In Chennai we discovered two things – Millets and the Phillips soup maker. First the soup maker – it’s the most convenient way to make soups. You just need to cut the vegetables, add water, salt and pepper, set it to creamy soup and twenty minutes later piping hot soup is ready. Here are some recipes for the soups I have tried so far –
Tomato soup – about 10 tomatoes cut into small pieces, water upto the max marking, a teaspoon of ginger shredded, salt and pepper. I don’t like cream so I add two spoons of powdered nuts. The nuts I use are Pistachios, Almonds, Cashews. I dry grind a handful of any two of them and keep it ready to add to the soup. It makes the soup thick and really tasty.
Cabbage soup – small cabbage shredded, a teaspoon of ginger, one carrot shredded, juice of one full lemon or two lemons if they are tiny, nut powder, salt and pepper. This soup tastes yum, and is very light.
Squash or pumpkin (red) – one small round pumpkin or a 300gms sliver de-seeded and shredded, one onion shredded, nut powder, salt and pepper. I love this soup. The slightly sweet taste of the red pumpkin gives a nice twist in the taste.
Sweet corn soup – I tried making this with the chunky soup option but it didn’t taste as good. Finally I stuck to the creamy option. Also buy the corn fresh where possible. Most of the online vegetable suppliers have corn pellets that are refrigerated and not fresh. They get spoilt easily and have no taste. I use about 250 grams of corn, one medium sized potato, nut powder, salt and pepper.
In all the soups above, I just added water, no vegetable stock, upto the max marking. You can make 1.2 litres of soup at one time. Love the soup maker. It’s definitely recommended.
While browsing the shelves at the “Fresh” store in Pallikaranai, I found packets of Millets – not just Ragi, Bajra and Jowar, but foxtail millet, little millet, kodo and barnyard millet. You can make tasty upma or even use them instead of rice. The regular upma recipes work for them and they cook well in a regular rice cooker. They taste great, add variety and are gluten free. Suddenly you have so many healthy breakfast alternatives !! Please add Millets to your food, we need to encourage farmers to produce Millets – they are a goldmine of nutrients. Most of them sell around ₹55/- for half a kilo. The more we start buying, there will be more production and they help with crop rotation and with improving your health. It’s win-win all around. Substitute “sooji” and “daliya” with Millets – gluten free, non-allergic and nutritious.
India has such a variety of food products, and we run after pizzas and noodles – nothing wrong with having them one odd day, but making them a staple diet is just messing with your health. Give Millets a chance too. For your good health :).
Will post a few recipes with Millets separately.