Pomegranate milkshake with chia seeds

In my quest towards finding a perfect breakfast for my son I do a lot of research. The mother in me always tells me that none of the recipes has just the right kind of nutrients for my prince. The following recipe is one of my mix and match attempts to make a tasty, easy and nutrient packed breakfast.

Pomegranate Milkshake is the best way to add pomegranate in the diet of babies and kids. Even my lazy husband does not eat pomegranate because of the seeds. In this situation a pomegranate milkshake is very handy.

Chia seeds have become one of the most popular super foods in the health community. They are easy to digest when prepared properly, and are a very versatile ingredient that adds easily to recipes. Aztec warriors ate chia seeds to give them high energy and endurance.  They said just 1 spoonful of chia could sustain them for 24 hours.  Chia means “strength” in the Mayan language. The reason Chia seeds are so beneficial is due to them being rich in fiber, omega-3 fats, protein, vitamins and minerals.

Health benefits of Pomegranate are as follows:

1. Has more antioxidants than even green tea.
2. High in Vitamin C
3. High amount of Vitamin B5 and K
4. Does not contain cholesterol
5. It has very less calories
6. Seeds contain high amount of fiber.
7. Protects heart
8. Good for anemic people
9. Smoothens blood circulation
10. For Pregnant ladies - It Increases blood flow to the baby, reduce cramps and sleeping difficulties.

Without boring you further with benefits let me describe how I made it. One good thing about this recipe is, pomegranate has natural sweetness. You can even avoid adding sugar/honey to the milkshake if you are calorie conscious or have sugar related issues.

Preparation Time: - 10 min

Cooking Time: - 5 min

Servings: - 2~3 persons

Ingredients:-

1. 3 medium sized Pomegranates
2. 1 cup (200 gm) Milk
3. 4~5 almonds
4. 2 tsp chia seeds
5. 1 tbsp Honey

Preparation:-

1. Soak the chia seeds for about 5-10 minutes just prior to blending.
2. Deseed the pomegranate and keep aside.
   
3. Grind pomegranate pearls (seeds) in a Mixer and using a mesh strainer, strain the pomegranate juice into a bowl.
4. Now add the pomegranate, ½ cup milk, almond and Honey in the blender. Blend them for 30 seconds
   
5. Now pour the remaining milk and chia seeds in the blender and blend them for 1 min.
   

Now the pomegranate milkshake or smoothie is ready. Refrigerate and serve chilled.

You can have it as breakfast smoothie or as an aid to snacks.

As always please feel free to comment, criticize and seek if any help is required. I am all ears.

Spring onion (Peyajkoli) chechki with brinjal

In Bengali cuisine our dishes have very interesting names, chechki is one of that. Any chechki is based on Black Jeera/Panchforon, green chilli and turmeric powder. Now different vegetable can be used with this combination to form different dishes. This is a simple, easy to cook traditional Bengali chechki with brinjal and spring onion. The specialty of this one is that it is full of nutrients but does not have any carbohydrates so that health conscious people can have it without thinking. It is an ideal recipe for those with sugar related issues. For them sugar and peas can be skipped from the main recipe.

Spring onions are rich in vitamins including Vitamin C, Vitamin B2 and thiamine. They also contain Vitamin A and Vitamin K. In addition, these are good sources of copper, phosphorous, magnesium, potassium, chromium, manganese and fiber. A quick list of the benefits of spring onion and brinjal is listed below

1.      Spring onions are good for cardiovascular health. It reduces Blood pressure and cholesterol.

2.      The chromium content in spring onions provides health benefits of diabetics. It controls the blood sugar levels and improves glucose tolerance.

3.      Anti-bacterial properties in it help to fight against cold and flu. It also provide relief from digestive discomforts.

4.      Fibre and antioxidants are just two of the nutrients that make brinjal a food that can keep cancer at bay.

5.      Brinjals are great for weight loss as they are low in calories with 100g of the vegetable containing just 25 calories.

