I'm sure many girls, moms, daughters, DILs and wives (and the guys who cook!!!) here know that their kids/inlaws/spouse/parents wont eat something when given in normal form, so you sneak it in your everyday food !!! Would love to get ideas from all of you!!! I use several ideas for sneaking in the nutrition ... Will update with a more elaborate list later, but to start with : 1) I buy 200 gms each of various (about 6 or 7 similar size) whole (with skin) dals and mix it all up in a 2 kg box - everyday, depending on the veggies with which I cook the dal, I add half tuar dal (kandi) + half of the above dal mixture - or sometimes, wholly with mixed dal, sometimes just a teaspoon, but they get the fibre and vitamins of whole dal 2) Add a tsp of flax seed powder to idli podi and sabjis 3) Add vegetables to upma (sooji or wheat) and after it is cooked/cooled a little bit, I add lime juice, and then roasted Pumpkin seeds, Melon seeds, sunflower seeds or cashews for my son, mix it all up properly!!! 4) To kandi podi or pappu podi - I add roasted sunflower seeds and til seeds (sometimes badam and cashew too) 5) I have custard powder stock - mango/strawberry - I will make ragi kanji (ragi porridge) with milk and sugar, have another cup to mix 1 tsp custard powder + milk, add and boil with porridge - add nuts and dry fruits - top it with the same flavour crush or fresh fruits - Super charged energy food with ragi (or any millet flour mix or health mix) - but you HAVE to serve this WARM and not cold!!! 6) Add the tiny korra (thana) grains (it is a cereal that looks similar to til but has more nutrition than ragi+bajra+jowar) to upma, cutlets, dosa atta etc.. Will update with more, have to rush now!! Will check back for your ideas too!!!
sneaking and moms go hand in hand hrastro!!!!!!! Veppam poo- neem flower is supposed to be very good, but in our family we don't heat it, so it gets sneaked into coconut thogayal (for rice variety) till date none of them has found it out. a few tender neem leaves in the coriander and mint chutney.. all the 20 cereals go into the health mix..and they are yet to guess some of the ingredients.. all vegetables get sneaked into kurmas, cutlets and parathas.. definite cunning sneaking if i have to confess is mixing potatoes and knolkhol (kohlrabi/german turnip) cut so identical and made into kurma. I made a vada style - that has most of the dals.. earlier my daughter went through a phase of aversion to leaves so they made their entry into cutlets/ vada and parathas. beetroot sometimes used to take the shape of pink parathas..to lure dd to eat beetroot.. I have this mixture that is given for cold made traditionally from palm candy, that gets a spoon into badam milk. will come back if i remember any more of it.. Well ragi, oats get liberally into their cookies. I also add some tulasi, along with mint in mint pulao. and ajwain leaf (omavalli) in milagu kuzhambu. now they are grown up kids and they are avid watchers of masterchef and they can tell by smell what are the ingredients..and i am still finding ways to camouflage the sneak....
I add flaxseed pwd to my atta, cake batter or any baking I do, dosa batter,smoothies. I also make berry smoothy for my kids and add handfull of fresh spinach to it. Pasta sauce gets spinach or kale. Sometimes I will add ground roasted dals to my atta along with besan, onion ginger garlic & Methi for a missi roti. Quinoa in soups Oats in atta, oats in cookies & cupcakes
-I will prepare Flax seed chutney powder mixed with channa dal+til seeds, i will add this in many dishes from stir fries to lemon rice.. - I will add soya flour with wheat flour while making chapathis... - Sprout soya beans and add them in idli or dosa batter while grinding...will get no change in taste - Always have stock of Moong dal/black-eyed bean sprouts, will add a hand ful in stir fries or take it as salad or goes with sandwitch as well Sravani
Wow !!! Shanvy, Shravanitenali, animolhai !!! Great going !!! I keep ragi+jowar+ bajra = millet mix flour, also saffola heart cholestrol mix = I use it in parathas and breads I make cookies with whole wheat multigrain atta, so maida is avoided, same for pasta, bechemel sauce, white sauce etc... In dosa mavu instead of 1 cup urad dal : 2.5 cups rice, what I do is (1 cup white urad+1 cup black urad) : (1 cup jowar + 1 cup bajra + 1 cup korra/tinnai + 1 cup red raw rice + 1 cup red boiled rice) + salt+ 1 tbsp methi seeds (optional) Wonderful crisp dosas with lots of minerals, vitamins, fibre And if the dosas are not coming properly, I add either idli rava or rice powder or millet mix, add onions and green chillies and ginger and make dibba roti or ootapams or paniyarams !!! I'll keep adding whenever I remember !!
Very nice ideas..need to implement soon... few from my end: 1) rice kanji water is added to cooked daal (thick one) to make it lighter 2) left over veggies or spinach gravy or even left over malai from milk is used in roti dough 3) spinach, 'bathua' (pigweed) etc are routinelu used by MiL in making raitas, khickdi etc. 4) spinaxh puree is added to Dhokla, Muthiya, Puri etc
I use Quinoa but have to sneak it in. I created this recipe of breaking brown rice in mixie coarse grind along with half cup tuvar dal 2-3 red chilli; and in pan after mustard seeds I add this brown rice and quinoa and water to cook like Kozhakattai; then pressure cook for 5 minutes its very healthy as it has minimum oil no cocunut etc.. just brown rice, tuvar dhal and quinoa. my son could not detect the quinoa and everyone seemed to love this a lot so its become a standard now.
Ooooo hhhhh !!! ssm014!!! Spinach puree to dhokla :thumbsup Thanx AC, I have heard a lot about Quinoa, and its health benefits but dont get in India But your idea is wonderful!!! I use bajra/jowar (slightly roasted) + red rice + tuvar dal (I use a little of my above healthy dal mix too) + pepper jeera and make this upma kozhakattai - I add grated carrots also to it
Good idea..need to make Upma kozhakattai soon...wt can we make as side dish other than chutney, gotsu, left over sambhar...any ideas?
