Showing posts with label Healthy. Show all posts

Bisi Bele Millet Recipe [Video]

Spicy South Indian one pot main made by simmering millet with lentils (dal), mix vegetables and spice blends. Vegan and healthy.

millet cooked with lentils, vegetables and spices

So, here I am with another Millet recipe. As I mentioned in my last week's post, I'm all on the millet wagon. I'm enjoying discovering these grains and creating recipes with them. I made a Pulao last week with Millet that tasted awesome. Leave me a comment if you want me to post that recipe.

Apart from that, I had a super tiring Saturday and a totally relaxing Sunday, just as I had planned, or not. So the whole saturday was spent gardening. If you are new here, I should let you know I have a small balcony garden where I try to grow vegetables organically. More recently, I've acquired a few flowers and fruit too, but majorly focusing on herbs and vegetables. My okra and chilli plant from last month have germinated and are coming along fine. This Saturday, I've been ambitious and planted daikon radish, beets, french beans, and brinjals. And I'm so excited!!

Sunday was the day I turned a year wiser. I spent it doing absolutely nothing. Breakfast was at Gee's place and lunch at my in law's. Dinner was take out. So all I did was lie around and watch reruns of sitcoms all day long. My dream day, almost. It would be perfect if the day was 48 hours long.

What would be your dream birthday celebration?

So back to my millet wagon, this Bisi Bele Millet is a take on the Bangalore classic, Bisi Bele Bhaat. Bisi Bele Bhaat is a simple one pot main dish made by making a sambar - a curry with lentils and vegetables and adding rice to it and simmering the two together. In today's recipe, I have replaced the rice with millet. I used little millet or samai. Navane or Foxtail Millet can be used too. You can also use Quinoa.

Bisi Bele Millet is a spicy one pot comfort dish that is perfect for those lazy evening when all you are all worked up but cannot be bothered to get a take out. This dish is even easier when you have done all the prep work in advance. The lentils/dal can be cooked and stored in the refrigerator and so can the millet. The vegetables can be diced and stored in the fridge too. So on the night you want to eat the Bisi Bele Millet, just put one pot on the stove and get it going.

Bisi Bele Millet tastes delicious with the traditional topping of spicy boondi. If you aren't vegan, then I highly recommend stirring a teaspoon of ghee or serving it with a side of raita.

If you made this recipe, let me know! Leave a comment here or on Facebook, tag your tweet with @oneteaspoonlife on Twitter and don't forget to tag your photo #oneteaspoonoflife on Instagram. You can also email me at onetspoflife@gmail.com I'd love to see what you are upto.

If you like this recipe, do not forget to share it with your friends and family!

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Bisi Bele Millet Recipe

Spicy South Indian one pot main dish made with cooked lentils, millet, mix vegetables and spice blends. Vegan and healthy meal.

Recipe Type: Main
Cuisine: South Indian
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 30 minutes
Total time: 45 minutes
Yield: Serves 2-3

Ingredients:

3 cups cooked Little Millet or Samai
2 cups cooked Pigeon Pea lentils or Toor Dal
2 cups mixed chopped Vegetables (Carrots, French Beans, Potato, Kohlrabi)
2 tsp Bisi Bele Bhaat Powder or Sambar Powder
1 tsp Red Chilli Powder
0.5 tsp Turmeric Powder
Pinch of Asafoetida (Hing)
Salt to taste
Water as required
2 tsp Oil
0.5 tsp Mustard Seeds
10-12 Curry leaves

Method:

1. Boil the diced vegetables until done. You can salt the water if you want.
2. Cook the vegetables until they are done, but not mushy.
3. Add salt, bisi bele bhaat powder, turmeric powder, red chilli powder and asafoetida. Mix well.
4. Add boiled lentils and mix well. Allow it to come to a rolling boil. Add a little water if it is too thick.
5. Add boiled millet and mix well. Allow it to cook on low heat for 5-6 minutes.
6. Heat oil in a small pan and add mustard seeds.
7. Once they splutter, add the curry leaves and immediately pour on the bisi bele millet.
8. Mix well.
9. Serve hot with raita.

