Indulge and yet stay in shape

Sounds surprising that you can indulge and yet stay in shape? It feels almost impossible? Believe me, it’s possible to achieve, only of course if you have the will to do so. No, we are not going to tell you to skip eating sweets and savouries altogether and indulge in salads alone. Festivals and family functions would not be half as much fun if they were devoid of those yummy goodies- sweets, snack platters, dry fruits and so on.

There is absolutely no need to feel deprived and skip them altogether. All you need to do is change your cooking habits and recipes a tad bit to make stuff that is low in fat, calories, salt and even sugar.

Here are a few simple tips that will help you eat the food you want and you won’t feel guilty binging on:

• Use the god’s favourite sweetening agent- jaggery – to make sweets. Gurpaare (Shakkarpaare with a coating of jaggery) is one of the sweet snacks you can make easily. Gurkeladdoo is another option- mix any dal (pulses)  with jaggery to make these yummy laddoos.
• Use sugar-free along with skimmed milk to prepare delicious sweets such as Phirni, kalakand, Kheer, various Bengali sweets, Carrot halwa, Sooji halwa etc. The rest of the recipes remain the same; just use less oil and no sugar.
• When guests come, don’t serve only sweets but, also serve some homemade chatpate snacks such as BhelPuri, Chaklis, MethiMathris, etc. Make it a point to add some pulses, spinach, chopped mint leaves and coriander to your snacks to give them the required nutritional value.
• Get innovative with snacks. Who says you have to stick to the routine menu? Dare to do something different and instead of serving cutlets and chips each time, serve roasted Masala Papad, Dahi puri with sprout filling, Sprout Chaat, MoongDaal Chaat with onions, coriander, tomatoes and tamarind chutney and so on.
• Make dry fruits and nuts a regular item in your menu for guests as well as for yourself but of course eat these in moderation. Consume them in their natural form instead of frying them or adding extra salt or sugar to them.
• While making snacks that need to be made with maize flour (Maida), mix in some high fibre flour such as bajra or ragi or soy flour.
• Roast the salted snacks in the oven with just a few drops of olive oil so that they do not stick to the baking dish, instead of frying them.
• Again, grill kebabs and bake cutlets in the oven or even the microwave instead of frying them.
• Some guests may even like a portion of garlic bread with cutlets instead of binging on heavy sweets. Do go ahead and ask them. And if they do want it, just peel and crush some garlic pods quickly and add them in butter melted in the microwave and spread on the bread slices evenly. Now grill in the oven for a minute or two and your garlic bread is ready to serve.
• For sweets such as Rabdi and Phirni, use condensed milk for a richer taste instead of adding fattening and full of calories khoya or mava. 

Go on… indulge!