Corn Salad

Asha suggested to me that I must forward this recipe to Hima for her event of What's your Favourite with the theme of Diet Food this month. Thanks Asha.

So this is my contribution for the Diet Food event, Hima.

Corn salad has approximately-
200 calories
2 gms Total Fat
0 mg Cholesterol

Corn Salad is one of the easiest and likeable salad/ side dish/ snack.

It is very nutritious too.

It is also called as Corn Bhel.

I make this salad quite often.

You can make it using fresh corn or the frozen variety.

I always have some corn in my freezer, So I quickly make this as a snack in the evenings often.

To make Corn Salad you will need-

2 cups of frozen or fresh corn kernels

1 Onion

1 Tomato

1 Green Chilli

Juice of half a Lime

Half a cup Cilantro, finely chopped

Salt

1 tsp chaat masala pwdr

Method-

First of all, cook the corn in the microwave on high for 5 minutes.

You can also boil it in the pressure cooker.

For that, fill water in the bottom of the cooker, about an inch and place another vessel in the cooker with corn in it. so that the corn does not become too moist. And pressure cook on high for 5 minutes and then let the pressure drop on its own.

Chop onion, tomato and green chilli.

Mix these chopped veggies in the corn.

Add all the Chaat masala pwdr, salt and lime juice.

Garnish it with chopped Cilantro.

Serve it right away or it tastes great chilled too.

Onion Tomato Kachumber

Every Indian meal is always accompanied by a salad.

In its simplest form the salad can just be a sliced raw onion or wedges of cucumber.

Onion Tomato Kachumber is one such simple salad which can be made in a jiffy.

Ingredients-

1 onion

2 tomatoes

Cilantro

salt to taste

lemon juice (according to your taste)

cayenne pepper(depending on how hot you like)

Method-

Cut the onion and tomatoes into dices and put them together in a bowl.

Add salt, cayenne pepper, lemon juice and finely chopped cilantro.

Mix well and serve.

Simple Sprouts salad

Sprouts are something that I love to eat! Moong, Matki, vatana, chana....I like all of them in the sprouted form! And we all know the benefits of eating sprouts. They are such a great source of valuable nutrients. And moreover they are just so easy to make and eat too!

In this simple sprout salad I have just used the 2 of my favourite sprouts-moong i.e green gram and matki i.e moath sprouts.

I soaked 1/2 cup moong and 1/2 cup matki overnight in water.

In the morning I drained off all the water and put the soaked moong and matki in a sieve and kept it covered near the stove to sprout. Generally keep the seeds to sprout in a warm place. You can also keep them in the oven with the light on to speed up the sprouting process.

After they were sprouted, I steamed them for just 5 minutes in the cooker.

And took them out and added 1 cup of finely chopped celery, onion and cucumber.

Then I put in salt, black pepper powder,red chilly powder, cumin powder and chaat masala powder.

I also squeezed the juice of half a lime on them and garnished them with cilanrtro leaves on top.

This simple salad can be had as breakfast or as an accompaniment with the main course.

You can also use different types of sprouts in this salad.

You can also add green, yellow and red peppers and tomatoes in the salad.

And eat it right away!

Veggie Salad

I was not very fond of salads until we were invited to a friend's place for dinner. She had prepared an exotic salad and we just loved it . And that is the day I realised that there is much more to salads than meets the eye. So I immediately phoned her the next day for the recipe. I made the same salad a couple of times and then started experimenting various combinations and dressings and the result each time was really very good. So today I will share with u the recipe of a very simple yet delicious and a healthy salad.

This simple salad needs veggies like- Lettuce (any kind that u like), cucumbers,onions,tomatoes,red cabbage,Oranges,apple,pineapple,carrots. Basically whatever u can eat raw and have in ur fridge ! And the quantity of each ingredient can also be as per ur liking. I usually take 1 each of all the veggies and fruits. u can use any fruits or veggies that u like. For the dressing u need olive oil,honey,salt,vinegar and ground black pepper. I also use a store bought dressing for a change at times like the thousand island dressing.

Wash all the vegetables and fruits well. Cut the lettuce in bite sized pieces and put them in a big salad bowl. Cut the cucumbers,onions,tomatoes,apples,carrots,cabbage in thin strips (juliennes) and add them into the bowl.Peel the skin of the orange and cut the slices into cubes,Half a cup of pineapple cubes (either fresh or tinned ) add them all in the bowl.

Then prepare the dressing. Take a tbsp of olive oil,a tsp of vinegar,a tsp of honey,a dash of salt and pepper and whisk them all together and pour it over the salad and mix them all together and serve.

Instead of the above dressing sometime I use the thousand island dressing and it tastes really great. I also add asparagus to the salad sometimes. Cut off the hard ends of the asparagus and cut them into 2" long sticks.wash them and put them in boiling water for 2 mins , remove and cool and put them in the salad bowl along with the other veggies.

Health Tip - When eating an orange make sure not to remove the 'white thread like' fibres (pericarp) surrounding the fruit with its rind removed. According to Wikipedia the pericarp is an excellent source of dietary fibre and has equal amounts of vitamin C as the fruit.