If you liked this, you may also like:

Indian style lemon rice made with little millets

Millet Lemon Rice

Raw Mango Rice

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Healthy Millet Salad

Mushroom Palak Recipe | Spinach Mushroom Curry

Delicious vegan spinach and mushroom curry that can be cooked up in no time at all. Healthy and tasty!

Mushrooms cooked in a vibrant spinach curry

How has the week been for you guys? Remember, when I told you how awesome last week was? Well, this week's been kinda okay in comparison. I've been alone at home this week with Raj on a long forced vacation. He had to take 2 weeks off work as per company policy and so he did. He is right now spending time with his parents and sis at their house and I'm all set to travel there today. So while he's away I've been watching endless reruns of "Small Wonder". You remember that show? The show is literally as old as me. But I'm loving the simplicity of the show and it is just plain cute. I miss TV of the 90's. Right now there is barely a series on TV that I can watch without wanting to flip channels.

Back to today's recipe. So when Raj is away or skipping a meal, I only have one thing on my mind - Mushrooms!! The man won't eat mushrooms and it is super boring when I have to cook different things for him and me. So I use the few chances I get to hoard up on Mushrooms. I love Mushrooms and I love Spinach, so what's not to love in a marriage of the two.

While I'm utterly disappointed with my photos for this recipe, I really could not seem to get a good delicious picture. I know I tried, I added props, removed props, changed backgrounds, but nothing seemed to work. But I did not want to keep myself from sharing this recipe, so forgive the photos. It tastes much better than it looks.

So this is actually a very simple vegan curry. It starts by making the spinach puree. There are no filters in the photos, the spinach gravy is really that green. And I'm going to share my secret of How to make the vibrant green gravy

Never ever cover spinach while it is cooking or while it is hot. That's it! Cook spinach in a open pan always.
First boil the water, add the spinach and let it bubble for 4-5 minutes, then remove the pan from heat and let it rest for another 3-4 minutes.
Drain out the spinach and dunk it immediately in cold water. The spinach has to cool down before you move on.
Once the spinach is at room temperature or cooler, puree it. You can add ginger, garlic or green chillies while pureeing the spinach.
Now you have the vibrant green gravy. You will be cooking the spinach again, along with the mushrooms in this case, keep in mind to never cover the spinach, else you will lose the vibrancy.
Also to store this curry, allow the spinach to cool to room temperature before closing the pan/box, so that the color is retained.

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Mushroom Palak | Spinach Mushroom Curry

Curry made by cooking button mushrooms in a vibrant green spinach gravy.

Recipe Type: Side
Cuisine: Indian
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Cook time: 30 minutes
Total time: 60 minutes
Yield: Serves 2

Ingredients:

150 gms Button Mushrooms
300 gms Spinach (3 cups)
2 tsp Oil
0.5 tsp Cumin seeds
1 tsp finely chopped Garlic
1-2 finely chopped Green Chillies
Salt to taste
Water as required

Method:

1. Heat water in a large pot or pan.
2. Once the water comes to a rolling boil, add washed spinach to it.
3. Allow the water to bubble for 4-5 minutes without covering the pan.
4. Remove from heat and allow to rest for 3-4 minutes.
5. Drain the spinach and submerge it in cold water or wash it with cold water until the spinach comes to room temperature or cooler.
6. Grind the spinach into a puree along with the garlic and green chillies. Keep aside.
7. Clean and halve the mushrooms.
8. Heat oil in a pan and add the mushrooms.
9. Add a little salt and allow the mushrooms to sweat.
10. Once the mushrooms are cooked to your liking, add the spinach puree and simmer for 5 minutes.
11. Add salt to taste and mix well.
12. Serve hot with phulka or rotis.
13. To store the Mushroom Palak for later and not lose the vibrant color of the spinach, allow the curry to cool to room temperature and only then cover it and store in fridge

If you liked this, you may also like:

Chhole Palak

Palak Paneer

Mushroom Cafreal

Healthy Miso Noodle Soup

This 30 minute vegan healthy Miso Noodle soup is perfect for those cold winter nights!!

