Here’s an experiment I tried. Made some stuffed okra, cooked half of it the traditional way in a pan with a little bit of oil and baked the rest of it in the oven with only a very light spray of oil. There was very little difference in taste between them. The baked okra
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When a garden offers some  juicy red tomatoes, it is not surprising that a “thokku” pickle/chutney idea occurs to a girl, esp. with a south-Indian upbringing like me! This is a traditional recipe from Tamil Nadu, a southern state in India. In the days when the refrigerator was not known, this dish was made with
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  I love to have cilantro greens without cooking it. One of the best ways to have it is as a raw chutney. Cilantro is abundant in vitamins: A, C, K, minerals: iron, magnesium and calcium. It has antibiotic, anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory, heavy metal detox properties. Regular consumption in raw form is very good for health.
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  I was able to successfully grow kohlrabi in my garden this year! It is one of the easiest vegetables to grow, provided you have made the area rabbit-proof. I used a gardening tip and planted a row of lettuce as a companion right next to it. They grew pretty tall and yielded nice bulbs.
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While asparagus is abundantly available this spring, let’s make good use of the fresh vegetable for these nutritional benefits. There are many recipes to make grilled asparagus, paired with other veggies. Here, I have cooked it lightly with Indian spices, sans onion and garlic (saatvik) in combination with carrot. This can be eaten with rice
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Pine nuts are one of those nuts (seeds, actually) that have immense nutritional benefits but are not very tasty to eat by themselves. They are expensive and their shelf life is short too; need to be stored in the fridge or freezer. The best way to use them in Indian cuisine, from my experiments, is in
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  Some time ago, I posted a curry recipe with bitter gourd in gravy, and after that I’ve been experimenting with making a simple, ‘bitter-less’, dry curry with the green vegetable. And baking provided a solution- hey, it always makes things simple, doesn’t it? I’m very thrilled with this recipe because it was an instant
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If there is one vegetable that I have hated to eat in childhood, it is the bitter gourd or pavakkai. But it is supposed to have great nutritional benefits. One has to learn to cook it in the proper way with enough spices to mask the bitterness and make it enjoyable. Here’s a recipe for
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I’m always thinking of ways to sneak beets into daily meals, for their lovely color, anti-oxidants, phyto-nutrients… I could go on, but I’d refer you to this for nutritional value. My mother makes a ‘saatvik’ (sans onion and garlic) vegetable curry in coriander-ginger gravy, which allows a variety of veggies that can go in it.
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Everybody is familiar with chana masala curry, that can be made from canned chickpeas with the spice mix from any Indian/international food aisle in a store. Simply cooked beans, however, can cause stomach discomfort in children especially when given in the evening. I once gave beans to my 15-month-old (by accident) and had her suffer
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