Zucchini curry Masoor Dal

Hey everyone! It's back to school for me, and that means I turned a new leaf and I'm sticking to my commitments. From now on I'll be posting every Saturday- so stay tuned for new tips and veggie recipes!

Today I was looking for something new to write about while emptying my pantry. I noticed that there was a bit of red lentils left over, also known as Masoor Dal. I'd bought them just because they were pretty, but I'd never eaten them before. My first experience cooking them was a disaster : I thought that they needed to be soaked overnight, like other lentils I knew of. The result was mush. It turns out that cooking this pearlies are much easier, you need to soak them for only 15 minutes before cooking.

This is what Masoor Dal looks like (red lentils). Source: Wiki Commons

There are many recipes on the internet for these lentils, most of them are Indian, very tasty. Since I didn't have the required ingredients for many that I saw, I made up my own recipe using tips and matched ingredients I had with ingredients I saw in some recipes. The result turned out to be quite good!

I present to you the Zucchini Curry Masoor Dal.

Ingredients (for two people):

-a teaspoon of curry spice (you can make your own or buy it ready)
-olive oil
-half a zucchini diced
-half an onion, diced
-about 100 g of red lentils
-bay leaf

Steps

#1. Cover the red lentils in water and soak them from 10-15 minutes. Meanwhile. . .
#2. Sprinkle olive oil into a frying pan or wok. When hot, add curry. Mix for 30 seconds. Then fry onions, and add the zucchini and bay leaf.

Here's what it looks like while cooking.

#3. When onions are transparent and zucchini is slightly cooked, add lentils. After everything is mixed together, for about a minute, add a cup of water. Add salt. Wait until the water is almost completely evaporated and then - ta da! It's done. The cooking takes less than half an hour.

Finished product!

It's an ideal recipes for those who really wanted have protein and forgot to soak their beans/lentils overnight. Having Masoor Dal on hand proves to be really useful, and now I'm slightly ashamed it was sitting in my pantry for all these months.

Enjoy the marvels of Indian cuisine! I sure love it.

Le mythe de la protéine

C'est toujours la première question qui se pose: comment fait-on pour avoir de la protéine?

Néanmoins, la protéine ne pose guère de problèmes pour nous végétariens! C'est plutôt le FER qui présente la difficulté majeure. Mais c'est une difficulté assez facile de surmonter lorsqu'on sait comment équilibrer nos repas.

Aujourd'hui devenir végétarien est facile, car nous avons les moyens d'estimer les quantités de nutriments dont nous avons besoin tous les jours. Mais il faut profiter des ces moyens pour être pleinement en santé! Pour ça, je vous invite à conduire des recherches sur l'Internet pour savoir comment se nourrir correctement. Moi, j'ai consulté aussi des livres, d'où viennent les informations que je décris ci dessous.Le titre du livre est 'Virei vegetariano, e agora?' de Eric Slywitch, brésilien et nutritionniste.

Combien de protéine nécessitez-vous ingérer chaque jour?

Multipliez votre poids en kilogrammes par 0,8 pour savoir la quantité dont vous avez besoin. Par exemple, une personne pesant 60 kilos nécessite de 48 grammes de protéine par jour. Et si faisons une estimative pour savoir d'où pourrait sortir ces 48 grammes de protéine?

Disons que pour le petit déj, vous avez mangé deux tranches de pain de mie, chaque tranche ayant 5 grammes de protéine. 2x5 = 10 grammes de protéine.

Pour le déjeuner,vous avez mangé 150 grammes de riz blanc et 200 grammes de haricots noirs. 4 grammes de protéine pour le riz, et 18 grammes pour les haricots.

Pour le dîner vous avez préparé des pâtes avec des brocolis. Considérant que vous avez mis 100 grammes de chaque élément, les pâtes apportent 14 g de protéine et le brocolis, 3 grammes.

Au total, vous avez consommé 49 grammes de protéine, une gramme au delà de la quantité nécessaire!

J'ai utilisé les données des aliments qui j'avais chez moi, mais vous pouvez également consulter le site http://nutritiondata.self.com. (en anglais). Consultez l'analyse nutritionnelle des aliments!

Go green! :)

The protein myth

The first question that gets asked is: Where do we get our protein from?

So lets get it straight once and for all. Protein is NOT a problem, we can find good sources of protein very easily. The real hardship in a veggie diet is IRON. But it's also easy to overcome once you have a balanced diet.

Being a vegetarian is easy, fun, tasty, good for yourself and the world, not to mention the lives you save on a daily basis. But it requires at least some know-how on eating properly. It's easy enough, you can easily get your answers by surfing the web. The informations I present here are from my own research, from the book 'Virei vegetariano, e agora?' by Dr. Eric Slywitch (nutricionist) and various other informations that I've collected in these veggie years.

So, how much protein do you need?

Multiply your weight (in pounds) by 0.37 or in kilos by 0.8. For example, if you weigh 132 pounds, you're going to need 48 grams of protein per day. Let's see where that comes from!

For breakfast, you had two slices of whole wheat bread. That's 2 x 5 g = 10 grams of protein.
For lunch, you had a meal of white rice and beans. Considering you had 150 g of rice in your plate and 200 g of beans, that's 4 grams of protein for the rice and 18 grams for the beans.
For dinner, you had pasta and broccolis. That's 14 grams for the pasta and 3 for the broccolis.

That brings us to a total of 49 grams. See how that was easy?
I used the nutritional facts of the food I had in my house and also this site http://nutritiondata.self.com . In doubt, check out the nutritional facts on your food!

Go green! :)