Dosa with Lentil&Vegetable Soup and Fresh Chilli sauce

Dosa with Lentil&Vegetable Soup and Fresh Chilli sauce freshly made

Hey All! :) Reena talking... or typing..literally.

How many times do you go to a food court and smell all the fantastic array of food aromas?? I love Chinese, Japanese, Lebanese, Mexican....and the list goes on and on (pretty much, I love food!). Coming from an Indian background, I have had the opportunity to taste some of the wonderful dishes from each part of India. Now how many of you love Butter chicken? Tandoori Chicken? Lamb Vandaloo? C'mon, these dishes are hard to resist! But they can be rich in butter, coconut cream and thickened cream, which isn't exactly great for the waist or the hips. But that doesn't mean we can't enjoy these dishes!

Today, I would like to share one of my favorite South Indian dishes, Dosa with Lentil&Vege Soup and fresh chilli sauce. If you are like me and can't eat too much chilli, just minus it, trust me it still tastes great! I know I'm Indian, chilli is suppose to be in my blood, but... I guess I am a little sensitive myself.

The best part about this dish is all of it is sooo good for the body and you don't feel like you are eating healthy, rather indulging in one of the finest dishes in the South Indian cuisine!

TIME: 40 Minutes
CALORIES: 373

Ingredients required for Dosa: 
1 cup rice
1/3 cup split black lentils

Ingredients required for Dosa mixture:
1/2 cup of fresh peas
1 boiled potato
1 onion chopped finely
1/2 chilli chopped finely (for a little heat)
1 teaspoon of poppy seeds
1 teaspoon of turmeric

Ingredients required for Lentil&Vegetable soup:
1 cup Tuvar Dal
1/4 kg Vegetables( Peas,Carrot,Corn,Eggplant,Okra)
1/4 tsp Fenugreek seeds
Curry leaves
1 tsp Salt
2 tsp Mustard
1/4 tsp Tamarind paste
4 tbsp Extra Virgin Olive oil

Ingredients required for the fresh Chilli sauce:

(only if you like mild-to-hot food)

2 chillies

1 crushed tomato

a pinch of salt

1 fresh squeeze of lemon

Starting with the Lentil&Vegetable soup:

1) Wash and dice all the vegetables

2) Boil water and cook the dal with turmeric and salt

3) Separate the cooked dal and water, and keep them aside.

4) In the dal water cook the vegetables.

5) After the veggies are cooked, add tamarind paste.

6) Now add the cooked thuvar dal and simmer for a few more minutes

7) Heat some oil in a pan, splutter mustard, and then curry leaves, turmeric, and fenugreek seeds and keep frying for a few minutes.

8) Season the dal with the above prepared in 7.

Followed by the Dosa Mixture:

1) Fry the chopped onion with chilli, poppy seeds and turmeric. 

2) Add, the peas, potato and the pinch of salt and mix

Time for the Dosa:

1) Blend the lentils,rice, fenugreek seeds together in a mixer till smooth and frothy ( add water little by little as required ). Remove and keep aside.

2) Heat a non-stick pan and sprinkle a little water on it. It should steam immediately.

3)Lightly put a few drops of Olive Oil, and then pour a ladeful of the batter on the pan, spread in a circular motion to make approx. 125mm in width.

4)Smear a liitle oil along the sides, cook till the dosa turns brown and crispy and fold over to make a semi-circle.

5) Add the potato mixture before folding the Dosa and taking it of the pan.

And finally for the Chilli lovers....Just blend the tomato and chillies with lemon and a pinch of salt.

Bon Appetit my wise foodies :)

Dosa is served...

Tasty Snapper with Brown Rice & Salad

Snapper after cooking

Hi everyone, Steph here. 

Now I'll be the first to admit that eating healthy isn't easy, in fact most of the time it's a damn chore. But before all you naysayers say 'Healthy food is boring.. and doesn't taste good' I say it doesn't have to be. In fact, one of the aims of this blog is to change your perception. I'm definately not perfect and my love sweet treats every now and then (Cherry Ripe, come at me!) - but I just don't like to constantly fill my body with junk! 

For our first blog post I chose to make Snapper with this UH-mazing yet very simple sauce. Snapper is a great fish because its so succulent, juicy and tender unlike say Mackerel which can be very dry.This is an excellent dish because not only is it very low in calories but it is super tasty! It is my very own go-to recipe for Snapper, and is so quick and easy to make. Fish is great for the heart, and brown rice is better than white because it hasn't been stripped of its fiber, protein and other goodness unlike white rice, which has been refined.

Trust me- after eating this you will feel so proud of yourself. You can even impress your loved ones with this dish and it's a great way to start yourself on your healthy eating :)

TIME: 20 Minutes
CALORIES: 452

Here's what you'll need:

• 1 small Snapper fish (Make sure you leave it whole and ask for it to be scaled!)
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1 red chilli, finely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 teaspoon lemon rind
• 1/4 cup corriander finely chopped, extra for garnish
• 1 cup brown rice
• 1 handful mixed salad leaves

Here's how to make it:

1. Pre-heat fan oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
2. Combine the soy sauce, chilli, garlic, lemon and corriander in a bowl. Pour mixture over fish and stuff some inside the fish. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until cooked.
3. Meanwhile, boil the rice and prepare the salad. I like to dress the salad with balsamic vinegar instead of dressing. And voila!

Bon Apetit my wise foodies :)

Snapper before cooking

Served with brown rice and mixed salad

Our First Post!

Hello fellow healthy eaters :)

Our blog is based on healthy food choices that taste great and will make you feel great! Our motto is Cook Wise, Be Wise and we hope to share our passion for food with you to help you achieve your goals- whether it be to lose weight or to embrace a healthier lifestyle. We believe in fresh, unprocessed and simple foods that give us the best nutrition as well as tasting fantastic. Over the next few weeks we will be sharing with you our recipes for healthy eating and hopefully provide creative and new ways for you to get healthy and be food wise!

What we want our blog to look like:
In the near future we hope to edit the design of the blog so that it looks professional. As most of you may have guessed by now, we are first timers when it comes to blogging! But as we are very passionate about what we want to share with you, we hope to attract fellow bloggers who are interested in learning about healthy eating particularly by making a credible looking blog that is pleasing to the eye.

• For the layout of our blog we are aiming to keep it bright, fresh and very simple as we believe this is a modern look. In addition we want the focus to mostly be on the delicious foods we make and think this layout would highlight that! On the right hand side we want to have a search bar (for functionality), archives (for organisation and ease of access), categories (for organisation), recent posts, and a follow us on Twitter link.
• The colour scheme we have chosen will be an aqua blue contrasted with white and grey. We believe this blue is eye-popping and is memorable!
• The background will hopefully be simple yet creative and interesting. Not sure how that's going to work! But we hope that this will make our blog memorable, different and fun.
• Our logo will be that of a saucepan with a knife and fork on either side. For obvious reasons, we think that this would reflect what our blog is about perfectly :) It will also have our motto "Cook Wise, Eat Wise" incorporated into it.
• We have decided that each post will have a label attached to it, so this way our followers can easily find a recipe they are looking for. If they want to find a Lamb recipe, they will be able to do easily.

Here is a simple layout:

Talk soon wisefoodies!

Nikki, Reena & Steph