Adding brown rice to your diet

The normal white rice we eat is brown rice minus the nutritional value. In the name of milling and polishing, we remove  67% of vitamin B3, 80% of vitamin B1, 90% of vitamin B6, half and phosphorus, manganese and iron. 

The need to add brown rice to our diet is universally known. The thing we dont know is how to add it to our diet. Only a very few people can actually cook and digest it directly. Most of the people are like me. Frankly, they just cant eat it! 

So what I do, is add it to idli rice in the ratio of 3(brown rice):7(white rice). We get to eat brown rice and we dont even have a slight change in our diet. None of my family has ever been able to find the difference between the normal idli and the idli made with addition of brown rice. 

You have to try it to believe it!

Aloo and Drumstick curry

A tasty and a healthy curry.

Ingredients:


Drumstick : 2 cups
Potatoes : 2
Onion : 1
Tomato : 1 (pureed)
Garam masala : 1/2 tsp
Red chilli powder : 1/2 tsp
Coriander powder : 1 tsp
Ginger garlic : 1 tsp
Mutter : 1/2 cup
Coconut(grated) : 1/2 cup
Curry leaves : around 10
Coriander leaves : a handful


Method :

1. Clean and scrap the drumsticks.
2. Cut them into 2 inch pieces
3. Cut the potatoes
4.  Make a paste of coconut, onion, coriander powder, coriander leaves, garam masala and ginger garlic paste.
5. Boil the drumstick and potatoes till they are cooked.
6. In oil, add mustard seeds, curry leaves and the paste of step 4. Fry for 5 min.
7. Add the drumstick and potatoes and fry for 5 more min.
8. Add tomato puree and salt. Keep the heat on sim for 5 more min.

Tomato pasta

I found this recipe at the back of a Bambino macaroni and could not resist trying it. The outcome was fantastic. Fell in love with it. Here is the recipe -

Ingredients :

Shell pasta - 3 cups
Tomatoes - 6
Onions - 3
ginger garlic paste - 2 tsp
garam masala - 1.5 tsp
turmeric powder - 1 tsp
chilli powder - 1/2 tsp
Water : 4.5 cups
Salt

Method :

1. Puree the tomatoes
2. Grind the onions into a fine paste. You can substitute big onions with small onions too.
3. Heat 2 tbsp oil in a cooker. Add garam masale and turmeric. Add the tomatoes and fry for a couple of minutes.
4. Add the onion paste and ginger garlic paste and fry till the raw smell is not present.
5. Add the shell pasta, water and close the cooker without the weight. Wait till steam starts coming out.
6. Them reduce the flame to sim. Switch off after 5 min.
7. Garnish with coriander leaves and grated cheese.

Radish Paratha

Easily the best of all paratha's. Easy to make and absolutely yummy. Even my one and a half year old loves it. My son is fast becoming the yard stick to measure the standard of my cooking. He eats only if the dish is absolutely yummy. Else, he just sticks to drinking milk.

Ingredients :


Radish : 4
Wheat flour : 2 cups
Ginger : 1 inch
Garic : 1 pod
chilly : 2
coriander : a handful
garam masala : 1/2 tsp
mirchi powder : 1/2 tsp
Salt : 1/2 tsp or as required
curry leaves

Method :

1. Grate all the radish.
2. Mix with salt, garam masala and mirchi powder and leave for 1/2 hour.
3. The radish will expel its water as it is mixed with salt.
4. Remove the water and keep separately.
5. Mix the radish with the wheat flour and add salt as required. You can use the radish water to kneed the flour. If you dont want to waste the left over water, just add it to the curry that you are preparing.
6. Take the ginger, garlic, chillies and curry leaves and dice it finely. I generally use the food processor for this.
7. Add this mixture along with coriander leaves to the wheat flour mixture.
8. Now make small balls and use the rolling pin to roll it into circles.
9. Fry both sides on the frying pan.
10. Use ghee on both sides.

Tastes great with raita.

Health pointer : You can add a spoon of flax seeds to the wheat mixture. Flax seeds are one of the top twenty food that are good for the body. So, I try to add them as much as possible to my cooking.