Corn Muffins

Over the weekend, I wanted to make some muffins. These are for the times when I am very hungry (mostly in the evening) and tend to go for all the unhealthy food. Though I am allowed to indulge in food right now, I do not want to put on too much weight. So, I thought muffins would be a nice option. Also, Sarath loves muffins. So, I looked for a recipe online. I had to search a few websites until I found a basic muffin recipe. Then, I modified it a little bit.

I had fresh blueberries at home and so was debating between sweet blueberry muffins or savory corn muffins. The decision maker was Sarath and he choose these. Many recipes for corn muffins called for corn meal which I did not have. So, I chose this recipe and the muffins turned out much better than I had expected. They are fluffy, soft and moist.

Ingredients:

All purpose flour – 1 3/4 cups
granulated sugar – 1/4 cup (I used brown sugar)
baking powder – 2tbsp
salt – 1/2 tsp
Large Egg – 1
Milk – 3/4th cup
Vegetable Oil – 1/3 cup (I used olive oil)
Corn: 1/2 cup
Coriander – a little – chopped
Crushed red pepper – 2 tbsp

Mix all the dry ingredients together. Add corn, coriander and the crushed red pepper to the dry ingredients. Mix the egg, milk and oil together. Add the milk mixture to the dry ingredients and mix well.

Fill the paper muffin cups about 2/3 full. Bake at 400 F for 20 – 25 min.

Bread Upma

I love bread! This recipe is one of my favorites from my mom’s kitchen. She used to do this with left over breadcrumbs. This is a very quick and tasty recipe.

Ingredients:

Oil – 1 tbsp
Mustard seeds – 1/2 tsp
Urad dal – 1.2 tsp
Jeera (Cumin) – 1/2 tsp
Green chillies – 2
Onions – 1 diced
Tomatoes – 1 and 1/2 diced
Coriander leaves – finely chopped
Bread – 6-8 bread slices cut into small pieces
Salt – as required

Preperation:
Add oil to the pan and add mustard, urad dal, jeera (cumin) and allow them to splutter. Then add onions and green chillies. Fry until the onions are transparent. Then add the tomatoes, coriander leaves and salt and fry until the tomatoes are soft. Then, add bread. The bread pieces should mix well with the onions and tomatoes but, should not get totally mashed.

This tastes good either with white bread or whole grain bread.

Healthy Pasta Salad

Now that Sarath is going to day care, I have to think about lunch options. They actually provide lunch but, it is usually meat. Since we are vegetarians and I hope to raise Sarath to be a vegetarian, I decided to pack lunch for him. They give the kids 30 min for lunch (which I feel is a bit less but, he seems to be doing okay so far), he has to finish his main course in around 15 min so that he will have some time left for his fruits and milk/yogurt. So, I have to come up with lunch options that are healthy, easy to eat and ones that he likes. I should make sure he is also getting some protein with his lunch. So, yesterday, I came up with this pasta salad and Sarath loved it. He stayed home yesterday and I thought it would be the perfect time to try a new recipe. It tasted great, has a lot of protein and was just yum!

Ingredients:

Pasta: 1/2 cup (I used alphabet pasta, but any pasta can be used).
Tomato: 1 medium – diced
Peas: 1/4 cup
Corn: 1/4 cup
Cilantro: 1/4 cup chopped
Black beans: 1/4 cup (I used canned)
Black Channa (black garbanzo’s): 1/4 cup
Lemon juice: 4 -5 tbsp
Fat Free Shredded Cheddar cheese: As per taste
Green chillies: 1
Salt: As per taste

PS: I had soaked the black channa a few days back, boiled them and had them ready in the freezer.

Directions: Cook the pasta according to the instructions. When the pasta is cooking, cut the tomatoes, chillies and cilantro and keep them aside. Add the black beans, black channa, corn and peas to the tomatoes mix.

Once the pasta is cooked, drain it slowly and add some cold water to the pasta. Let the pasta stay in the cold water for around 10 – 15 min. If you are short on time, you can add cold water and put the pasta in the refrigerator for 5 min. This makes sure that the pasta does not break down into pieces when you mix it with the veggies.

After the pasta has cooled down, drain it and add it to the bowl with tomatoes and the veggies mix. Add cheese, lemon juice and salt and toss the salad. If you are planning to eat the pasta for lunch, add a little more lemon juice. The salad tastes best if it marinates in the lemon juice for an hour or two.

If you cannot handle spice, you can omit the chillies in the recipe.

This is a nice heart healthy lunch for me and DH as we are struggling to reduce cholesterol in our diets. Read the full post here.

Vada Pappu

This is one of the dishes made for Lord Rama on Sri Rama Navami.

Ingredients:
(These quantities are all approximations.)

Moong Dal: 1/2 cup or even less
Raw Mango: 1/4 cup
Shredded Coconut: a little
Green Chillies: 1 (adjust according to taste)
Oil: 1/4th tsp
Mustard seeds: 1/4th tsp

Soak moong dal for a couple of hours and drain all the water. Cut raw mango into small pieces and add it to the moong dal. Add green chillies, salt and shredded coconut.

In a small pan, add oil and when it is hot, add mustard seeds and hing (asafoetida). You can add curry leaves too if you wish. When the mustard seeds splutter, add it to the moong dal mixture and mix it. You can even add some lemon juice to it. It tastes amazing. This also serves as a healthy snack for kids.

Panakam

This is usually made on Sri Rama Navami.

Ingredients:

Jaggery, Black pepper, water

Mix jaggery with cold water. It takes time to dissolve. After the jaggery completely dissolves, filter the water. Then add some finely powdered black pepper. I prefer to grind the pepper myself instead of store bought pepper powder. This gives a very nice flavor.

