Low Calorie baked or shallow fried/roasted whole wheat Kachoris (Protein balls)

Low Calorie Kachori, packed with vitamins and High Fiber. You can bake it or use an aebleskiver pan so minimum oil is used while shallow frying or baking. Or you can deep fry if you only like it that way.

Here are 4 stuffing options for your kachoris. Baked/shallow pan fry with little or no oil, or deep fried as per your liking.

Stuffing Option 1: Lightly boiled Whole Mung Daal kachori. Makes 20 or if you want smaller, perhaps a few more.
• 1 cup (207 g), Mung Beans, Whole, Dried, Uncooked
• 3 cups, Water for soaking over night
• 30 g, Besan (1.4 cup gram flour) lightly Roasted 


For pastry
• 226.80 g, Whole Wheat Flour for Roti (Chapati). 
• 2 tablespoon, Oil - Olive
• 0.50 cup, Water


For Vaghaar/Tadka (tempering) 
• 0.50 tbsp, Spices, cumin seed
• 0.50 tbsp, Spices, coriander seed
• 0.50 tbsp, Spices, fennel seed
• 1.00 gms, Compounded Hing (Asafoetida Powder Yellow)
• 1 g, Curry Leaves Green
• 2 tablespoon, Oil - Olive
• half a tea spoon Chat Masala (National) 

Soak the 1 cup dry whole mung (green lentils) overnight. It becomes nearly 3 cups. Add a little more water if you need to, for boiling it the next day for few minutes, until its tender, but not so tender and not so liquid-ish. Drain the liquid and let it cook before you coarsely pound it with a rolling pin. 


Meanwhile, roast the gram flour lightly, keep it aside.
 
For pastry covers, take 1 cup of whole wheat Atta and add about 1 tablespoon of oil and about half a cup of water slowly and knead the dough. Keep it aside covered. 

In a separate pan add the stuff for Vaghaar/Tadka (tempering) and let it heat up for just a minute or two then add roasted Gram flour lightly and eventually the coarsely ground Mung. Let it cook for a minute or two until everything mixes well. Turn off the heat and let it cool. (you may add salt, and/or green chilies as per your like, for this option of stuffing I did not)
 
Make 20 balls of the stuffing and make 20 balls of the flour. Roll each flour ball and cover each stuffing ball nice and neat by rolling in your palm evenly. 
I used the aebelskiver pan to cook healthy ones. You can roast it for 20 or 25 minutes or you can deep fry if you like! (of course deep frying will increase the calories) 
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2nd stuffing option: 
(If you have already prepared really thick/condensed whole mung (green) lentil, you can use that too, just not liquid-ish!) then add the gram flour and rest of the spices before covering with the pastry. Follow the same method as option 1. 


3rd stuffing option: 
Baked whole mung kachori! 
• 1/2 cup dry whole mung lentil soaked
• 1/2 cup dry powdered Mung lentil
• 1.50 tbsp(s), Besan (Gram Flour) (roasted)


For Vaghaar/Tadka/ tempering 
• 2 tbsp, 100% Corn Oil
• 1.00 gms, Compounded Hing (Asafoetida Powder Yellow)
• 0.30 tbsp, Spices, fennel seed
• 0.30 tbsp, Spices, coriander seed
• 0.30 tbsp, Spices, cumin seed
• 1 dash, Salt, table
• 1 or 2 Finger hot/Thai pepper (crushed green Chillies) These are hot!!!! 


Follow above method and bake it for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown color is desired. (Baked ones are crispy) NB: before baking just lightly grease the tray and roll the prepared kachoris in it as you put in the over at 350/375 F. 
4th stuffing option: (no Mung lentil but garden peas)
1 and half cup garden peas, lightly crushed. (Same above spices) Same method! 
Of course in all these curry leaves give that unique taste!

Please know that when you use whole Mung lentil with the skin it has more fiber so I like to use that rather than daal without skin. :)

If you can get this panyaram pan or its called aebleskiver it becomes healthier option to cook on stove yet no oil or just brush a little so it's healthy. This version of kachori comes softer also. The baked ones become crispy and healthy too. While deep fried, well you know what calories would that add so try this pan even for healthy vada or pakoda/bhajia with no or very little oil. :)

Blessings,
Kalpana aka KC Sharma (Mrs.)

Baked Butternut Squash Fingers

Baked Butternut squash fingers. 

Ok for healthy nuts like me: Try this. It looks like fries right? But SO healthy n minimum calories. I named it Baked Butternut squash fingers. 

Recipe: 3 ingredients only

Butternut squash
Any seasoning of your choice - I used Bihari kababs masala mix
Few sprays of oil

Wash and cut the butternut squash, keep the skin on. ( I like to keep the fiber n it tastes good. Remove the seeds and chop it like fries. 

