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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101 gluten free breakfasts : buckwheat-cabbage savoury pancakes with a sesame dip

Although I have been sharing a lot of breakfast recipes here, these actually make my brunch most days as I am not an early morning person generally. I start my day early only when required else I have my brunch and set out for the day's routine work. I think most of the people working from home find brunches convenient as there is no rush to leave for office. So many of my breakfast recipes are more suitable for a relaxed breakfast for someone who works from home.

Those who have to run to the office rely on cereal or banana and milk or eggs and milk etc., Arvind loves his sweet breakfasts and I find it convenient to give him ragi malt, bananas, granola mix or some such convenient instant kind of breakfast while I cook his lunch box. Sometimes I do him a favour and make banana pancakes or jaggery and fennel pancakes for him but I never have liked a sweet breakfast so I cook my brunch in leisure after finishing some more chores.

But this buckwheat savoury pancake was made last weekend, the official brunch kind of days for both of us. This recipe takes just 20 minutes to cook for two servings if you have chopped cabbage in the fridge else add 5 more minutes to the chore. The sesame dip also gets ready while the pancake cooks on the stove. Note that I cook 4 small pancakes at once on a bigger cast iron pan (dosa tawa).

ingredients...
(2 breakfast servings)

buckwheat groats or flour (kuttu sabut or daliya or flour) 1/2  cup (150 gm)
finely chopped cabbage 2 cups packed (about 350 gm)
salt and pepper to taste
yogurt 2 tbsp
ghee to shallow fry, 1 tbsp is enough for 4-6 pancakes done on a large pan

for the dip
toasted sesame seeds 2 tbsp (about 50 gm)
sumac powder 1/4 tsp
tomatoes 2 large
fresh red chilly 1 or more to taste
garlic cloves 1-2
salt to taste

preparation...

Buckwheat powders really quickly in the mixie blender. You can powder within a minute so do it fresh when required, else the buckwheat flour may turn rancid. If you buy buckwheat flour (kuttu ka atta) you can use it directly.

Mix the cabbage in the flour and add salt, pepper and yogurt. Mix well and add a bit of water if required to make a pliable mixture.

Grease the pan, heat and spread small pancakes over the pan. Let it cook on low flame for 10 minutes, flip and cook on the other side too. It gets crisp on the surface but the cabbage retains the bite.

While the pancakes are getting cooked, chop the tomatoes and chilly and blend all the dip ingredients together in the mixie blender. Powder the sesame first and then add the wet ingredients so the dip is smooth.

Serve with hot buckwheat pancakes. We had leftover tomato chutney as well with this breakfast but you don;t need anything sweet with it in my opinion. Else you could have this mango chutney too.

The buckwheat pancake has the nutty taste of buckwheat which is so characteristic of this seed (not a grain). I have not used much seasoning or herbs in the pancake so the taste of buckwheat shines through and a generous amount of dip or chutney can be had with it. You can always add more vegetables or some herbs to this pancake and have it without any dip if you wish.

Look at the buckwheat groats closely if you are wondering what kind of a grain it is.

It makes wonderful pancakes and fritters that get crisp on deep frying or shallow frying, whatever the way you like to cook them. The nutty flavour is very different form any other grain or seed and I have seen some people like buckwheat raw as well. I have never tried raw buckwheat myself.

Shallow frying on low flame is the best way to bring the nuttiness I feel. This amaranth greens and buckwheat pancake is a a much repeated recipe during summer months. Cabbage is just a seasonal variation but the taste is very different in each case.

You would love this buckwheat base pizza too I am sure. Buckwheat pizza is great when you have loads of fresh toppings and good quality cheeses to make a pizza. Buckwheat pizza base adds a nuttiness but stays soft.

Let me know if you cook with buckwheat. I have been cooking with it a lot lately as I have found a store in my neighborhood that stocks it always and not just in Navratri season.

Please tell me where do you get buckwheat in your part of the world as I get a lot of queries regarding it's availability. Your inputs would help other readers and friends as well.