6.      Like most fruits and vegetables, brinjals too are great for your heart. Being rich in fiber, potassium, vitamin B-6 and phytonutrients like flavonoids, this vegetable lowers the risk of heart disease.

Without boring you further let me describe how I made it.

Preparation Time: - 10 min

Cooking Time: - 25~30 min

Servings: - 4 persons

Ingredients:-

1. 2 medium sized Brinjal
2. 12 sticks of Spring Onion
3. Handful of Peas (optional).
4. 1 tsp Panchforon / Black Jeera
5. 2 green chili slit horizontally
6. 1 tsp Turmeric Powder
7. Salt and sugar to taste
8. 4 tbsp mustard / vegetable oil ( I used Mustard oil and this makes it authentic Bengali style but you can use any vegetable oil also)
9. Little bit of water
10. Few coriander leaves only for garnishing

Preparation:-

1. Cut the brinjal in cubed pieces and cut the spring onions also. Wash it thoroughly. Keep aside.
   
   
   
   
2. Take a Kadai and pour the oil. Heat in high flame.
3. When the oil is smoking add paanchforon and green chilli.
   
4. When the paanchforon crackles add the pieces of Brinjal.
   
5. Stir fry for about 5~6 minutes. The brinjal need to be lightly fried – not fully. Add spring onion.
6. Saute for 1~2 min and add the peas. You can skip peas if you want.
   
7. Add turmeric powder, salt and sugar. Diabetic people can skip the sugar.
   
8. Pour sufficient water to boil.
   
9. Stir thoroughly for sometime so that it mixes properly.
10. Cover and cook till the water evaporates completely. But watch so that the preparation is not sticking in the bottom of kadai.
11. Now check if the brinjal and onion are properly boiled. Sprinkle water and continue cooking if not.
    
12. Remember the preparation is supposed to be dry – so cook till all water evaporates.
13. Garnish with coriander leaves and it is done.
    

This one is a side dish for rice only. Serve with hot rice.

As always please feel free to comment, criticize and seek if any help is required. I am all ears.

Lau shukto - Bengali bottlegourd curry

Hey Hey I am again back to lau /lauki. My readers may notice that there are three vegetables which I like more – Bottle Gourd, Cauliflower and Brinjal. I like them because all of them are packed with nutrients and they are easy to cook.

Following are the health benefits of bottle gourd. For more details you can refer to http://conscioushealth.net/10-health-benefits-of-bottle-gourd-or-lauki-conscious-health-nahid-ameen/

1. Fiber -rich
2. Helps sleeping disorder
3. Healthy heart
4. Prevention of hair graying
5. Dandruff treatment
6. Stress reduction
7. Reduction of blood pressure

This recipe is a traditional Bengali one. Shukto is a favorite Bengali palate cleanser, made with a lot of different vegetables including at least one bitter veg, simmered with a hint of sugar and milk to bring out the bitterness of the fresh vegetables. In this preparation lauki is taking place of the bitter vegetable. Hence the name lau shukto.

Preparation Time: - 15 min

Cooking Time: - 20 min

Servings: - 3~4 persons

Ingredients:-

1. 1 big size lau/ lauki /bottlegourd or 2 medium sized ones
2. 4 Bay leaves
3. Peas – ½ cup (optional).
4. Panchforon / Randhuni (Celery seeds) / Whole mustard
5. 2 tbsp ginger paste. You can smash ginger or can use the paste available in market.
6. Pinch of turmeric powder (optional)
7. ½ tbsp poppy seeds paste + ½ tbsp mustard paste
8. 2 green chili slit horizontally
9. Sugar and salt to taste
10. 4 tbsp mustard / vegetable oil ( I used Mustard oil but you can use any vegetable oil also)
11. 1 tbsp Ghee

Preparation:-

1. Peel the bottlegourd and cut into cubes. Wash it thoroughly and keep aside.
   
2. Heat oil in non-stick kadai and add bay leaves, green chilli and paanchforon. Sauté for 1 minute.
   
3. Pour lauki and peas with salt. Stir thoroughly and then cover the kadai. Cook for about 10 min. Intermittently remove the cover and stir so that it does not get sticky in the bottom
4. Lauki has lot of water and it will be released to aid boiling. But some old bottlegourd may not yield so much water. In that case you may need to sprinkle little bit of water on them
   
5. When all the water comes out from lau and gets boiled add the combined paste of mustard and poppy seeds.
6. You need to add the sugar to taste here. You may skip sugar if you need to avoid sugar for health reason
   
7. Stir and cook for about 2 minutes so that it mixes smoothly
8. Add the ghee, sauté for 1 min and switch off the flame. The dish is ready.
   
