Lentil Salad

A fabulous friend of mine always has a salad plate ready whenever she invites me for dinner. Every time I have been to her place I am greeted with different kind of salads.

When I ate this one particular salad, I just couldn't believe how good it can taste and how it can be a very good snacking option.

Credit of this recipe goes to Rekha & Sanjay Bharti

Ingredients

1. 1 katori/bowl yellow mung dal. Soak it for 2 hours or until it swells.

2. 1 grated carrot.

3. Few mint leave chopped.

4. 1/2 finely chopped raw mango. If you want to avoid this then use lemon.

5. Coriander leaves finely chopped.

6. 2 tsp grated coconut (optional).

7. Green chili finely chopped.

8. Slat to taste.

Procedure.

1. Boil water in a pan, when the water start to boil, add little salt and add the soaked lentils. Boil for 5 minutes. Lentils should be cooked but firm. 5 minutes is more than enough for them. Drain and wash with cold water.

2. Mix the lentil with all the other stuffs.



3. The salad is ready. It tastes best when served cold.



Enjoy!!

Weightloss and the Stuffed Paratha Trick

One of the greatest pleasures of life is stuffed parathas. The yummy hot flat bread stuffed with different stuffings and eaten with cold curd and melting butter. The sensation is pure divine. Its very very sad and seriously very sad that weight loss and stuffed parathas don't go hand in hand.

I am a great fan of stuffed parathas specially during the winters and my husband needs them atleast twice a week. Giving up on the stuffed parathas for the sake of weight loss was way too much a sacrifice that I was not willing to make.

Lets see why stuffed parathas are bad for weightloss.

1. The dough used to make the parathas is bigger in size because we do not want the stuffing to spill out. So 1 paratha dough is equal to almost 2 chapathi dough. A fat stuffed paratha not only looks delicious it tastes delicious too.

2. Because its a paratha oil/ghee is used while grilling it.

3. Its either eaten with butter or pickle.

My Take of Stuffed Parathas.

Stuffed parathas actually make for a very filling meal. If we take care of the carbs and the fat that goes into making this paratha, this dish can actually give you a chance to eat lots of veggies. Moreover, its very easy to carry. So all those of you who do not want to take roti and sabji to office, can actually take a vegetable stuffed paratha wrapped in an aluminum coil. For office goers its a great way to avoid outside food.

2 of my favorite stuff parathas are cauliflower and white radish parathas.

The trick.

1. I take a dough ball which is big enough to make 1 chapathi and divide it into too. I dust the dough balls nicely with dry what flour and roll out too thin roties. Make sure that the dough is firm.

2. I lavishly put the filling on 1 roti and then seal the filling with the second roti. It becomes a packet. The cauliflower and white radish filling is raw and it is cooked inside the sealed paratha packet, which gives a tasty crunch to the paratha.

3. Grill the paratha with less oil. Because of the heat of the pan, even less ghee (1/2 tsp) is more than enough to grill the paratha beautifully.

The idea is to have more of vegetables inside and less of dough outside.

Because we are aiming for weight loss aloo parathas are not made this way. It will increase the carb load. If you want to have aloo paratha, make it the usual way and grill it in less ghee and have for breakfast. Aloo paratha should be limited to once a week (or even less) but other vegetable parathas can be eaten more frequently.

Cauliflower Paratha

1. Grate the cauliflower (avoid the stem.).

2. Add finely chopped green chillies, grated ginger, coriander leaves.

3. Add roasted cumin powder and garam masala powder. DO NOT ADD THE SALT.



4. Roll out the doughs. Take out the filling that you require for one paratha separately and add salt to it. Spread the filling nicely on top of one rolled out dough and cover with another one.





5. Grill and serve hot.




White Radish (Muli) paratha.

Its my favorite.

1. Grate muli and add salt to it and keep aside for half an hour.

2. After half an hour squeeze the water out nicely. Press firmly so that no water is left.

3. Use the muli water to make the paratha dough. If there is lots of water, you can use it to make cucumber raita.

4. Now, in the grated muli mixture, add green chillies, coriander leaves and red chilli powder. I like it with this mixture, you can go ahead and add more spices.



5. The stuffing process of the paratha is similar to cauliflower paratha.








Vegetable Stuff Paratha

1. You can use any cooked vegetable. French beans and cabbage are the best.

2. Lavishly fill the sabji in the paratha and grill with less ghee.




These parathas even taste good when cold and they freeze beautifully.

Enjoy!!!