5 healthy home made dips to make lunch boxes fun | healthy dip recipes for everyday

Dips, chutneys and raitas are my way to include more vegetables in every meal. These work like eatable smoothie for me and make my meals interesting to say the least. Life is so much more convenient when there are a few dips in the fridge.

Lunch boxes can also be made convenient with some flavourful dips that keep well for a week or so in the fridge. Addition of yogurt or seeds and nuts adds nutritive value to roasted, sauteed or steamed vegetables to make a dip.

Making a few dips in a single day may get a lot of work to do but if we plan well we can keep making 3-4 per week in large batches and refrigerate them all in glass jars. This makes it easy to have a few options available always to serve with vegetable sticks or steamed vegetables, to spread on breads and to serve with even paratha breakfasts to kids.

For lunch boxes I feel a simpler meal becomes much more enjoyable when there are two different dips packed with it. My millet type breads are always made tastier with these dips. I rely on the raitas, chutneys and parval ka chokha or baingan ka bharta or baingan ka raita type mashed vegetables when there are no dips in the fridge.

Especially in summers I sustain on watery vegetables and mashed vegetables that can be eaten at room temperature. My system just can't work unless I have loads of vegetables and bharta, chokha and raita becomes an everyday staple. Soups are for winters of course.

Another broccoli dip with green garlic shoots and quark cheese is a winter favourite in my home, and an aubergine and nuts dip is made frequently in all seasons.

I like hummus too but he vegetable based dips are more my type. Chickpea hummus, red kidney beans hummus and mung bean hummus can be great for lunch boxes too if you carry some steamed vegetables to have them with.

Here are five dips capable to pack your meal with more zest..... 

1. Beetroot Tzatziki with garlic..

I have adapted the classic Greek tzatziki into a potent garlicky dip that goes a long way in ensuring your meal is never boring. The colour and antioxidant boost comes form beetroots and garlic makes it irresistible. It will remind you of garlic thoum (or toum).

Recipe of beetroot tzatziki....

1. Grate and steam one large beetroot (about 150 gm)
2. Mince 6-8 cloves of garlic  (or to taste)
3. Hang 400 gm yogurt into a muslin to make hung yogurt (or just prick the aluminium foil cover of a yogurt pack and invert over a mug, keep this apparatus in fridge overnight to get thick hung yogurt the next day) 
4. Whisk everything together with salt to taste and some white pepper. 
5. Garnish with mint if you wish. 

2. Baba ghanouj the roasted eggplant dip..

There is nothing special about baba ghanouj in fact. We always have some seeds, some yogurt at home and we always get the aubergines char grilled to make either a bharta or raita. In fact there is always some char grilled baingan in a glass container in my fridge. I love it so much I keep experimenting with it a lot. 

In this recipe I have used a little yogurt, and a mix of seeds to make this baba ghanouj, normally it is made using tahini (sesame paste) and no yogurt is added. Addition of yogurt makes the dip lat longer in the fridge and makes it probiotic in nature too. 

Recipe of baba ghanouj ...

1. Char grill 2 large eggplants (aubergines or baingan), peel and reserve the flesh. 
2. Mix 2 tbsp each of sunflower seeds, sesame seeds and melon seeds along with salt, roasted cumin powder, 4 cloves of garlic and 1/4 cup thick yogurt and blend well in a mixie jar.
3. Add the roasted eggplant to the blender and blend once more to make a smooth dip.
4. Add minced parsley or coriander greens if you wish.
5. Fill in a glass jar and pour 2-3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil to make a top layer and refrigerate up to 2 weeks.

3. Red bell pepper and shallots dip...

I use red bell peppers occasionally but in smaller amounts in recipes, the reason is that the husband is intolerant to bell pepper smell. But I love them so I try and make recipes where the red bell pepper smell is subdued by something else. It is a practical way to make something suitable for both of us.

This red bell pepper dip is 'supplemented' with loads of shallots, some garlic and some sun dried tomatoes. I say supplemented with shallots because shallots and onions both are so nutritive that their nutritional value is comparable to milk, and unlike milk the onions are loaded with Vit C too. So including onions and shallots is a great way to ensure efficient nutrition as I say.

Recipe of the red bell pepper and shallots dip..

1. Chop one large bell pepper and about 15 shallots (or one large onion) roughly. 
2. Heat 1 tbsp mustard oil in a pan, tip in 8 peeled whole garlic pods, 3 whole bedgi red chillies (or add paprika later) and fry for a second. 
3. Add the chopped shallots and bell peppers, toss to let everything sear and caramelize. 
4. Add salt and mix. Remove from heat and add a handful of sun dried tomatoes, a handful of (about 2 tbsp) sun flower seeds and 2 tbsp vinegar. 
5. Transfer everything to a blender and make a coarse paste.
6. Store in a glass container for up to 2 weeks.

4. Spicy Apricot chutney recipe ..

I learnt this recipe from Lata Bharti, the owner and hostess at Raju Cottage at Goshaini (HP). She is a generous host and loves chatting up if you are not clicking her pictures. We share recipes, stories and talk about general life whenever I am visiting Raju's Cottage which has become a refuge for us.

This apricot chutney we loved so much that Lata packed a jar for us. Then I made it at home and found it a very useful chutney just like our own tamatar ki mithi chutney, but with a little twist.

Recipe of spicy apricot chutney..

1. Remove sees from about 250 gm fresh apricots, mince 4 pods of garlic and 1 inch piece of ginger.
2. Mix the above with 1/2 cup of water and 1 tsp, red chilli flakes, 1/4 tsp pepper powder, 2 tejpatta leaves, 1/2 tsp salt and 1/2 cup sugar. 
3. Cook the above mix till the apricots get amalgamated with the other ingredients and it smells nice and spicy. Stir and cook till it starts looking almost like a jam.
4. Add 3 tbsp vinegar, stir to mix and fill in a sterilised glass jar. This chutney keeps well without refrigeration for long.

5. No cook mango dip...

This is one of those quick recipes that save you in difficult times. Just mix a few things in 2 minutes and a nice condiment is ready. This is actually a relish and can be blended to make a dip depending on what you want to serve with it.

Recipe of raw mango dip...

1. Chop a ripe mango roughly. Sweet and sour type of mango will be suited more but you can add a bit of lime juice if the mango is all sweet. 
2. Add a dash of balsamic vinegar, red chilly flakes and salt and your relish is ready. Mash it or blend it to make the way you like. 
3. It tastes great with roti, paratha and sandwiched between bread slices. Or try it with poha and see how you like some nice mango poha.

I am sure these dips will make your meals a bit more interesting, the lunch boxes a bit more colourful and flavourful, packed with nutrition nonetheless. Please let me know if you make these. The quick homemade tomato ketchup would also be helpful in ensuring you never eat those hideous sauces anymore. 

And please don't forget to comment on the ongoing lunch box series. there are a few giveaways you might like to win for yourself. Please read the series and give me your feedback. See you really soon with yet another lunch box post in a day or two. I am trying to keep my promise to announce the giveaways by the end of July. 

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lessons from Maggi episode and a recipe of REAL food | eggplant open sandwich with feta cheese and home grown rucola

Looks like Maggi has raised a generation of devotees who wouldn't listen to logic when it comes to MSG and it's being healthy, unhealthy or nonreactive in human body. I am amazed to see people who come up with 'facts' about MSG being natural and harmless, and how they have been using it for ages and are still alive. They forget the hormonal imbalances they are facing and the metabolic disorder that runs in the families.

I have some experience in consulting people with metabolic disorders and letting them heal just by switching to real food only, the reason I can say with some surety that the food like objects thrown at us by the food industry are really harmful even though we don't realise to start with. But we start noticing when the odd symptoms of IBS vanish when we switch to real food, the hormonal disturbances that just felt like a bother start getting healed and we notice the better quality of life we experience.

Better energy levels, better fitness and better lifestyle is compromised when junk food creeps stealthily on to the family dining table. Thankfully, if one realizes early and gives the body a chance, the body shows how it can heal with a little discipline practiced.

The recent controversy about Maggi is a great opportunity to investigate into each packaged food you buy, and make informed choices. You may want to see a study that indicates how MSG and trans fats together cause fatty liver disease and continued intake of these keeps damaging cells, causes cell cycle and lipid storage impairment, hepatic inflammation. No prizes for guessing that MSG and trans fats are used together in most processed foods causing chronic dislipidemia. 

Stop being trapped into a cheap packet of Maggi. Start recognizing real food, the taste will surprise you and you would start looking for more good sources of ethically grown vegetables, fruits and grains, better sources of meat, poultry and seafood. Just don't be misled by claims that everything is polluted in this world and we don't have any choice but to dig into a bowl of instant noodle.

Now let's see how do we make the real food simple, almost instant just like the instant noodles and delicious with the real taste, the way nature intended. Yes, there are some people allergic to eggplants (brinjals) too but I have myself seen how some people who were actually allergic to brinjals started eating them happily after their other diet habits were changed through a methodical personalised program, allergies sometime aggravate in the presence of other unnatural foods in the diet, once you remove those factors the allergies go on their own.

Eggplants or Aubergines are commonly called as Baingan in India. This vegetable gets mixed feelings in almost every country I guess. Some people who hate mushy vegetables never get the fortune to taste the subtle flavour that this buttery mush packs. But eggplants can be made into such delicious mush that you would start loving Baba ghaoush, Caponata, Grilled aubergines, Stuffed brinjals, Japanese style grilled eggplants and even Baingan ka chokha which is the simplest mashed vegetable we make almost twice a week. I am guilty of not sharing the baingan ka chokha recipe but I will correct that really soon I promise.

These large round variety of brinjals is considered to be good for chokha and bharta in India and we buy these by the dozen. Okay, half a dozen if not a dozen :-)

Fat round slices of the same round variety of brinjal is shallow fried to make a 'Begun bhaja' which is a Bengali classic and I have adapted the Begun bhaja to make these open sandwiches for a hearty brunch or a breakfast when I want very little bread and loads of vegetables.

Bread is always whole wheat and home baked. Open sandwiches with free form loaves make better sense and a topping like these brinjal rounds make it really irresistible.

If I tell you there is no recipe for these sandwiches and that these are the yummiest sandwiches one can have, you shouldn't be surprised. Just make it once for the sake of ease and simplicity of this recipe and get addicted to the real pleasures of real food.

Just remember to choose light weight fresh brinjals to make this sandwich topping. 

ingredients...

aubergine slices as many as you need, make more as you would consume more than you think
salt as required
mirin or balsamic vinegar or apple cider vinegar to drizzle ( I use mirin)
feta cheese to smear on the finished sandwiches
pepper or other seasoning if you need ( I did not need here as the peppery rucola was quite a lot)
eggs to serve the way you like
bits of bacon if you like
olive oil or mustard oil to shallow fry (I have used both and love both)

procedure ...

Slice the brinjals thickly, slash them lightly on one side and sprinkle salt generously over them all. Let them rest for at least an hour. Wash under running water and drain in colander.

Smear a skillet with oil, spread the aubergine slices slashed side down, let them brown and then flip them to cook on the other side too. Drizzle oil as required.

Drizzle with mirin or vinegar or lime juice once done and arrange over toasted bread. Smear feta cheese and top with rucola or other salad greens of choice.

If making these for a larger crowd you might want to flash fry these brinjal rounds as shallow frying takes a bit of time and doing many batches can be distressing for the cook.

Brinjals don't absorb oil when flash fried in really hot oil.

If using the oblong variety of brinjals you can only slit the brinjal into two lengthwise and shallow fry as directed.

You can also use the white or green varieties of eggplants (brinjals) for making these sandwich sliders or toppings. These greens ones grew in our garden for a few years till I removed the plants, this year we are starting to get slender purple brinjals.

Minimal effort can bring so much natural flavours from real food. This brinjal sandwich will become a favourite with your family trust me.

We even love a salad made with chunks of brinjal prepared the same way. I will update those pictures of the brinjal salad here soon, we normally have it for a quick dinner and photography doesn't happen in such times.

Tell me what interesting ways you like your brinjal?

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quick aubergine pizza : a grain free pizza that we love

There is a series of coincidences going on in my household. This weekend I was planning to bake a thin crust pizza for dinner and a neighbor couple calls and comes home. No there is no coincidence in neighbors visiting but this couple have young kids who used to come to our place long back when Mithi was alive. These kids were remembering Mithi ki mummy ka pizza and when their parents told us this, I got thinking why I had a thought of a thin crust pizza for dinner and couldn't make because of not having the home made tomato concasse ready that I use for my homemade pizzas. Nevertheless I am baking thin crust pizzas for these kids this week.

And then I was making this eggplant rollatini from World Feast and was reminded of an eggplant (aubergine) pizza that I bake sometimes and was in an impression that I have already shared it on this blog. But when I was looking for aubergine pictures in my digital clutter that the collection of my pictures is, I found these aubergine pizza pictures that were not even processed. Then I realised this aubergine pizza never made it to the blog. This aubergine pizza was made and photographed last December on a weekend, and photographed in day time. We rarely eat any kind of pizza in day time and rarely have the patience to shoot them before the cheese sets again while the pizza gets cold. That explains the absence of pizzas of all kinds on this blog except this buckwheat base pizza that I make when we have fresh rucola growing in the garden.

But none of the pizzas I bake is simpler than this one. Just slice the vegetables, layer up and bake.
No dough no distress ;-)

So coincidence or serendipity brought this aubergine pizza out of the closet and here it is. A delicious pizza can't be any better believe me. Can't be quicker either.

You just have to slice big round aubergines. Take care to use only fresh aubergines without seeds. Brush the slices with olive oil and sprinkle salt on them.

Then you slice really fresh, ripe and the most flavourful tomatoes you can get. Some sliced or minced garlic cloves, some torn basil and oregano, red chilly flakes and salt to be sprinkled. Go by your mood when deciding the quantity of seasoning and herbs. you need not sprinkle any salt over the tomatoes but go by your instinct.

Then bake for 5 minutes at 250 C in a preheated oven. Now is the time to slice some mozzarella cheese thickly and spread over the hot layers of aubergine, tomato and herbs.  Bake again for a couple of minutes till the cheese bubbles.

Serve immediately.

Bubbling stringy mozzarella cheese has a way to enhance the taste of tomatoes and aubergine. The herbs and seasonings help to get it irresistible.

You wouldn't feel the need to have a 'base' for this pizza as the aubergine slices give this pizza a stable base that holds fine. Keep the slices of aubergine a bit thick and let them cook thoroughly in the first round of baking. Sometimes I add minced red bell peppers or minced or sliced mushrooms over the tomato slice but that is not obligatory.

I have done many experiments with making a 'pizza base' using vegetables including cauliflowers, cabbage and even potato slices but the best taste was with aubergines to be honest. Although Arvind likes the potato version too.

And here is the last bit of coincidence that happened just now. I had suggested 'aubergine' as one of the vegetables to be included in the next week's meal plan of a new client of mine who is a young girl not very well acquainted with kitchen and she wrote back immediately asking for what is an 'aubergine'?

I am not joking :-)

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