Caesar Salad

The recent edible highlights in my life can be summarized as follows: Caesar Salad and Chocolate.

The chocolate came about because of a couple of small celebrations. And both times, Alice Medrich's beautiful cookbook Sinfully Easy Delicious Desserts delivered with great recipes. I'm glad I thought to leaf through the book on my own shelf rather than hitting up the Internet looking for a recipe as I tend to do. 

The first was a birthday celebration at work, and I made a dozen vanilla cupcakes with mocha fudge frosting. This frosting is an excellent option for the buttercream-averse (me!) and it calls for cooking together butter, sugar, cocoa, espresso and cream, then letting the mixture cool into a thick glossy fudge to be spooned onto cupcakes. So easy and oh so good. And given the magical inbuilt portion control of cupcakes, I enjoyed one and the rest were devoured by co-workers. 

Then yesterday we had V's colleagues over for Indian food. Well, everything but the dessert was Indian food. We had the standard oldies but goodies of green bean patties and faux sev puris (faux because of the tortilla chip base and the cranberry chutney instead of the usual tamarind-date one- using what I had in the freezer), egg curry, chana masala, roasted cauliflower, raita and rice.

For the dessert, I broke out the springform pan and tried something new- Medrich's Queen of Sheba Torte version 5.0. It is a dense, creamy, RICH, nearly flourless dark chocolate cake. Easy to make and elegant, at least by my modest standards. V whipped up some raspberry cream to serve with it. I think this will be my go-to company dessert for this year. A tiny sliver is so decadent and satisfying, which is exactly what I'm looking for in a dessert these days.

Sweets apart, I've been gorging on fresh greens. A good salad dressing can make raw greens irresistible. This is my interpretation of a classic Caesar salad dressing. The dressing can be made ahead of time and stored in the fridge but I usually make it as needed in under 60 seconds. This amount of dressing serves 1 or 2.

In a bowl, stir together

• 2 tbsp. mayonnaise (I like Hellman's)
• 1 tsp. dijon mustard
• 2 tsp. capers (drained from a jar)
• 1/2 clove raw garlic, grated (I use a microplane zester)
• 2 tsp. fresh lemon juice
• Salt and pepper to taste

Toss with fresh greens and shredded Parmesan cheese (Sartori from Wisconsin is my favorite and I can find it in the local supermarket). Serve right away.

Have a great week and I'll see you next Monday with a round up of books and TV from this month. 

White Bean Chili

Chilly days call for big pots of chili to warm you from the inside out- and that's just what I cooked this weekend. I was in the mood for something a little different from the usual tomato-based red chili, so I tried a white chili instead, inspired by this recipe from The Kitchn.

White chilis generally have green chiles, white beans like Great Northern or cannellini or navy beans and chicken or turkey- which for a vegetarian version can be simply omitted or subbed with some mock meat. This time I used quorn (mycoprotein) mock chicken tenders- stocked up on sale at the grocery store. Here's my version of the recipe, in brief. It is an easy peasy recipe and it was an instant hit. I'll be making this hearty chili again and again. Canned green chiles and white beans (both the dry and canned versions) are easy to find in any US supermarket. For the corn, I used frozen roasted corn from Trader Joe's- I thawed it before using it in the recipe. But any fresh, canned or frozen corn would work.

White Bean Chili

(Adapted from The Kitchn)

1. Soak 3/4 cup of dried white beans overnight. Rinse and pressure cook them. Set aside.
2. Heat 2 tbsp. olive oil in a large pot. 
3. Saute 1 diced onion, 1 diced green pepper, 1 diced carrot, 1 diced yellow squash and 3 cloves of garlic, minced. 
4. Add a can of diced green chiles, cumin, oregano, Mexican chili powder, salt and pepper to taste. Saute for a couple of minutes.
5. Add 1 cup corn, 1 packed mock chicken (I used quorn "chicken" tenders), white beans and 6 cups vegetable stock or water. Bring to a boil and simmer for 20 minutes. 
6. Meanwhile, in a separate saucepan, melt 3 tbsp. butter. Add 3 tbsp. flour and whisk to make a roux. Add 3/4 cup whole milk and whisk well to make a thick lump-free sauce. 
7. Add the white sauce into the soup and mix well. Simmer for 10 more minutes. 
8. Turn off the heat and garnish with juice of 1/2 lemon and a handful of minced cilantro. Taste and adjust salt and seasonings. 
9. Serve with hot sauce on the side, plus a topping of crushed tortilla chips and shredded cheese, if desired. 

As the original recipe says, the flavor and texture of the soup gets better a few hours after it is made. If you're looking for a hearty stew this winter, I highly recommend this recipe.

* * *

Half-way through January, I'm pretty excited about how this month is coming along. The goal for this month was to start cutting down on excess carbohydrates to make my diet more compatible with my body's challenges with managing blood sugars.

The way I am eating now does not feel all that different from the way I ate before. There are only a few tweaks in place to reduce or replace the big carb heavy components. So I have been eating dal and subzi, just with a big pile of koshimbir (shredded raw vegetables) instead of rice. I enjoy Mexican flavors, but in a bowl instead of rolled up in a tortilla. I've been trying out spaghetti squash casseroles and loving them. I've been making a dressing for Caesar salad that is so irresistible that it has me craving big bowls of greens.

And so the emphasis is on satisfying vegetable-heavy meals. This is important because what I'm trying to establish here is not a "diet" in the sense of that short-term unpleasant thing you do to get to some goal. This is the way I will eat for the rest of my life.

As for ingredients like rice, it is not an all or nothing deal. Every now and then, I will eat a small amount. For instance, I made my favorite quick winter meal- khichdi- with 1 cup moong dal and 1/4 cup rice. Usually there's at least as much rice as dal, if not more rice than dal. And I enjoyed my dal-heavy khichdi with a large helping of two different stir-fried vegetables- subzis, making vegetables the star of the meal while also enjoying the warm khichdi.

What about snacks?  Crispy salty snacks are my kryptonite. This month, I've completely stopped buying potato chips, tortilla chips and fried Indian snacks like chaklis. If I am served any of these things somewhere, say at a party or a friend's home, I'll eat a few- no problem. But I just can't have the whole package in my house because I know I simply cannot eat these in moderation- the family size bag will vanish in hours. When V picked up a packet of chaklis at the store, I requested that he keep it in his office for snacking instead of at home. Because I don't need a packet of chaklis in my pantry and also, once I get my hands on it, he has no chance of tasting even half a chakli. I'll polish them off in record time. So you do need family buy-in to help you avoid the foods you're trying to steer clear of.

Instead, this month I'm keeping three snacks on hand, all three are foods that I love: (a) nuts,  (b) hummus and veggie sticks and (c) homemade granola with unsweetened almond milk. If cravings strike between meals, I turn to one of these. Many people use high-protein granola bars and smoothies as snacks, but I really don't like the taste of either granola bars or smoothies, so I'm going with what I personally like to eat.

But here's the funny thing: I rarely feel like snacking any more. All my life, I've been on a roller coaster of high and low blood sugars. I get hunger pangs every couple of hours, and need regular snacks between meals to keep from feeling jittery and moody. Once I removed the thing that my body can't handle- excess carbs- the problem of being constantly hungry is going away too. For the first time in my life, I'm not craving snacks all the time and it is a nice feeling to be satisfied from one meal to the next. Let's see what the rest of this month brings. 

