low cal – Page 12

Zucchini Chutney:

June 28, 2017

Zucchini, a member of gourd family is a popular summer squash, also known as courgette. Personally I like this spongy veggie and include this in so many Indian recipes.

Zucchini chutney is one of them and it is an excellent side dish for any Indian flat breads, Dosa, idly or Paddu.

Ingredients:

Zucchini – 1

Garlic – 8 – 10 cloves

Green chilies – 3 -4

Salt

Oil – 1 tbl spoon.

Coconut – 1 small cup

Raw mango or tamarind –If mango (2 “small piece) If tamarind (½ tsp).

Seasoning: Oil – 1 tsp, mustard – ½ tsp and curry leaves.

Method:

Wash, chop zucchini into pieces.

Take one small kadai; fry these pieces, garlic and green chillies by putting little oil until it wilts.
Switch off the gas, leave this for cooling.

When it cools down, add coconut, salt, either mango pieces or tamarind. Grind all this into a smooth paste by putting required amount of water.
If you want, add seasoning with mustard and curry leaves.

Sautéed Asparagus:

June 15, 2017

Asparagus is thin, pencil like green shoot. It is high in fibre and one of the most nutritious, food. Which is low in fat and calorie too.

Snap them at a natural breaking point and peel the outer tough fibre from the hard part and one can use this in any dish by slicing or as it is.

Asparagus is very delicious when it is sautéed or baked. It can be served as a “crunchy” side dish or salad.

Here in India, we don’t get plump variety and this time when I went to USA, in my sister’s house I tried this and it is much tastier than what we get it in Bangalore.

Ingredients:

Asparagus – 1 bundle

Olive oil – 1 table spoon

Red chilli flakes – 1 tsp

Garlic salt – to taste.

Method:

Wash Asparagus, snap them by hand at a natural breaking point.
If you want to use bottom woody part, remove outer fibre by peeling, either chop them or use inner core as it is in this salad or any other dish.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil, add asparagus, cook until it blanches. It hardly takes 2 to 3 minutes.
Drain and proceed to sauté.
Take one tawa, put oil and heat.

Drop Asparagus, sprinkle garlic salt and red chilli flakes and toss until you see a charred look.
Serve hot.

Plantain Upside down Cake:

April 24, 2017

This is my trial in egg less as well as butter less baking. Here I have used raw flax seed gel as a replace for an egg as well as fat and it worked out just fantastic.

Ingredients:

Finger millet flour/Ragi – 1 cup

Whole wheat flour –½ cup

Sugar – ¾ cup

Mashed banana – 1 cup

Flax gel – ½ cup

Baking powder – ¾ tsp

Cooking soda – ¾ tsp

Salt – ½ tsp

Cinnamon powder – one pinch.

Vanilla essence – 1 tsp

Curd – 1/3 cup to ¼ cup (according to requirement)

For Caramelized base:(Optional)

Brown sugar – ½ cup

Butter – 2 table spoon (chilled)

Banana roundels – As needed.

Method:

How to make flax gel: Take 2 tsp of flax seed, make powder. Put this powder in thick bottomed small pan, add one cup of water and boil until it is thick, slimy and reduced to almost half.

-Now make banana slices (half inch thick), keep it ready.

– Take one baking tin in which you want to bake this cake. Brush some oil at the base. Spread brown sugar uniformly and take butter, make small cubes and place it here and there.

-Place this in a pre-heated oven at 180C for 6 to 8 minutes until the sugar has melted. Remove from the oven, mix this liquid nicely and place banana roundels in regular intervals and keep aside.

– Now Take all dry ingredients like flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon powder and sieve together couple of times or mix using dry wire whisk.

– Now take another bowl, beat all the wet ingredients like, flax gel, vanilla, sugar, mashed banana

-. When it becomes frothy, fold in the dry ingredient mixture. If you feel this batter is too thick, then adjust the consistency by adding curds.

– Pour this ready batter to the cake tin in which you placed banana slices.

-Bake this in a pre-heated ready oven at 180C for 40 to 50 minutes or until done. If you insert knife, it should come out clean.

-Remove once it is done. When it is cool, de-mold and serve.

NOTE:- Here I took caramel which was stuck on the base of the baking dish, put it in a microwave cup, re heated it and poured as a sauce to give saucy texture. (You can see that in the picture)

-If you want to make this as a vegan,avoid caramelized base.

Bitter gourd is a very healthy vegetable and is considered as a therapeutic vegetable, used mainly in controlling diabetes and weight reduction in Ayurveda. I have come up with this recipe to utilise fresh produce from my terrace garden. We are a bitter gourd loving family and my daughters are very fond of gourd in any form. I usually make dry curry or tawa fry but I tried my hand at this salad and everyone loved this as a side dish with rice and yellow dal.

