Fruit Salad - A Delicious Lowfat Treat

Shopping in a certain pattern means your pantry is filled with foods of a certain kind ... which leads you to create dishes that line up with that pattern. Logical.
I found a few ingredients in my kitchen this weekend that when put together were absolutely delicious and to my surprise the whole thing was very nearly fat free!

This is absolutely delicious, creamy and really feels like a treat. It is sweet, though.

(source: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/ Sura Nualpradid)


Ingredients:
2-3 cups (total) of fruits, chopped
          Kiwis
          Apples
          Grapes
          Bananas
          Strawberries
          Anything you want
1 package Vanilla fat free instant pudding mix
1 cup fat free or 1% milk
1 cup fat free Coolwhip, thawed in the fridge
2 tbsp of fat free or regular Sour Cream

Method:
1. Take a bowl into which all of the ingredients will fit.
2. Mix the Vanilla pudding mix with milk.
3. Stir in the coolwhip and sour cream.
4. Mix in the fruit, thoroughly.

Refrigerate for 1-2 hours and serve.

So so so so good.

Eggplant Lasagna

This is absolutely and incredibly delicious. Try it.

Substitute "noodles":
1 large eggplant, cut into 3mm thick slices
White sauce:
1 small clove garlic, minced
150g low-fat cheddar cheese
2 tbsp oil
2 tbsp flour
1 cup skim milk
1 tsp oregano
2 cups of sliced mushrooms
Red sauce:
1 cup pasta sauce
1/4 cup ground beef
a few sliced black olives


Salt to taste

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lay out the eggplant in single layer and bake for 20 minutes.
2. The white sauce: Make a roux with the oil, flour and garlic. Stir in the milk, mushrooms and cheddar cheese until it all mixes together and thickens. Taste and add salt if necessary.
3. The red sauce: Cook the ingredients for the red sauce together. Add salt if necessary.
4. Layering: 1 layer eggplant, all the red sauce, remaining eggplant in 1 layer, all of the mushroom white sauce, and a thin layer of cheddar cheese.
5. Bake in 350 deg oven for 30 minutes.

Enjoy!

Lau Maach, Squash with Salmon in a Mustard and Poppyseed sauce, লাউ মাছ পোস্ত দিয়ে

I couldn't find a Bengali recipe for Squash or Lau (Gourd) with Salmon. Since Lau-Chingri (Gourd with Shrimps) exists, then why not mix Lau with another oceanic creature?

So here is my lovely creation. I have to say, it tastes absolutely wonderful with some rice. Doesn't take long to prepare either.

400-600g salmon, cut into 100g pieces
1 large squash cut into thin 1 inch pieces (roughly 3-4 cups)
2 tbsp black mustard, ground
1 tbsp white poppy seeds, ground
1 tsp red chilli powder
2 tsp turmeric/haldi powder
2 tbsp mustard oil
1 tsp panch phoron
2 green/red chillies (optional)
salt to taste
1.5 cups of water

1. Place the ground mustard seeds, ground poppy seeds, 1 tsp red chilli powder in a non-reactive bowl and add 1/2 cup of water to soak the seeds in. Leave this for 10 minutes or so. If the mixture looks dry add a little more water until it is the consistency of cooked oats  or beaten eggs.
2. In a separate bowl, mix the Salmon with 1 tsp of haldi and some salt. In a heated pan, add 1-2 tsps of oil and lightly fry the salmon for 1 minute on each side.
3. Remove the fish from the pan and keep it on a separate plate.
4. To the pan still on the heat, add the remainder of the mustard oil. Wait till it's hot then add the panch phoron.
5. Once the panch phoron sizzles, add all of the squash/gourd/lau at once and mix thoroughly. Add salt to taste.
6. After about 5 minutes of cooking, add the mustard/poppy seed paste, 1.5 cups of water, green chillies and stir till everything is evenly combined.
7. Drop in the salmon pieces gently. Submerge under the liquid. Cover the pan with a lid and turn the heat to medium-low and let it come to a boil.
8. Cook all of this for at least 10-15 minutes.

Serve with hot rice.

Yum! Yum! Yum!

