Palang Paneer!

Turmeric, one of the spices traditionally used to make curry, has a long history of medicinal uses in both Chinese and Indian healing systems. Its anti-inflammatory action has been employed by traditional practitioners to treat conditions including flatulence, jaundice, menstrual problems, toothache and bruises.

Try to use turmeric powder in all your cooking as possible and if used in the following recipe, the green colour would remain more green.

Here I am discussing about a recipe which is very beneficial to health as it consists spinach, and everybody knows how spinach affects our body, as it contains iron and other elements.

Palang Paneer (Spinach with cottage cheese)

Ingredients
1 kg spinach,
2 cloves garlic, pressed or minced
2-3 tablespoons curry powder
1 cup finely chopped tomatoes (fresh or canned)
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 tablespoon oil
1 cup onion, finely diced
500 gm cottage cheese or Paneer, cubes
1/4 cup chopped fresh coriander leaves

Instructions
1. Wash and drain spinach, removing any coarse stems and midribs. Cut into half-inch strips and boiled in plain water with a little salt.

2. In a small bowl, mix together the garlic, curry powder, tomatoes, tomato paste and sugar.

3. Heat the oil in a boil and sauté onion over medium-high heat until it begins to brown. Add the spice-and-tomato mixture, mix well, and cook for a few minutes.

4. Add the paneer cubes (lightly fried) and 2 cups water.

5. Mix well, bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover, and cook for 10 minutes.

6. Add greens and cook for 10 minutes more.

7. Correct seasoning to taste. Garnish with the chopped fresh coriander leaves if desired.

Serve with hot rice or home made chapatis.

Relationship between sleep habits and body weight

Need or want help achieving and maintaining a healthy weight? Aim for eight hours of sleep a night. Research suggests that appetite-regulating hormones are affected by sleep and that sleep deprivation could lead to weight gain. In two studies, people who slept five hours or less per night had higher levels of ghrelin - a hormone that stimulates hunger - and lower levels of the appetite-suppressing hormone leptin than those who slept eight hours per night. So make sure getting adequate sleep is near the top of your optimum health checklist! ---Dr. Andrew Weil

An unusual chicken recipe...

What I am telling here is purely my elder brother's brain-driven. He is quite enthusiast about cooking and always experiments with different ingredients and makes his wife busy all the time for supplying those materials to him. He just orders his wife to collect all the things, do the marination (if requried), make all the pastes of spices for him and so on. He just put the bowl on flame and makes the wonderful dishes for us. This recipe is one of them.

I myself haven't prepared this dish yet. So I can't tell you how it tastes but my sister-in-law and my nephew (my brother also) said that it is really delicious! So let's try together...

Just marinate the required amount of chicken pieces (small to medium sized, don't use big sizes) with lemon juices (1 to 2 lemon). After 30 mnt of marination, put the bowl to the flame and make it well done. Add little water if required. Put salt to taste. Now put another thick bottomed pan on flame and add some oil to it. When the oil get hot, put some small pieces of green chillis (as required) to it and fry for a while. Put the chicken into this bowl and stir. Now its ready. Put off the flame and add some black pepper powder to this preparation and serve hot with steamed rice.

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The benefits of black tea

Reserach has shown that tea contains minerals, vitamin, calcium and also antioxidants which are beneficial for our health though it contains 40 mg of caffenine in one cup of tea which is far negligible in compare to a cup of coffee which contains 85 mg. There is another thing. Green tea has a greater percentage of antioxidants than the black tea.

How tea can help you?

1. It prevents heart disease.

2. Women over 65 who drank at least one or two cups of tea daily had higher bone density in the spine and thighs - common areas of fractures caused by osteoporosis - than women of the same age group who did not drink tea at all.

3. Drinking black tea (without milk and sugar. Using both of them is the most common form of taking tea in India)has been found to prevent dental plaque formation and kills bacteria that infect our teeth.

4. It is very good stress-reliever. When we are tensed, just sipping a freshly brewed black hot tea slowly relaxes our muscles and hence gives comfort.

Apart from these benefits which are directly related to our health, tea is also doing good for our health and body externally.

