foods & Recipes
Beetroot Pulav
Give a twist to your basic recipe by just adding beetroot to rice and enjoy the healthy meal like never before! This beetroot rice is slightly spicy with the sweet flavor of beetroot. Best when consumed in lunch with curd!
Nutritional benefit
Ability to provide instant energy, regulate and improve bowel movements, stabilize blood sugar levels, and slow down the aging process. It also plays a role in providing vitamin B1 to the human body. Other benefits include its ability to aid in skincare, boost metabolism, and regulate digestion. Beetroot has an ability to lower blood pressure levels, regulate blood circulation, boost athletic performance and aids in skin enhancing all due to its enormous nutritional values right staring from antioxidants, B Vitamins, iron, calcium, magnesium, and potassium.
Ingredients
• 30 grams rice
• ½ small beetroot, chopped finely
• ½ medium onion diced
• Green chilli-1
• Fresh coriander leaves, chopped
Method
1. Rinse rice in water, soak the rice in double amount of water for 20 minutes.
2. After 20 minutes, cook the rice in a covered pan.
3. Now heat the other pan, add 1 tsp oil, after heating the oil add cumin seeds.
4. Add chopped onion and green chili. Stir and sauté till onion are golden brown.
5. Now, add beetroot and cook for 10 minutes. Beetroot should be chopped finely
6. Add spices- salt, red chili powder, turmeric as per taste.
7. Now add cooked rice and mix. Cover with the lid for 5 minutes.
8. Garnish with chopped coriander leaves and serve beetroot rice with curd.
Over to you, try the healthier version of your daily rice recipe.
Nutritional benefit
Sweet potato is a starchy, sweet-tasting root vegetable. It’s a rich source of fibre as well as containing an array of vitamins and minerals including iron, calcium, selenium, and they're a good source of most of our B vitamins and vitamin C. One of the key nutritional benefits of sweet potato is that they're high in an antioxidant known as beta-carotene, which converts to vitamin A once consumed.
Ingredients
• 2 organic (~150 g each) sweet potatoes
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1/4 tsp sea salt (or oregano)
Method
1. Preheat oven to 250 degrees F (121 C) and position oven rack in the center of the oven.
2. Rinse and dry your sweet potatoes thoroughly and slice them as uniformly thin as possible. Use a very sharp knife to get these uniformly thin. Know that chips that are too thick in parts won't crisp up all the way.
3. Toss slices in a touch of olive oil to lightly coat, then sprinkle with salt. Layout in a single layer on a baking sheet and bake for about 2 hours, flipping chips once at halfway point to ensure even cooking
4. Remove once crisp and golden brown. Take them out and let them rest for 10 minutes or so to crisp up before serving.
5. Serve.
Over to you, replace your fried calorie-dense chips with baked nutrition-dense chips and be a healthier version of yourself.
Baked Sweet Potato Chips
Eating healthy is not only restricted to adding fruits and vegetables to your diet but it also depends a lot on the method of cooking. Baking cut down the extra calories, which are generally high in fried food. Baking can be the preferred method over frying when trying to lose weight.
Quinoa Vegetable Upma
A fusion recipe where quinoa is cooked in a spicy Indian masalas along with vegetables like carrot, beans, peas and corn to add to the nutritive value of this delicious upma that can be eaten either as breakfast or dinner.
Nutritional benefit
Superfood Quinoa is a whole-grain and is naturally gluten-free. It's packed with iron, vitamin-B, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, vitamin-E and twice as much fiber as most other grains. However, what makes quinoa truly unbeatable, nutritionally, is that it contains every essential amino acid, unlike other grains, which makes it a complete protein.
Ingredients
• 1 cup quinoa • 1 teaspoon white urad dal (split)
• 1 teaspoon chana dal (Bengal gram dal) • curry leaves
• 2 green chilies, finely chopped • 2 onion, finely chopped
• 1 tomato, finely chopped • 1/4 cup carrot, finely chopped
• 1/4 green peas • green beans, finely chopped
Method
1. Heat a heavy-bottomed pan on medium flame, add oil and mustard seeds and allow them to splutter. Next, add the cumin seeds, urad dal, channa dal, curry leaves, and green chili. Saute it all for a few seconds.
2. Add the chopped onion and sprinkle a little salt. Saute until translucent. Next, add the vegetables - beans, carrots, corn, peas and cook on a medium flame until half cooked.
3. Add chopped tomatoes, mix well and sauté for a couple of minutes. Add coriander powder, garam masala, quinoa and sauté once again for a couple of minutes, until the masalas cook through.
4. Add 2 cups of water and adjust salt to your taste. Bring the water to a boil. Reduce the heat and cover the pan, allowing the quinoa to cooked completely.
5. Once the water is absorbed, take the pan off the heat, garnish it with freshly chopped coriander leaves and serve with Pudina Chutney.
Over to you, savor it your way and tell us how you liked it. :)
Nutritional benefit
Apple Sooji Halwa is a nutritious combination of cereal, milk, and fruit. Semolina is a good source of carbohydrates which provide energy to the body whereas milk provides protein and calcium which are necessary for muscle and bone growth. Addition of apple enhances the vitamins, minerals, and fiber and adds sweetness to the recipe.
Ingredients
• 1/2 cup sooji, semolina
• 1 tbsp. ghee
• 1 tbsp. sugar or less (to taste)
• 1/4 tsp. cardamom powder
• 2-3 tbsp. chopped nuts
• 1 apple, grated
Method
1. Grate the apple and set aside.
2. Heat the ghee in a pan and stir fry the semolina on a medium flame till you get a nice aroma.
3. Add the chopped nuts (save some to garnish), sugar and cardamom powder.
4. Mix well, add 2 cups water and grated apple.
5. Keep stirring on a low flame, till it thickens.
6. Garnish with chopped nuts and serve.
Over to you, replace your sugar-sweetened halwa with this healthier version of halwa.
Apple Sooji Halwa
Replace your sugar-sooji halwa with apple-sooji halwa, beneficial for people trying to lose weight or diabetic patient.
Chickpea Tikki
Give a twist to your basic crispy potato tikki/patties by just adding chickpea to it and enjoy the healthy snack like never before! This chickpea tikkis are cooked with less or no use of oil/ghee. Best when consumed in breakfast with mint-amla chutney (increases iron absorption in the body).
Nutritional benefit
Chickpea is super rich in protein and other nutrients like vitamins B6 and C, folate, manganese, and magnesium. They also contain calcium and some amounts of potassium (crucial for heart health). The protein helps build muscle mass and improves the health of cells.
Ingredients
• 1/2 cup boiled chickpeas
• 1 steamed potato
• 1 onion
• ½ cup bell peppers
• garlic and green chilis
• coriander leaves
Method
• Boil potato and chickpeas.
• Chop onions and bell peppers finely.
• Mix chickpeas, boiled potato, onion, garlic, green chilli and bell peppers and mash.
• Add spices- salt, red chilli powder and coriander powder and mix well.
• Divide the mixture into 8 balls and roll between your palms to form balls and flatten a little to form tikki.
• Heat the pan and place tikki on the pan and cook until each side is lightly brown.
• Serve with mint-amla chutney.
Over to you, try the healthier version of your alu tikki. Share what you make with me, tell how you liked it.