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101 gluten free breakfasts : lentil fritters with home grown greens #calorieefficientmeals

There has been a deluge of seasonal greens on #healthfooddesivideshi as my garden is flooded with spinach and fenugreek greens. Although I have been traveling almost back to back since the first week of February, I found comfort in the greens that the garden treated me with whenever I was back home.There is some baby bok choy and some kale too but these remained stunted during the harsh winter and then they suddenly started bolting. So the best use was to chop them up and stir fry or mix with lentils and make fritters. But to be honest I was using them in everything possible, the everyday dal or khichdi, the quick soups and even in flat breads like this thalipeeth. You wouldn't want to waste any home grown organic produce once you know how difficult it is grow food.

This mixed lentil spinach soup topped with sour cream is one of my favourite meal these days. Now you see I cannot get bored with spinach. Cooking with home grown spinach is always fun.

It helps that I love green vegetables and I assure you even you would love them if you find the best quality available in your part of the world. Cooking them well is also important but that is a skill everyone must have if one wants to know what one is eating. Right?

Including the greens is not as difficult as it sounds to many. I know many who dread cleaning and rinsing the greens to get rid of the dirt and then chopping them for hours. The easy way is to buy in bulk when you have time, clean them well and steam to compress and then freeze in portions. The frozen greens are very easy to chop. I do the same with all the garden produce and now I have frozen greens for a couple of months.

Using the fresh or frozen greens for breakfast wouldn't be a very common thing to many, including my husband who loves his pancakes or porridge for breakfast but one can make healthy breakfast with them in a jiffy. Being prepared is the key, I prefer soaking the lentils overnight and it takes about 15 minutes to cook breakfast for 2 including the chopping and blending time.

This is red lentil and spring onions from the garden, both make a wonderful spongy pancake that can be enjoyed with herbed yogurt of any other dip you wish. Note the ratio of greens to lentil paste and how the mix looks more green and less pink.

Spinach and split chickpea fritters recipe
(2 breakfast servings)
split chickpeas 1/3 cup or about 100 gm (soaked overnight)
ginger root grated 1 tbsp
peppercorns 1/2 tsp
cumin seeds 1/2 tsp
chilli as per taste
salt as per taste
turmeric powder 1/4 tsp
finely chopped spinach 3 cups or about 350 gm
ghee 2-3 tsp to shallow fry on a cast iron pan

procedure 

Grind the soaked lentil along with everything except the ghee and spinach. Do not add water.
Mix all the spinach in the lentil paste, massaging it softly so the spinach gets almost blended with the paste. You would need to quickly shallow fry the fritters after mixing as it releases water after mixing.

Make small portions of the mixture, spread on the pan and shallow fry on both sides as you would do with small pancakes. I prefer cooking these on low flame, often covered with a dome lid to make them cook faster but you can drizzle a bit more ghee or oil to cook them faster. If you want lesser amount of ghee being used you have to cook them on low flame.

Serve hot with any mild chutney, salsa or dip that you like.

For these spinach fritters I made the most common and quick chutney that I make. A cup of red ripe tomatoes, 1 clove of garlic, 2 dry red chillies and salt blended together to make a chutney. Sometimes I add coriander greens or mint in the same.

A similar kind fritters I made with a mix of kale and some baby bok choy mixed with red lentil paste. The procedure is similar, you can adjust seasoning and make small or big fritters. Making them thinner would help in faster cooking but they taste good any which way.

The anardana dip..

The above bowl of dip is very interesting. It is a sweet and sour dip with a kick of roasted red chilly flakes (or just lightly roast a couple of dry red chillies over gas flame). This is actually made of sun dried pomegranate seeds.

Blend together 2 tbsp of good quality sun dried pomegranate seeds, 2 tbsp of roasted sesame seeds, 2 large ripe char grilled ( on gas flame) tomatoes, roasted chilly or chilli flakes to taste and salt to taste. Serve as desired.