Ingredient:

Bitter gourd – 2 to 3

Onion – 1 to 2 (chopped)

Green chillies – 3

Salt

Turmeric – ½ tsp.

Lemon – ½

Coriander leaves – 1 tbl sp (chopped)

Coconut Oil – 1 tbl sp.

Method:

-Wash bitter gourd, make bite size pieces, including outer skin and inner seeds. Chop green chillies and put together.

– Sprinkle some salt, turmeric and mix nicely and keep aside for 10 minutes.

-Take one tawa, put oil. When it is hot, put marinated bitter gourd and chilli pieces and fry in a low flame until it is crisp.

– Cool this mixture. Add chopped onion, some more salt, lemon juice and mix nicely and serve.

-It is very simple to make and tastes really great with hot rice and dal.

Basale chutney / Malabar Spinach chutney:

March 25, 2017

Malabar spinach is commonly known as Basale in our coastal area. It is a common creeping vein in the backyard of every household.

Its leaf is very rich in iron, fibre, antioxidants and vitamins and low in calorie. This chutney that I prepare is very delicious and finger licking good!! One can enjoy this as a side dish with hot rice or roti. Here I have used bird eye chilles which is commonly known as gandhari chillies. These are tiny, very hot chillies of our region.

Ingredients:

Basale leaves – 1 bowl (chopped)

Onion – 1 (chopped)

Garlic cloves – 4

Green chillies or bird eye chillies – 2 (as required)

Salt

Jaggery – 1tsp

Tamarind – ½ tsp

Oil – 1 tbl sp

Seasoning: Oil – 1 Tsp, mustard – ½ tsp, cumin – ¼ tsp and curry leaves.

Method:

Take little oil in a pan, add chillies, chopped onions,garlic and fry for a while.
When onion becomes light brown, add chopped basale leaves and fry until it wilts.

Add salt, jaggery, tamarind and cook for a while.
When it is done, switch off the gas.
Cool the mixture and grind this into smooth paste. If required add very little water.

Season with oil, mustard, cumin and curry leaves.

Millet and Oats porridge:

March 23, 2017

A low calorie Diet is very difficult to manage. You feel constantly hungry and can’t concentrate on your work. To attain fullness, we should think of adding millets in our diet as it is very nutritious, gives strength and increases immunity. It is low on starch, high on minerals and fibre.

This is a 3 spoon miracle filling diet. If you have this porridge in the morning, you will surely not feel hungry until your lunch.

Ingredients:

Mixed millet flour – 1 spoon

Finger millet flour – 1 spoon

Oats – 1 spoon

Water – 1 ½ cups

Salt- ¼ teaspoon

Cardamom powder – ¼ teaspoon

Sugar free natura – 1 teaspoon

Method:

Take one thick bottomed vessel, mix all the ingredients.
Boil this mix by stirring in-between.
While boiling, mixture becomes glossy, when it is done.
Switch off the gas and serve.
It is a very good breakfast option for weight loss or diabetic patients.
Adjust the consistency by adding extra water if you want a runny texture.

Buddha’s delight:

January 5, 2017

It is a vegetarian dish well known in Chinese and Buddhist Cuisine.We love Buddha’s delight at our favourite restaurant Chung wah. Their version has lemon grass flavour in the gravy, and we especially like this flavour. I wanted to try their version of veggie Buddha’s delight at home from so long. Finally I did try it this week for our dinner.

So I thought of making lemongrass infused water for preparing it and proceeded. I used the available veggies in my pantry. You can use them according to your choice. You can add couple of tofu pieces as well.

How I prepared:

Vegetables – 1 bowl (took Zucchini, lettuce, onion, carrot, mushroom, capsicum,snap peas)

Chilli vinegar – 1 tsp

Red chilli flakes – ½ tsp

Garlic – 5 cloves

Ginger – ½ “

Green chilli -1

Salt

Spring onion – 2 tbl sp

Corn flour – 1 to 2 tbl sp

Lemon grass – 4 sticks

Water – 2 cups

Method:

-Boil water with lemon grass bits until water becomes little yellowish and lemongrass is cooked.

-Sieve this water and discard lemon grass. This is our lemon grass water which is used for gravy. Keep it aside.

– Chop spring onion, ginger and garlic. Slit green chilli.

– Chop mushroom, carrot.

-Chop capsicum, onion, zucchini into I inch chunks.

– Tear lettuce by using hand and keep aside.

-Take one tawa, put either butter /olive oil .When it is hot, add ginger, garlic and green chilli and fry for a while.

– Add onion, fry for 2 minutes. Next you can add capsicum, carrot zucchini and mushroom. Fry for 2 to 3 minutes and sprinkle little salt and red chilli flakes.

– Next you can add corn flour and fry in this mixture for 1 minute and add lemon grass water.

