Healthy Dinners in a Jiffy

Continuing the healthy trend, we have been trying new things for dinner too. We usually don't have rice for dinner, and it sometimes gets monotonous to eat dosas, idlys, or rotis. So we decided to give dinner a healthy spin. Also, eating cold salads on chilly winter nights is not too appetizing, so here are two options for warm salads.

Crispy Lettuce Wrap Tacos

Ingredients (Serves 2)

Lettuce leaves – 4

Corn – ¼ cup

Bell peppers cut into long strips (mixed colors)

Onions cut into long strips

Guacamole as required (recipe given below)

Method

Heat a grill pan or regular pan, and grill the onions and capsicum until they get tender. Throw in the corn and let it also get some light grill marks.

Wash the lettuce leaves and keep ready. Take a few pieces of bell peppers, onions and corn and fill the lettuce leaves. Top with fresh guacamole and indulge. Bon Appétit.

Recipe linked to Food on Friday at http://caroleschatter.blogspot.com/

Grilled Vegetable Burger

A local burger place has an awesome vegetable burger, which is the inspiration for this creation. Instead of using a vegetarian patty, they stack thinly sliced grilled, seasoned vegetables and cheese and serve them between toasted buns. My variation, same stack of vegetables, minus the cheese and buns.

Ingredients (Serves 2)

Eggplant slices – 4 (from large eggplant)

Thinly sliced green and gray zucchini – 1-1 ½ cups

Thinly sliced bell peppers – 1 cup

Thinly sliced onions – ½ cup

Guacamole as required (recipe given below)

Spice mix – salt, chili powder, garlic and herb seasoning mix (optional)

Method

I recommend using a grill pan for this (for those awesome grill marks on the vegetables), but regular frying pan will work fine too.

Heat a pan, on medium heat, and start grilling the eggplant first. Sprinkle some of the spice mix on both sides. Because we are trying to eat healthy, I did not use any oil. But you can use some if you wish. As the eggplant starts cooking, start grilling the remaining vegetables. Sprinkle some of the spice mix on the vegetables too. Toss the zucchini and peppers to ensure that they don’t burn. Once all the vegetables are tender, place one piece of the eggplant on a plate, assemble the vegetables on it, top with a dollop of guacamole and cover with the second piece of eggplant..and dig in. Bon Appétit. 

Guacamole

Ingredients

Avocado – 1

Finely chopped onion – 2-3 tbsps

Finely chopped tomato – 2-3 tbsps

Lemon juice to taste

Salt and pepper to taste

Cilantro (optional)

Method

Cut the avocado in half, remove the stone and scoop out the flesh. Mash it with a fork, add the onions, tomatoes, salt, pepper and lemon juice and mix well. Mix in the cilantro and enjoy.

Note:

I used my vegetable peeler for slicing the zucchinis. They came out really well, slightly uneven, but good enough to for the burger. 

You can use any vegetables of your choice. Play around with a variety of squashes to suit your palates.