Book Synopsis: The End of Diabetes

Image: Goodreads

Every bookstore and library is filled with aisles upon aisles of books on health, diet and self-help. I confess to having very mixed feeling about these books. My approach is to read some of these books to see if they contain anything useful, while being deeply skeptical of embracing any one book or author as the ultimate truth.

Most authors have a central thesis or pet theory. They are often guilty of cherry picking research studies with conclusions that support their pet theory. Don't get me started on how flawed and biased many of the research studies are in the first place. Most books are full of exaggerated claims and promises of a miracle. Authors go to great lengths to explain why everyone who believes anything different is flat out wrong.

But now and then I read these books anyway, because despite everything I just said, I've also come across valuable information, different viewpoints, messages of hope, ideas for changing habits and useful tips and recipes. There is a grain of truth in the hype. I will post a book review every now and then if I come across a book which says something interesting. This is one I read last month.

The End of Diabetes: The Eat To Live Plan to Prevent and Reverse Diabetes by Joel Fuhrman, MD.

The crux of the book is this: Type II diabetes can be prevented and reversed with a nutrient dense diet of plant based foods. Here's what I took away from each of the chapters in this book. Quotes from the book are in italics.

Chapter 1: Understanding diabetes
The actual discussion of the causes of type I and type II diabetes in this chapter was quite garbled, in my opinion. But there is one bit of discussion at the end of the chapter that I really liked. Fuhrman criticizes the system of food exchanges used by the American Diabetic Association (ADA), which is the basis of how most nutritionists teach new diabetics to eat (for example, me when I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes). The ADA tries very hard to work with the standard American diet, recommending small portions of low-nutrient, low-fiber foods. "Cereal is OK, just eat only 1/2 cup of it"- that sort of thing. This leaves patients hungry and struggling to comply with the nutrition plan. Instead of just reducing portions of rice and tortillas when I had GD, I wish I had the sense to add in substantial portions of non-starchy vegetables which would have left me sated. Anyway, I agree with Fuhrman that the standard nutritional advice given to diabetics is very poor and it misses the boat.

Chapter 2: Don't medicate, eradicate
"Clearly our present dependency on drugs to control diabetes without an emphasis on dietary and exercise interventions is promoting diabetic complications and premature death in millions of people all over the world". Fuhrman explains how medications-including oral pills and insulin- give type II diabetics a false sense of security that their diabetes is under control which leads patients to continue living the very same lifestyle that led to the disease in the first place. "The best medicine for diabetics is a high-nutrient, lower-calorie diet and exercise, not drugs. This is the only approach that lowers cholesterol, lowers triglycerides, and lowers blood pressure as it drops weight and blood glucose". 

Chapter 3: Standard American diet versus a nutritarian diet
Fuhrman recommends what he calls a "nutritarian" diet- a diet rich in micronutrients (vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals). The foods it emphasizes are familiar ones- vegetables, especially green leafy vegetables, beans, nuts, seeds and fruits. Animal foods are strongly discouraged. So, he is essentially recommending a vegan diet but minus high-starch foods like white rice, refined grains and bread products. I found this chapter interesting because I eat a vegetarian, predominantly South Asian diet and the recommended foods like vegetables, beans, lentils, nuts and seeds are the very pillars of Indian home cooking.

Chapter 4: Reversing diabetes is all about understanding hunger
"Toxic hunger appears at the lower plateau of the blood sugar curve, drives overeating behavior, and strongly increases the desire to consume more calories than the body requires, leading to weight gain and diabetes. True hunger, however, appears when the body has used up most of the calories from the previous meal...and is ready to be refueled. With a change of diet, toxic hunger gradually lessens and resolves, allowing individuals to be satisfied eating less".

"Wrong food choices lead to withdrawal symptoms that are mistaken for hunger...Initially, these symptoms are relieved after eating, but the cycle simply starts over again with the symptoms returning in a matter of hours. Eating when you experience toxic hunger in not the answer. Changing what you eat to stop toxic hunger is."

"...trying to eat fewer calories is ineffective and almost futile. The secret is to desire fewer calories. The high consumption of low-calorie, high-nutrient foods such as raw vegetables, cooked greens, beans and seeds prepared in delicious combinations makes you feel physically full from all the fiber and satisfied from all the chewing. You lost the addictive cravings and then you simply and naturally desire less food."

Chapter 5: High protein, low carb counterattack
Here Fuhrman spends a great deal of time talking about the dangers of low-carb diets that are based on animal protein. I understand advocacy of vegetarian and vegan diets or meat-heavy diets for that matter but I get uneasy when authors cherry pick scientific studies to support their statements. So this is the part where I just moved on. People have all sorts of reasons for eating what they want to eat. I've made my choices so I just want to know how to maximize them.

This chapter also emphasizes that many plant based foods such as beans, lentils and vegetables have a high protein content.

Chapter 6: The phenomenal fiber in beans
Legumes such as beans, lentils, peas and chickpeas have protein, soluble and insoluble fiber and another type of fiber called resistant starch which has health benefits. "Considering their favorable effects on blood sugar and weight loss, they (legumes) are the preferred carbohydrate source for people who have diabetes or are at risk for diabetes". 

Chapter 7: The truth about fat
Fuhrman emphasizes that whole plant-based high fat foods such as nuts, seeds and avocados are an important part of the diet. "I have encountered many individuals who have not thrived on vegan or flexitarian diets...Often they do not realize their real problem. They go back to eating large amounts of animal products, not knowing that they were fat deficient on their low-fat vegan diet. For most of these individuals, eating more healthy fats from nuts and seeds, taking a DHA supplement, and eating fewer starchy carbohydrates clears up the problem". 

Chapter 8: The nutritarian diet in action
In this chapter, Fuhrman outlines his recommendations: The unlimited foods to be eaten liberally are all raw vegetables, all cooked green vegetables and other non starchy vegetables like tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, mushrooms, onions and cauliflower. Some fruit can be eaten. 2 cups a day of beans are allowed along with some nuts and seeds. "The salad is the main dish". Fuhrman recommends starting every main meal with a big salad.

My take on his advice from this chapter: Fuhrman's diet does not endorse oil, not even for sauteing vegetables. His recommended diet is restrictive and unappetizing with almost no salt. I understand that Fuhrman's patients are often very sick and I don't know what their particular needs might be. For myself, I know that spices and seasonings and sauces are all wonderful things that will support me in eating better.

There is a whole spectrum between eating to live (food strictly as fuel, which is right there in the title of this book) and living to eat (food as entertainment and indulgence). But there is plenty of space to thrive in a middle zone where many of the pleasurable and emotional connections of food are retained while eating food that nourishes the body and is right for one's own metabolism.

Chapter 9: The six steps to achieving our health goals
These involve making the commitment, drawing up a plan, tracking progress, making it public, making your kitchen healthy and the exercise prescription. "In place of dependency-inducing drugs, the proper medical intervention for this disease is to focus on the aggressive use of diet and exercise".

Chapter 10: For doctors and patients
This chapter is a pep talk for physicians to recommend diet and exercise changes and not just prescribe medication.

Chapter 11: FAQ

Chapter 12: Menus and recipes
Breakfast recipes typically contain oats, fruits and nuts. Other recipes are a variety of dips and dressings, lentil and bean soups, bean burgers, vegetable curries and stir-fries.

