Veggies and lentil Dal with Raita

Today’s dinner was inspired by Kath. I was just sitting on the couch, in no mood to cook tonight for dinner and only cribbing about why the weekend got over so early. Then I read about Kath’s dinner post  and I totally got inspired to try my own mix veggie and red lentil dal.

1 cup yellow and red lentils (called Masoor and Tur Dal) just soak for about 5 minutes before cooking.

 

1 potato cut into cubes, 1 cup eggplant cut into cubes, 7-8 baby carrots cut into cubes, 1 cup baby spinach.

 

In a pressure cooker or a medium sized sauce pan add the soaked the lentils, 1 tsp turmeric powder and Salt to taste. If using a sauce pan let it come to a boil and the simmer and cover until soft and cooked!

Now comes tempering! In a pan add about 11/2 tbsp EVOO, 1 tsp cumin seeds, ½ medium onion finely chopped and 2 garlic cloves finely chopped and about 11/2 tsp garam masala powder.

 

When just about soft, add the potatoes and carrots and chili powder as per taste. Cook till soft, followed by eggplant. Once all the veggies are cooked add the cooked lentil. Add about 3 cups of water and let it come to a boil.

 

Now each ones choice of consistency for the dal varies, so boil down until desired consistency is reached. Adjust the salt and just when done add the spinach and cover. Let it wilt naturally

Serve with rice and raita

For the raita:

¾ cup yogurt

Onion+Tomato +Cucumber

Cilantro

 

Salt as per taste

Sugar just a pinch

Cilantro to garnish

Ground to cumin to garnish.

Mix the chopped veggies and yogurt with salt and sugar. Again if you likethe yogurt thick then eat it just like this or add about ¼ cup of water to give it a lil’ thinner consistency. Caution should not be watery!

 

On the side note I love Raita and I was almost done eating about half of it even before dinner and I had it with the Baked potato wedges I was planning to serve with dinner. Well the wedges did not survive to see dinner! Lol

 

Here’s my dinner: Dal+ brown rice + raita

Hello all!

I have been MIA for the past two days. I have been neck deep in work and had really no time to blog at all. Well classes aren’t that crazy yet, its just lab work that is really exhausting me. I am having a serious eye problem; they have a constant sensation of burning and periodical watering. There is no infection cuz’ I got it checked from my eye doctor. She just said that it’s some kind of seasonal allergy and that I have glasses. I don’t know but this thing is certainly annoying me.

Well today after being properly into my work week, I have decided on my workout plan. I’ll be going to the gym 4 days a week i.e. M, W, F and Sat and I will be taking up Yoga/ home work out on Tues and Thurs. Okay this is just a tentative plan of action, oh yeah and Sundays I’ll be taking the day off. I hope this works and Friday’s will be my weigh in day! It is important to track my progress.

To stay accountable to my plan I am planning to start a new page, which will log my activity for the day and the weight on that particular Friday of the week. So today i managed to sneak in sometime between my classes at noon and walked on the tread mill for 45 minutes, covering a distance of 2.60 miles at a speed of 3.5 mph and at level 1 incline. Oh and I burned about 256 calories. It was fun; I carried my paper with me to the gym and finished reading it there. The papers due Friday and i am already done with it, all i have to do is go over it once more and jot down the difficulties. It was that easy, I am seriously gonna make reading on the treadmill a habit. I can’t believe I finished one important task much before the normal time I would have taken to complete it. Well that explains the speed. I couldn’t increase it any further as the letters starting jumping. That’s the reason why I stuck to 3.5 mph.

Well I am really tired and off to sleep!

Nighty Night!