   

This one is a side dish for rice only. Serve with hot rice.

As always please feel free to comment, criticize and seek if any help is required. I am all ears.

Peas Pulao with Bengali touch - Pure Veg

My most ardent critic i.e. my husband always told me that I have too many side dishes in my blog but no cereal. So I decided to put together some. The goal is always to find something easy and healthy. Bengalis have a lot of variety of fried rice stuff but the one with peas caught my eye as being healthy.

Green peas are a very good source of vitamin K, manganese, dietary fiber, vitamin B1, copper, vitamin C, phosphorus, and folate. They are also a good source of vitamin B6, niacin, vitamin B2, molybdenum, zinc, protein, magnesium, iron, potassium, and choline.

Hence here is a recipe of pulao /fried rice with a lot of healthy stuff but easy and tasteful.

Preparation Time: - 15 min

Cooking Time: - 20 min

Servings: - 2~3 persons

Ingredients:-

1. 2 cup Basmati Rice /jeera Rice /Gobindobhog ( I used Basmati rice)
2. ½ cup Green peas or Koraishuti
3. 4 cup water
4. 4 Bayleaves
5. 2 tsp whole Cumin seeds or Jeera
6. 2 ½ tbsp vegetable oil ( I used Sunflower oil but you can use any vegetable oil)
7. 1 ½  tbsp Ghee
8. 1 inch stick Cinnamon
9. 5~6 cloves
10. 2 tsp Kewra water / Rose water / Screwpine water /Meetha attar
11. 1 tbsp Garam Masala powder
12. Handful of cashew nuts/ peanuts
13. Handful of raisin
14. 3 tbsp sugar
15. Little bit of salt

Preparation:-

1. Wash the Basmati rice thoroughly and soak it in water for 15 min.
2. Cook the rice in a pan with some salt and 2 bay leaves. Please do not overcook – the rice should not be sticky in the bottom of the pan. It took me 6 minutes but the time can vary according to the quality of the rice.
   
3. Drain the rice and keep aside.
   
4. Heat 2 ½ tbsp oil + 1 tbsp ghee in a non-stick kadai
5. Add the remaining bay leaves, jeera, cinnamon sugar and cloves in it. Sauté for 2 min in medium heat. 
6. Once Jeera crackles and the sugar is caramelized turn the knob of burner to lowest level.
   
7. Add cashew nuts, raisin with the green peas. Stir for 1 min. Now take out the raisin and keep aside so that it does not burn.
   
8. Add in the boiled and drained Basmati rice along with the Garam Masala, Kewra water /Rose water and salt as per taste. If you use meethha attar instead of Kewra or screwpine water then use only 1~2 drops. Otherwise the smell will be too much. I personally used kewra water.
9. Continuously stir to mix in everything together.
10. If you find the rice is not yet soft you can sprinkle water on it and stir for some more time.
11. Now add the raisins kept aside in step 6.
12. Add the remaining ghee and mix.
13. Cover and leave for 3~5 min. Once the aroma fills the kitchen your pulao is ready.
    

Please note that if you want to cook in no time then you can use pressure cooker instead of kadai. In that case no need to boil the rice earlier. You can put everything together and cook till 2 whistles. The important thing to consider is the amount of water will always be 2:1 to the rice. This is applicable for any type of rice anytime.

Serve hot with chicken/ Mutton curry. If you are vegetarian then you can eat with cholar dal or Chanar Dalna. You can find my recipe of chicken curry, cholar dal or chanar dalna here.