Another such pancake is made with green peas included in the lentil paste. The one below is made with home grown fenugreek leaves, some green peas and chopped onions. The dip with it is the most convenient tomato-garlic-red chilly blended together with a dash of mustard oil.

The leftover paste was made into smaller fritters with tea the other day. Always shallow fried for convenience as well as health.

These lentil fritters made with a truckload of fresh greens is a really healthy breakfast or even dinner if you want something quick and healthy. Truckload of greens wouldn't sound like a hyperbole once you would mix the greens with the lentil paste as lentil paste is just used to bind the greens here.

This fluffy pancake is made with red lentil paste and rocket leaves that my garden was flooded with last year. Those yellow cherry tomatoes were from the garden to. The dip served with it is a mushroom and caramelized onion dip that I use as a sauce over my steak sometimes too.

If not using soaked lentils you can always use besan (chickpeas flour) and sprinkle over chopped greens while massaging them to bind well. This one with spring onions is a favourite as breakfast or an evening tea snack that becomes our dinner sometimes.

With cabbage it makes easier fritters as cleaning and chopping the cabbage is always easier than other greens.

These lentil fritters can be served as starters for an elaborate meal, make them smaller in that case and serve with 2-3 types of chutneys and dips for variety. I sometimes have these fritters along with my dinner soups as well.

You see how 100 gm of dry lentils can bind about 300-350 or even 400 gm greens when soaked and blended. More nourishment, lesser dense calories, real fresh food that satiates the taste buds as well as the tummy.

Calorie efficient meals to sum up. Each calorie consumed brings in great nourishment with it. What is not there to like. I love it.

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broccoli, green garlic shoots and quark cheese dip, making snacking healthier

Cheesy-creamy dips never fail to impress. Making them with homemade fresh cheese and enriching it with flavours of the season is a great way to eat for nourishment. There is a misconception that taste is inversely proportional to nourishment and this blog is here to correct that notion. You know your food well if you are reading this right now and I want you to learn some simpler ways to cook delicious food from scratch because learning how to cook will ensure great quality of ingredients and nourishing food on the table every single day. The feedback that I get from all of you reading this blog encourages me to try and bring more simple, seasonal, affordable, doable recipes that go a long way for a healthy lifestyle.

This broccoli and quark dip is very quick once you have some quark ready in the fridge. Making quark cheese at home is not at all difficult as it is a simple curd cheese with a little higher fat content for creamy texture. Just whip a kilo of plain yogurt with 100 ml single cream (25% fat), let it sit for an hour and then strain it through muslin lined sieve propped on to a large bowl to collect the whey that can be used to knead bread dough later. Keep the sieve along with the bowl refrigerated overnight and collect the thick creamy quark in the morning. Keeps well for a week in non reactive containers once refrigerated. Use as required.

You can whip this quark cheese to make fruit based desserts like strawberry-quark mousse as well as dips using various base ingredients. Quark provides richness in texture and taste and is a healthy ingredients rich in calcium and good fats.

Since I had loads of farm fresh broccoli someone had sent 2 weeks ago, I used that to make this dip to take to our family potluck one day. Everyone loved it and I was regretting why I did not make more. This dip also keeps well for 3-4 days in the fridge.

ingredients..

quark cheese 1 cup or about 300 gm
nuts soaked for 2 hours about 30 gm ( I used cashews and walnuts)
broccoli florets chopped in small pieces 3 cups (about 500 gm)
fresh green garlic shoots with white bulbs chopped 1 cup (about 150 gm)
salt to taste
pepper powder 1 tsp
olive oil 1 tbsp

procedure

Heat a pan and drizzle olive oil to coat. Add the chopped broccoli and salt and stir well to coat lightly with oil and sweat the broccoli. Add the chopped green garlic and mix, cook covered for 5 minutes or till everything is wilted. Cool to room temperature.

Now mix everything else and make a smooth paste in your trusted food processor or mixie.

Serve as desired, drizzled with some extra virgin olive oil.

