“Health is wealth” is the new mantra. Reason for this topic so much in the limelight is, with the changed lifestyle, our food habits have also changed. Often we are engrossed with work. Missing breakfast, skipping meals happens most of the time. And when we are hungry, we end up digging into junk. After a point of time, our body stops accepting homely simple food. So here are some tips or recipes you can try, so as to stay healthy and satisfy your taste buds at the same time:
1. Grilled fruits with yoghurt ice-cream
This is a recipe which can serve your sweet cravings. Fruits have natural sugar, which gets caramelized while grilling. Mango, apple , berries lend themselves very well to grilling. When they are complemented with yoghurt ice-cream, it’s like icing on cake. Yoghurt ice-cream is made from hung curd, very less sweet, creamy. So this is one such guilt free dessert you can go for.
2. Paneer tikka or vegetable tikka
Basic tikka recipe is prepared by marinating vegetables and cottage cheese in hung curd and spices. And then, it can be roasted, grilled or baked. You can treat yourself on this when you are craving for something spicy. Using vegetables like mushroom, broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini and bell peppers adds to the nutrients. Also if you are adding cottage cheese, it will add to the protein content in your diet. To make it wholesome, consume it with whole wheat chapatis.
3. Vegetable dalia
In the race of getting modern and eating fashionable food, we often forget the power of our indian grains. Dalia or broken wheat is one of the easiest available ingredients in our kitchens. We can add pulses and some vegetables of our choice too, to make it more healthy. And ofcourse indian spicy tadka will add to the taste. It’s a one pot quick meal you can eat any time during the day.
4. Vegetable casseroles
It is a baked layered dish, same as lasagna. But the only difference is, we don’t use pasta sheets in between, instead we use vegetables and some beans, combined with layers of arrabiata sauce. You can also use whole wheat chapatis in between and can call it healthy lasagna or layers of brown rice and can name it baked rice. To decrease the calorie count, limit the usage of cheese. You can also use cottage cheese.
5. Pesto pasta
Pesto is basically a green sauce, traditionally made from basil leaves. But you can also make it from spinach, peas or even with red peppers. Use whole wheat pasta along with vegetables like mushroom, zucchini, broccoli, corn etc. Putting cheese is completely your choice, but if you want that creamy texture, you can use cashew paste or coconut milk instead of cheese.
6.Burrito bowl
It is a bowl made from arranging pan fried vegetables along with some beans. It has a rice component too which makes it a complete meal. You can use white rice or brown rice as per your taste. You can get as much creative with this as you want. Because here you can use avocados, cottage cheese, different types of beans, grilled vegetables, salads. It is one of the fancy looking complete meals having proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals. More colourful you make it, the more nutritious it will be.
7. Lavash bread with humus
Lavash is baked flat bread, can be made from whole wheat too. And humus is a dip made from boiled garbanzo, seasoned with oil, salt, pepper, garlic, cheese and pine nuts. If you want variety, you can also prepare hung curd dip. This is good for anytime munching. Keep some salad by the side, to make it more wholesome.
8. Whole wheat wraps
This is a very versatile option. You can prepare whole wheat rotis. And stuff it with lightly sauteed vegetables and beans. You can flavour your stuffing with Indian spices or with Italian herbs or you can also add chinese sauces. A new stuffing will make a new version. You can also add home made green chutney to it instead of fancy and unhealthy processed sauces. Again if you want you can add grated cheese but I prefer grated cottage cheese and some salad. Also if you want to add more nutrition, make roti dough from boiled pulses. You can get creative with wrap covering by using savoury crepes made from pulses.
9. Vegetable stew
This is an Indian dish. It’s a kind of soup having bite size vegetables like carrots, beans, cauliflowers, pumpkin, sweet potato, peas etc flavoured with south Indian spices and gravy is thickened with coconut milk and cashews. It can be served with roasted whole wheat bread or rice or roti. It is also one of the all time dishes having a blend of savoury, spicy and subtle sweetness
10. Muffins
Combination of various healthy flours like wholewheat flour, oats flour, ragi flour, grams flour and vegetables and little experimentation can give you a new set of recipes for example savoury muffins made from whole wheat flour mixed with semolina, ragi or oats flour clubbed with chopped or grated vegetables taste really good. Also you can make sweet muffins using some healthy flours, grinded dry fruits flour, chopped nuts or fruits and jaggery. And for eggless baking, use curd.
The above written are few examples only. There are many underrated indian dishes like idli sambar, dosa, dal dholki, daal with baked baati which are healthy, tasty and fulfilling. Apart from these you can make certain changes in your daily cooking practices like baking instead of frying, using natural sweeteners like jaggery, using whole wheat flour instead of refined flour, using brown rice instead on white rice, getting creative with the use of vegetables and fruits will ultimately make your meals more healthy. There are several superfoods like amaranth, chia seeds, buckwheat, soyabean, nuts can also be explored.