When you taste it, you should be able to taste the sweetness of jaggery and the spice from the pepper.

Indian Style Pasta

I found this recipe somewhere on the internet and modified it a little bit to suit our tastes. It does not involve a lot of preparation time and can be a good and healthy option for lunch or dinner. Any type of pasta can be used. I even tried it with whole wheat pasta and it tastes amazing.

Ingredients:

Unboiled Pasta (any type) : 4 cups

Cut vegetables (carrots, beans, corn, peas) – 1 cup

Onion(diced) – 1/2

oil -1 tbsp

salt as required

green chillies – 3 or 4

pasta sauce – 10 tbsp (adjust this quantity as per your taste)

lemon juice – 3 – 4 tbsp

Cheese – 3 tbsp per serving

Procedure:

Heat water in a large vessel and bring it to a boil. Add a pinch of salt and 2 drops of oil to the water. Add the pasta and cook until tender. drain all the water and add some cold water to the pasta so that it doesn’t get dried up.

Add oil to a wok and add onions and cut green chillies when the oil is hot. Fry the onions until tender. Add all the cut vegetables. Add salt and let the vegetables cook. Then add the pasta sauce and cook for five minutes. Add some lemon juice and cook for two minutes. Now add the boiled pasta and mix it well with the vegetables. Add some coriander leaves if you like.

Just before serving, sprinkle some cheese on top.

Rava Dosa

I made this instant dosa on Friday night. This is perfect for when you are out of ideas or when you do not feel like cooking an entire meal.

Ingredients:
Rava (Sooji) – 2 cups
Maida (All purpose flour) – 3/4 cup
Rice flour – 1/4 cup
Wheat flour – 1/2 cup
Raagi flour – 2 tbsp
Coriander leaves – few
Jeera – 1 tsp
Green Chillies – 2 or 3 (based on your spice level)
Yogurt – 4 tbsp
Sour Cream – 1 or 2 tsp (Optional)
Salt – as required

Mix all the ingredients in a mixer or blender. If you do not wish to mix the coriander leaves, you can add them separately. I like to mix it in as it gives a nice flavor to the dosa. Add required amount of water and salt while mixing. Let it stand for a few min before making dosa’s. If you have a toddler who is picky about eating veggies, add some grated carrots or palak (spinach) into the mix. They won’t even realize they are eating veggies.

This stays fresh when frozen. Whenever I have some mix left, I freeze it and use it another day for a quick breakfast.

Jeera Rice with carrots and peas

I face a challenge everyday in giving lunch for my husband. He needs something that he can eat quickly between meetings. Rice is my main option. I try to make something which is easy to cook in the morning and easy enough to pack for lunch. So, today I made Jeera (cumin) Rice and chole. It is really easy to make and tastes amazing.

Ingredients:

Oil: 1/2 tea spoon
Basmati rice: 1 cup
Jeera: 3 or 4 tea spoons
One medium size carrot diced
Peas – 1/2 cup
Salt – as required

Preparation: Wash the rice and keep it aside. Add oil to a pan and when it is hot, add jeera. When the jeera splutters, add the carrots and peas and fry for a minute. Add the rice and fry for another minute. Add 2 cups of water and salt as necessary and let it cook or add all the ingredients to a rice cooker and let it cook. Serve hot with any curry.

Vegetarian Wraps

Veggie Wraps

These are delicious healthy vegetarian wraps. I love this recipe. It is very simple and very fast. I haven’t tried packing it for lunch. I am guessing it’ll taste just as good.

I just cut the wrap into small pieces for my son. Add any other veggies in this wrap and the kids won’t even notice them.

Ingredients:

Big flour tortilla’s:  4

Oil: 1 tea spoon

Onion:   1 medium sized diced

Tomato: 1 medium sized diced

Black beans:   1/2 can

Corn:      5 or 6 table spoons

Hot Salsa :     3 or 4 table spoons

Cheese:  3 or 4 table spoons per tortilla

Salt as required

Procedure: Preheat the oven to 350⁰.  Heal oil in a non stick pan. Add onions and fry until tender. Then add tomatoes, corn, black beans and fry for 1 minute. Then add salt and the hot salsa (this can be substituted with medium salsa as well). Place the corn, tomato black bean mixture inside a flour tortilla. Add some cheese. Roll the tortilla and place some cheese near the edges and place it with the edges facing down on an oven tray. Repeat the same with other tortillas too.

Bake in the oven for 5 – 10 min.

Healthy Food

Before my son was born, I heard various tips and stories about many things related to kids. One main topic was food. Some of my Indian friends and cousins who had kids here told me that once the kids start going to school or daycare, they just don’t eat our Indian food anymore. I so did not want that to happen for more than one reason. I wanted my child to have a palette for various types of food and I did not want him to miss out our amazing Indian food. So, I decided I am going to introduce my kid to all types of foods and he should be able to eat anything that is offered to him. We are vegetarians. So, he needs to be a vegetarian as well.

So, when my son started solid foods, I introduced him to various flavors of fruits and veggies. When he started eating table foods, we gave him whatever we ate. He never liked to taste new foods in the beginning. We did not force him. Now at 2 years, he has a taste for a variety of foods. He loves all the Indian food that I cook. He loves spicy food. He like mac and cheese which is very bland and also loves mexican food. Me and my husband are very happy about it. Of course my son was never a fussy baby so, we only take 50% of the credit. I just hope that he has this palette as he grows up.

Now, I try to make foods healthy and tasty for all of us. I am always looking for new recipes. I will be posting all my recipes here on a regular basis. Most of these foods will be Indian foods that are easy to make and are healthy. Check back soon for some recipes. Do you have a recipe that is easy enough to make and is healthy? Leave a link to your blog in the comments.