Coat it with 1 tablespoon of Bihari kababs mix masala (national brand) and few sprays of oil. Keep it marinated for 2-3 hours. 

Bake it at 400F for 15 or so min. Add salt just when it's done. Enjoy! 
You get about 75 fries/fingers and it's hardly 3 calories per finger so you can hog as much as you like. 

Blessings,
Kalpana aka KC ;)

Blessings 

Ble

Simple homemade Plain Greek Yogurt/Strained/Drained Yogurt

Yogurt making is very easy and extremely economical if you follow the right steps. You can use nonfat/full fat/ 2% whatever milk type you prefer and it will still come out great yogurt depending upon how much fat content you wish to have. Some add half and half so go for it, whatever you wish to add or not add.

Needed things:
1. A gallon of milk which is 16 cups. This will yield 6-8 cups of Greek Yogurt and about the respective amount of whey liquid. (Depending on how much you choose to drain)
2. Yogurt starter one or two tablespoons (if you have plain yogurt at home, use it) or buy Greek Yogurt at any store. Meijer now has a small size for only .79 cent. (Yesterday for half a gallon of milk, I used only half a tablespoon.)
3. Cheese cloth/thin cotton cloth/or muslin cloth like a thin cotton curtain lining material. A clean pillow case would even do.
4. A good heavy bottomed pot to hold milk and heat up.

Here are 6 stages:
1. Heating the Milk to a boiling point on a low heat.
2. Cooling it to a lukewarm temperature.
3. Fermentation: Add a tablespoon or two of the yogurt starter to your lukewarm milk to ferment it for 6-8 hours or overnight. (after this stage yogurt is actually ready and many use it like this. For years we have done up to this point unless we were making a dessert then we would drain)
4. Cooling in the Refrigerator for 4-6 hours (This helps to thicken)
5. Straining/drain- (3-5 hours: this is an additional step to make the thick Greek yogurt)
6. Cooling back in the refrigerator. (This helps thicken a bit more) and final product

So here step by step method.

1. When you heat the milk on the stove top make sure that the pot is clean and rinsed in water before adding the milk so the milk does not burn at the bottom. Use a heavy base pot and please keep the flame low so that it heats up well. If you keep it high flame, it will burn your milk and smell not so good. As it progresses you may later on turn up the high flame but you will have to be present to keep stirring it constantly so it does not burn at the bottom. (If you multitask like me, you may want to keep it on low heat.)

2. Let it cool to a room temperature or like what you can drink. Not too cold and not too hot.
3. Now take your yogurt starter and add into the milk and mix well with a ladle or a hand mixer so it goes evenly in every part of the milk.

4. Cover and keep it in a warm place like in an oven that is turned off and is not hot. Do NOT turn the oven on. Leave it overnight. Please know that during summer's warm/hot days it gets done quickly due to hot temperature but during winter you may need to wrap a towel and keep it warm and perhaps overnight.

Next day morning your yogurt is practically ready and you can have it as is or keep it in the fridge for few hours and it will thicken a little more.

Now for Greek yogurt the process goes on two steps further.
5. Take a colander and line it with a clean muslin/cheese/cotton cloth big enough to hold the yogurt.

You may do 3-4 pouches as I have done here so it drains evenly all round well inside and outside too. Leave it to drain for 4-6 hours.

6. Carefully remove from the cloth and transfer it in the containers and store it in the fridge. If you find the yogurt is too dry you can add some of the whey liquid back into it as per your taste/texture.

Eat as is or you may keep it in the fridge for few hours to cool and thicken.  So rich and creamy and full of protein. You may eat it plain as is, or you may want to add your own flavors like cardamom/vanilla/ and just before eating add nuts or fruits. 

Enjoy! ------------

Now regarding the left over liquid/whey:

1. instead of discarding off the whey (drained liquid) you can use it in smoothies, or what I do is put in the jars. (You can add sugar or sugar substitute if you like) or drink it on its own as my husband does before he goes for a work out. Its low calorie, low sodium, good protein. I like to add a little sweet taste and a teaspoon of cardamom, it tastes SO yummy!



2. You can also keep the yogurt whey liquids is in the refrigerator and whenever you want to make yogurt Kadhi(Curry) just add back the whey into the Greek yogurt and follow the kadhi recipe procedure.

3. Make Chhaas (lighter sort of buttermilk type drink that has less yogurt and more water/whey) People make Lassi drink from it too. You can make it salty or sweet.

I hope you enjoy making this and let me know how it goes. Please do not give up. Try with a smaller amount first like half or a quarter gallon of milk and see how it goes if you are in doubt.

Blessings!
Kalpana Christian Sharma (KC)