-when it starts boiling add vinegar. When it becomes little thick and shiny add torn lettuce and garnish with chopped spring onion.

-Enjoy this either with fried rice, noodles or simple steamed rice. It is very filling, nutritionally very rich and taste wise – Pure bliss!!!!

Chana Saarupkari /Chickpea Rasam:

December 29, 2016

In last post we did chana and ivy gourd dry curry and I promised you to post the Rasam which utilizes the drained water of cooked chana or chick pea. This is very nutritious and tasty too.

What we need-

Ingredient:

Drained water of cooked chickpea – whatever you get.

Cooked tor dal – 1/4 cup

Green chillies -2

Salt

Jaggery – 1/2 tsp

Hing – ¼ tsp

Seasoning:

Coconut oil – 1 tbl sp

Mustard – 1tsp

Red chilli – 1

Curry leaves – 1 spring

Crushed garlic – 6

Method:

-Drain water from the cooked chana or chick pea while making any curries.

-Boil this drained water by adding 1 cup of water, cooked toor dal, salt (if needed) ,jaggery, hing, green chillies.

-Cook until green chillies are cooked and flavour is released to water.

-Add seasoning by heating coconut oil. When it is hot, add mustard. When it splutters add red chilli, curry leaves, crushed garlic.

-Fry till garlics are brown and add this seasoning to Rasam.

Enjoy this Rasam with hot rice and any side dishes, like chickpea dry curry and papad.

Pea pod salad:

December 19, 2016

After peapod pakoda, I wanted to try some more with peapod. Peapods are so rich in flavour as well as taste. So, I tried a salad and it turned out so tasty and healthy. Here’s the recipe.

Ingredients:

Peapods –as required

Olive oil – 1 to 2 teaspoon

Garlic – 7 -8 flakes

Salt

Red chilli flakes – ½ – 1 teaspoon

White sesame – 1 teaspoon

Method:

Separate fresh and green peels (pods) while opening, to collect green peas.
After this, peel off the inner membrane (which will not cook and it is fibrous too)
How to remove inner membrane: If you want to see a pictorial guide, click here
You basically have to take one of the ends, fold in and pinch inwards, slide your thumb beneath and remove the glossy membrane and separate. If membrane breaks in-between, try from the other side.
Discard inner membrane and use outer green cover to make salad.
Wash these peels and drain, keep aside.
Slice garlic and keep aside.
Dry roast sesame and keep aside.

Take one tawa, add oil .When oil becomes hot, add garlic slices and fry until it is brown.
Add in washed and drained peapods, fry for a while. Sprinkle salt and red chilli flakes.
Garnish with toasted sesame seeds and serve.
I served this with Spinach Khichdi. Click here to see the recipe.

Butterfly pea flower and Lemon grass tea:

December 3, 2016

Two months back, when I was going through some articles, This article about Butterfly pea flower tea and its benefits attracted my attention and I tried my hand it by preparing and experimenting, and my family loved this tea very much and now I want to share this recipe with my readers too.

Butterfly pea flower, name itself is so exotic isn’t it? It is nothing but our wildly grown “Shankha Pushpa” flower. In Kannada Shankha means Conch and Pushpa means flower. This flower is widely used in making exotic teas, edible colour in Thai cuisine. Normally we find two colours in this, white and ink blue.

If you use blue flower for brewing, tea becomes pink after adding lemon juice.

Here I have used white flowers and some fresh lemon grass from my garden. When we use white flower and lemon grass, the tea becomes golden yellow. If you add lemon juice for additional flavour, it changes its colour to transparent, like normal water.

This tea is fragrant, at the same time it is filled with so many good anti-oxidants. Over all it is one Exotic drink.

Now we will see, how I prepared it,

Ingredients:

For one big glass:

Water – 1 big glass

Butterfly pea flowers – 7 to 8

Lemon grass – 4 stalks

Sugar – 1 tsp

Lemon – ¼

Method:

-Collect fresh flowers, wash; chop lemon grass into 1 or 2” size pieces.

– Put water, lemon grass and flowers together and boil, until lemon grass changes its colour.

-Strain and add sugar or honey, whatever you prefer. You can use artificial sweetener as well.

-Your Exotic tea is ready to have, Pour into a serving glass.

-If you would like to add a little sourness, add lemon juice and see the magic. Golden tea will become transparent and glossy.

-Have your dose of antioxidant in this chilled weather and enjoy.

Category: low cal

Zucchini Chutney:

Sautéed Asparagus:

Plantain Upside down Cake:

Bitter gourd salad:

Basale chutney / Malabar Spinach chutney:

Millet and Oats porridge:

Buddha’s delight:

Chana Saarupkari /Chickpea Rasam:

Pea pod salad:

Butterfly pea flower and Lemon grass tea: