easy to make trail mixes for Navratri fasting and healthy snacking | recipes of 3 trail mixes using popped amaranth, fox nuts and assorted seeds and nuts

Nuts and seeds are great nourishing foods but many of us don't use them enough in everyday meals. There are many traditional recipes of pestos, chutneys, curry powders and even snacks made with seeds like sesame, poppy seeds or flax seeds, but since we look for quick recipes we often miss using seeds in our food.

Nuts have a better chance as we all love roasted nuts and they are available comparatively easily too. After all a bowl of roasted cashew or almonds is handy and one finds them easier as finger foods. But then we Indians eat a lot of namkeens (savories) with our tea and coffee are we are slowly becoming a huge consumer of packaged chips, rice or corn based crispies and wafers.

If your family consumes these products you might like to shift to trail mixes with seeds, few nuts and some added puffed rice, popped sorghum or popped amaranth and popped foxnuts (makhana) etc.

These trail mixes are a great way to keep away from unhealthy snacks. These are very good for travel also, we always pack some of these for our travels and never ever buy any snacks while traveling. I believe we should be a little more careful while traveling not only to eat healthy foods and snacks but not to buy anything packaged in plastics. When the tourists demand plastic packaged foods the local shopkeepers stock it and it starts a chain reaction of demand and supply, littering all the peaceful places with plastic packets and water bottles. Carrying our own snacks makes much more sense.

We don't have to think much about when and how to include seeds because there are many ways we can easily add some proteins and good fats in everyday meals.

Here are a few ways we can add seeds in our meals.

1. Sprinkle some roasted seeds on your salads for extra crunch and added dimension to the flavours. Adding seeds (or nuts) to fruit salads lowers down the Glycemic index further and makes it fit for most diabetics and weight watchers.
2. Make a salad dressing with seeds or herb pesto made of any of your favourite herbs. This sesame seeds salad dressing is a much loved recipe in my home. 
3. Make a paste of poppy seeds, melon seeds or cashew to thicken Indian curries and gravies. It is a great way to supplement protein in vegetarian diet.
4. Replace fries, chips and packaged namkeens with roasted nuts and trail mixes. Balance the trail mixes by adding dried fruits like raisins and make them lighter by adding popped amaranth, puffed rice or roasted flattened rice (roasted poha) and season as you like. Keep the trail mixes in air tight jars for the tea time treats. Replace cookies with these trail mixes too.
5. Use more nuts and seeds to make dips and pesto. Use them to make your regular sandwiches and wraps. Toss salads and pasta using them. 
6. Make nut and seed butters and use them in various ways. Most people love peanuts butter or cashew butter. I make mixed seeds butter too and we find it really versatile. Will share my recipes soon.

Coming back to the trail mixes, I am sharing 3 recipes of trail mixes today. Each one of them is so good they are almost addictive. But once you eat a little bigger serving of these you would skip the next meal automatically. This is the beauty of low glycemic index snacks, they fill you up for a longer time period.


1. Honey-lime-pepper peanut and seeds mix 

I have used a mix of peanuts, chironji and sunflower seeds here. You need an oven to make this one, a microwave can also be used.

ingredients..

100 gm roasted peanuts
200 gm large sizes seeds like sunflower seeds, melon seeds and pumpkin seeds etc
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp lime juice
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp white pepper powder

procedure 

Split the roasted peanuts and remove the skin.

Mix everything together and let it stand for 10 minutes till the lime juice and honey mix soaks the nuts and seeds.

Spread over a baking tray lined with silpat and bake at 170C (preheated) for about 30 minutes. Check once and bake some more, the seeds will be completely dry but not crunchy when baked. They get crunchy once cooled.

If making in microwave, follow the procedure of this roasted cashew.

Store in airtight glass jar when cooled to room temperature.

2. Flax seeds-coconut flakes namkeen trail mix 

ingredients 

200 gm flax seeds
100 gm mix of chopped almonds and walnuts
50 gm grated dry coconut
70 gm raisins
1 tsp sea salt or pink salt (sendha namak)
1 tsp pepper powder

procedure

I made this in a pan and it took only about 10 minutes.

Dry roast the flax seeds on medium heat till they start crackle and look puffed. Using a thick base pan will be good for this purpose.

Add the rest of the ingredients (except raisins) together and dry roast for another couple of minutes or till the coconut flakes get firm and crisp.

Take the pan off the stove, add the raisins and mix well. Cool down to room temperature.

Cool and store in glass jars.

3. Seeds and popped amaranth trail mix 

This trail mix can also be made in a pan. Though roasting the seeds in an oven or microwave is also an option.

ingredients 

200 gm popped amaranth
100 gm sesame
100 gm flax seeds
50 gm melon seeds
25 gm sunflower seeds
25 gm pumpkin seeds
50 gm peanuts +1 tsp ghee
50 gm fox nuts (makhana) optional
70 gm sweet anardana seeds or raisins
sea salt or pink salt (sendha namak) to taste
pepper powder to taste
1 tsp or 4-5 gm amchoor powder

procedure

Heat a thick base pan (kadhai) and dry roast all the seeds separately. Collect them all in one large mixing bowl as they are the roasted.

Roast the peanuts with ghee on low flame till done. Now add the anardana seeds and roast for a few seconds before pouring this mix into the bowl with roasted seeds. This allows anaradana seeds to dehydrate a little.

Fox nuts will also be roasted with a little ghee, I used caramelised makhana to make it this time.

Now add the popped amaranth, salt, pepper and amchoor powder to the warm mix of seeds and peanuts and give it a good mix. The salt and pepper adheres to the surface because of the little ghee used for peanuts when we mix it all while still warm.

This trail mix with popped amaranth seeds is the most popular in my home. I make it with some puffed rice added or some more nuts depending on the requirement.

Here I have added some puffed rice too and the peanuts are roasted along with a tadka of curry leaves and mustard etc. The recipe and seasoning can be adjusted according to taste and requirement. I love adding curry leaves to such trail mixes and even make it with puffed rice whenever we get it.

I use many of these trail mixes to top my salads too. It is very convenient to have a well seasoned and flavourful trail mix that can lift a plain salad made of boring fruits that you may not like eating on their own. Sometimes I just mix some mung sprouts and may be some yogurt and make a quick meal for myself. We do need some of these options sometimes. I am sharing one such recipe next.

Till then, make these trail mixes and stock up the pantry with some nice healthy tea time snacks.

 Throw away those plastic packets of chips and kurkure. You and your family deserves better.

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101 gluten free breakfasts : scrambled raw plantains south Indian style | plantain podimas recipe

Raw plantain or kachha kela is one of my favourite ingredients and I always have a couple of them in my fridge. In fact I buy a big bunch if I see nice fresh raw plantain with unblemished skin in the market. I never discard the skin so always make it a point to get fresh skinned plantains.

Kela meti ki subzi, kele aur sem ki subzi are  favourite in winters and I make a chutney with raw banana peels sometimes. Kachhe kele ke kofte is made less frequently though. I make the kababs with them too but haven't managed to post the as yet.

There are two types of raw plantains and no these are not the same variety that we eat as ripe bananas. Plantains taste very different even when they are ripe and I quite like the fritters made with them. In the picture below I have shared the two types we get. The rounded variety with a fat middle part and darker skin is the one that gets a little dry after cooking. The other slim plantains with lighter skin colour and slender tapering ends are tastier and stay soft even after cooking. There is a slight difference in taste too.

The stout plantains are suited more for kababs and koftas and the slender ones for stir fries. But if you get tender plantains then even the stout ones are good to make stir fried dishes. And that is what I did in this recipe.

It so happened one day that I was alone at home and was thinking what to cook for my brunch. I saw Nandita had posted her plantain podimas recipe and I wanted to eat that. Podimas is normally cooked with boiled, peeled and grated plantains but since I wanted to retain the skin and wanted the stir fry to be quick too. After searching and reading a few recipes I came up with an altered recipe that suited me just fine. I actually loved the taste.

ingredients..
(one serving, a 10 minute recipe)

one medium sized raw plantain (3/4 cup when chopped like the picture)
3-4 springs of fresh curry patta
2 broken dry red chillies
1/4 tsp black mustard seeds
pinch of hing (asafoetida)
1/2 tsp urad daal (black lentils skinned)
1/2 tsp chana daal (black chickpeas skinned)
2 tbsp fresh grated coconut ( I used dehydrated grated coconut and re-hydrated it before use)
salt to taste
1 tsp ghee
lime juice to taste

procedure..

The first thing you have to do is lightly peel the plantain skin with a potato peeler so only a very thin layer is removed. If using a farm fresh plantain I would skip this step.

See how I cut the plantain in half lengthwise and then sliced thinly, before chopping small bits of it that resembles grated vegetable. You may want to grate using a box grater.

Then heat the ghee, add hing, mustard seeds, lentils and red chili in that order and let them all become aromatic.

Add chopped curry patta and fry for a second or two. Now add the chopped or grated plantain along with salt and stir fry for about 3-5 minutes or till it cooks.

Add the grated coconut, lime juice to taste and mix well, cook for a minute and serve immediately.

This plantain or raw banana podimas is a great substitute of poha or upma kind of breakfast. I had a glass of buttermilk with it and it was a very satisfying meal that kept me full for many hours.

Did you know raw plantains have resistant starch that makes this vegetable a very low glycemic index and that it is prebiotic too?

This breakfast is supplemented with good fats, great variety of fiber, complex carbs and yes even some protein. Add some sesame seeds if you want a little more protein in this meal.

I must tell you raw banana podimas is served like a subzi or side dish with Indian meals of rice and sambar etc. Converting it to a breakfast dish may work for you too. And mind it, this is a 10 minute breakfast recipe.

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making breakfast dosa interesting with vegetable based chutneys | making chutneys with ivy gourd and long beans

Including vegetables in everyday meals comes naturally to many of us as we eat loads of raw salads and stir fry vegetables for every meal of the day. Are you on my side eating loads of vegetables?

Oh no? You hate them? Or don't know how to eat vegetables in every meal?

I do come across many of those people too who are clueless on how to include vegetables in every meal of the day and breakfast is the most difficult meal of the day if they want to have vegetables. Who eats vegetables for breakfast many of them exclaim. I understand as even my husband is one of those people. He is totally a fruits and pancakes person when it comes to breakfast but he occasionally likes these dosa (savoury crepes or pancakes) and chutney for breakfast too. In fact when I make a large bowl of chutney and keep it on the table, he takes second helpings if the chutney is not too hot.

Eating a vegetable based chutney can make you consume about 200 gm vegetables with your breakfast. Just remember to make the chutney really tasty and keep the heat quotient lower than usual if you hate to start your day with spicy hot breakfast.

Ivy gourd or kundru is one such interesting vegetable that has natural tangy taste and responds really well to chutney recipes. And what is more interesting, that kundru can be eaten raw as well. Although I like raw slices of kundru in some tossed salad, I usually half cook the vegetable while making chutney as it enhances the taste and helps balance the flavours.

Ivy gourd (kundru) chutney recipe...

ingredients
(2 large servings)
tender ivy gourds sliced 250 gm
red onion one medium sliced (about 70 gm)
curry patta 20 springs
mustard seeds 1 tsp
chana daal (split chickpeas) 1 tbsp
dry red chilies 2-3 or as per taste
fresh grated coconut 1/4 cup
salt to taste
sesame oil or ghee 2 tsp
tamarind 1 tsp

procedure

Heat oil in a pan and tip in the mustard seeds, red chillies, curry leaves and split chickpeas in that order. Let them sizzle and get aromatic and then add the sliced onions. Caremalise the onions on low flame for about 5 minutes.

Add the ivy gourds (kundru) and salt and cook covered for 2 minutes. Take off the stove and let it cool.

Add the tamarind (paste or extract) and blend in food processor or mixie to make a smooth paste. Serve as desired.

This chutney is great with idli, dosa, chilla and savoury crepes. Even with parathas for breakfast along with some yogurt.

I make another chutney with lobiya (long beans) that has become a favourite. It was made as an experiment one day when I found that the maid had chopped a lot of lobiya and I needed to finish it. I decided to add a lot of ginger to it and it tasted hot gingery when fresh. But I was surprised to know that the chutney taste way better the next day, the flavours more balanced and no strong ginger taste. So if yo are planning to eat the chutney fresh, add a little ginger and if you are planning to eat it the next day as as much ginger as you want. I mean add loads of fresh ginger root and see how the chutney becomes a 'hot' favourite.

Recipe of long beans (lobiya) chutney...

ingredients
(2 large servings)
long beans chopped finely 250 gm or 1.5 cup
chopped onion 60-70 gm or 1/2 cup
cumin seeds 1 tsp
minced ginger 1 tbsp or more
dry red chilly 2-3 or to taste
curry patta 15-20 strings
grated fresh coconut 1/4 cup
sesame oil or ghee 2 tsp
salt to taste
tamarind 2 tsp (paste or dehydrated)

procedure

Heat the oil or ghee in a pan and tip in the cumin seeds, chillies and curry patta and let them fry till fragrant. Add the ginger and then the onions. Let these cook till the onions get pinkish brown.

Add the lobiya (long beans) along with salt and stir fry for 2-3 minutes and then cover and cook on low flame.

Take off the stove, add coconut and tamarind and blend the chutney as desired. You might like a coarse consistency in this one. I like it any which way.

I enjoyed this lobiya chutney with a buckwheat dosa one day along with a dry methi (fenugreek) chutney that I had brought from Pune last year. The dry methi chutney is so good I am hoarding it in my freezer.

I have another lasun chutney from the same place and I love adding that too sometimes to my plate. The other day I made a besan ka chilla with loads of onions and mung sprouts and had with these yummy chutneys.

Sometimes my maid eats her breakfast at my place (whenever she is late) and she tasted one of these mung spout chillas along with the chutneys and was curious to know what was this. After all it doesn't look like any conventional breakfast but she enjoys these and eat slowly relishing each bite. She has been seeing my food pictures and now even gives ideas on using utensils for the same. I find it really sweet :-)

These chutneys helps make friends. My maid took some of the lobiya chutney home and said she shared with her neighbor and got complements.

And, she did not tell what this chutney is made of :-)

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poriyal style warm salads : 2 healthy poriyal recipes for everyday meals

Poriyal is a stir fry of finely chopped vegetables tempered with curry leaves, some mustard, red chilly and lentils etc.. topped with a generous amount of freshly grated coconut. The vegetables used for poriyal may vary from cabbage to beans to beets, carrots, okra or even some squashes like Chayote squash or Zucchini. The vegetables are cooked lightly for poriyal, keeping the textures alive but he flavours from the tempering are rich and Earthy and that makes a poriyal the perfect warm salad for me.

Poriyal is a dry stir fry of Tamil origin but it is cooked in Karnataka as well, known as Palya in that part of the country. I used to know this stir fry as Foogath or Foogad as my mom had learnt it from one of her friends and this name had stuck with us. The name could be a matter of origin of the stir fry, may be with a few changes in the tempering or the final taste but the stir fry remained a favourite with me owing to it's simplicity and quick recipe. The vegetables need to be finely and uniformly chopped for poriyals but I love my knife and the chopping board and often chop my vegetables again even after my maid had kept them cleaned and chopped her way. Like I put my cleaver to good use and chopped the cabbage fine after my maid had kept it diced and ziplocked for the day.

I like the poriyals served as salads more than a side dish as a subzi. I often make poriyal into a fancy appetiser serving like these tart shells filled with a broccoli poriyal. Adding mung sprouts to my poriyal is another change that I love doing. Those who swear by authenticity may squirm at this, but I don't shy away from experimenting and trust my own taste buds rather than an authentic recipe.

Recipe of cabbage d mung sprouts poriyal...

ingredients
(serves 2)
finely chopped cabbage 1.5 cup
mung sprouts 1 cup
grated fresh coconut 1/4 cup (loosely packed)
lime juice 2 tsp
salt to taste
pepper powder to taste

tempering ingredients..

sesame oil (or any oil you wish) 2 tsp
hing (asafotida) 1 pinch
curry leaves 10 springs
mustard seeds 1 tsp
urad daal (split) 1 tsp
chopped chillies 1 tsp
minced ginger 2 tsp

procedure..

Heat oil and tip in hing and mustard seeds first and then the other ingredients together. Let them all sizzle for a few seconds and then add the chopped cabbage. Toss and stir fry for about 2 minutes, add salt and pepper. Mix well and add the coconut, sprouts and mix again to coat everything together.

Take off the stove, add lime juice and serve hot, warm or at room temperature.

Another most frequently made poriyal in my kitchen is this green beans and carrot poriyal with mung sprouts. I sometimes get lazy and use dehydrated coconut shreds rather than grating it fresh. The trick is to re hydrate the shredded coconut in hot water before using and add it a minute before you take the poriyal off the stove. Making poriyal with more than one vegetable can be a bit tricky if both vegetables have different cooking time. I microwave the beans for a couple of minutes before adding it to the tempering. That saves time and keeps the texture and colour of the beans nice and fresh.

Note that tempering for the different poriyal variations will be the same. Just the way the vegetables are cooked, the way they are added one after the other would change.

Recipe of beans-carrot-mung sprouts poriyal..

ingredients
(2 servings)

finely chopped beans 1 cup
finely chopped carrots 1/2 cup
mung sprouts 3/4 cup
shredded fresh coconut 1/4 cup
salt and pepper to taste
lime juice to taste

Tempering ingredients will be similar to cabbage poriyal.

procedure...

Steam the green beans till half done. I prefer microwaving it in a covered bowl for 2 minutes.

Prepare the tempering while the beans are steaming. Add the carrots as soon as the tempering sizzles and stir fry for a minute. Add the hot steamed beans and cook for another minute of two, tossing it all the while.

Add the coconut and sprouts, mix well and take off the heat. Mix lime juice and serve as desired.

How do you like these poriyal salads? Try making them with gourds and you would see how tasty the gourds become. Okra tastes great with such a tempering but needs a bit more cooking time. I sometimes add a bit of rasam powder to my poriyal salads to make them more zingy.

Make changes as per your taste but use fresh seasonal vegetables for poriyal salads. These will be full meals when you want a light yet satisfying meal for yourself. Ar just add a couple of table spoons of cooked plain rice or couscous to poriyal salads and see how it turns into an absolutely hearty meal.

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why not to use artificial sweeteners? A recipe of parippu pradhaman muffins using unrefined sugar for Indian soul

I know sugary food is often called soul food, it quenches a different kind of thirst, calms down the nerves etc etc. To me that happens only when the sugary treat is home made. Else it just keeps corrupting insulin response and the soul connection is a farce, absolute absurdity. I don't say I don't ever eat ice creams or jalebis but I don't feel a soul connection, rather a generous mouthful makes me feel sick from inside. We eat things for social occasions sometimes, to eat for satiety one needs to work a little extra. Bake some dessert of your own when you really want it and use unrefined sugars or other natural sweeteners.

I see people all around me using artificial sweeteners into their tea, coffee, cakes and pancakes almost everyday. I wouldn't go into details of why artificial sweeteners are bad for the system but it will be good to know that all artificial sweeteners are addictive and have much harmful effects than real sugar. So if you are not diabetic (or if the diabetes is under control, going by your hbA1 readings) and are just trying to keep your weight under control, it is better to have very lightly sweetened beverages and other eatables using real sugar or raw sugar or jaggery rather than depending on artificial sweeteners. You must know even diet soda is addictive for the same reasons.

Having said that, I must add that if you are craving sweets as a habit, it means your insulin has started taking your 'hormone cascade' hostage or has already done it. And mind it, this can be the case even if you are not diabetic. Corrupt insulin discipline in the body doesn't always mean onset if diabetes. It could lead to insulin resistance or hypothyroidism or in a habit of binging and storage of fat in your body, even if you have been eating low fat foods and low cholesterol or 'cholesterol free' foods.

The question I am often asked is, what to eat? I ask, is sugar the only food and sweetness the only taste that makes sense? Why not some zing in the life? Sweetness in the excessive measure corrupts the taste buds and makes your body crave for it more, causing serious imbalances as I mentioned above.

Craving for sweets and cakes is a bad sign, get rid of it.

And if you want to wean yourself from too many sweeteners or you want to bake an occasional treat for a diabetic person in the family, why not bake using natural sweeteners?

 There are a few natural sweeteners and unrefined sugars I use frequently and never feel like adding sugar to my cakes or pancakes or cookies. Yes jaggery and honey are good natural sweeteners but these two need to be used in small quantities to make mildly sweetened dessrts. 

Other great natural sweeteners are ripe bananas, date paste, figs paste, chopped or pureed prunes, apple sauce, sapota puree, raisins and currants, sweet apricot puree, roasted peach puree and mango puree. One can add these to the recipe for baking cakes or cookies and drizzle them with very little honey or home made fruit preserves and the food will be naturally great tasting. The sweetness will be more complex and satisfying and the GI value of the food will be lower, helping your system not to fall prey to craving.

And now coming back to the recipe which is sweetened with unrefined sugar and can be lower GI than a 'white flour artificial sweetener' cake or muffin. Calorie count will be a bit high but being low GI this small muffin would keep you full for quite a long time.

This is my baked rendition of a famous Onam recipe from Kerala called Parippu Pradhaman. Yes, we can bake the traditional puddings that we have grown up loving. Parippu Pradhaman is traditionally a low GI, gluten free desserts but baking makes the recipe convenient for those who are away from home and traditional cooking is not as convenient. This recipe takes 25 minutes to prepare including 20 minutes of baking time. Just 5 minutes to assemble and mix the ingredients. Believe me.

ingredients

(6 muffins)

mung bean flour or chickpeas flour 2/3 cup

powdered jaggery or unsulphured sugar 1/3 cup

coconut milk 150 ml or 2/3 cup

dehydrated coconut chips 1/2 cup

chopped cashew nuts 2 tbsp

preparation

Dry roast the mung bean flour for about 5 minutes. If you don't have mung bean flour you can powder yellow mung dal into a sturdy grinder and proceed. Else us chickpeas flour (besan) but that would compromise the taste.

Mix everything together, saving a few chopped cashews for garnish and make a thick batter.

Pour equal amount of batter in 6 ramekins or lined muffin tray. Sprinkle chopped cashew over these and bake in preheated oven at 200C for 20 minutes.

Serve plain or drizzled with coconut milk. The aroma in the kitchen will just be like you were cooking the traditional parippu pradhaman. Always serve warm although it tastes good even when at room temperature.

You can see this recipe doesn't need anything that needs too much work. Fresh coconut can be used and would result in a better taste but using dehydrated tender coconut chips is not bad.

The chopped cashew nuts get browned and taste really good with the dry version of parippu pradhaman.

I have posted a baked version of traditional north Indian besan ki pinni where I use baking as a convenience procedure, the taste of the traditional pinni is not compromised.

Another baked version of a traditional Indian (north) dessert is baked sevaiyyan that is my effort to make Eed ki sevaiyyan more convenient for the modern kitchen..

Many Indian mithais can be converted into baked version for the ease of cooking as well as to control the amount of cooking fat and the sweeteners used. I even use Microwave oven to make an instant apple kalakand.

Hope you like this baked parippu pradhaman (muffin) as much as I liked them.

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3 ways to use fresh peaches : a peaches and cream dessert, a salad and a salsa with peaches

What do you do when you have the freshest peaches possible, you eat some you let them soften in the fruit basket and make some yummy desserts and salad with them. I even make pasta with peaches. I have been bringing loads of fruits from my frequent visits to Dhanachuli, seasonal fruits freshly plucked from the orchards of fruit sellers themselves most of the times. I have been making jams and preserves for the friends and family as well but those I rarely eat myself. Sugar free fruit desserts and salads are more my type of fruit consumption.

This 'peaches and cream' dessert is actually fresh soft ripe peaches and coconut cream blended together with a hint of Litchi honey. Thats it. Coconut cream can make any dessert great I feel. Especially if you like the subtle sweetness in it and the way it infuses with the chosen fruit. I love mangoes too with coconut cream. This coconut and cream dessert is almost frozen as frozen peaches and coconut cream is used in it. But the ice crystals get emulsified well when you blend it really hard resulting in a silken texture of this peaches and cream dessert.

ingredients
(4 servings)

fully ripe peaches 2 large (or 300 gm)
coconut cream 200 ml (use coconut milk if cream is not available)
honey 1-2 tbsp as required
coconut flakes or chips (lightly dry roasted if you like) 1 tbsp or as required

procedure

Halve the peaches and peel the thin skin as you would peel the skin of parboiled tomatoes. Fully ripe softened peach would allow you to do that. Chop and freeze in a container. Freeze the coconut cream in an ice tray to make it easy to blend. Freeze both of these for at least 2 hours.

Empty both the contents into a heavy duty blender and blend till completely smooth and silky.

Scoop out the semi frozen peaches and cream dessert into glasses or mugs. I used these beautiful glasses from Borosil, just perfect for such a delicate dessert.

Sprinkle coconut flakes over the dessert and serve right away.

You can plan this dessert a day ahead and blend right after the meal so it can be enjoyed at the right temperature. You can always use your ice cream maker and serve as desired.

You can also make Popsicle with the same peaches and cream dessert if you wish. I don;t mind it even if it is a little softer or creamier.

A salad with peaches is also a great way to use up the plenty you have brought home. Aren't you just like me who gets greedy for fruits and buys a lot?

I have been making peach salads and peach pasta every season and this version of insalata caprese is quite a favourite at our place. Sometime we just like it with salt, pepper and torn basil but sometimes I drizzle some basil pesto in the salad or just drizzle some garlic and rosemary infused olive oil.

I have used fresh paneer cubes and fully ripe peeled peaches in this saald. Just chop the peaches in bite sized cubes and toss with paneer cubes and torn basil in a preferred dressing. Sometimes I replace basil with mint and sprinkle some chaat masala to give it an Indian punch.

Being lightly sweetened peaches make a good addition to salads and can replace tomatoes in many recipes. A peach salsa and peach sauce is also really good if you like to spread it over grilled meat or chicken.

Peach salsa salad has the potential to become your family favourite too. Arvind took this salsa in his lunch box twice this week and loved it. Although I have been making tomato salsa, mango salsa and kiwi salsa as well and he has loved all of them. At least some of our choices are similar.

The recipe of the peach salsa salad is really quick. Just cube about a cup of ripe peeled peaches, add 1/2 cup of cubed ripe mango, one ripe plum cubed or a few pomegranate seeds and toss with chopped onion, minced green chillies (as much heat as you like) and some herb of your choice. I love coriander greens and mint leaves in this salsa salad so I use them generously. Add some chopped tomatoes and some chopped cucumber if you wish and season with Himalayan pink salt (or any salt you like) and pepper powder. I added a pinch of dry ginger powder to make the taste deeper and loved it.

 We enjoyed the salsa with some potato papad (alu ke papad from Banaras, microwave roasted) and few multigrain crackers crusted with poppy seeds.

This salsa can be made hot or mild as per taste, you can refrigerate for a couple of hours before serving as it helps melding the flavours better. This lovely jar of salsa will keep enticing everyone as soon as it is served on the dining table. Keep loads of crackers handy for it.

This post is written for the second round of #mybeautifulfood contest organised by Indiblogger and Borosil. For me the food should be healthy first but making it beautiful is not that tough if you get a little creative and prepare the food with love. Serving ware helps a lot you see.

You can find more peach recipes on this blog.
This peach salad with rucola and feta cheese has been phenomenally popular with friends and family.
Peach salad with red cabbage and onions, nuts etc is one more recipe that I keep repeating.
This peach salad with mint has been a perennial favourite too.
I even make iced tea with peaches and basil seeds.
This pasta with peaches is something you must try. Basically you can replace peaches with tomatoes pretty much all the time or replace half the quantity of tomatoes with peaches. Try and see how you like it. And let me know if you did.

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mango couscous salad with mint and my contribution to the cover story in Good Housekeeping India

I have been making salads using mangoes a lot, this mango poha and mango salsa have been favourites and I try and create new versions every now and then. More because we hoard a lot of mangoes sometimes and end up rustling up a quick salad for dinner. We used to eat only mangoes for dinner sometimes and still do that occasionally as the husband just loves anything sweet for dinner.

Recently I made a new version of mango poha with coconut milk and it has already been repeated, served to friends and been loved by all. Many friends tried it when I shared the recipe on facebook and instagram.
I am on instagram @sangeetaamkhanna, please follow me to get more updates on my everyday meals and breakfasts.

This is one of those convenience meals that you would always choose over pastas and instant noodles. I bet. Try this mango and avocado salad and see if you like it. One more wholesome and filling salad with seasonal fruit.

Choosing seasonal fruits and using them for optimal taste and nourishment is a trick one must learn. All of us have individual taste and we might like things a little differently hence it is important to find out a way to create tasty meals with easily available ingredients day after day, every single day.

The purpose of this blog is to motivate everyone to cook tasty healthy meals at home and that is why I was glad to share health tips in Good Housekeeping India (July issue). I was elated when Manjira Dutta, the Editorial Director of the magazine complemented me personally to have listed so practical and easy tips to follow. I talked about those everyday habits and ways to build up health quotient every single day in my last post.

Today I am sharing one of the recipe that featured in Good Housekeeping India and that is a mango couscous salad with mint and coconut flakes.

This tropical flavored couscous is a refreshing change from the regular tabbouleh that is a part of Mediterranean meals. This kind of flavours are received well with people from anywhere in the world as the natural goodness of mangoes and coconut never fails to impress. Real natural flavours from fresh ingredients work their charm on everyone.

For this couscous recipe we prefer using sweet and tart mangoes as they provide a wider range of flavours in the dish. Fresh coconut will be great but you can use the dehydrated tender coconut chips too, they soak up moisture from the mangoes and get really sweet and meaty. Few nuts and seeds make this couscous dish quite filling and healthy.

This recipe serves 4-5

Ingredients

Couscous 1 cup

Hot water 1 cup

Butter 1 tsp

Salt ¾ tsp

Lime juice 2 tsp

Cubed mangoes (preferably sweet and tart) 2 cups

Coarsely grated fresh coconut ¾ cup

Chopped almonds 3 tbsp

Sunflower seeds or pumpkin seeds 2 tbsp

Red chili flakes 2 tsp

Finely diced red onions ½ cup

Finely chopped mint leaves 1 cup

Procedure

Mix butter, salt and lime juice to the hot water, dissolve well and pour over couscous in a wide bowl. Cover and let it soak for 10 minutes. Fluff up with a fork when it cools. Keep aside.

Mix the mango cubes, onions, mint, chili flakes and the chopped almonds and sunflower seeds together. Toss to mix well.

Mix the mango mixture with the couscous and fold in the grated coconut or the tender coconut chips. Adjust seasoning and serve on a large platter.

Sprinkle some more coconut chips and chopped mint over it to garnish.

This mango couscous and mint salad will be a favourite believe me. Just like the mango poha with onions and coriander greens and mango coconut milk poha this recipe is bursting with mango flavours and is a filling tasty wholesome meal.

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a day trip to Rataul to celebrate mangoes: eating local mangoes, identifying tree ripened mangoes and two salads using mangoes

Mangoes come after a spell of sweltering heat. The more cruel the summer gets the more juicy the mangoes become. Nature compensates somehow and also ensures there is something that thrives in every season, something that people find comforting in every season. How I thank for all the watery cucurbits (gourds) in the summer for quick cooling meals and the melons and stone fruits for the juicy flavorsome nourishment they bring in summers and the abundance of crucifers (mustard family vegetables) and the innumerable berries, citrus fruits, guavas. pears, apples and zizyphus in the winters.

To some people, summer's best gift is a ripe juicy mango. Full of antioxidants (polyphenolic anti oxidants and flavonoids), vitamins (B6, C, E and traces of Vit K) and minerals (moderate amount of copper), mangoes are considered alkalising food and great detox food too.

Some people consider it as a fruit responsible for weight gain and some think it brings too much heat into the body and causes boils on face. Well, there are misconceptions about mangoes being fattening in the modern world and there is some traditional wisdom that explains everything. Mangoes do not heat up the system but can cause boils on the face if the fruit is not consumed properly. There are a few precautions one needs to take care of before consuming mangoes. I will list them all but let me tell you that we had a day trip to a place called Rataul which is about 50 kms from Delhi, known for growing several varieties of mango and is one of the several places proud for it's mangoes. A mango variety that was developed in this place and named Rataul is considered the onset of mango breeding and grafting in this small village on the border of Uttar Pradesh. The grandparent of the Rataul mango still stands tall on the border of a field. This article talks about how someone started working on breeding mangoes in Rataul and how it was named.

We had joined Mr Sohail Hashmi who makes an effort to take a few mango enthusiasts from the city to Rataul where Mr. Zahoor Siddiqe welcomes us all in his ancestral home and treats us with huge cauldrons of mangoes.

Mr. Zahoor Siddiqe is a retired professor from DU and runs a school for underprivileged girls in the village, entire savings from the day trip were donated to this school.

A great way to celebrate heirloom mangoes, to visit real mango orchards, to know about the picking practices and how the real tree ripened mangoes are transported to the nearby cities. I actually talked to the people who stay in the mango orchards and guard them and got to know that they collect only the mangoes that fall from the trees when they are ripe. Fully ripe unblemished mangoes are collected, arranged in baskets and sent to nearby mandis. I am impressed.

More reasons to eat local I say. If the mangoes or any fruit are coming to your city from a 100 km periphery, they are ripened on the tree, else they are plucked too early from the trees and are ripened using chemicals, that kind of fruit lacks the real taste and we blame it on how the real mangoes have disappeared. We get to eat real mangoes only if we choose to buy local produce, the ones that travel thousands of miles are chemically ripened.

How to recognize tree ripened mangoes..

Recently someone asked me how to get tree ripened mangoes and I had no definite answer because I don't find vendors who stock only tree ripened local mangoes. The only way I find them by keep looking for such mangoes and buy them whenever I spot them. I shared about how to recognise tree ripened mangoes on my fb page and got many messages in my inbox asking if mangoes are healthy. Hence bringing all the answers here at once.

So the best way to recognize tree ripened mangoes is, to look for a freshly plucked sign. And that is the small part of the stalk attached to the mango, still green, may be a bit shriveled or even absent, but the area around the stalk should look fresh and plump, not sunken. Ready to pluck mangoes may ripen in a week's time, enough to be transported and sold to nearby cities.

Fully ripe mangoes fall from the trees by themselves and are the best. You would start recognizing them once you get the taste of the real ripe mangoes. Taste is the best test.

Are mangoes fattening? Are they responsible for boils?

No they are not.

We have grown up eating mangoes by the dozen, sitting besides a large bucket of mangoes and sucking the juicy flesh out of them till we were soaked in mangoes, inside out. Literally. No one gets fat eating mangoes this way. But if the mangoes are used as a topping on the ice cream, icing on the cake or filling in a pastry, BEWARE. And please know that it is not the mango to be blamed for.

Also, if a couple of mangoes are had after a heavy filling meal, they would definitely add up to the total calories and will cause weight gain. Have only mangoes for 2 days and see what happens. One, you wont be able to eat too many calories, secondly you will purge the calories as easily as you ate them. Mangoes are good cleansers of system. Yoga guru Bharat Thakur says eating mangoes with yogurt for 3-4 weeks results in great weight loss But then it is just the mangoes and yogurt for weeks :-) And I have never tested this theory so cannot say anything.

To avoid boils after eating mangoes, one must soak them in a bucket of water for at least 4 hours and then consume it. The acrid gummy resin that accumulates just below the stalk, is responsible to cause burn when exposed to skin (especially the corners of lips) and consumption (ingestion) leads to boils. Once the mangoes are soaked, the resinous exudation is washed off as it is water soluble.

Removing a part of the mango adjacent to the stalk is a good way to avoid burns and squeezing off the liquid before sucking into a whole mango if you like it that way, is a better way to avoid burns and boils.

Make a meal of mangoes and see how sated your system feels. Do not worry of weight gain but limit the serving size if you are working for weight loss as mangoes can be addictive and you might end up eating loads of it, may be along with more calorie dense foods during the day.

Avocado and mango salad with toasted nuts and seeds 

Choose the best ripe juicy mangoes and cube them. Take a ripe avocado, cut in half and cube the flesh of one half. The ratio of mangoes and avocado can be as per choice.

Mix a cup of cubed mangoes and cubed avocados and spread on a platter. 

Lightly toast sesame, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and broken walnuts and sprinkle over the mango and avocado cubes,

Balsamic soaked shallot slices and sprinkled as desired. This can be avoided if you don't like it.

Mix with a few rucola leaves and serve immediately. You can always use coriander greens or mint leaves. Or avoid it altogether.

This salad has a riot of flavours and textures complementing each other. You might end up stirring this salad almost everyday once you are hooked. For us it is not that frequent as getting nicely ripened avocados is not so easy in Delhi. But whenever we get them, we make something yum.

Mango poha in coconut milk with a hint of red chilly flakes..

Rinse and drain 1/2 cup pf poha (flattened rice flakes) and mix with 100 ml of coconut milk. Add 2 pinches of salt and mix well. You don;t want the salt to overpower the sweetness of mangoes and coconut milk. So just a hint of salt will be added.

Cube 2 ripe mangoes and mix with the poha and coconut milk mix. Sprinkle with 2 tbsp grated fresh coconut or dehydrated coconut flakes.

Sprinkle with roasted red chilly flakes and serve immediately.

This is one filling meal on a summer day. We often eat raw meals during summer as it is good for the system as well and doesn't demand time spent in the kitchen slaving the stove. One more mango poha recipe is our favourite and quite frequent during mango season.

Flavors of this mango coconut poha is just out of the world. We have it for dinner many a times and we both eat from the same mixing bowl. Such foods induce a feeling of togetherness I say.

Health hazards of artificially ripened fruits :

Calcium carbide (CaC2) is used to ripen many fruits including mangoes and banana and is called as 'masala' in Indian mandis. While this chemical is banned in many countries, some farmers and mandis (fruit markets) India Pakistan and Bangladesh etc are still using it for ripening the fruit.

CaC2 contains traces of Arsenic and Phosphorous hydride and cause several chronic and acute health hazards in Humans. The symptoms can range from vomiting, Diarrhoea, skin burning to disturbance in neurological system by inducing prolonged hypoxia that causes headaches, confusion, dizziness, memory loss etc. See this article and this article to read more about the harmful effects of CaC2 and artificial ripening of fruits.

Now you know why choosing naturally ripened fruit is always safe. And brings good taste too.

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