Vegan healthy soup made with white miso, wholewheat noodles and fresh vegetables

Miso Soup... I'd read about it, seen it but never got a chance to try it. Reason? It usually contains fish. Even the ready to eat soup packets have fish in them. So I knew the only thing I could do was make it myself, without fish, of course. But for that I needed Miso Paste. Hard that it may sound, but not many people have actually heard of Miso Paste, not just in India but in a lot of South East Asian countries as well. I looked for it high an low in everywhere nope, I did not find it. It is more apt to say I did not find it in the quantity and the cost that I was actually looking for. I did find it in a Japanese store in Cambodia but it was over 1 kg in quantity and with everything written in Japanese on the cover, I was completely lost on what the ingredients were. It is available in India, however, it is either not too good or way too expensive. I finally purchased my first batch in Whole Foods, Chicago and have been loving it. It is fish free, salty-sweet and delicate in flavor. I could it just by the spoonful.

Miso is a paste of rice and soybeans that has been fermented using koji. Shiro Miso is the mild light colored one and also the one I used in this recipe. It just adds a hint of flavor but a lot of health to the soup. It is a great source of iron and protein. You can replace it with the red miso or Aka Miso, but definitely reduce the quantity as that is much stronger than the white miso.

Traditionally, the base of a miso soup is a Japanese stock called dashi which is made from sea kelp (kombu) and fish flakes (bonito flakes), but that is not something I would eat. So I skipped that totally and made it vegan. If you can find some sea weed like wakame or nori, add it to enhance the umami of the soup. I would have loved to, but I did not have any.

I know all my talk is about Miso here and it is a Miso soup, but even if you cannot find a good miso paste, don't be disheartened. Make the soup anyway, just call it Noodle Soup :) The soup is very healthy because of all the vegetables it contains. It is also super low in calories, with one serving being under 150 calories. All the more reason to make it, don't you think? It is absolutely guilt free. And if you thought it won't fill you up, let me warn you right away, you are wrong. I could never drink/eat 2 whole servings because all that fiber from the vegetables filled me up right away.

I used whole wheat noodles in the soup, you can substitute it with soba noodles. Udon noodles wouldn't be bad as well. This soup is the healthiest thing you can have on a cold winter night. And the best part, it takes less than 30 minutes to make.

If you like this recipe, do not forget to share it with your friends and family!

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If you liked this, you may also like:

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Healthy Miso Noodle Soup

Vegan healthy soup made with white or shiro miso, wholewheat noodles and fresh vegetables.

Recipe Type: Soup
Cuisine: Japanese
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 20 minutes
Yield: Serves 3-4

Ingredients:

3 tsp Shiro Miso Paste
50gms Wholewheat Noodles
1.5 Tbsp Dark Soy Sauce
1 Tbsp Sriracha Sauce
30gms Tofu, cubed
4-5 Mushrooms, sliced
3 baby Bok choy, chopped roughly
0.5 cup Broccoli florets
1 small Onion
1 cup Cabbage, shredded
1 small Carrot, julienned
3 tsp Oil
1 liter Vegetable Broth or Water
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste

Method:

Cook the noodles as per instructions on the packet. Drain and keep aside.
Heat oil in a deep pan and fry the onions until they are translucent.
Add the broth or water and bring to a rolling boil.
Dissolve the miso paste in half cup of water and add it to the pan.
Add the soy sauce, sriracha sauce, salt and pepper to taste.
Boil for 2-3 minutes.
Add the bokchoy, broccoli, mushrooms, cabbage and carrot and boil for another 2 minutes.
Add the noodles and tofu and serve hot.