I served this dip with home made whole wheat crackers. You can serve this with any kind of whole wheat or ragi or millet crackers you like. You can make a variety of dips with many lentils and vegetables with added yogurt, quark or nuts paste and add zing to everyday meals.

This broccoli and quark dip had a mild sharpness provided by fresh green garlic that we get in abundance all through winters. If you don't have access to it you can use garlic cloves but in smaller quantity. Roasted garlic would also taste really good in this dip.

This dip makes a great bread spread as well.

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eggplant raita or baingan ka raita : two recipes to make the everyday meals interesting

Eggplants are versatile vegetables found in various shapes and hues. I have grown almost all possible colours and shapes of eggplants in my gardens over the years and have found slight variations in taste and aroma etc, and the way they cook to become too soft or a little firm. Some of them have a little bitterness after cooking and some have a subtle sweetness that they impart to the baingan bharta or baba ghanoush we make with them.

I am now realizing that I haven't yet shared our traditional recipe of baingan ka chokha (eggplant mash), not even the baingan ka bharta, both being similar in looks but very different in flavours. I will correct this mistake really soon and share both the recipes. This eggplant raita or baingan ka raita recipe was long overdue since Amrita asked for it once I shared a picture of this raita with a beetroot salad recipe. Now that this raita is quite frequent on my plate owing to the ease to cook it and the way I can make variations too, I took a few more pictures and now the recipe is here. I am sharing two variations of eggplant raita. One with the green eggplants from my garden and another with the round purple variety that is also called bharta wala baingan here in north India.

These green oblong beauties are fresh from my garden and I sometimes just grill them on gas flame for a couple of minutes as they cook really fast. I never bother to peel these ones after grilling as the skin is very thin and doesn't change the taste of whatever I cook with them. I make a smooth blended raita with these which is mostly had like a thick cold soup.

Here I served it with a raw papaya paratha (with besan and atta mix) and polished off a huge bowl of this raita with just one paratha. This recipe is useful when you want to consume loads of vegetables and some calcium supplementation in your food too. I have added sesame seeds to this raita along with hung yogurt to fortify it with calcium.

Recipe of eggplant and sesame seeds raita

ingredients
(2 servings)

grilled eggplant peeled (if required) and mashed 1 cup
hung yogurt 1 cup (preferably full fat)
sesame seeds 2 tbsp
garlic cloves 5
paprika powder or mild chilly powder 1 tsp
salt to taste

procedure

Powder the sesame seeds first in food processor of blender. Add hung yogurt, mashed eggplants and other ingredients together and blend till smooth. Serve as desired.

You can use fresh yogurt if you like this raita a little liquid but note that the grilled eggplant mash is quite watery too.

The round purple variety of eggplants is more fleshy and more aromatic I feel. I have not grown this variety for years now but I keep buying it whenever I see some fresh light weight eggplants of this variety. Always choose shiny, light weight eggplants with a fresh green crown on them.

These need to be flame grilled too to made into a raita. This raita is more like a mashed chunky mix of flavours that feels almost like a subzi (curry). You can make it more like a white raita by adding more yogurt or buttermilk to the recipe but it would depend what you are serving it with. Tweak the recipe as it suits you.

Recipe of chunky baingan ka raita

ingredients
(2 servings)

2 medium sized round eggplants flame grilled and peeled or 1.5 cup cleaned and mashed grilled eggplants
minced green chillies 1 tsp
minced garlic 1/4 tsp
finely diced red onions 2 tbsp or a little more
chopped coriander greens 3- tbsp
salt to taste
hung yogurt or thick yogurt 1 cup or more to suit your taste

procedure

Mash everything together to make a thick mix. Serve as required. Here I had it with a multigrain roti (flat bread) and amle ka achar along with loads of cucumber and radish batons on the side.

The kind of simple meals I like. Such meals are very good for days when you want a light yet tasty meal to satiate you.

I have shared some oriental style eggplant recipes here, please check out if you love eggplants like me and want to eat eggplants differently.

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