Day #27

Spouted moong beans and brown rice flattened flakes which makes excellent breakfast.

Pasta in tomato base for lunch. Of couse I also had tomato-onion salad and green coriander vadi cake slice made by mixing grinded chana daal (gram pulse) and chapati.

Now for dinner there is green fenugreek vegetable with chapati.

Both made without oil.

Day #13

A guest from Poland and all your vegan diet plans are screwed up to large extent.

Poha in oil : where is my diet paln?

Veg,dal,chapati (with ghee) and rice for lunch and we left for Juhu.

Juhu beach...one milk tea.
ISKON, Juhu....dosa n uttapam and milk tea,,,again?

Back home after spending time sitting at PVR,Juhu...
Gawar, potato veg...oiled one...chapati (ladden with ghee),khichdi...it's really bad day for me...oily day!

Day #14

Today morning, Rafa left for Pune.
Morning-Tea,then got idli and vada sambhar for family; ate only one single idli with chutney. Well, prepared an egg for wife while she was preparing for her lecture in the afternoon for PG students.

Was tired over three days of taking my guest over the city of Mumbai. So tried to sleep but couldn't. And I remembered of a cricket match of Rotary Club of Mulund East. Got up and proceeded to Mulund Gymkhana to cheer my club cricket team which was playing in a tourney organised for Rotary Clubs of Mumbai.

This is what happens if you eat outside. Since we were waiting there at ground past lunch time I decided to have some lunch. A buffet lunch...all oily and having no relevance to diet that I am pusuing ( or trying hard to follow). Soory folks, ate 2 cubes of paneer and a  small piece of chicken though avoided gravy. It was a bad day ahead for me,I thought.

Back home and I narrated this incidence. Well, are wives supportive of your cause or at least a valid reason for your good health? Dunno; they want good results but without ,,,,okay let's forget this. Why I am mentioning it here:wife asked me to taste chicken she made (her reason could be: you have broken resolution..so break it for a while again). Oh hell, tasted gravy and gave her pat. Was feeling bad n guilty and dejected...but anything for family.

An apple in the evening and a cardamom black tea. Now getting ready for a party at Andheri...7flags interneational hotel.

Added later:
The worst to come: friends at the party/get-to-gether remembered how I used to like starters and munching, both veg n non-veg, at this hotel from Andheri. And the staff over there were quick to bring the items of my (then) choice. It was something weired. Initially I hesitated and tried veg dishes only. But is there any difference between so called veg dished dashe with lot of oil,butter n ghee and non-veg dishes? So gave up..in silence..and my first major departure from the path of veganism. It was fish,chicken and panner...

Day #21

Pasta in white sauce.
Pasta in red sauce.


This is what I had for my lunch. It's pasta but 'white sauce, here, is misnorma. It is actually a vegetable chowchow left over from yesterday's dinner was added to pasta.


You may say that photo is not that eye-catching;yes it's not. Normally I start binging on the food as soon as it is cooked that somebody reminds me of taking a photo. Right, it's a photo of half-eaten large bowlfull (?) of pasta. Believe me, it tastes good and there are lot of vegetables in it e.g. cauli flower,cabbage,beans,onion,carrot, capscicum,etc. The one below is incorrectly cliamed as 'in red sauce' by me; green chilli sauce and tomato ketchup is added to cooked pasta by my daughter...and it was for her.

Day #7

So, my vegan experience is completing a week.
This is what I had for the day.


To begin with I had a Banana-Palak-Oats smoothie.


For breakfast I had a chapati with methi (fenugreek) subji and red chutney.



One of the dish that I like at Five Spice Chinese Restaurant in Mumbai, is Fortune Rice. I thought I could easily make a vegan version at home.

Without refereing to any resources, and relying on own instinct, you notice that it uses some traditional spices blended in such a way that normally a person won't notice spices (except a star anice).

Here I used whatever that was available at home.

Vegetables: Cauli flower, sprouted beans,french beans,carrot,onion,green chillies,ginger,garlic,one Maggi Taste maker, corn flour.

Spices: star anice,tej patta, dalchini,blacj pepper, cloves.

Since we are not adding any oil we need to start with adding masala to bit of boiling water..shallow steam frying.

Result was okay..as the strong odour n flavour is generally absorbed by oil, which we are not using here, you get a raw masala flavour,which can be corrected with practice.

So, overall I am rating my receipe here 3/5 by a standard (with normal version using oil); and 3.5 to 4 out of 5 considering it's a vegan version.





Dinner: organic red rice (not shown)with chinese sweet and sour vegetables.Here, sweetness was obtained by adding a tomato ketchup.

Day #6

For last few days I couldn't cook my breakfast. I decided to try something that is popular in this side of India. Poha (flattened rice flakes)is made in to variety of dishes.

Traditionally, In the western Maharashtra,soaked poha is added to onions in oil to make a simple but tasty dish which I cherished since my childhood. But not anymore.Poha absorbs a lot of oil and hence I dislike it now, The other variation is poha chivda. There is one so called 'diet chivda' which uses roasted poha and shev. But I believe that the shev used in that is fried one and so better avoided.

This is flattened rice flakes. It makes a good snacks for a morning breakfast. I got it roasted for sometime to make it crisp.


Instead of 'shev' I used sprouted moong beans.


Sprinkled some dry chuttney made from dried red chillies,grounded peanuts and garlic. It tastes so good...and crispy too! So much firey and filling for the morning specially after I had a banab and an oragnge 2 hours earlier.


As I said earlier, I didn't cook myself in 2 days so went to a local market to fetch some vegis.

Some vegetables that I got from the local market this evening.






I decided to try chinese chopsey (without oil)

Here are the cut vegi along with onions,garlic,ginger.



In a non-stick wok put some water, bring it to boil.




Put florets of cauli flower. This is steam frying.



Add more water (good idea is to boil it in an electric kettle beforehand) gradually and adding vegis in the order of their cooking time;carrots,french beans,onions,ginger n garlic.



I also added 2 cubes of a Maggi veg tastmaker.



Add paste of corn flour for thickning.



Add some green chilly sauce and dark soy sauce.


I used instant variety of noodles,smashed and broken down, as chopsey.


So the dish is ready and served in a bowl.





Early in the morning I thought I should start a preparation for a Banana ice cream.

Day #5

I had gone for a social function at a nearby temple. The food was a simple veg keralite style meal.

There is nothing spectacular to mention about 'my veganism' here..atm..but see how a meal served on a banana/plantain leaf is being served. I couldn't use my Samsung Note there.So used 2MP Blackberry to capture few images.


A plantain leaf is placed.



A pack of bottled mineral water is served.



Few vegetables are being served.


Now even more veg being served.



Now this is a height! I was so hungry that I started eating immediately after rice was served without realizing that I had to click one more time.

Well, the food was excellent...but...I am sure there was a lot of ghee (a clarified butter) in it. So need to some balancing act in the evening, which I did by having roasted brinjal,simple onion-tomato salad along with chapati and some brown rice.

Day #4

Veganism continues...

I didn't get sufficient time to try and cook a dish myself and some vegan food cooked on the previous day was still there. That was more than enough for my breakfast.

Lunch at Udipi Bhavan, Fort Market. As you can see there is a green veg,a leafy veg and white chick pea.Rasam and sambar is also occampaning. Fairly okay type of lunch with less oil and masalas.










My boss was oustation for last few days. Went to wish him and had a tea without milk.





For dinner, wife made mix veg of white gourd,green peas,carrot, served with chapati and brown rice.So that was a day...nothing spectacular happened but veganism continues...and that's a cool thing!

The five-a-day diet plan

A good article.

(Courtsey:Times of India)

DAILY MIRROR ,Jan 4, 2012, 12.00AM IST



The five-a-day diet plan

To meticulously stick to your body's requirement of five fruit-veggie portions every day, it is important that you know all about the programme.

The five-a-day plan - long hailed as the cornerstone of great health - stresses on the health benefits of eating five portions of fruits and vegetables every day.

As most fruit and vegetables are low in fat and calories but high in fibre, they help in filling us up without piling on the pounds and keeping our hearts healthy. The fibre they contain keeps our digestive system healthy, preventing problems such as constipation, piles and bowel cancer. For instance, their soluble fibre helps lower cholesterol, thereby reducing the risk of heart disease.

Fruits and veggies also boost vitamin and mineral intake, including folate for a healthy nervous system and vitamin C for strong immunity and healthy skin and hair. They also provide potassium, which helps lower blood pressure and many antioxidants that help guard against problems such as heart disease, strokes, cancer, dementia, arthritis and even wrinkles.

Read more...

Day#3 4th Jan

A routine sked for now,in that order, and of course with appropriate intervals: lemon tea,isabgol,a fruit and then breakfast.
Breakfast consisted of left over pavbhaji (no bread) with brown rice.

In the meanwhile, I decided to make Red Kidney Beans (Rajma)for dinner tonight.
1/4 kg rajma.

Rajma being soaked


Rajma pressure cooked with onions.
What's the reason for onions being cooked with rajma? Will try to answer that sometime later.

In the evening though I couldn't give much time to carry further process of cooking the rajma.And family had decided to cook mutton biryani for themselves and wife had already prepared methi (fenugreek)for me so I decided to store the half-done rajma.
Methi


However, after the dinner I could find some time and I finished the final product at midnight- to be consumed later the next day.

Second day of veganism

The day starts with asweet lime,of course after a cup of lemon tea.


I made an oil-less Pithale, a typical gram based Maharashtrian dish.

The basic ingredients for Pithale:
1 cup gram flour,
1 onion,
1 tomato,
3-4 green chilies,
2 Speing onoins with leaves,
garlic-ginger paste,
salt,
asafoetida,
turmeric powder.
I also used Maggie veg tastemaker which I shall try to avoid gradually.


So here goes a tasty and fast to cook dish.



Set in a deep bowl/dish.


Served with left over brown rice and some left over soup.


This is the brand of rice I used.

Hmmm...all this was for breakfast and lunch(with multgrain noodes)

For dinner I have to resigned to whatever wife cooks. I think she has made pav-bhaji (with very little oil for me). I know that if I have to follow vegan diet for health I must avoid oil and white bread, But tonight I am giving a little bit concession for myself.

Good Morning Vegan 2012!

The first day of my veganism.


Began with lemon tea;no sugar but yes some sweetner (sweetex) at around 7 a.m.


Sweet lime at 7.45 a.m.


That's the material going in to a soup;what's the name of the soup?Dunno...and it doesn't matter much.

Ingredients:
Oats,cabbage,green chillies,carrot,tomatos,onion,french beans. Of course I added 2 cubes of Maggie veg tastemakers.



The soup is simmering...



The soup is ready to be served. Aha...for me only...


In the afternoon, I had a set lunch consisting of some legumes,cabbage dry sabji,chapatis,rasam,sambar and rice.No butter-milk,curd or sweets. I would say it was okay to begin with.



This is what my wife served me with.
Baigan (eggplant) bharata, green peas,carrot curry,onions,peanut chutney and bajra (pearl millet) roti and thereafter some organic unpolished brown rice.

Though this dinner was not what I wished (because of oil) I had to content with the offering as I didn't wish to cook myself.


That was a Day#1 of Vegan-my style.