Baked Masala Peanuts with Flax seeds and Oats– Diabetes Friendly Thursdays

31 Comments

Yayyyy.. I did it. I did it. whooooo :-) :-) (Thats my whistle he he) I completed my second blogging marathon.  Explored a lot and at the same time learnt a lot. So here we are on the last of this baking marathon. As its DFT thursday I am going for a healthy snack.

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We all love to have something crunchy during tea time. With diabetic eating smaller portions helps a lot. So two snacks becomes very important. When it is baked and when it has the goodness of peanuts, flaxseeds and oats its hard to resist. It is a simple recipe which can be done under 30 minutes. I wasn’t sure if peanuts can be used for diabetes, but this article helped me to understand and yes peanuts can be used for diabetic patients. You can find the health benefits of flax seeds here.

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Baked Masala Peanuts with Flax seeds and Oats-- Diabetes Friendly Thursdays

  • Difficulty: Easy
  • Print

Ingredients:

Peanuts Masala Mixture

  • Raw peanuts with skin – 1/2 cup
  • Flax seeds – 1 tbsp
  • Oats – 1 tbsp
  • Besan/Gram flour – 2 tbsps
  • Salt – 1/2 tsp
  • Red chilly powder – 1/2 tsp
  • Garam Masala – 1/2 tsp
  • Fennel powder – 1 tsp
  • Water – 3 tbsps
  • Oil for spraying
  • Rice flour – 1 tsp (Optional)

Steps:

  • Mix all the ingredients by adding adding the water.
  • The mixture should be thick and not watery.
  • Now line the silicone mat or parchment paper in a cookie tray and spray some oil.
  • Spread the mixed peanut mixture in the tray.
  • Bake it for 13- 15 minutes until the peanuts are light brown, crispy and crunchy.

MasalaPeanutsFromOven

  • Don’t bake for more than 20 minutes.

MasalaPeanuts

Enjoy with hot tea. :-)

Disclaimer: I am not a nutritionist or dietician. My knowledge and information is based on my research and reading from different resources. Please consult your doctor or dietician before making any changes to your diet. 

 

Other Entries from this week DFT featuring more snacks.

1. Prachi’s Multigrain Mathris

2. Shailja’s Manakish, a middle eastern bread 

3. Apsara’s Crunchy Thattai

4. Suchitra’s Masala Peanuts, pan roasted

5. Chahat’s Baked Methi Pooris

6. Anupama’s Red Rice Flour Baked Nipattu with oats and mung dal

7. Swati’s Baked Oats and Methi Crackers

8 Sonal’s Lemon Pepper Crackers. 

 

 

Eggless Macadamia Nuts and White Chocolate Chip Cookies

Eggless Macadamia Nuts and White Chocolate Chip Cookies
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Welcome to the 25th day of Baking Mania. When I was going through my previous recipes, I realized that I didn’t post any cookies at all except for Madeleine. So I thought of posting one day. I am most comfortable with oatmeal cookies but then I thought let me step out my comfortable zone and this is the first time I am trying this. But why macadamia and white chocolate chip? Both me and vaandu love white chocolate chips and we can have that as snack itself. :-)

Continue reading “Eggless Macadamia Nuts and White Chocolate Chip Cookies” »

Roaster Bell Peppers and Butternut Squash Soup

Roaster Bell Peppers and Butternut Squash Soup
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Welcome to the 20th day of baking mania. This recipe uses both conventional and microwave oven. Irrespective of diabetic and non-diabetic, portion control and a well-balanced diet is very important. We don’t want to deprive ourselves and at the same time we don’t want to over eat also. I love soups. It’s easy to incorporate all the veggies and you get your sufficient vitamins and fiber in a single serving. I found these great articles about bell peppers and diabetic diet. 

Continue reading “Roaster Bell Peppers and Butternut Squash Soup” »

Tandoori Paneer

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Welcome to the 17th day of Bakia Mania.

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When you are in silicon valley, you are not only surrounded by IT companies and start ups but also with Indian restaurants. Just goto Fremont hub minimum 10 Indian restaurants. One among them is Go Chatzzz and me and Vaandu love it. If we both go for outing Jamba Juice and lunch or dinner in this place will be a must. This restaurant serves paneer starter called “Awadhi Paneer” which grilled marinated paneer. We love this dish very much. This made to look into the Awadhi cuisine and OMG. Learning a lot about Awadhi cuisine and techniques. Its very interesting also. This dish is not exactly Awadhi paneer. I just modified it according to our taste. I am broiling the paneer here not baking. But you can go for baking too. Here is the recipe,

Note: The more you marinate it tastes better. So plan accordingly. I usually marinate in the morning before going to work and broil it in the night.