Low-fat low-points Banana Pineapple Walnut Cake

Makes 12 slices

Ingredients, PointsPlus value
Group1:
2 cups flour, 24
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup Splenda
1/4 cup powdered or regular sugar, 4
1/2 tsp cinnamon
a little freshly ground nutmeg

Group 2:
1 cup (8oz.) pureed pineapple or 1 can crushed pineapple
2 cups pureed or mashed bananas
2 tbsp oil, 6
2 eggs, 4
1 egg white

Group 3:
1.5 cups chopped or sliced bananas
1/2 cups chopped pineapple
1/4 cup walnuts broken, 4

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Mix Group ingredients
3. Mix Group 2 ingredients
4. Combine the Group 1 and Group 2 ingredients till just thoroughly combined
5. Add in Group 3 ingredients and fold everything together till thoroughly combined.
6. Divide into 2x9-inch round baking tins. Bake for 40 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

This cake is quite moist and quite sweet. I left a little bit of oil and sugar in for a nice taste and partly for texture.

Delicious served cool or warm. If you can splurge a few calories, a light cream-cheese frosting will be nice.

PointsPlus value per slice: 3.5

Lower Calorie, Yet Delicious, Cakes

Some ways to get lower calorie yet very delicious cakes:
1. Replace oil with apple sauce.

2. Use diet-soda instead of eggs and oil while making a box cake:
http://www.skinnytaste.com/2008/12/diet-soda-cake-35-pts.html

(source: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/ Stuart Miles)

Example:

Here is a lemon-poppyseed cake I love, but I replaced the oil with apple sauce and eggs with mostly egg whites:
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/lemon-poppy-seed-bundt-cake/detail.aspx?event8=1&prop24=SR_Title&e11=poppyseed&e8=Quick%20Search&event10=1&e13=A%3aSearch%20Results-List%28control%29&e7=Recipe%20Search%20Results

PointsPlus Calculation:
1 box cake (lemon flavour) = 55 PointsPlus
1 instant pudding mix (vanilla flavour) = 11 PointsPlus
1 egg = 2 PointsPlus
4 egg whites = 1 PointsPlus
1/2 cup apple sauce = 1 Points Plus
TOTAL = 70 Points Plus

Total weight of cake made = 892g
Each slice (1/6th of cake) or 1 Cupcake = 72g

Points per slice or per cupcake = 6 PointsPlus

Broccoli with besan

A very nice idea.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZibdpSaep4

I also added a bunch of vegetables I had in the fridge: cauliflower + green peppers.

A Treat: Stuffed Peppers

And its low calorie + low carb!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aQat94Ixig

Guaranteed Tasty Chhole/Chick peas

 Forget about frying onions. It ruins the nice authentic "chhole" or Indian Chickpeas taste. I was floored with how GOOD this tasted! And I got an AWESOME complement for it too!

3 cup cooked chhole/chick peas/garbanzo beans
1 tsp whole cumin seeds
3-4 cloves garlic minced
1 inch ginger minced
1 dried red chilli
1 tsp whole garam masala (2 cardamom pods, 1 small stick cinnamon, 2 cloves, 2 whole peppercorns)
1 tsp garam masala powder
2 tbsp MDH chana masala powder OR 2tsp cumin powder + 1tsp coriander powder
1 tsp turmeric
2 large tomatoes
2 tbsp oil
1/2 to 1 cup water

1. Heat oil on medium heat. Add cumin seeds, garlic, ginger, whole garam masala, dried red chilli. Let it sizzle.
2. Add tomatoes, haldi, garam masala powder and haldi powder. Cover and cook till tomatoes are cooked and reduced to a thick gravy.
3. Add chick peas, salt. Stir well. Add 1/2 - 1 cup water. Cover and cook for 20 minutes.
4. Once it's all cooked, Mash the chick peas in the pot with a potato masher or the back of your spoon  to make the sauce thick.

DELICIOUS Low Carb Fajita/Taco Salad

I had this for supper today because I had all the ingredients in the fridge and I wanted to avoid refined carbs if I could for supper. And MAN was this ever a delicious dinner!

2 oz. cooked meat/chicken/turkey/fish cut into bite size pieces and warmed through (I had leftover chicken drumsticks and some leftover leg of lamb)
2 cups romaine lettuce, washed and sliced
1 spring onion, sliced
3/4 cups salsa
1-2 tbsp fat free sour cream

Combine everything except the sour cream in a bowl and mix together.

Dot with sour cream and dig in!

This was delicious, satisfying, filling and awesome!!
Naturally, the success of the dish is dependent on how much you like your salsa. Also, I had previously cooked the chicken drumsticks with a dry taco seasoning with no added fat.

Weight Watchers points: 5

Easy looking waffle recipe

Easiest looking waffles.

(source: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/ rakratchada torsap)


Melt 250g butter
 add
200g of sugar
add five eggs and
300g flour

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6eHoxJzgxw&feature=g-user-u 

Serve with syrup, chocolate sauce, strawberry sauce and whip cream OR
Fresh fruits and sour cream. Yum!

 (source: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/Grant Cochrane)