Some Breakfast Recipes (dump that bread)

It is inconvenient and difficult to wean off bread - the staple and most convenient food for breakfast. However, if you have to drop your sugar levels, you need to avoid bread by all means. Even if you have it occasionally, your sugar levels rise. Once you decide to go beyond bread, you will automatically search for better alternatives. I spent my childhood in Odisha. I remember there used to be just one bakery selling bread in Bhubaneshwar. My mother once bought the bread and found a big sized black ant in it. She also came to know that the workers kneaded the dough with their feet. And that was it. We never had bread for years after that. She introduced it, once in a while, much later. So, our staple breakfast was piping hot chapatis with shikran (bananas crushed in milk). Being a voracious reader of Enid Blyton books, where you had descriptions of English breakfast, I used to dream of breakfast comprising bread, butter, marmalade and so on!! I remember, a senior citizen who was 90 years of age and would often visit The Indian Express office. He was so fit and alert at his age. Once, he saw me eating a sandwich. He came to me and said ``tu bread khala tar bread tula khayeel'' meaning ``if you eat bread, the bread will eat you.'' At that time I laughed at what he said, but now that sentence rings in my ears. Pune is a hotbed of bread - there are bakeries in every galli and sometimes the aroma of baked bread simply overpowers you. In life though, sometimes you have to make sacrifices and I found, giving up bread was a blessing in disguise as I keep looking out or concocting new recipes. Of course, I have settled down with Nitric Oxide salad breakfast, but if I feel hungry a couple of hours after that, I have the breakfast that I make for the family.  (I will post photographs of all dishes soon). Your blood sugar levels also depend on the quantity you eat. To get the right balance of what actually works for you takes you a year or two of constant efforts.

Besan-cucumber dosas

Ingredients
Cucumbers - 2
Besan (as much as can be accommodated)
2 cloves of garlic and a green chilli
Salt to taste

Method:
Wash cucumbers thoroughly and grate them along with the skin. Add crushed garlic and green chilli and keep on adding Besan (gram dal flour) as much as it takes to make a batter like consistency, for a dosa (for 2 cucumbers it would be around 2 tbspns of besan approximately). Do not add in a drop of water. Heat a non-stick fry pan or tava, adda tspn of oil and neatly place the batter (you cannot spread it easily like you do to a dosa batter). Cook on both sides till crispy brown. Serve piping hot with any chutney or soya curd (the recipe I had posted earlier - blending the  curd with mint, garlic and salt in a mixi).

Suran-Tofu cutlets

Ingredients
Suran (Yam)  - 250 gms
Tofu - 50 gms
Fresh cocum or amchur - crushed 2 pieces of cocum or amchur as per your taste
Salt and chilli powder to taste

Method
Steam Suran (Yam) and crush it. Grate or crush Tofu and add to the Suran. Add fresh cocum crushed or amchur, chilli powder and salt. Mix together. Shape the mixture into cutlets. If you find the mixture not thick enough to shape them into cutlets, add besan (gram dal flour). Keep them in the fridge for an hour or so before frying. You can shallow fry too. Serve with chutney. (Suran has less GI than potatoes - it is supposed to help in lowering your sugar levels)

Chilke wali Moong Dal (split green moong dal) dosas

Ingredients
Chilke wali Moong Dal - 2 katoris
Garlic - 3-4 cloves
Green chillies - 2 (or as per your taste)

Method
Soak the dal overnight. In the morning, blend it in the mixer (without adding any water; in fact, drain out the extra water that you have soaked the dal in) with garlic, green chillies and salt. You may add only a tbspn or two of water if you like while blending in mixer, if you think it is too thick.
Make dosas - cook on both sides nicely.
You can add cut palak, tomatoes, onions etc - as per your choice.

Instant Matki Misal

Ingredients
Matki sprouted - 100 gms
Onion, cut fine - 2
Tomatoes, cut fine - 2
Goda masala (optional)
Lemon
Corriander leaves
Sev (made out of besan)

Method

Steam the sprouted matki until soft. Heat oil in a pan. Give tadka of mustard seeds. After they split, add jeera. Then add  half of the cut onions and saute for a while. Add half of the cut tomatoes and stir Add 1/4th tspn turmeric powder, one tspn goda masala or if you don't have it, then use corriander powder. Add, salt and red chilli powder. Cook well. Serve the matki usal in a bowl, garnish with onion, tomatoes, corriander leaves, lemon and sev.