Friends bear with me this month. I am going to sound like an obsessive fat fighter rather than an obsessivemom.. just for these four weeks. I need those two kgs off.
Exercise has always been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. Whenever I’ve stopped I’ve faced bad bad consequences like oodles of weight gain or high cholesterol. So since exercising is a given, it’s the food I’m focusing on. While dinner is mostly soups.. check out today’s yummy low fat breakfast.
1. Whole masoor dal cutlets with coriander and mint chutney (which turned out hot enough to blow your brains away).
2. A slice of brown bread
3. Carrot, cucumber and beetroot slices on the side.
All made by moi.
Now for the recipes.
Caution: If you’re not the cooking type you might find this mind-numbingly boring.
The cutlets are a hand-me-down recipe from my mum, who has struggled harder than me to keep me slim. Here it is for those who are interested. Do remember I’m NOT a good cook and bear with my hit and trial ways.
1. Soak whole masoor dal overnight.
2. Crush to a powder whole garam masala – Green cardamoms, large cardamoms, cloves, peppercorns, cinnamon.
3. Boil the dal with the crushed spices and salt. You can add in a bay leaf too. The water should be just enough to cook the dal. Don’t add too little or you’ll burn it, which I’ve done often enough. If you add too much, simply let it boil away. You can also add bread crumbs to dry it up. Mash the dal to get a dough-like consistency. Mum used to grind it in the mixer but I’m too lazy to do that. Mashing it in the pressure pan works well enough.
4. Add chopped onions, green coriander, green chillies and you have a nice batter for your cutlets. Make balls and fry. It can also be used as a sandwich filling… any day healthier than those potatoes. FYI: It’s totally awesome if fried properly in oil.. but if you’re on a weightloss trip a tiny bit of oil is not bad either.
The chutney is another staple these days. It replaces sweet ketchup at breakfast and oily pickles at lunch. You can even add it to curd to give it flavour. I put in coriander leaves, mint leaves, a bit of garlic and loads of chillies. Then I realised I’d forgotten the sour factor.. so added some amchur (dry mango powder), tasted it, then squeezed in half a lemon too. It ended up fine.
That was the breakfast.
Before I forget…
Weight as on 3.2.12 – 70.6 kgs.. Down 500 gms. Yay! Yay! The weekend’s here and I’m in a state of high alert. I don’t want the weighing scales tipping the wrong way on Monday.
