9 posts tagged “food”
Raita is a raw vegetable, yogurt based salad, not unlike coleslaw other than the yogurt for the dressing. There are lots varieties of recipe for this salad, but I like mine with mint. I mentioned about this dish briefly in my previous posting, so, I thought I'd share the recipe, my version, of this very cooling salad.
Cucumber-Carrot-Mint Raita
- 1 cup shreaded cucumber (squeeze the moisture out as much as possible)
- 1 cup shreaded carrots
- 1/2 cup chopped fresh mint
- 1/2 cup low fat yogurt
- 1 teaspoon brown sugar
Mix everything up and chill in the refrigerator for 20-30 minutes before serving. Easy peasy ...
This salad goes with just about anything, even just on it's own. My kids love it and it a good way to introduce fresh raw vegetables to their diet. It's good for me too .....
This morning a friend sent me a link to an article about food diary and how it helps to reduce weight. It's a good read but, eventhough I keep a personal journal (and a few other notebooks), keeping a dedicated food diary is not for me. I do write about what ate occasionally in my journal if it's interesting enough or if it's something different.
I tried this food diary "thing" before and I can only stick to the food diary for a few months before giving up, because I felt it became repetitious after some time.
Why?
I cook my own food, so I know what I put in my cooking. I generally plan my meal in advance. A typical meal has 3 dishes, One legume/bean based veggies like, French beans, Okra 9ladies fingers), Snake beans, bean sprouts ... etc. One leafy veggies (white or green) like cabbage, Bok Choy, Kailan ... etc. And 1 protein, tofu, chicken, fish or beef. I rarely go out for lunch so when I jot down what I ate everyday, the menu seems the same through out the week. I lose motivation to keep on jotting down my daily consumption because of this.
Also, I don't snack between meals. Instead, I replace my lunch with a light snack like homemade sandwiches I packed from home or fruits. So, I did not have anythig to write down in between meals.
I followed this type of diet, for more than 2 years now, eating more vegetable based food, but my weight loss has been very minimal. I am still as big as a cow!! ... I used to weigh 122kg a couple of years ago and the weight did drop to 108kg and has plateaued since early this year. In order to lose weight, I need more physical exercise which I know I really lack doing. I know I need to sweat the weight out, but still bogged with self made excuses .... sigh!!!
Not knowing the exact calorie content of the food I cook makes
calorie counting useless, at least for me. How much calorie did I
consume this morning? ...
- I mug coffee with artificial sweetener,
- 2 slices wholemeal toasts with last night's leftover chicken curry.
- 1 bowl of cucumber and mint raita, also leftover from last night.
(love this simple salad, suitable anytime of the day. I'll post up the
recipe someday)
Without knowing how much I consumed for breakfast, I am quite at loss as how much should I take for the rest of the day.
I am not saying the article is off the track or totally wrong, it's a good read and may be beneficial to lots of people. I am just sharing a personal point of view and experience, that I tried it and did not work very well for me.
I saw this recipe done on TV, but I cannot remember when and by whom. Even the exact recipe cannot be recalled exactly. So, based on whatever I can remember, and some skills I acquired while helping my mom in the kitchen, I whipped up my version on the Tuna Avocado Salad.
Tuna - Avocado Salad
- 2 medium sized Avocado (remove skin and pit. chopped roughly into 1 cm squares)
- 1 can (approx. 186 gm) Tuna in Olive Oil
- 1 Japanese cucumber (chopped into 1 cm squares approximately)
- 1 large tomato (remove the seeds and chopped into 1 cm squares)
- 1/2 cup chopped corriander leaves
- 1/2 cup chopped spring onion
- Juice of 1 lemon
- freshly ground black pepper.
Just mix everything in a bowl, while breaking the tuna chunks into smaller pieces. Do not throw away the olive oil in the canned tuna. Mix the olive oil with the juice of 1 lemon, it's a very flavourful dressing. A basic salad dressing is 1 part acid (the lemon juice) to 3 parts oil. So, if need to, adjust the lemon juice to taste. Lastly season with black pepper to taste.
Chill the salad in the refrigerator before serving.
This recipe nicely serves 4 to 5 people.
My kids just love this. I like this because the only processed protein in this recipe is the canned tuna. The rest of the ingredients are fresh produce with the nutrients intact. It's a good way to add vegetables to the childrens' diet.
Something I whipped up for breakfast .... quick and simple :D
Bubba's tips for a good sunny side up egg:
1. Buy good, fresh premium eggs. This type of eggs have a strong
membrane that encase the yolk ... meaning a lesser chance of the yolk
breaking off.
2. Use a good non stick pan with very little oil. Excessive oil will make the egg white bubble up resulting in a curly edges (and a little chewy).
3. Heat the pan with a little bit of olive oil ... remove from the heat ... break the egg into the pan ... and put the pan back on the fire. And cook with low to medium heat, around 2 minutes per egg.
After rice and curry for dinner for the past few days, I decided to take a break and cook something different from our usual Malay menu ... The moment I said, "Tonight daddy's going to prepare grilled chicken for dinner ...", my kids jumped with approval.
I think it is a balanced meal ... protein from the chicken, 2 servings of vegetables from the carrots and broccoli, and some carbohydrate from the potatoes. Mom would be proud of me ... heheheheh ... :D
