Tag: lavina masand mehra

Sarson Saag -Mustard/Rapini/Broccoli Medley – प॑जाबी शान-सरसो॑ का साग

On By lavinamehraIn 10 minutes or more recipesLeave a comment

SERVES: 4

GLUTEN FREE- LOADED WITH MINERALS AND FIBRE -QUICK TO MAKE

Why this recipe? How is it green and quick? How am I contributing to making this earth green by following this four steps or less recipe?

Using Pressure Cooker will take 10 minutes whereas it will take 15-30 minutes in a regular pan. 

Using frozen chopped spinach, fenugreek leaves, garlic, green chilli and ginger will save 10-12 minutes of your time.

By using this recipe you save: 50% of fuel energy and 15 minutes of your precious time that is about 5 to 8% of the total time you spend in kitchen on an average (assuming you spend a total of 2-3 hours in a day in the kitchen)

COOKING TIME: 10 Minutes

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 tablespoon oil
1 cinnamon stick (dal chini)
1 star anise (chakraphool)
1 big cardamom (elaichi)
2 bay leaf (tez patta)
1 bunch of mustard (sarson) / rapini leaves (half kilo) or Broccoli florets
10 frozen spinach (palak) pellets (100 grams)
3 frozen fenugreek (methi leaves) pellets (100 grams) or 50 grams of dried fenugreek (methi) leaves
1 large onion – chopped any size
1 large tomato -chopped any size
1 inch frozen crushed green chilli
2 inch frozen garlic or 4 crushed cloves
2 inch frozen ginger or 50 grams freshly grated ginger
1 tea spoon salt
2 teaspoons red chilli powder
2 tablespoons coriander powder
1.5 teaspoons all spice (garam masala)
Butter dollop or butter oil (ghee) for topping (optional).

STEP 1. Put cinnamon stick (dal chini), star anise (chakraphool), big cardamom (eliachi) and bay leaf (tez patta) into heated oil, let them get brown

STEP 2. Add rest of the ingredients except all spice (garam masala) and cook for 2 whistles in cooker or until everything is tender in a pan (about 10-15 minutes).

STEP 3. Remove whole spices and run the hand grinder for 1 to 2 minutes right into the cooker/pan to make it smooth. You can then put the whole spices back in.

Step 4. Add garam masala and let it simmer for 5 minutes until you see that water has evaporated. Add butter or ghee, if desired.

HANDY TIPS:thumb_IMG_0232_1024
As very little oil is used to prepare this recipe, you can add a dollop of butter or butter oil (ghee) when serving.
You can replace the mustard leaves with fresh or frozen broccoli florets or rapini if the mustard leaves are not available. It will give close to the same original sarson saag (Mustard) taste.

Save some bucks-एक सलाह पैसे बचाने वाली

On By lavinamehraIn TipsLeave a comment


The attractive and exotic looking olive oil bottles with flavoured dressing and cooking oils that we are ready to pay big bucks can be prepared at home. When you fill up your olive oil bottle simply add some dry whole spices like a cinnamon stick, bay leaf, whole red chilli, or fresh herbs like rosemary or dill. The oil starts to pick up the flavour of the spices in 3 to 4 days.

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BUTTER CHICKEN-मख्खनी मुर्गा बिन मख्खन के

On By lavinamehraIn 10 minutes or more recipesLeave a comment

–
With ready grilled/sautéed/roasted chicken tikka

SERVES: 3-4

GLUTEN FREE- LOADED WITH PROTEINS -QUICK TO MAKE

Why this recipe? How is it green and quick? How am I contributing to making this earth green by following this four steps or less recipe?

Using Pressure Cooker will take 5-7- minutes whereas it will take 15-20 minutes in a regular pan. Using frozen chopped garlic and ginger will save 5-10 minutes of your time.

By using this recipe you save: 50% of fuel energy and 15-20 minutes of your precious time that is about 8 to 15% of the total time you spend in kitchen on an average (assuming you spend a total of 2-3 hours in a day in the kitchen)

Allows you to be creative.  For vegetarian option, you can choose to add cottage cheese, baby potatoes or veggies to substitute chicken.

COOKING TIME: 15-20 minutes

INGREDIENTS:

2 tablespoons oil
1 cinnamon stick (small)
1 star anise
2 green cardamom
5 pieces of cloves
5 medium tomatoes (pureed)
1 inch frozen garlic or 2 fresh crushed cloves
2 inch frozen ginger or 25 grams fresh grated ginger
1 teaspoon red chilli powder
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon sugar
20 cashews or almonds (powdered)
200ml full cream milk
½ kilo grilled boneless chicken/chicken tikka

STEP 1. Put cinnamon stick, star anise, green cardamom, and cloves into heated oil until they get brown

STEP 2. Once spices are brown, add crushed tomato/puree, red chilli, ginger, garlic and sugar and cover the pot. Let it simmer for five minutes, then add powdered nuts with half a glass of water and cover the pressure cooker for 4-5 minutes (or if using a pan for 10-12 minutes).

STEP 3. Remove whole spices and run the hand grinder for 2 minutes right into the pan to make gravy smooth.

