Low fat black bean soup

As most of you might have guessed, my husband and I are gourmands which is great for our taste buds but not so wonderful for our waist line! 😦 But since our families back home are extremely health-conscious, we sometimes feel the guilt of not following their lead. Those are times when we try our ‘diet-foods’. But sadly, these bodhi-esque moments don’t last too long! And our taste buds are back to having a PAARTAY!

One such moment happened to me sometime ago. That’s when I decided to get inspired by my BIL who has lost loads of inches and looks absolutely fab! All you single girlz out there–watch out ;). We started out on a week’s diet of soups for  lunch and dinner, much to the chagrin of hubby dearest! And finding soups that are low in cal is not too difficult. The previous week, a friend of mine had a black bean soup at a nearby sandwich chain. Since I was in no mood to eat (which doesn’t happen very often), I skipped even tasting it. So I decided to make my own version of the black bean soup. We discovered to our utter delight that its a simple, extremely low cal and amazingly comforting dish.

For four large servings:

Black beans-1/2 cup

onion, medium, chopped-1/2 no

tomatoes, medium, chopped-1 no

corn-1/4 cup

green chillies, chopped-2 nos

cilnatro, chopped-7-8 sprigs

cumin powder-2 tsps

chilli powder-1/2 tsp

salt-to taste

Soak the black beans in water for atleast 8 hours(preferably overnight). Pressure cook all the ingredients except the cumin, chilli powder and salt. Once cooked, add the powders, salt and water (if the consistency is too thick). Simmer for 5 to 10 minutes or till it comes to a boil.

Serve with a dollop of yogurt (I substituted it for the sour cream that was served in the restaurant) and fresh mint leaves.

Apart from the nutritional value of this dish, the flavor of this dish is so simple, mild and refreshing.

Low-Cal banana nut mini muffins

Now, that title is a mouthful! Weekends are always days of waking up late, eating brunches and lunners (No I didn’t make that up, the word exists!) and lots of ‘norukku theeni'(snacks)! This weekend was no different.

There was a VERY ripe banana lying around and I wanted to make use of it for breakfast that day, you ask how? Banana Nut muffins, of course. The only hitch-there was no butter,brown sugar,walnuts or egg substitutes at home. I knew that the only way I was going to pull this off was by making a low-cal version of it with what was available at home-oil,milk,sugar and almonds. Although I was skeptical about the end result from the word ‘Go'(after all, isn’t banana nut muffin supposed to be RICH in calories), I decided I had to try it. The result actually surprised me. The muffins turned out quite light and fluffy.

A healthy and delicious breakfast for a bright Sunday morning

To make 9 muffins

ripe banana-1
oil-1/4 cup
sugar-1/4 cup
milk-1/4 cup
vanilla extract-1/2 tsp
flour-1 cup
baking powder-1/2 tsp
baking soda-1/4 tsp
salt-1/4 tsp
slivered almonds-1/4 cup

In a large bowl mash the bananas.Add oil, sugar, milk and vanilla and mix well. In another bowl mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Mix the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients until combined . Fold in the nuts. The resulting batter will be quite stiff. Pour the batter into oiled muffin tins. Fill upto 2/3rds of a tin. Bake at 350 F for 30 minutes.

The end result had the same wonderful aroma as that of ‘PazhamPori'(banana fritters)!

Served with a steaming cup of chocolate malt drink

Start a lazzzzy weekend with these yummy little fellas!