Summer Special | Banana Gulkand Milkshake

With the temperature soaring, I have given up on my evening cup of tea. It becomes impossible to enjoy anything hot even in the evening. So my cuppa chai is replaced by milkshakes now. Since bananas are a staple in my fruit basket and since they taste great in milkshakes, i find myself making banana milkshakes oh-so-often. The latest twist to the milkshake is from the addition of gulkand to it and it tastes out of the world.

The milkshake utilizes just two main ingredients other than milk- sliced bananas and gulkand.

I don't add ice cubes to the milkshake. I normally set aside 2-3 glasses of boiled milk in the fridge these days specifically for milk shakes. I don't like the milkshake too thick, so I water it down sometimes too, since the bananas already add a lot of body and thickness to the milkshake.

Gulkand is a welcome addition since it adds a whole new taste to the milkshake and prevents the need to add extra sugar. Gulkand is made from rose petals and sugar and is an ayurvedic remedy to cool down the body during summer. It regulates the body temperature, alleviates constipation and acidity and soothes any kind of inflammation in your digestive tract. What more do you need to cool yourself down this summer?! Onto the recipe now.

Preparation Time - 3 Minutes
Cooking Time - Nil
Serves - 2

Ingredients for Banana Gulkand Milkshake  

1 Banana sliced ( I use the large robusta variety, use 2 if using yelakki) 

1 and 1/2 tsp Gulkand 

1 glass chilled Milk 

1/2 glass water (skip if you like a thick shake)

Method to prepare Banana Gulkand Milkshake 

Simply add the banana and gulkand in a blender with a little bit of milk. Whizz for a minute to make a smooth paste. Add the milk and the water to this and mix well. Serve immediately. You can pair it with you breakfast or like me use it for an energy boost in the evening. 

Pumpkin Palak Soup | Pumpkin and Spinach Soup

There has been an overdose of fall pictures and gorgeous looking pumpkin recipes on the internet in the past few days. After ogling at them on pinterest for some time, yours truly ordered pumpkin from bigbasket in the week's grocery, with an intention of making some muffins with them. They got stowed into the back of the fridge and lay forgotten there for a while.
One fine evening, when it was pouring as usual and i felt the need for a warm soup and rummaged through my vegetable box, i found the pumpkin and some spinach side by side. The spinach had to be used up and i was tired of making greens stir fry or dal for three days in a row. And so it was decided that the greens would go into a soup and it would be pumpkin and spinach soup for the night.
There is a mild sweetness that comes from the pumpkin in this soup which is balanced by adding some chilli flakes or red chilli powder. To enhance the flavors, i have used some jeera powder.
I have used a pressure cooker to speed up the process- saute the ingredients in it, pressure cook and dunk the hand blender into the same cooker and puree- it is as simple as it can get!

Preparation time: 10 mins
Cooking time: 20 mins
Serves: 2 Level: Easy

Ingredients:

1 onion sliced
1" ginger sliced
1 cup of chopped pumkin
1 cup of chopped spinach
salt to taste
1 tsp red chilli powder
1/2 tsp cumin powder
1/2 tsp of mixed herbs (thyme, rosemary and oregano)
a dollop of butter or some cream for topping

Method: 

Wash and chop the vegetables that are going into the soup.

 In a pressure cooker, add some butter and saute the onion and ginger in it.

Now add the pumpkin and fry for a few minutes after which you add in the spinach.

Season with salt and chilli powder. Fry until the vegetables are evenly coated in the spices.
Add a cup of water to the cooker and cook for 2-3 whistles on low flame.

Once the mixture cools down, blend it well. I do not strain the mixture. I like to get small bits of veggies in the soup. Now thin it down a little if you want it watery. Add the cumin powder. Adjust the salt. Bring the soup to a boil.
Top it with some butter or cream and season with mixed herbs.

Mix well. Pour into your soup bowls. Serve warm with some toasted bread or roasted papad.

Detox Water

It happens way too often to me that i pick up a box of snacks, just to have a little something while reading a book, and i end up eating it up whole! What follows is a heavy queasy stomach and a lot of regret at having eaten so much junk!
This time around, when the same thing happened after an overdose of snacking at home, Amma told me about this particular detox drink. I googled it and found that a lot of people do something like this for cleansing and weight loss. So out came the saved up Snapple bottles and we set out to put together our detox drink.
What i really loved about it is that it is extremely refreshing, zero on calories, so easy to put together and so good on the stomach.

Preparation Time: 5 Mins
Calories: Zero

Ingredients:

1 liter water
A sprig of mint
Half an english cucumber
An inch of cinnamon
Half a lemon

Method:

Clean the cucumber, mint and lemon. Cut one half of the lemon into quarters. Chop the cucumber with its peel into long slices.
Now simply drop all the ingredients into a one liter bottle. I wanted to increase the good looks quotient of the drink and used two snapple bottles to make the drink.