Boil some used tea leaves in water and make it cool. Mix it with a whole lemon juice and wash your hair frequently with it. It is an excellent form of hair conditioner.

Wash your face frequently with cold liquer of tea. It will make your skin good and may help to reduce some agening sign.

Take used tea leaves and wrap them in either a cloth or paper towel. Pour hot water over them and place them on your eyes whilst lying down. It helps relieve the strain and relax the eyes.

Weight loss Tips for the family

As a parent setting a good example is important. This is especially true around the dining table, since children tend to pick up eating habits from the family routine.

Try the following - your family may not even know they are eating more healthful meals:

1. Incorporate a vegetable into every meal. Peas, broccoli, beans, red, yellow or green bell peppers, spinach - you name it, vegetables provide nutrients and fiber.

2. Use more beans and legumes, and less meat. Chickpeas, lentils and beans of all types are good sources of fiber and protein.

3. Serve up whole grains. Brown rice and home-made chapattis from brown wheat are the excellent source of fibre and protein, vitamins. Try to use bread (from the market) as little as possible.

4. Switch sweets. Instead of soda, stock the pantry with sparkling waters. Pour fruit juice into a pitcher and dilute it to lessen the sugar content. Stock your kitchen with fresh, whole fruits, and leave the cookies in the store.

5. Avoid instant noddles, instead just make noodles with lots of vegetables, chicken pieces and eggs.

Prawn Malai Curry

Ingredients: Prawn (midium sized): 1/2 kg, Onion - 1 (ground), Ginger paste - 1 tspspoon, Garlic - 5-6 pods, Turmeric Powder - 1 tspspoon, Chilli powder - as required, Tomato puree - 2 tblspoon or Curd or yogurt - 1 tblspoon, Sugar- 2 tspspoon, coconut (grated) - 1/2.
Garam Masala (Green Cardamons - 2, Cinnamon - 1, Cloves - 2)-ground together, Bay leaves - 3, Oil - As required.

Method: Soak the grated coconut in warm water (1 cup) and leave it for half an hour and press out milk.

Wash the prawn properly and mix a little salt and turmeric powder and set aside.

Put about 4-5 tblspoon of oil in a pan, when hot remove from the fire and put bay leaves. Now add chilli powder and tomato (or curd). Add the sugar and put the pan again on fire. Fry it and add ground onion, ginger and garlic paste with it. When doen, add the prawns. Add salt and continue frying till the water dries up. Add the coconut milk, simmer on low fire till the prawns are cooked.

Reasons to eat red coloured vegetables

Do you know the red coloured vegetables, such as tomatoes, pumpkins and carrots contains lycopene - researchers have linked the lycopene (a carotenoid that gives them their color) with a lowered risk of heart disease and cancer (including prostate, breast, colorectal and lung), as well as being helpful in lowering high cholesterol.

They are also low in calorie and excellent source of Vitamin C, and provide vitamins A and K, potassium, manganese and fiber.

So try to use lots of these vegetable to you meal.

One very easy recipe to eat red pumpkin is :
Just boil the required amount of this vegetable. Add 1 tsp mustard oil, finely chopped green chilies, finely chopped onion and salt to this soften version of pumpkin, mix well and take with boiled hot rice. Its really delicious!!

How to lose weight!

Keeping a journal has a hidden health benefit: A recent study indicates that keeping track of your eating habits in a diary or journal can help to double your weight loss.The study, published in the August 2008 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, followed almost 1,700 overweight or obese men and women with an average weight of 212 pounds.

After 20 weeks of study participation (which included weekly group meetings, recommended daily reduction of 500 calories, 30 or more minutes of daily moderate intensity exercise, adherence to the DASH diet, and daily journal entries of food intake and exercise minutes) the total average loss was about 13 pounds. But the more that the participants wrote in their journals, the more weight they lost - about twice as much as those who did not maintain records.

By keeping a simple food diary, you can more objectively determine how much you are eating and become accountable for your food intake. Try to enter the portions eaten after each meal, and use whatever method works best for you - email, pen and paper, a spreadsheet - to help keep the process consistent.