As always please feel free to comment, criticize and seek if any help is required. I am all ears.

Best Wishes for my readers

Best wishes for Saraswati Puja and happy Valentine's day too.

 

Yummly – Introducing the World’s Yummiest Recipe Bookmarking Site

Hi everyone!

It is not a recipe but I want to tell you about this great recipe bookmarking site called Yummly. It is only for saving recipes. You can save recipes from anywhere on the web to your recipe box on Yummly. Isn’t that wonderful?

On Yummly you can search recipes by season, what’s popular, recipes recommended for you and by many more options.

I’ve just recently created my Yummly profile, and if you too want to use Yummly, sign up here and get a Yummly button for your bookmark bar here so that you can easily Yum recipes from around the web and save them in one place.

Also if you want to Yum any of my recipes and save them in your recipe box, you can simply click on the Yum button at the right side of my recipe where "Yumly Button - click on it to save in Yumly" is mentioned.

If you’re a food blogger, then Yummly is also a great place for you to showcase your recipes. Find out more here about becoming a Yummly Publisher. There are basically three steps you have to do in order to become a Yummly publisher:

1) Add the Yum button to your blog.

2) Introduce your readers to the awesomeness of Yummly.

3) Fill out a simple form in order to have your content featured on Yummly.

I hope you like this informative post. I’ll be back soon with more recipes.

Breakfast smoothie with Peanut butter and almond

In these days, my son has grown up or at least behave like a grown up but he has become a picky eater too. Earlier milk and Cornflex (especially Kelogg's Chocos) were a stable combo which he liked and we were also sure that it has good amount of nutrients. Now he says Milk is Yak!!!! And corn flex is like grass. So I started exploring for some breakfast ideas which is full of all the nutrients but tasty too. Internet is everybody’s friend in any search and I landed on to few breakfast smoothies which I did some mix and match to make this one.

A breakfast smoothie is essentially blending a number of healthy foods in right proportion. With the right blend of ingredients, a smoothie can be a nutritional powerhouse—full of antioxidants, minerals, vitamins, and protein. The tough part is to mixing proportions which makes it tasty. There can be a whole lot of variants to my recipes and I have mentioned some of them with the optional tag. I hope you can easily earn the love and respect of your younger ones by providing a strong start to their daily diet with my recipe. My hubby also likes this one as he finds it interesting too.

Preparation Time: - 10 min

Cooking Time: - 5 min

Servings: - 2~3 persons

Ingredients:-

1. ½ cup or 100 ml Whole cream milk ( you can use toned milk or almond or Soya milk if you are calorie conscious or want to go casein free)
2. ½ cup or 100 ml Yogurt / Curd (Greek yogurt is better as it contains more protein and less sugar and carbohydrate). I used plain curd as its availability is more in India.
3. ½ cup oats, soaked in ½ cup water. Quaker oats is my choice here.
4. 1~2 banana (I preferred Yalakki banana as it is sweeter and has more nutrients packed)
5. 2 tbsp peanut butter (Again you can use any nut butter but my personal preference is peanut)
6. 1 tbsp Chia seeds. Chia seeds are among the healthiest foods on the planet. You can find the benefits of this one here.
7. 5~6 almonds
8. 3 tbsp Honey.  My personal preference is Dabur but you can use your favorite brands as well.
9. ¼ tsp cinnamon (optional)
10. 1~2 tbsp cocoa powder (optional). I used it as my son is a born chocolate freak.
11. 1~2 tbsp strawberry syrup. This is also optional and you cannot use it with cocoa powder – the taste would be awful. I use Hershey brand which is favorite of my husband.
12. A small apple cut into small pieces (again optional but you cannot use it with cocoa or strawberry)

Preparation:-

1. Soak the oats in the water for 5-10 minutes. You need to do this so that it makes them soft and easy to blend
2. Put the almond and apple, if any, in the blender / mixer and grind them into a smooth paste
3. Pour the milk in the blender
4. Pour the curd / yogurt
5. Add the banana (chopped) and oats with water. Now blend for 1 min or so.
6. Now add honey, peanut butter, cocoa powder, and Chia seeds.
7. Blend for 1 min or so in high setting. Everything should be smoothly blended and frothy.
   