 Add water to the bottle and put it in the fridge and leave it overnight.
Remove it from the fridge the next morning. You could let it return to room temperature if you do not prefer to drink it up cold.
There is no need to strain. Simply pour yourself a glass. Keep sipping it through the day. It helps cleanse your system. The drink is packed with the freshness of the cucumber and mint and the tang from the lemon. The cinnamon adds a nice woodsy flavor to it.
Do not throw the cucumbers. You can eat them up once you pour out the water. So also use the remaining juice from the lime.
So next time you binge, try this to reduce the after effects!

Healthy Snacking | Lunch Box Series

My parents leave home at regular government office timings. Living in a not-so-crowded place like Mysore, they can afford to dwell on the newspaper with a cup of tea and biscuits, then have a leisurely breakfast everyday. Yours truly is rushed most of the time, having to leave early to work. Does not mean i skip breakfast. I wonder how people sustain without it! There are so many people i know who do not eat a full breakfast. A cup of tea, a piece of cake, some fruit are some of the replies i get when i ask them what they normally eat before getting to work. I would feel really giddy and tired if i was in their place. Maybe my body is conditioned like that.
But the problem with eating an early breakfast is that at around 10 o clock, the stomach starts rumbling. In keeping with eating 6 small meals a day, it certainly is a good habit to feed the stomach something filling and healthy at that time, to sustain until lunch.
I normally carry cut fruits or some salad to munch on as a morning snack. It is loaded with fiber, is filling and loaded with nutrients! Here are some healthy snacking ideas. It will take you about ten minutes in the morning to put it together. Just make it a habit to soak pulses twice a week- green gram, channa, horse gram- anything that you like! Or else, buy lots of vegetables during the weekly grocery that are high in water content. It's that simple!

Diced english cucumber, red bell peppers, boiled sweet corn, coriander leaves with a lime juice +olive oil+salt+chili flakes dressing.




Go the South Indian way. Tadka of mustard, curry leaves, green chili and hing. Simply add pressure cooked sprouts with salt. Toss and carry. High on protein and great to taste!

Want to eat sprouts in a more healthy way? Have them raw. Make the salad interesting with cucumber, tomato, pomegranate, salt and pepper. Add a dash of lime to finish it off.
So you see, it is really simple to make something to carry along for that odd time hunger pang. Next time you feel like reaching out for that biscuit packet at the supermarket to carry as snack, stop yourself and try making something like this. Sure to save you some calories for the day! ;)

Notes:

Adding salt does make the veggies leave out water. So go slightly easy on the salt when carrying these for the box.

A step closer to nature

People who know me well know for the fact that i am a sucker for good advertisements. One of the repercussions of this is the desire to buy all new things on the shelves in the supermarket. If the commercial is good, the product ought to be good! I have been carried away by commercials one too many that promise beauty in a bottle. I have spent loads of money in the secret hope that the product will give me the much needed reprieve from oily skin and erase away the zits like magic. It took me so many wasted purchases, lots of money down the drain and zero change in my skin to realize that every bit of it is hogwash.

To top it, I read this on the Forest Essentials website:

"If you were offered a meal with Celyl alcohol, 10 Dopropyl, Butyl carbonate, Sodium Sulfonate, Discodium EDTA, BHT, Red dye # 17, Yellow die # 10 and CT # 7scent, would you care to eat it? Millions of people, you may be one of them, “ eat” these chemicals every day, since they are standard ingredients in some of the bestselling Brand name moisturizers and soaps in our country!"

It got me thinking about what i was feeding my skin on a daily basis! Hence a move towards things natural. To use on my skin what i can consume as food. So my daily face cleansing comes from aloe vera gel and gram flour. 

When mixed with some apricot powder once a week, it turns into an amazing scrub! 

Cold weather? Hydrate your skin with the goodness of coconut oil. I can't think of a better moisturizer than this! It goes on the hair, in the skin and cooking. How much safer can it get? Can lay your hands on Organic extra virgin coconut oil? Nothing better than that. If not that, our good old Parachute will also do! 

  Need more intense moisturization? Try Cocoa Butter or Shea butter. 

My friend got me a tin of Organic Shea Butter from Vitamin Shoppe in the US. Shea butter is a lot like beeswax only that it has like some one hundred benefits. You could use it as is by rubbing it a little between your palm or fingers to melt it, or make a 1:1 mixture of Shea butter with olive oil or coconut oil. Add a couple of drops of your favorite essential oil if you want a pleasant fragrance. Your own personal customized solution for all things ranging from dry skin to cracked heels to chapped lips! Oh yes, it also claims to do wonders to reduce wrinkles and fine lines! If you are still not convinced, turn over your favorite anti aging creme and check its ingredients. The number of chemicals that go into it will convert you too! 

This is a start for me. This new year, i have gotten rid of most products in my dresser that reek of chemicals. I emptied my last shampoo bottle last year to start using an organic hair wash powder that i picked up during my last trip to Ooty. 

Now the only vice that remains is the love for fragrances. I don't know if they come in the organic way. Any which ways, since they go on the clothes and not on the skin and since i love them way too much, am going to continue using them till this batch that i have gets over! 

 Beyond all this, what matters is that you eat good food, exercise  and remain happy. Nothing beats that! A Happy and Healthy 2013 to all of you. Treasure all your blessings!