Amti - Sweet and Sour Curry

This is a Sweet and sour Curry made from tomatoes, coconuts and black peas. This curry can be used with chapathi's and nans.

Preparation time :25 minutes
Cooking time : 20 minutes
Serves : 4

Ingredients:
8 cloves
8 peppercorns
3 tomatoes, chopped finely
3 kokums
2 large onions, sliced
1 large onion, chopped finely
2 cups grated fresh coconut
1 1/2 cups black peas, sprouted
1 cup coriander leaves, chopped
3 tbsps oil
2 tbsps coriander seeds
1 1/2 tbsp chilli powder
1 tsp garam masala powder
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
salt to taste
Method:

1. Heat 1 tsp oil and add peppercorns, cloves and coriander seeds. When they pop, add sliced onion. Brown.
2. Add coconut gratings and brown the whole lot.
3. Cool and grind to a fine paste, adding a little water as needed. Reserve.
4. Heat remaining oil and add cumin seeds. When they crackle, add the chopped onion.Brown.
5. Add tomatoes, sprouted peas(cooked) and all the spice powders.
6. Add salt and boil, mashing a few peas with the back of the ladle.
7. Add ground paste and sufficient water to make enough gravy. Add the kokums, stir and boil once.
8. Garnish with coriander leaves and serve with puris made of rice flour, or with rotis and onion slices.

Mixed Vegetable soup

Ingredients:
1 carrot grated
6 beans, chopped
1/4 cup chopped cabbage
1/2 bunch spinach
1 onion quartered
1 tomato chopped
1/2 cup milk (cold)
1 tsp cornflour
Salt and pepper to taste

Method:
Put all the vegetables, the onion and the tomato in a cooker along with 2 big glasses of water, and pressure cook for 15 minutes. When cooked, strain the vegetables and blend them in a mixie. mix the blended vegetables to the previously strained water and boil, adding more water if necessary. When it starts to boil, add salt, pepper and milk to which cornflour is added. Let it boil for 5 minutes.

This is a ZHAP Diet.

Tomato Lentil Soup

Ingredients:
1/2 cup split yellow dal (moong)
4 Big tomatoes peeled
1 Onion chopped
1 small carrot grated
1 tsp chilli powder
1/4 tsp jeera powder
1 tsp lemon powder
1 tsp lemon juice
Chopped coriander leaves
Salt to taste
Method:

Put the dal, tomatoes and onion in a cooker along with four glasses of water and pressure cook for 10 to 15 minutes. Mash the boiled vegetables well with a spoon. Add the masala powders and grated carrot and let it boil for 7 to 8 minutes. Remove from fire and add lemon juice. Before serving, garnish with grated carrot and coriander leaves.

This is a ZHAP Diet.

Palak Soup

Ingredients:
1 big bunch of palak (spinach) leaves
1/2 cup milk (cold)
1 tsp cornflour
Salt and pepper to taste
Method :

Boil the palak with little salt. Puree it in a blender. Pour the puree into a pan and let it boil. While it is boiling, add the milk after mixing cornflour with it. Let it boil for five to seven minutes. Add pepper and salt. Remove when the consistency is slightly thick and serve.
This is a ZHAP diet.

Oothappam - Breakfast dish

This is another variety of Dosa which looks like a Pizza with toppings of Onions and Tomato pieces on it.

Ingredients:
To the plain dosa batter, add the following :
Chopped onions
Green Chillies
Coriander seeds
1/2 teaspoon turmeric

A few curry leaves
Mix the ingredients well and make the oothappam the next day just like you make plain dosa.

This is a ZHAP diet.

Plain Dosa

Ingredients :
2 cups rice
1/4 cup urad dal
1/4 cup boiled rice
1 tsp tur dal
1/2 tsp fenugreek seeds

salt to taste

Soak the dal and rice and fenugreek seeds for 3 to 4 hours. Grind to a smooth paste. Add salt and ferment overnight.Make the dosa on a non-stick tava the next morning without any oil.

This is a ZHAP Diet.

Ragi Dosa - Breakfast Dish

Ingredients
1/2 cup urad dal
1/4 cup rice
3 cups ragi flour
salt to taste

Soak the rice and dal for 3 to 4 hours, and then grind to a smooth paste. To the ground mixture, add the ragi flour along with salt and enough water to form a smooth, firm paste. Leave overnight to ferment. Make the dosa (thin pancakes) with the batter on a non-stick tava. You can add chopped onions, curry leaves, coriander and green chillies to the batter before making the dosa. This is a ZHAP diet dish.

The Zero Heart Attack Path (ZHAP) Diet

The ZHAP diet is a low fat diet plan aimed at lowering your cholesterol levels and reducing the risk of suffering from a heart ailment. The ZHAP diet is a new, specially designed low fat diet plan which tastes as good as your normal food and which you will be able to adhere to without any difficulty.It is low in substances that are bad for your health and rich in substances that will protect you against heart disease and other illnesses. These meals are meant not just for the person at risk; they are for the whole family. This has two obvious benefits: one, you need not cook two sets of meals;two, the persons at risk is not tempted by the food consumed by others.

Salient features of the ZHAP diet

This is a purely vegetarian diet which includes vegetables, fruits, pulses, grains and non-fat dairy products.It excludes all kinds of oils, butter, cheese, ghee (clarified butter), processed foods and coconut. Of course it goes without saying that sweets, fried items and alcohol are not a part of it.

Contarary to what is usually believed, there is no significant loss of taste due to the lack of oils,coconut and butter. Seasoning of curries, dals and sambars is more a matter of habit and dispensing with it doesn't really affect the taste of the particular dish.Use of butter in soups can be avoided by pureeing the cooked vegetables and adding a little bit of skimmed milk to it. In salads, try to use low fat yoghut, lemon juice and vinegar instead of salad oil. Breakfast items like dosas should be prepared in a non-stick pan, which requires very small quantities of oil. By following such general principles, you can suitably modify your own favourate recipes into low fat items.