In summary, this book has two interesting take-home messages. The first is that people diagnosed with diabetes or at high risk for becoming diabetic have very good reason to be optimistic that at any time and any stage, they can change their lifestyle and reverse the disease to a remarkable extent, even reducing or eliminating the need for medication.

The second message is that a plant based diet is compatible with preventing and reversing diabetes. This is reassuring to anyone who has chosen to eat a vegetarian or vegan diet (or mostly vegetarian or vegan) for whatever reason and who feels a bit defeated by the prevailing climate of meat-based low-carb diets. 

"Noodle" Stir Fry

Sowmya requested the recipe for the "noodle" stir fry I mentioned in my last post- so here it is as promised. I swapped out noodles for broccoli slaw to lower the carb content of this meal while making it vegetable-heavy.

This does not have to be an all or nothing swap, by the way. Even if some cooked wheat/rice/other noodles were added to this dish, it would still have a lot more vegetables than standard vegetables noodles which tend to be heavy on noodles with only a few bits of vegetables here and there. Do what works for you!

Broccoli Tofu Stir-Fry

Broccoli slaw is a shredded mixture of broccoli stalks, sometimes with some carrots and red cabbage included. It is sold in packages in the produce section of American supermarkets.

1. Heat 1 tbsp. oil in a wide pan on medium heat.
2. Drain and pat dry 1 package of extra-firm tofu. Cut into bite-sized cubes. Pan fry the tofu until lightly browned. When the tofu is almost ready, sprinkle it with 2 tbsp. nutritional yeast and a bit of soy sauce. Stir fry for a minute more, then remove tofu into a plate and set aside.
3. In the same pan, heat 1/2 tbsp. oil. Pour in a 10 oz package of broccoli slaw. Stir fry for a couple of minutes.
4. Add 2 tsp. ginger garlic paste, soy sauce, hoisin sauce, sriracha sauce, a drizzle of maple syrup, all to taste.
5. Add a handful of crushed peanuts or a couple of tablespoons of peanut butter.
6. Stir fry for a couple more minutes.
7. Garnish with minced cilantro or green onions.
8. Toss with the tofu and serve. 

The Plan for Jan

Happy New Year! I'm glad 2015 is here with a blank slate, and I hope it will be sprinkled liberally with joyful and meaningful moments for you and for me.

I've read of people who, instead of making resolutions, adopt a word or an overarching theme for the new year. It is a great way to help steer one's life in the direction you want to go. I thought about it a little bit and chose the theme Nupur 2.0 for this year. One of my favorite quotes from Dr. Seuss goes like this: “Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.” So the goal is to listen to what my body needs and revise my habits to be more true to myself.

In more concrete terms, I'm going to be working on one major goal every month. Based on my family's medical history and my personal medical history that I've talked about before which points to insulin resistance, the most urgent change for me is to stop eating excess carbs. Other factors are important too- getting enough sleep, managing stress, exercising regularly- but this is the critical one. Without making this change, the rest won't matter much.

As far as cutting out excess carbs goes, I'm aiming for the low hanging fruit, so to speak. The stuff that is mostly empty carbs and that I tend to eat too much of- rice, bread, parathas, tortillas, noodles and pasta. These will be replaced by vegetables and more vegetables, both raw and cooked. I happen to love vegetables so this is no hardship. Beans and lentils, nuts and seeds are all in. Beans, legumes and some veggies like carrots and sweet potatoes have an abundance of nutrition even if they are carb-heavy, and if I'm cutting down on the other starches, then I have room in my "budget" for these. The idea is not to cut out carbs altogether but to bring them down to a level that my body can handle.

I'll continue to eat eggs and some dairy- mostly homemade yogurt and some butter, ghee and cheese which I use mostly as flavoring. And I occasionally eat tofu and meat substitutes as well.

Here are some examples of swaps I've been making in December, replacing carb-heavy staples with vegetables.

Our lunch consists of leftovers from the previous night's dinner. Often, my lunchbox would have rice, dal with pickle on the side. Here's version 2.0: garlickly moong dal with a large helping of roasted broccoli and squash and the requisite dollop of pickle. I was pleasantly surprised that I did not miss the rice at all.

Rajma (kidney bean curry) and tortillas are a popular dinner option at my home. On that day, a friend left on a long vacation and stopped by with a big bag of produce that he'd cleaned out from his fridge- could I please use it up so it would not be wasted? The bag contained lettuce, cucumbers and peppers among other things. So I skipped the tortillas and spooned the rajma on a giant salad, dressed simply with lemon juice, salt and pepper. This I expected would taste really weird. It was surprisingly tasty- the hot rajma wilted the lettuce a bit, and everything was juicy and delicious. I thought I would eat seconds but could barely finish this bowl.

Fried egg is one of my favorite breakfasts. Instead of eating it with a couple slices of toast or a whole grain tortilla, I took half an avocado, mashed it with a fork and stirred in a pinch of salt and some hot sauce. I had some salad left over (this was the morning after the rajma dinner) and ate that on the side. This was a great way to start the day.

Another favorite meal at my place is noodle stir fry with vegetables and tofu. For version 2.0, I skipped the noodles, and used broccoli slaw instead. Broccoli slaw is sold in packages in the produce section of US supermarkets- it is basically shredded broccoli stems, sometimes with carrots and red cabbage. I was pleased at how much the sautéed slaw resembled the texture of noodles. The whole meal was a snap to put together and very satisfying.

All this month, I will continue these swaps and pay attention to my mood and energy levels, my hunger and cravings, and to my weight and waist size. I've taken some "before" measurements so I have something to compare to. The idea is to make the changes, see if they work and adjust as necessary.

How did you ring in the new year? What are your hopes and dreams for 2015? 

What I'm Reading in the Winter Break

I want to thank everyone who wrote me messages of encouragement and shared their own stories on my last post. I am so touched and grateful that you joined in the conversation. In talking about my fears of diabetes openly, I feel like a great weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Clearly, a lot of us are in this together. I do believe that 2015 is going to be a big year of small changes for the better. 

It is cold and dreary here and I've spent most evenings this month reading or quilting. I took up a rather challenging (for me) quilt this year, making a couple of squares each month of 2014 and shocked myself by finishing it before year end!

As for reading, my three favorite books this month were all about questions and answers. 


What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe (of xkcd comics fame) is the most delightful book I've read all year. Munroe is a physicist. Readers of his website posed absurd questions to him and he answered them as thoroughly and seriously as he could, using principles of science, math and logic.

If you have a curious nature, if you've ever wondered, "How much physical space does the Internet take up?", or "What would happen if you made a periodic table out of cube-shaped bricks, where each brick was made of the corresponding element?" or "How many unique English tweets are possible?", you'll find this book hilarious, entertaining, illuminating and very very clever.

I disagreed with a couple of his answers to biological questions. I would have answered them a completely different way. But that is the point of absurd hypothetical questions- they make you think and there is rarely one right answer, just a range of plausible ones. If science was taught this way, more kids would find themselves in STEM fields.

Big Questions from Little People: And Simple Answers from Great Minds compiled by Gemma Elwin Harris. Kids ask the most baffling questions from morning to night, and this book collects some such questions posed by kids ages 4-12 and gets experts to actually answer them. The questions range from "Why is space so sparkly?" to "Why do wars happen?" to "What should you do when you can't think what to draw or paint?" to "Who is God?". The resulting collection is a delightful collection of quirky wisdom and some very profound thoughts. I think any grown-up would enjoy leafing through this book, and if you have a child ages 5-12 (or so), it would be really fun to read some of the questions and answers with them. 

Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed. This is an unusual sort of book. Strayed used to be an anonymous advice columnist on a website. Readers would submit questions on love and life and the answers are compiled in this book. Reading a bunch of advice to strangers seems like a weird thing but this book is a powerful compilation of authentic and raw human emotion. This book made me "feel all the feelings and think all the things"- my litmus test for a worthwhile book. I'm very glad I read this masterpiece of heartache and hope. 

On to some fiction...

Quartet in Autumn by Barbara Pym. I have to thank Arpita for introducing me to this author. Pym has a knack for commenting on the tiny details of everyday life with wit and humor. This is a book about two men and two women who share an office and who are all approaching retirement age. This is not a plot-driven novel but a character-driven one. It is a quiet book, sad and funny in its way, as it comments on human nature. 

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce is a gentle, sad yet ultimately uplifting story. This is a story both literal and metaphorical about the journey that we humans undertake. Harold Fry is recently retired, living with his wife in a tense and bitter marriage in their home at the Southern-most tip of England. He gets a good-bye letter from an old colleague who is dying in a hospice at the Northern tip of England. Harold sets out to the corner mailbox to post a reply, then somehow, without planning or preparation, keeps walking for weeks (!) to see her in the hospice. “The world was made up of people putting one foot in front of the other; and a life might appear ordinary simply because the person living it had been doing so for a long time.” 

The Mistress of Spices by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni was on my to-read list for a long time. When I finally picked it up this month, I did not "get" the story at all. It was tedious, not fun and I returned it without finishing the book. Oh well.

Meanwhile, here's what we have been reading with Miss Lila...

Otis by Loren Long. Lila borrowed this book from her school library and she can't get enough of it. It is the sweet story about friendship between a calf and an old tractor. Lila loves to say "putt putt puddety chuff" and those sort of tractor noises from the book.

The Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle is so hilarious and endearing. The ill-tempered ladybug doesn't want to share a breakfast of aphids with the friendly ladybug and looks to pick a fight. When the friendly ladybug agrees to the fight, the grouchy ladybug says "Oh you're not big enough" and goes off to find progressively bigger animals to fight with.

If You Give a Moose a Muffin by Laura Joffe Numeroff and Felicia Bond. Boy, we've read this one so many times that Lila and I both know the words by heart. This is completely ridiculous story about a young boy who offers a muffin to a visiting moose. One thing leads to another as the easily distracted moose jumps from activity to activity making a complete mess in the process.

All by Myself by Aliki. Nothing exceptional about this book except that since the title is Lila's all-time favorite phrase, I could not resist picking it up at the library. The book goes through a busy day in a child's life, highlighting the everyday actions he learns to do by themselves, such as buttoning his shirt and brushing his teeth. 

What are you reading these days? 

Towards a Healthier 2015

In the blink of an eye, we're counting down to the end of 2014. At this time of year, I always find myself reflecting on the year that was. As with most years, Twenty Fourteen had highs and lows for our family. We had many wonderful and memorable moments with our loved ones. The lowest low was V's father passing away. Indeed, all the sad and bad moments this year had to do with serious illness and deteriorating health among some of our close friends and family. Health is wealth, the old cliche says, but how often we take it for granted.

And that's what this post is- a long and rambling contemplation on food and wellness and where my life is headed. There's no recipe in this post but there is some food for thought- for myself and perhaps for some of you reading it. I guess I've been writing this post in my head for over 3 years and this week, I finally decided to type it and hit the publish button.

In the summer of 2011 in St. Louis, I was about two thirds of the way through a fairly uneventful pregnancy. We were happy and excited to welcome our baby daughter. My OB ordered a routine glucose tolerance test- and I failed it. I had gestational diabetes. I was surprised and not surprised at the same time. Surprised because I had the hallmarks of being healthy and low-risk with a normal BMI. Not surprised because I have a woefully strong history of diabetes on one side of my family and I knew very well how the genetic dice was loaded.

Things happened rapidly after I was flagged as having gestational diabetes. The very next day I saw a diabetes counsellor who taught me to finger-prick and test my blood glucose 4 times a day- upon waking (the fasting number) and an hour after breakfast, lunch and dinner. This was torture enough for me- I hate hate hate needles. It was all too much- I burst into tears in the counsellor's office but she was as kind and reassuring as can be. I also met with a nutritionist who taught me the basics of carb counting. The strategy was this: make sure I restrict carbs to 200 grams a day (budgeted over meals and snacks), do some brisk walking for exercise, test blood glucose, record my numbers and make sure they stayed within the acceptable range. If I could manage to control my blood sugar with diet and exercise, fine. If not, they'd dose me with insulin.

My baby's health was at stake. There was nothing I would not do for her. I pulled my act together and I was meticulous. I did everything I was told- counted carbs and walked for 10 minutes after every single meal. Working full time and trying to get stuff done before I went on maternity leave, I set alarms and did finger pricks at my desk. The numbers were always within range. My OB remarked that if all her patients were so compliant, she would see many fewer complications.

I had nine(!) friends and acquaintances who were pregnant at the same time as me. Everyone else was indulging in their favorite foods, eating for two, giving in to cravings. My life looked quite different. But at the end of my pregnancy, at a time when most women are feeling distinctly heavy and encumbered, I was feeling lighter and fitter than I'd ever felt. This whole torture of finger pricks, carb counting and brisk walks in the St. Louis August heat- it was working. Lila's birth was uneventful- although she was a smaller-than-expected baby and my OB and I realized that in my zeal, I had probably been stricter with my diet than I should have been. Two weeks after giving birth, I was back at my pre-pregnancy weight.

Gestational diabetes is situational; it resolves when the baby is born. Or more precisely, when you deliver the placenta, which is what produces the hormones that lead to insulin resistance. But a graduate of gestational diabetes learns some important things about her body's ability (or the lack thereof) to process carbohydrates and sees a big red flag that there is type II diabetes in her future if she's not careful. So in getting that warning sign, I will say that gestational diabetes was the best bad thing that has happened to me.

You'd think this episode would have changed my life immediately and forever. It did not. Humans can be exceedingly resistant to change. There's always an excuse and usually a laundry list of excuses not to change our habits. There was a new baby to care for and the next year went by in a blur. There was no mental space or physical energy to make any lifestyle changes. The year after that we moved to a new state and life just went on as usual.

Earlier this year, we went to visit our families in India for a month. Seeing older relatives is a form of time travel because you can see your future self reflected in them. I was seeing my extended family after 5 long years. Almost everyone I know has diabetes and its painful complications. I'm not just talking about those who are affluent and have unlimited access to food. The nice lady who cleans my aunt's house and who struggles to make a living as a maid also has diabetes. Everyone is on medication and many take insulin shots. Almost no one seems to have received any rigorous counseling about nutrition and exercise. Many have had perilous cardiac surgeries. I saw people with vibrant minds who are trapped in a body that is too heavy, with joints that are literally unable to take the weight. One close relative is losing her eyesight because of diabetic complications. In a nutshell- I was scared straight.

It is not like I haven't been trying to do better all along. I read books and try to nudge my eating habits in the right direction. I've been struggling for years to get into an exercise habit. Part of my resistance to real change has been the feeling that things are not so bad the way they are- after all, I'm not overweight, and I have tons of energy and no debilitating symptoms per se.

But the logical part of my brain knows the evidence is mounting. My energy is more mental than physical and frequently a mind-over-matter thing. Climbing a couple of flights of stairs leaves me panting- this is pitiful for my age. When my toddler wanted me to jump with her, my sister overheard and commented that she hasn't seen me jump since the 1980s. I've been labeled a bookworm and a couch potato since the days of primary school and I fully embraced that label. My BMI may fall within the normal range, but I have no muscle tone. I participated in a research study last year (it was to study the effect of walking on body composition) and the scan showed that I have a very high proportion of body fat. This is called being "skinny fat", where even a person of normal weight has fat deposits coating their organs- a very high-risk situation for a variety of diseases.

Disease is a complicated thing, a subtle interplay of genes, environment and lifestyle factors. But you have to do what's in your hands even if there are no guarantees of dodging major illness. A friend of mine was athletic and robust and healthy as the proverbial horse, that is, until she was diagnosed with lymphoma. She told me that her underlying strong health helped her survive the harrowing treatment and now she's thriving again.

All these things have been running in my head for the last few months, and I sat down and identified two goals. My experience with gestational diabetes was hard at the time, but in reality, it showed that a modest increase in exercise (just brisk walks!) and a modest decrease in carb intake gave me good results in a matter of weeks. So those are my two goals at this time.

Already, I've been exercising more this year than I did before- walking and swimming. I'm gingerly getting into the exercise habit and will talk more about this in a future post if anyone is interested.

As for eating, what constitutes a "healthy" diet is a very loaded question. I'm interested in answering the question for myself, for my own body and its challenges. I don't know or care what the universally best diet is. Humans being omnivores, I highly doubt there is one ideal diet. There are likely many different ways to get to the goal of having a favorable body composition with good blood sugar control.

I eat a mainly plant based diet along with eggs and dairy and that's what I intend to keep eating. What will change is the proportions of foods in my everyday meals. In my case, I've identified the problem as eating excess carbs and for the last couple of weeks, I've started to replace some of the carbs with lots of vegetables. My goal is not to eliminate carbs or even to drastically cut them but just not to eat more than my body capable of handling. Beans, sweet potatoes, lentils are very nutritious and will be a big part of my diet. But I will find ways on cutting down on rice, tortillas, pasta and noodles at least for my everyday meals, while replacing them with a lot more cooked and raw vegetables. There's reason for me to be optimistic because I have several things going for me- I already cook in a "veggie-centric" style and know how to prep vegetables- I just have to ramp it up. I don't have a sweet tooth and rarely eat desserts anyway.

To change my habits, I have to know myself and work with myself, and not fight against my basic nature. I don't like drastic changes. However, subtle nudges in the right direction quickly become habits and stick with me for life. I am a moderator rather than an abstainer.

Publicly stating nutrition goals often attracts criticism. There will be people who think I'm going too far ("Just eat less and you will be OK, why vilify carbs?") and others who will think I'm not going far enough ("You won't be in the fat burning zone unless you cut out all beans and starchy vegetables"). But the reason I'm putting it out there is because making a public commitment is a strong motivator for changing habits. Because I was so sad to see diabetes and other metabolic disorders eroding the people I care about, and would like to talk about it. Because this discussion might strike a chord with someone else who is thinking about these issues.

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to all, and I will see you in the new year! We'll continue to eat well on this blog, I promise you. 

Thanksgiving Eats

Thanksgiving is a food lover's holiday and around here it has certainly been a week of good eats. The festivities started with a potluck lunch at work on Tuesday. I contributed a main dish- harvest pilaf and a dessert- pumpkin flan.

Harvest pilaf was nothing but my standard biryani recipe. I reduced the amount of rice, and instead loaded up the dish with all the vegetables that to me are the real stars of Thanksgiving. So in went a tray of roasted sweet potatoes and carrots, and another tray of roasted cauliflower, beans and zucchini.

I've made pumpkin flan a few years ago and we had enjoyed it- pumpkin flan has all the flavor of pumpkin pie but in a cool and light custard. This time, I used this recipe from Lucinda Scala Quinn. It uses pantry ingredients (and at this time of year, I count canned pumpkin as a pantry ingredient) and makes a nice 9 inch flan. The minor changes I made to the recipe: (1) I used only 1/2 cup of sugar in the flan mixture instead of 3/4 cup, (2) I used regular granulated sugar and used a dollop of molasses to make it "brown" and (3) I made the caramel in a small saucepan instead of in the oven. For the bain marie (water bath that keeps the flan smooth and tender), I used a huge foil roasting pan from the supermarket. You only have to buy it once and then you can keep using it any time you need a bain marie.

We had a wonderful spread, including deviled eggs, spinach quiche with a puff pastry crust, a salad with kale, shredded brussels sprouts and dried cranberries, corn casserole, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, cranberry sauce with orange zest.




The salad was my favorite dish, a crunchy and fresh counterpoint to all the other heavy dishes. I loved it so much that I made something like it to take to our Thanksgiving dinner- which was another potluck at a friend's home. My starting point for the salad was this recipe from The Kitchn.





Here's how I made my version of Shredded Brussels Sprouts Salad.

• Lop the stem ends off 1 lb of fresh brussels sprouts. Using the slicing disk of the food processor, shred the sprouts. Also shred a cup or so of red cabbage. Core a crisp apple (like honeycrisp or gala or fuji) and make thin slices with a mandoline. 
• In a small saucepan, melt 4 tbsp. butter and cook it until browned and nutty. In a large bowl, whisk the brown butter with 2 tbsp. balsamic vinegar, 1 tsp. dijon mustard and salt and pepper to taste, until the dressing is emulsified. Stir in the chopped veggies and apple slices. (This salad can be made in advance). Top with roasted pecans and serve. 

For a main dish to take along to the potluck, I started out with the idea of making a butternut squash lasagna. Then I remembered that I had a box of jumbo pasta shells in the pantry and this seemed as good a time as any to finally cook those. Here's what I came up with, a mash up of various online recipes- and it was a resounding success.

Jumbo Shells stuffed with Butternut Squash and Spinach

Make the filling (I did this a few hours ahead of time):

• Peel and cube a butternut squash (there are videos online that teach how to do this safely). On a large baking sheet, toss the butternut squash cubes with 6 unpeeled garlic cloves, olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast at 425F until tender. 
• Cool and peel the garlic. Place roasted garlic and squash (I used 2/3 of the whole large squash here and saved the rest for another dish) in a large bowl. Mash it up coarsely with a fork.
• Thaw a box of frozen chopped spinach in the microwave, squeeze to remove excess liquid and add to the cooked squash.
• Add 1 cup ricotta, 1 cup diced mozzarella
• Add 1 tsp. poultry seasoning, 1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes, salt and pepper to taste
• Mix everything together and refrigerate until you're ready to assemble the pasta.

Cook the jumbo pasta shells according to the directions on the box. Here's what the cooked shells looked like- adorable and surprisingly sturdy. Lila was delighted and munched on a couple.








Make the sauce
I made 2 cups of basic white sauce for this dish. You could use a tomato sauce or no sauce at all.

Assemble and bake
Scoop about 2 tbsp. filling into each shell. In a 9 x 13 baking dish, pour the white sauce. Arrange the shells on top. Scatter with 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese. Cover with foil and bake at 350F for 30 minutes, then uncover and place under broiler for a minute or two to get the cheese browned. Ta da.

This pasta dish was full of flavor and had a pretty nice presentation (which is rare for me). Each person could conveniently serve themselves a shell or two.

I had enough cooked shells left over to make another (smaller) tray of shells the next day.

So, tell me, what's cooking in your world? 

What I'm Reading, and a Few Book Giveaways

Thanksgiving Week has arrived in the US. There's a buzz of excitement in the air. Already this afternoon there was a mad rush at the grocery store and I had to fight my way through a crowd to triumphantly score a the butternut squash.

Next week, I'll tell you about my holiday cooking but today, here's a rundown of the books I've been reading lately. And scroll down for some book giveaways.

Jana Bibi's Excellent Fortunes (Jana Bibi Adventures #1) by Betsy Woodman is the story of a Scottish woman who makes India her adopted homeland in the decade following independence. She inherits a large house on a hill station and moves there. The very existence of the town is threatened by a proposed dam, and the story revolves around Jana Bibi and the colorful town residents who rally around to save the town. This was an easy and pleasant read but not particularly memorable- I like books that "give me all the feelings" and this one did not emotionally resonate with me for whatever reason.

The Likeness (Dublin Murder Squad #2) by Tana French is a taut psychological thriller. This one, just like all of Tana French's other books that I've read was emotionally wrought, riveting, memorable and a book I just couldn't put down. The premise of the book is not very plausible if you think about it, yet the writing and atmosphere pull you right into the story. If you're looking to lose yourself in a book over Thanksgiving weekend, this is one I would recommend.

The Restless Sleep: Inside New York City's Cold Case Squad by Stacy Horn. Horn goes into the Cold Case Squad of NYC, following along on four cold (as in unsolved) cases involving complex and brutal murders. Along the way, she studies the politics and bureaucracy of the department, the challenges they face and the personalities of the detectives involved. It is interesting stuff, except that Horn has the most fragmented and confusing narrative style. Despite my annoyance at the disjointed writing, I read the book in 2 days flat so it definitely kept up my interest. I read this book as part of a read-along for Nonfiction November; here are two other reviews of Restless Sleep by bloggers who read it this month.


And now for some book giveaways. I have three cookbooks that were sent by the publisher and one book of short stories that I won in the giveaway. I've enjoyed these books and would like to pass them on to someone else. You'll need a shipping address in the US to keep shipping costs affordable for me. I'll keep the giveaway open until the morning of Monday, December 1, 2014.

1. Rainbows in the Desert by Archna Pant is a book of short stories set in India. I won this book from Siri's blog (she has a short review there too). I read it and quite enjoyed it and am ready to pass it along for someone else to read over the holidays. To win this book, fill out this form. This giveaway is now closed and the winner is Leena.

2. Savory Pies by Greg Henry is a good cookbook for those of us who lack a sweet tooth but find a good savory pastry quite irresistible. There's a wonderful variety of recipes in this book- there's everything from pot pies to pizza variations, empanadas and calzones. There are savory (and to me, thus infinitely superior) versions of desserts, such as artichoke clafoutis, polenta cobbler and mushroom tart tatin. To win this book, fill out this form. This giveaway is now closed and the winner is Jane.

3. Homemade Condiments by Jessica Harlan. Many home cooks are adept making their own versions of condiments. I remember my mother making ketchup when tomatoes were in season, and making pickles and chhunda was the thing to do when we were drowning in raw mangoes from the backyard tree in early summer. In my kitchen, I often make salsas, chutneys and salad dressings (but so far, I've always bought mayo and mustard and ketchup). This book is a gem, covering all sorts of condiments from ketchup and barbecue sauces to pickles, relishes and dessert sauces. Some of the recipes that look really good to me include chipotle ketchup, avocado goddess dressing, sweet chili sauce and hoisin sauce. To win this book, fill out this form. This giveaway is now closed and the winner is Prachi.

4. Classic Snacks Made from Scratch by Casey Barber. I remember reading this in one of Michael Pollan's books: Only eat junk food that you've made in your own kitchen. (Or something to that effect). Well, if you've ever dreamed of making homemade versions of snack foods, Casey Barber has the recipes for you. This is such a fun cookbook. There's everything from cookies (eg. graham crackers) to twinkies, cool ranch doritos, pudding pops, cheetos! Some of the recipes are pretty simple to make, like the pudding pops, while others are very involved. But full points to her for closely replicating these (in)famous and celebrated treats. To win this book, fill out this form. This giveaway is now closed and the winner is Divya who said her favorite snack is fruit and nut biscuits!

What are you reading these days? 
Any big plans for Thanksgiving week?

Indian-Spiced Hash and Omelet

We had a week marred by coughs and colds. Random khichdis and soups dominated the dinner menu all week. With cough syrup for dessert. On Sunday I pulled myself up by the bootstraps and made some eggs and potatoes for breakfast. This is a standard breakfast on this continent, for sure, but with some help from the masala dabba to give it some sinus-clearing oomph.

Two Potato Hash

1. Heat 2 tbsp. oil/ghee in a cast iron pan.
2. Add 1 diced medium onion, a sprig of curry leaves, 3 cloves minced garlic, 1 tbsp. cumin-coriander powder, 1/2 tsp. turmeric powder and 1/2 tsp. red chili powder (or more to taste). Stir fry for a minute or two.
3. Add 2 medium potatoes and 1 sweet potato, all evenly diced (no need to peel unless the peel is too thick).
4. Stir to coat the potatoes with spices and cook on medium-low heat until potatoes are tender and browned.

Masala Omelet

When a friend visited last Christmas and offered to make breakfast for our crowd, she made one giant omelet instead of making several small ones. So clever. I've used her method here.







1. Beat 5 large eggs.
2. Add 2 tbsp. minced onion, 1/4 cup minced cilantro, salt and pepper to the beaten eggs. Add some minced green chilies if you like the heat.
3. Heat 1 tbsp. oil/butter in a 12 inch nonstick skillet.
4. When oil is hot, add egg mixture and swirl around to spread evenly.
5. Scatter with 1/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese.
6. Reduce heat to low and cover skillet.
7. Cook for a few minutes until the eggs are set.

Cut omelet into wedges and serve with the potato hash. There you go- a sunny breakfast for the perfectly lazy morning.

Last week, I got a few requests for the cabbage raita recipe; you'll see it updated at the end of this post.

What did you do this weekend? See you Monday week with some book reviews and a few book giveaways!

Stuffed Eggplant Curry

For three days straight over this weekend, we did our favorite thing- we had friends over for a meal at our home. This is fun year round but especially enjoyable when the weather turns chilly, when it is too cold and dark to spend time outside. That's when the warm kitchen is the place to be.

The festivities started on Friday, Lila had a day off from school for Fall break (following a day of prancing around as a rainbow for Halloween). We invited her two best friends from school over for a play date followed by lunch. Kids fought, played, yelled, giggled, sometimes all at once, while I got a chance to get to know their parents who I normally just wave to in the school's parking lot. At Lila's request, lunch was mac and cheese and a tray of roasted broccoli and sweet potatoes. With apple and yellow pepper slices for snack and mixed berries for dessert. I used Martha Stewart's recipe for the mac and cheese (I had pinned it from this post some years ago) with a few modifications: I scaled down the recipe to a 12 oz box of "white fiber" spiral pasta, used less cheese- and used cheddar, pepper jack, Parmesan and cream cheese instead of the ones mentioned in the recipe. It is a wonderful recipe, makes a large batch and reheats beautifully.

On Saturday, my crafting buddies came over to sew and knit, and I made them a supper of broccoli cheese soup and caramalized onion- lentil pilaf. A friend got peanut butter bars for dessert.

Then on Sunday, I made a meal for friends of ours who love Indian food. I think they would burst into tears of disappointment if I ever served them mac and cheese. For them, I made some of our all-time favorites- chana masala, jeera rice, cabbage raita, egg kebab and one sort-of new recipe, stuffed eggplant curry.

This recipe started with some fresh and tender Japanese eggplants (the slender, long ones) from the Asian store. I have much better luck with this variety being sweet and tender, compared to globe (Italian) eggplants or the baby Indian ones. Then I was inspired by Meera's recipe and this one originally from Indira.

The idea was to make a thick paste for stuffing- with herbs, spices, nuts and contrasting flavors of jaggery and tamarind. Then to fill it into eggplant sections, and finally to pressure cook the eggplants with a bit of coconut milk (which forms the gravy) because pressure cooking gives evenly cooked eggplants reliably and effortlessly.

Stuffed Eggplant Curry

1. Wash 4 Japanese eggplants. Remove and discard stem. Cut each eggplant into 3 or 4 sections. Make a deep lengthwise slit in each eggplant piece.

2. To make the stuffing, grind together (adding a little water or coconut milk as required)
1/2 cup roasted peanuts
1/4 cup fried onions (from a can, or saute them yourself)
2 tbsp. sesame seeds
1 tbsp. cumin coriander powder
1/2 tbsp. garam masala/koli masala/ goda masala/your favorite masala
1 bunch cilantro stems and leaves
1 tbsp. jaggery
1 tbsp. tamarind paste
Salt to taste

The stuffing should be a thick paste- taste it and make sure it has a good balance of flavors. Fill it into the eggplant sections using a tablespoon.

3. Heat 1 tbsp. oil in a pressure cooker. Temper it with 1 tsp. mustard seeds, asafetida and turmeric.

4. Stack the stuffed eggplant neatly in the cooker. If you have a wide pressure pan, that would be ideal. I only have a handi-shaped cooker and it worked fine.

5. Pour 1/2 cup coconut milk + 1/2 cup water over the eggplants. Close the pressure cooker and let it cook.
I barely let the cooker come up to full pressure before turning off the heat. Eggplants cook quickly and I did not want them to collapse into an overcooked paste.

6. Remove the eggplants into a serving dish. Top them with the thick gravy. Serve!

Edited to add: A few readers requested the recipe for the cabbage raita. Here it is, easy as can be.

2 cups finely shredded red or green cabbage
1 grated carrot (optional)
1 finely diced cucumber (optional)
1 diced tomato (optional)
1 tbsp. minced onion
2 tsp. cumin-coriander powder
1/2 cup plain yogurt
Salt to taste

Mix together and serve!

What have you been cooking these days?

Book Review: Mindless Eating

Knitters like to talk about the many benefits of their hobby- knitting keeps your brain active, you can make adorable hats for the babies in your life and it is cheaper than therapy, even if you go in for the pricey yarn. I'll add one more benefit to the list: knitting can help you eat better. I had a long-standing habit of mindlessly eating my way through mountains of chips and chivda while watching TV. Instead, I now knit my way through scarves and sweaters while watching TV, and have to scramble to fit in my chips and chivda consumption during some other time of the day (Don't worry, I somehow manage to do it. I'm talented like that.)

Anyway, this whole thing about how our food consumption is largely controlled not by our hunger, but by habits and hidden factors in our environment is at the heart of a book I just read: Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think by Brian Wansink.

Image: Goodreads

Wansink has a background in communication research and consumer behavior. He designs clever studies to understand food psychology- many of the studies from his lab and from other research groups are described in Mindless Eating. For instance, think of days-old, stale, rancid popcorn. Not appetizing, right? Not something you would eat even if it was given to you free. In a study, people were offered free (but very stale) popcorn when they went to see a movie right after they had eaten lunch. The movie goers ate it anyway. We are so powerfully conditioned by the smell of popcorn, the sound of others eating popcorn and the association of movie theaters with popcorn-eating that we are compelled to eat even stale popcorn that does not taste good, even when we are not hungry.

Another classic experiment is the bottomless soup bowl, where a bowl of tomato soup is rigged under the table and connected to a large pot which keeps refilling the bowl even as the diner eats from it. We expect that after we've had a bowlful of so of soup, we'll stop eating because we simply won't be hungry any more. Not so. People kept eating as the level of soup in the bowl stayed the same. Our eyes decide how much we eat (I can see that the bowl is empty, so I've obviously eaten enough soup) and not our stomach.

Our expectations of how a food should taste affects the way we feel it tastes. A group of people were told they were tasting strawberry yogurt. Then the lights were turned off and they were give chocolate yogurt to taste. Over half rated it as having a "good strawberry taste". They couldn't see the yogurt, but were expecting strawberry yogurt so that's what they tasted.

This book came out a decade ago. Food psychology findings are of great human interest and they regularly make their way to mainstream media, so I can't say that there was anything in this book that was absolutely novel for me. But Wansink has a friendly, chatty and slightly goofy style which was fun to read. He points out the pitfalls that cause people to eat more than they intend to, and offers suggestions for tweaking our lives to make it easier to eat the way we want to eat.

I love food, enjoy food and am deeply grateful for having food. Under no circumstances do I want to trick my body into starving itself. But if I can set up my environment and build small habits to avoid consuming food that I don't particularly want or need, that would certainly be helpful. And that's where this books gives a few pointers.

Whatever fills the plate/bowl looks like the proper serving size to us. It is well documented that the size of dinnerware has grown over the decades, to the point where we're mindlessly overeating simply when we serve ourselves food for a meal. I remember buying a set of dinnerware from Crate and Barrel some years ago, and the bowls were so huge that I use them as serving bowls and not to eat from! This is a very easy problem to fix. Buy smaller bowls and plates and you'll eat more reasonable portions.

For a while now, I've been serving dessert in stainless steel vatis/katoris (small bowls) that I bought in India. They are perfect for a satisfying sweet finish to the meal, in a dainty portion. I try to be a good host and don't want to trick anyone into eating less. Anyone who wants seconds is welcome to take them but people rarely do. As the book says, the best part of dessert is the first two bites.

There is plenty of other advice in this book that's sensible enough: See how much you're eating- don't eat straight from the package. Aim to eat until you are no longer hungry; not until you're full (there's a big difference between those two). If you don't want to eat something, put it out of sight and inconvenient to reach (no candy dishes on the desk if you're trying to avoid sweets). If you want to eat more of something, make it convenient (cut up veggie sticks front and center in the fridge for snacking).

There's a lot of stuff in this book that's just good fun. Things that seem pretty obvious when you think about it, but are backed by studies and statistics. There's a whole chapter on how food with an alluring name tastes better to us. Traditional Cajun Beans and Rice is more appealing than Beans and Rice. Belgian black forest double chocolate cake sounds dreamier than plain old chocolate cake. Think about this next time you're cooking for company, or naming a recipe on your food blog!

Wansink talks about the Nutritional Gatekeeper of the family, the person who does most of the food shopping and cooking. They are a powerful influence on how each member of the family eats. He does very interesting studies on what he calls "the curse of the warehouse club" which shows that buying supersized containers leads people to over-consume. The bigger the shampoo bottle, the more you pour out, and so on.

There was one or two things in the book that I found jarring, such as when Wansink talks about ideal body weight for women based on a rule of thumb used by modeling and acting coaches. Um, no. That kind of obsession with thinness is unhelpful; healthy people come in all sizes and being thin does not equate being fit.

But this quibble aside, I found Mindless Eating to be a quick, helpful and enjoyable read. If you can better understand where you're over-eating, you can do something to fix it. Next time I'm parked next to the chips and dip at a party, I sure hope the book cover will flash in front of my eyes. 

Roasted Sweet Potato Soup

Soup and sweater weather has arrived in the South East US this week. Tomatoes and sweet onions are giving way to root vegetables- sweet potatoes being a special favorite of mine for the way their sweetness complements savory dishes. We love them roasted as sweet potato fries, and mashed into vegetable cutlets. The combination of sweet potatoes and legumes is wonderful- some of our favorites include black beans and sweet potato quesadillas and burritos, sweet potato and vaal dal and sweet potato hummus.

Yesterday, I was in the mood for soup but not so much in the mood to spend time making it. The oven came to the rescue for hands-free cooking, as it often does. I thought of the roasted onion and garlic soup that I make once in a while. You roast vegetables, then puree them with stock. Ta da. You have soup.

I used the same principle to make this easy sweet potato soup. I was out of vegetable stock, nutritional yeast, bouillon and all such soup basics. A pantry restocking is in order, clearly. Anyway, I went ahead with only milk and water as the base of the soup, with some smoked paprika to add flavor. It worked just fine. You can tell that this is a flexible recipe.

Roasted Sweet Potato Soup

1. Pre heat oven to 425F. If you have a convection setting on the oven, you'll want to use it- it will cut roasting time significantly.

2. Peel 3-4 sweet potatoes and chop them into chunks. Peel and chop 1 large onion into chunks. Take a head of garlic, separate into cloves (no need to peel the garlic cloves now).

3. Place all the vegetables together on a sheet pan. Toss with olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast until the vegetables are browned and soft.

4. Pop the garlic cloves out of their peels. Place all roasted veggies in a pot.

5. Add 1 tsp. smoked paprika, 4 cups water and 1/2 cup milk (or cream or a combination) to the vegetables and blend them into a smooth puree. Add more water if required. Bring to a boil and simmer for 5 minutes.

6. Taste and add more seasoning if required. Serve hot with a squeeze of lemon or a dollop of yogurt/sour cream and a sprinkle of paprika.

Are you fond of sweet potatoes? What's your favorite way to cook them? 

Oh, and do you have a must-try soup recipe to recommend? 

* * * 

Edited on Feb 2, 2018 to add another version of a roasted sweet potato soup. This one is vegan, with warm curry spices and coconut milk.

Roasted Sweet Potato Soup 

with curry spices and coconut milk

1. Pre-heat oven to 400F. If you have a convection setting on the oven, you'll want to use it- it will cut roasting time significantly.

2. Peel 2-3 sweet potatoes and chop them into chunks. Toss on a sheet pan with olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast until the sweet potatoes are tender and slightly browned.

3. In a small skillet, heat 1 tbsp. oil. Saute the following until browned and aromatic:
1 small onion, diced
2 tsp. ginger garlic paste
1 tsp. turmeric
1 tsp. Kitchen King masala (or your favorite masala)
Salt to taste

4. Add 1 cup coconut milk to the masala and simmer for a few minutes.

5. Then in a blender, blend the roasted sweet potatoes, masala with coconut milk smoothly with enough water to make a soup of your desired consistency. Warm the soup and enjoy!

DIY Instant Oatmeal: My Toddler's Favorite Breakfast

Our friends here were quite alarmed when they heard that our recent travels to India would involve two nearly 10-hour flights each way. How would a toddler handle it, they wondered? We wondered too, with not a little apprehension. It is not a simple trip. Before we left, we had to get Lila a typhoid vaccine and bitter anti-malaria tablets to take every day as a precaution. The air travel is just the first of many parental concerns.

But flying does not seem to bother our girl. During the long haul flights, she was allowed more or less unlimited access to juice and in-flight videos. As a result, she thinks air travel is the greatest thing ever. And bitty thing that she is, she could curl up in her seat and took long naps on the airplane as well. As with many things related to kids, you get what you get. We got a kid who enjoys flights. But who has slept through the night only like 8 times in 3 years. Others may have a child who screams for 8 hours of the 9.5 hour flight but who sleeps 12 hours at a stretch at home. Like I said, you get what you get.

While we were in India, Lila ate whatever we ate. The only food we packed for the trip for her was a container of oat mix for her favorite breakfast of warm oatmeal with apricots and raisins. From the time she could barely walk, she learnt to carry the boxes of oats and dried fruit out of the pantry, pry them open and fling handfuls into a bowl. This will go down in her personal history as the very first food she learned to "cook".

This oat mix has the same just-add-hot-water convenience of that instant oatmeal that you buy in sachets but you get to decide what goes in and what stays out. Oh, and it takes 30 seconds to put together. This is our basic raisin oatmeal recipe, but you can make all different flavors by just changing up dried fruits and nuts and adding spices or flavorings.

DIY Instant Oatmeal

To make instant oatmeal, I simply stir together the following ingredients in a bowl.

Instant oats: 3 cups
Dried apricots, chopped: 1/2 cup
Raisins: 1/2 cup
Cinnamon: 3 tsp.
Salt: 1/2 tsp.
Jaggery powder: 2 tsbp.

Store the instant oatmeal in an air-tight container at room temperature.

How you cook it depends on whether you have access to a microwave oven or a kettle. Measure some oatmeal mix in a bowl, add equal parts water and cook in microwave oven for 30-60 seconds. Alternatively, add boiling hot water to the oat mix, cover it and let it sit for 3-5 minutes. Either way, you have mushy, comforting oatmeal pretty much instantly.

Speaking of water, several friends told me that they only drink bottled water when they visit India. I did buy a case of bottled water when we first got there, to get through the first few days. My heart sank as we collected a pile of empty water bottles, destined to sit in a landfill for most of eternity. I just couldn't deal with it. For the rest of the trip, all three of us drank home-filtered water. Most of our relatives seem to have some UV filter like Aquaguard installed in their kitchens. And it was just fine. None of us had any tummy troubles. Not even the one who (I won't name names) tends to drop food and then nonchalantly eat it off the floor. Bottled water or no bottled water, any travel anywhere can be ruined by infections and illness and I'm so grateful that we got lucky this time.

Lila has turned three and she entertains and exasperates me in roughly equal measures with her toddler antics. This morning, I made her cocoa in a ceramic mug and she wanted me to pour it into a steel tumbler. What's wrong with the mug, I asked. "It's too glassy, mama", she explained.