Tandoori Paneer

  • Difficulty: Easy
  • Print

Ingredients:

  • Yogurt (I took greek yogurt) – 2 cups
  • Chat masala – 1 tbsp
  • Garam masala – 1 tsp
  • Red chilly powder – 1tbsp
  • Jal Jeera Masala – 1 tsp  (I am in love with this masala, so I use it for all my chat items ;-) )
  • Paneer – 12 oz (1 packet)
  • Colored Mini Bell peppers – 5-6 (you need 1 cup)
  • Salt – 1/2 tsp

Steps:

  • Chop the paneer and bell peppers into square shapes.
  • Beat the yogurt well and add the masalas.

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  • Add the chopped paneer and bell peppers and mix well.

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  • Wrap with food wrapper and refrigerate it for 4-5 hrs. (I keep it for 8 hours)
  • After the marination, remove the paneer and peppers (Save the yogurt) and broil them at high temperature for 15 minutes and in low temperature for 5 mts.

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  • Thats it yummy tandoori paneer is ready.

Serve it with ketchup and the marinated yogurt.

Note: We love the charred taste, so I broil them. You can also bake for 30 minutes.

Baked Falafel — Diabetes Friendly Thursdays

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Welcome to the 14th day of baking.

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Garbanzo beans falls under the legumes family and has high protein and fibre with low calories. You can read its nutritional analysis here. The WH foods also recommends these beans. Its a perfect diabetic friendly legumes. So I am submitting this recipe for Sonal’s DFT. Diabetes Friendly Thursdays

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I love falafels and I have already posted my pita pocket salad recipe here. These falafels go well with the pita pocket salads. I don’t want to deep fry falafels for my salad. So these baked ones are the best for my salads. You get protein from these, carbs from the pita pockets and enough vitamins from the greens and salad. A well balanced meal Here is the recipe.

Baked Falafel -- Diabetes Friendly Thursdays

  • Difficulty: Easy
  • Print

Ingredients:

  • Garbanzo beans – 1 can (14 oz)
    • You can home made also. Soak the beans overnight and pressure cook it for up to 3 whistles.
  • Half of medium onion finely chopped
  • Finely chopped cilantro – 1/2 cup
  • Two cloves of finely chopped garlic
  • Cumin powder – 1 tsp
  • Dhaniya / Coriander powder – 1 tsp
  • Salt – 1/2 tsp
  • Red chilly powder – 1 tsp

Steps:

  • Preheat the oven to 400 degree F.
  • Pulse the garbanzo beans into a coarse mixture.
  • Now add the other ingredients and mix well.

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  • Wrap the aluminium foil in a cookie tray and spread oil.
  • Make small round balls from the mixture and placed them in the greased tray.

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  • Bake it for up to 25 – 30 minutes till turns nice brown color.

 

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Disclaimer: I am not  a dietician. Please consult doctor before getting into any diet.

No Knead Wheat Bread

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Welcome to the 13th day of baking mania.

NoKneadWheatBread      

When I joined this blogging marathon group last year, they had a theme called “Tame the yeast”. It ran for couple of months. I was wondering why they have this theme and was thinking is it so hard to tame the yeast? Oh mannnnn… I realized that tt is indeed very hard to tame this tiny yeast. I have one big disaster story to share but will keep that for next month. :-) But I wanted to try one bread at least in this baking marathon. So took this recipe from Varada’s kitchen. Ok, what do I say about her and her breads. Such an artistic baker.

This no knead wheat bread does need lot of time but it is one of the easy bread to start with. Varada mentioned 2 cups of water in her recipe but I had to use 3 cups. Not sure if is it because of my wheat flour. But the bread turned out ok with 3 cups of water. Even though the shape didn’t come out exactly like Varada’s but the entire family like the bread and I was proud of myself after that disaster. :-)

Here is the recipe.

No Knead Wheat Bread

  • Difficulty: Medium
  • Print

Ingredients:

  • All purpose flour – 2 cups
  • Whole wheat flour – 2 cups
  • Sugar – 3 tbsps
  • Salt – 1.75 tsp
  • Instant yeast – 3/4 tsp
  • Water – 3 cups
  • Oil – 3 tbsps

Steps:

Note: I mixed the flour and kept the dough overnight to rise. The temperature plays a major role. As the temperature was cold here it took me 10 hours for the flour to rise.

  • Sift both the flours in a large mixing bowl (make sure it has enough space for rising).
  • Add all the dry ingredients and add water and oil.

