal. This kind of reduced food (calorie) intake over a period of time, can help reduce weight or maintain lost weight. This is actually true in my case. I had this soup for dinner with two slices of whole wheat bread, toasted, and I had no appetite to eat any more.

Coming up soon are more healthy soups. I've already made 3 different types this week - yoohoo!!!

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Low fat - restaurant style Matar Paneer

Hello and glad to see you in the new year. Trying to stick to my resolutions (to blog more regularly) - I was ready with the draft 3 days ago, but that's when respiratory infection and bronchitis caught up with me and has kept me down for over 3 days. In Bombay, the temperature difference is well over 15 degrees between day and night, leading to an epidemic of sorts in respiratory infections. The only times in the last three days I've managed to drag myself into the kitchen, is to make a huge pot of Molagu Rasam (Clear pepper soup), and keep warming it up in the microwave, sipping the spicy liquid through the day. Apart from that, my diet has generally been antibiotics, antihistaminics, expectorants and mucolytics. Sounds like quite a spread right??

Back to the topic of the post - this is one dish that is an extremely popular Indian curry - the origins as far as I know being Punjabi in nature, the land where paneer has been predominantly used since many years. If one has paneer and frozen peas, this can be made out of the stuff you'd normally have in your pantry, bailing you out, if you got a day late in replenishing your stock of vegetables.

For a person who cooks almost 3 meals each day, it's odd that I rarely make the typical restaurant style Punjabi dishes like Malai Kofta, Makhanwala and the likes, going mostly with the more earthy simple dishes, where veggies are not drowned in rich gravies and recipes which give veggies more respect than that! However on a whim I decided to try out this matar paneer curry, also since I had nothing else in my refrigerator that evening, except for the staple onions-tomatoes-ginger and garlic.

The recipe here is adapted from a food video prepared by Chef Sanjay Thumma. You'll find plenty of his videos on rediff iShare, youtube and his own site. Ofcourse, this is a much calorie cut version of the same. You could watch his video for a richer, creamier version of the same. But hey, does the title of the post - 'low fat' 'restaurant style' sound like an oxymoron? Well, if you ever try this recipe, you'll know what I mean :)




Matar Paneer ( Indian curry with green peas and cheese )
Category - Vegetarian side to be eaten with rotis, parathas or rice
Time taken - Around 30 minutes
Serves - 3 to 4 people

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Ingredients

1 tsp oil
1 tbsp broken cashewnuts
2 medium onions, finely chopped
3 medium tomatoes finely chopped
1/2 tsp fresh grated ginger
1 tsp finely chopped garlic cloves
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp red chilli powder
1-2 tsp coriander-cumin powder or 1 tsp each
1/2 tsp garam masala powder
1 tsp salt
1 cup frozen or fresh boiled peas
200 g paneer cut into 12 cubes
1 tsp kasoori methi - dried fenugreek leaves, crumbled into a rough powder

Directions
1. Heat the oil in a heavy bottomed wok. Start by sauteeing the broken cashews till lightly golden.
2. Next, add the chopped ginger-garlic and onions and cook on a low flame with a pinch of salt till they soften and turn light brown.
3. At this stage, add the tomatoes with the turmeric powder. Stir well and cook for 5-7 minutes, till mushy.
4. Remove the contents of the wok and blend to a fine puree in a blender, once cooled throughly. You may use upto 1/2 cup water to aid the blending process.
5. In the same wok, transfer the fine puree. Season with spice powders (red chilli powder, cumin coriander powder, garam masala) and salt. Simmer for 3-4 minutes till the gravy is infused with the spices.
6. Add the frozen / boiled green peas to this gravy and simmer for 5 minutes, after which the paneer cubes go in. Simmer for another 2 minutes, check for salt, sprinkle crushed kasoori methi and give it a stir.
7. Matar paneer is ready to be removed in a serving bowl.

Notes
Serve hot with rotis, parathas, naan or plain steamed rice seasoned with cumin seeds.

I personally prefer to have this with a plain tandoori roti or a phulka as the dish is quite heavy, it is better balanced by a lighter bread. A raita on the side would be nice too, or a simple cucumber salad.

Health tips

It's perfectly okay to use store bought paneer.Using paneer made from skimmed milk at home will further reduce the calories from fat keeping the protein content intact. In restaurants, this dish is made with plenty of ghee /butter, a large chunk of nut paste (almond or cashew) plus a dollop of fresh cream added towards the end to make it even richer.

This version uses just one teaspoon of vegetable oil and the small quantity of cashewnuts are enough to provide the rich creamy restaurant taste without the added calories from fat. The key to a delicious gravy is to not skimp on the onion sauteeing and make a really fine puree using a good quality blender. The pinch of kasoori methi in the end makes all the difference in giving that 'restauranty' flavour.

Vegans can substitute the paneer with tofu or boiled-drained soya chunks (sold in Indian stores under the brand Nutrela).

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