My all-time-favorite-kitchen gadgets!

After putting a lot of thought into my purchases, since I am a sucker for "impulse buys", I believe I have about 5-6 items sitting on my my kitchen counter which I use on a regular basis. My newfound-love for juicing lead me to buy my black and decker juicer - ah! the freshest juice I have ever had, my magic bullet - love it for the delicious smoothies it helps me make plus dry and wet indian masalas, My black and decker toaster oven - such an easy way to quickly toast up everything from garlic bread to hash browns, to reheating pizzas and you name it, my "Rival" electric can opener - what a relief from cutting myself several times while using the hand held ones, and last but not the least my microwave oven. Need I sing the praises of the microwave? Also let me add the george foreman grill to make grilled fish, chicken and all kinds of panini-pressed sandwiches. Now now!!! before I forget - my slow cookers to make awesome soups, daals and goat meat curry, :-).

These few purchases have made my life easier in this country. If you really plan your day ahead of time, you can cook within a short span of time and have a healthy meal at home on a regular basis. Everyone, including me, complaining - " No time to cook", actually feel lazy to put the minimal effort into cooking after a days work. I know its tough, but whoever said life would be easy as pie? Its all about planning your entire week and getting the grocery done. Ones thats taken care of, the cooking isnt that big of a deal. This is tried and tested.

Happy cooking and healthy eating!!

Tasty Italian dinner

yummy! Its a real quick fixer, a 30-minute-cook-time italian vegetarian meal.

The salad :

A veggie salad with cherry tomatoes cut into halves, green grapes cut into halves, mozarella cheese cut into small pieces, lemon, salt and pepper for taste and one table spoon of olive oil. Also sprinkle some cut basil for the authentic aroma. Mix everything in a bowl and let it stand in the fridge for 30 mins.

Main course:

Cook a pasta of your choice based on package direction. Pour a little olive oil in a non-stick cooking pan and add pesto sauce to it and stir in the pasta with it. Add parmesan cheese and then sprinkle some italian parsley for garnish.

Throw in some store bought garlic bread or feel free to make some at home.

There you have it - A tasty vegetarian meal.
Enjoy!

Healing with food

Recovering from a viral fever. Always keen to use food as healer. So when I had a viral infection and since we hardly have any medicine for virus(no antibiotics, that is), it was easier to try to heal with alternative medicines and food. I tried "congaplex" from whole food as a decongestant and a whole food multivitamin. Foodwise I had chicken soup and tried ginger tea bought from whole food too. Had plenty of fluids and ate oranges for vitamin C. Also rested as much as I possibly could. After 3 days I feel a lot better to get back to work and am not contagious either. 

Healthy Veggie Soup

I love soups. There cant be a better diet than a soup diet. Lots of fibers to clean up your intestine, while not counting calories. Your body will thank you. In this cold weather I went ahead and bought myself an instant soup maker. I wanted to make a soup that will last me for at least two days. My suggestion - do not buy an instant soup maker unless its Vitamix. I dumped all the cut veggies in the soup maker while salivating, but the blender blades wouldnt budge. After several attempts I gave up and just dumped all my veggies in a pressure cooker. After a couple of whistles I let it sit, until all the steam was released. Then I blended the veggies for a soupy consistency with a hand blender and wallah, the result was an awesome steaming hot soup, which I devoured with ultimate satisfaction.

Ingredients:

3-4 celery sticks
one bag of steamfresh broccoli florets
1 large tomato
half of a medium onions
1 large green bell pepper
1 large red bell pepper
2-3 garlic pods
1 inch ginger
2 tbsp of sriracha sauce(any red chilli mexican sauce)
1 and half tbsp olive oil
half a bunch of cilantro
1 and half tsp vinegar
1 and half cup of water OR veggie broth
salt and pepper per taste
1 tsp butter in the bowl :-)

Soup lovers please leave a comment about your experiment with this recipe. This is my original recipe.
Enjoy!!!