WheatBreadStep1

  • Whisk until all the ingredients are mixed together. You don’t need to knead.

WheatBreadStep2

  • Spread some oil on top and cover it with plastic wrap and set aside.

WheatBreadStep3

  • The dough will be raised twice as its original volume. Now mix the dough nicely. Fold it couple of times and again no need to knead.

WheatBreadStep4

  • My loaf pan size is 9X5. Place the dough in the loaf pan and smooth out the top with oiled hand. (I didn’t do this properly)

WheatBreadStep6

  • Sprinkle some flour on top and cover it with oiled plastic wrap again and let it sit for couple of hours.
  • The dough will raise again. Preheat oven to 375 F during the last 15 minutes of the rise.
  • Bake it for up to 5- -60 minutes. I got the golden crust at 50 minutes.

WheatBreadStep7

So after 14 hours I got my first bread :-)

WheatBread

Microwave Milk Peda or Khoa

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Welcome to the 12th day of baking mania and wishing you all a very Happy Tamil New Year :-)

MicrowavePaalPeda

 

My 100th post was Theratti Paal. Its one of my favorite sweet. The start from scratch process takes a loooong time. So I wanted to try this microwave one. This is a simple dish which can be done within 30 minutes. Paal khoa is very famous in Srivilliputhur. Its not only famous for that but also for the Andal Temple and its tower is the official government symbol of State of Tamil Nadu. As today is Tamil New Year, I wanted to post something sweet and here it is :-) My favorite sweet. I have tried similar version with almond flour too and you can find the recipe here. The measurement differs for almond flour and milk powder and also for this recipe I used ghee instead of butter. Its perfect for potlucks.

Ingredients:

  • Sweet condensed milk – 1 can (14 oz)
  • Milk powder – 3 cups
  • Ghee or clarified butter – 1/4 cup
  • Saffron – 2-3 strands
  • Luke warm water – 3 tbsps
  • Luke warm milk – 3 tbsps

Steps:

  • Soak the saffron in luke warm water for 5 minutes

PedaIngredients

 

  • Mix the sweet condensed milk, milk powder and the soaked saffron with water in microwave safe bowl.
  • Mix well and microwave for a minute.
  • Now add the ghee and milk and mix well.

PedaMix

 

  • Let it microwave for 3 minutes and keep stirring it for every one minute.
  • Don’t leave it without stirring for more than 1.5 minutes.
  • Let it cool down for about 20 minutes.
  • Now makes balls out of the cooked mixture and make your desired shapes.

DhoodhPeda

 

  • I just went with regular flat balls and pressed it in the middle for the decoration.
  • Decorate with either dry fruits or silver paper and serve.     

MicrowaveMilkPedaMilkPeda

Baked Stuffed Okra / Ladys Finger

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Welcome to the 11th day of Baking Mania.

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Back to my favorite savory bakings. I was thinking for couple of minutes if I should name it as stuffed baked okra or baked stuffed okra. Finally went with alphabetical order. :-) I love roasting and baking veggies in oven. As mentioned before its a total time saver. I love stuffed brinjal or as we say in Tamil Ennai Katharikai. Similarly I wanted to try it out with Okra too. I used the same masala and then used the store bought masalas to do this dry curry in the oven. This is perfect side dish for roti or Kadi chawal or even with Avial. As you are only slitting the okra, there is no big chopping work also. Here is the recipe.

Baked Stuffed Okra / Ladys Finger

  • Difficulty: Easy
  • Print

Ingredients:

  • Okra / Lady’s finger (try to get small ones) – 1/2 lb
  • Oil – to drizzle ( 1 tbsp + 1 tsp)

For the the stuffing:

  • Coriander / Dhania powder – 2 tbsps
  • Cumin powder – 1 tsp
  • Red chilly powder – 1 tsp
  • Turmeric powder – 1/2 tsp
  • Garam Masala – 1/2 tsp
  • Salt 1.5 tsp

Steps:

  • Pre heat the oven to 375 degree F.
  • Clean the okra and chop the ends. Just slit them 3/4 lengthwise and keep it ready.

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  • Mix all the masalas given under “for stuffing” and mix well.
  • Now fill the mixed masala into the okra. (1/2 tsp of the masala should be sufficient)

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  • After filling place them in cookie tray covered with foil or parchment paper.
  • Drizzle some oil and mix them.

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  • Bake for 25- 30 minutes till they turn crisp.

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Notes:

  • Don’t bake for more than 30 minutes.
  • If required drizzle a little more oil after 15 minutes.

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