Refrigerate and serve chilled. It is a good idea to make this in night and put it in fridge. You can just take it out in morning and your child / hubby would be happy to start breakfast with this. Wait for 5~10 min if you feel the temperature is too low.

As always please feel free to comment, criticize and seek if any help is required. I am all ears.

Palak Paneer - A cottage cheese curry with spinach

Palak paneer is basically soft paneer or cottage cheese cubes cooked in a smooth spinach curry. This is very popular in North India and it is a blend of rich taste and goodness of spinach. My kids and husband both love this dish so much that I need to frequently prepare this recipe. I have not made this spicy enough like restaurant but I believe you will find it tasty enough.

Preparation Time: - 10 min

Cooking Time: - 20~25 min

Servings: - 2 persons

Ingredients:-

1. 2  medium sized bunch of spinach
2. 200 gm Paneer (cottage cheese) cut into cubes
3. 1~2 green chilly cut lengthwise
4. 1 large onion finely chopped
5. 4~5 garlic cloves crushed or paste
6. 1/2 inch Ginger
7. Pinch of Hing /Asafetida (optional)
8. 1 tsp whole jeera (cumin)
9. 1 tsp lemon juice
10.  Salt  and sugar to taste
11. ½ tsp Kasuri Methi (dried fenugreek leaves)
12. 3 tbsp Milk / fresh Cream / Malai
13. ½ cup water
14. 1~1 ½ tbsp Ghee ( For homemade  Ghee please refer my earlier post)
15. 3 ½ tbsp vegetable oil ( I used Sunflower Oil)
16. 1 tsp Garam Masala

Preparation:-

1. Clean and wash spinach in water to remove any soil or impurities.
   
2. Add water in a pan and heat it to the point of boiling. Add a pinch of sugar and salt.
   
3. Pour the spinach in it and cook for 5 min without lid
4. We need to blanch Palak to retain the green colors. Hence take the Palak from hot water to a pot and pour ice cold water on it. Keep it there for 2 min and then drain water.
   
5. Use a blender /mixer and add the spinach, ginger and salt in it. Grind the spinach for 1 min into smooth paste. My old Sumeet mixer is powerful enough to do it in 30 seconds.
   
6. Heat 1 ½ tbsp oil+ ½ tsp Ghee in a non-stick pan /kadai.  
7. Shallow fry the paneer cubes with a little salt till they turn light brown. The addition of ghee here emits a nice aroma. Health conscious people can skip the Ghee. Keep aside.
   
   
8. Use the same kadai/non stick pan and start heating the remaining oil and ghee together.
9. When the mixture is hot enough turn the burner into medium flame and add jeera followed by Garlic. Sauté for a minute.
10. Add the onion, green chilies and a pinch of asafetida. Continue sauté for 5 min.
    
11. Add the spinach paste and stir continuously for 2~3 min. Add water.
    
12. Add salt and sugar here if you feel so.
13. Mix well and bring it to boil. Stir occasionally in between.
14. When gravy starts to boil, add shallow fried paneer cubes and cook for 3-4 minutes.
    
15. Pour the lemon juice, Kasuri Methi and Garam Masala into the gravy
    
16. Boil for 1 more minute and turn off the burner
17. Add the fresh cream /milk. Mix it properly and your dish is ready. You can skip the milk /fresh cream if you are having any health issue but the creaminess of the gravy will be missing.
    

Serve with any kind of paratha , tandoori roti /plan roti, or butter /plain naan. You can also have it with jeera rice.

If you want to the paneer to be very soft then you can soak it in hot water for 10 min before frying. If you are calorie conscious type then you can avoid frying the paneer or can use Tofu instead of Paneer.

Please note that you can add Tomato puree and Turmeric powder during cooking but I have avoided them so that the color does not change.

As always please feel free to comment, criticize and seek if any help is required. I am all ears.