It’s amazing how a little time in hand can make you think again.
After 5 weeks of confining my thoughts and focusing on studies, finally with one week left and one more theory & practical exam in hand; I decided to spend few hours of my weekend doing some experimental healthy cooking.
The one that tops my list is chips, I have this temptation on munching on savoury stuff more than chocolates and chips or biscuits is always the first one I want to reach out to in a supermarket. But when I look at the label, even more now that I can read and comprehend it, 9/10 I put it back. So my first experiment was to make tortilla chips in the oven (it’s my new friend, now that I know how to use it!) to carry my own portion when on-the-go. There is one thing about cooking and me, I don’t have the patience to cook for hours or plan what to cook in advance, even for meals so the ones who know me will agree that it is always instant, healthy and short & sweet (not literally!). After shopping for a packet of tortilla wraps from the supermarket, I thought about what flavour I wanted for my chips and the first few ingredients that came to my mind was – a bit of lemon for the tanginess, paprika to spice it up, olive oil (just a dash) and rock salt & black pepper. You can basically do whatever you want, add whatever flavours you like. It is a simple 4-step process – cut the tortillas into pieces with a pair of kitchen scissors, add flavours in a bow, mix it well and display on the oven tray. In 12-15 minutes the chips were ready, just what I needed as my stash for the next few days. Needless to say, I have biscuits on my list too, as I haven’t had them since I learnt how they are made. Once I can make them at home, I would know the ingredients and can mix it to my liking as well as be happy about the fact that there are no preservatives.
And today, I felt like making my snack bars at home, so I started browsing the cupboards in the kitchen to see what all I have, sometimes what is in front is enough to prepare what you need. And on my kitchen shelf were 4-5 pieces of dates (left stock from Dubai), oats with dried berries, almond butter (another home-made stuff), honey, cinnamon powder, chia seeds and nuts. After roasting the oats with almonds & raisins in the oven for few minutes to get the roasted taste, I combined all the dry ingredients in a big bowl, added cinnamon powder and chia seeds. Dates were crushed in Nutribullet before adding to the mix, basically we can add anything we want – pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds or even walnuts. I read this online that you can mix the peanut butter with honey in a pan, but really I just added a bit of almond butter with few drops of honey directly in the bowl to bind the mixture better and finally two small spoons of greek yoghurt as an experiment. I feel you can keep it simpler by using plain oats with creamy peanut butter and cocoa powder only, or with few added nuts or seeds instead of making this super sweet version (for my taste). I will be cutting them into squares rather than bars, so they can last longer for gym days.
Million dollar question came next, when I had to decide how to cool it down as I didn’t have a tray or box to cool, so I moved around to see and voila! the case from Bateel with dates was my trick to make the bar in the desired shape with cling film. I added the mixture two-ways, in the base of the dates box and the cover giving me two trays to cool.
I can say this for sure, I am glad I made it at home as I now know how much stuff goes into the health bars, no wonder the ones sold are so sweet.
Next target – to make bars that taste good and are low in calories & sugar, watch the space!
