Dieter's Delight - Mushroom Mint Salad

It has been a crazy day; How else would you term a day when the carpenter is on full swing, cutting, sawing and drilling, and you can barely enter the house without being showered with sawdust! So yes, I was getting some shelves fixed and that's a 2 day job! Sigh

It was past 8 pm by the time these guys left, and I was hungry. There was a sly temptation to order out - a million thoughts running through my mind - Dominoes is right next door! Or should I call Mast Kalandar (they are 2 km away), or should I call Yo Potato or may be a peta wrap!

And then, I could hear the mind's mocking laugh! To shut it up and not feel guilty, decided to rustle up something quick!

The mushrooms should be used by today, so I chopped them up, set them on the pan, on low heat, along with some lemon juice and salt. Cook covered for about 10 minutes. Let cool and drain the water.

Meantime, finely chop a handful of mint and some coriander. Roughly chop some cucumber. Deseed tomato and roughly chop that too. Toss everything together; add some yoghurt, and we are done :-)

And this is the new entrant in my kitchen - magnetic knife holder :-). (Thanks to S, it sure matches the color of the decor)

Dieter's Delight - Lemon Coriander Soup and Stuffed Mushrooms

Day 3 of intensive cooking and dieting and working out and it has been a success. With the taste buds suddenly craving for mushroom, I'd decided to make lemon coriander soup and some stuffed mushrooms for dinner.

I finished prep and cooking in under 45 minutes, and in between some cleaning as well. So, that's how easy this is.

This soup recipe serves 1 (Adapted from Tarla Dalal Healthy Soups and Salads)

Boil about 500 ml of water, along with some chopped carrots, lemon grass (I used the dried variety), roughly chopped onions, some pepper corns, a few mint leaves, a teeny bit of salt, and some ginger. Boil this for about 15- 20 mins, on simmer, until the aroma is released and the broth is flavorful. Strain and set aside.

Chop some mushrooms, cabbage, spring onions (save the green for garnish later), carrots and saute in a teeny weeny bit of oil. To this add salt, and add the broth. Cook on simmer until the the vegetables are tender yet slightly crunchy. Add plenty coriander, the green of the spring onions, and a liberal dosage of lemon (depending on how tangy you like it - remember there's already some lemongrass in there).

Meanwhile, boil some sprouts in a microwave, on high for 5 minutes. Clean the mushrooms and remove the stem. Dry the mushrooms on a clean kitchen towel. Chop the stems & some onions. Saute on high heat for a few seconds; To this add the boiled sprouts, and some salt. Saute until they mix well. Add chopped coriander and mint. Brush the mushrooms with a little olive oil (remember mushrooms let out a lot of water, and they usually are basted), stuff the sprout mix inside the mushrooms. You can either bake them in the oven (if you are the lucky one and own an oven) or put them on a pan, on low heat, until it's cooked through but doesn't fall apart. (Or microwave on high for about 4 minutes, making sure the heat is even across all the pieces - that means you need to keep checking at regular intervals)


I made some mint yoghurt dip to go along with this (but that's not in the picture because I was in a hurry to eat and the picture was shot when the mushrooms were cooking).