STEP 4. Add grilled chicken/chicken tikka (ready made or prepared using Four Steps or Less recipe of जला भुना मस्त मुर्गा (CHICKEN TIKKA) and 1/2 cup of milk to curry as it becomes thick. Let if boil for 5 minutes before you serve. If needed, keep adding milk to get the required density.

Handy Tips:thumb_IMG_0184_1024
1. The quick option is to use already grilled/roasted chicken tikka (or even raw boneless chicken) to add to the butter chicken curry.
2. If using raw chicken, smear cut chicken pieces with meat masala or curry powder, let it rest for 5 minutes and then add to the curry, let it boil for 15 minutes or until the chicken is tender.

 

 

 

Time is Precious-एक सलाह काम की

On By lavinamehraIn MusingsLeave a comment

Time is precious, value your time. When in the kitchen preparing a meal, use the same time to do other preparatory things for future use while your food is on the stove getting tender. For example, as I mentioned in a previous post, you could peel and grind ginger and garlic to freeze for future use. Or you could prepare a broth or sauté chopped onions for the next day (as I will explain in an upcoming post). This will save cooking time for your next meal and you get some more time each day to spend with your loved ones!

Chop and Freeze-एक सलाह दिल से

On By lavinamehraIn Tips24 Comments


When you have some free time, peel and chop ginger, garlic and green chillies in a chopper and freeze them in a thin layer in separate freezer bags. Once frozen, break the layer with loose hands to pieces of different sizes. You can throw in a piece of the required ingredient as needed for any recipe while cooking.This will cut short the cooking time substantially. Now spend this saved time with your family or doing what you like to do the most.

What is a Pressure Cooker?

On By lavinamehraIn About4 Comments

A pressure cooker is the only saviour of earth! I am not joking.. the rate at which mankind is currently consuming fuel energy, it is only the pressure cooking that can make a significant difference over time on the carbon footprint that our beloved planet is taking on. One of the main elements of green cooking is using pressure cookers. Pressure cookers not only cook food quickly but also retain the vitamins and minerals that are otherwise lost using other cooking methods.

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Pressure cookers have been in use in most parts of Asia, more so in India and Asia for decades now. Trust me, they are safe. You just need to understand how they work. There can however be a little bit of a learning curve if you’re using a pressure cooker for the first time. It’s important to know how to get started safely. If you know how the basic mechanism works it will be easy for you operate it with ease.

There are a wide variety of pressure cookers available in different shapes and sizes. All work on the same principle. When the pressure cooker is heated by the stove, the heat produces steam which cooks food faster by using the effects of pressure combined with heat.

A pressure cooker consists of the main pan, a lid, a rubber gasket that goes on the lid to seal pressure and a steam release system that includes a whistle and a safety valve. The whistle blows when steam reaches its maximum capacity. This is a way to time the cooking as well as a sign that the pressure cooker is working properly. The cooking time for many of my recipes is measured by the number of whistles that blow!

 

Quick Daal Makhani sans butter-बिन मख्खन के दाल माखनी

On By lavinamehraIn 10 minutes or more recipesLeave a comment

SERVES: 4

GLUTEN FREE- LOADED WITH MINERALS AND FIBRE -QUICK TO MAKE

Why this recipe? How is it green and quick? How am I contributing to making this earth green by following this four steps or less recipe?

Using Pressure Cooker will take 30-35 minutes whereas it will take 35-55 minutes in a regular pan. 

Using frozen chopped garlic and ginger will save 5-10 minutes of your time.

By using this recipe you save: 50% of fuel energy and 30 minutes of your precious time that is about 15 to 20% of the total time you spend in kitchen on an average (assuming you spend a total of 2-3 hours in a day in the kitchen)

COOKING TIME: 30-35 minutes

INGREDIENTS:

  • ½ Kg whole black Urad lentil (maa ki daal)
  • 50 grams red kidney beans (optional)
  • 1 teaspoon oil
  • 1 cinnamon stick
  • 1 star anise
  • 1 big cardamom
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 4 onions (about ½ kg)
  • 1 large tomato chopped any size
  • 1 inch frozen crushed green chilli or 2 fresh chillies
  • 2 inch frozen garlic or 4 crushed cloves
  • 2 inch frozen ginger or 50 grams grated fresh
  • 300-400 ml of water
  • 1 tablespoon salt
  • 2 teaspoons red chilli powder
  • 2 tablespoons coriander powder
  • 1.5 teaspoons garam masala
  • 200 ml to ½ litre of milk (2% or 3% preferable)

PREPARATION:
Soak lentil and beans mixed together in hot water overnight.
Chop onions and tomatoes in small pieces.

STEP 1: Put cinnamon, star anise, cardamom, and bay leaves into heated oil for less than a minute until they get brown.
STEP 2: Once whole spices are brown, add the rest of the ingredients except milk and garam masala. Add enough water for it to stay about 2 inches above the level of dal and cook for 4-5 whistles (10-15 minutes) in a pressure cooker (or until everything is tender if using regular pan).
STEP 3: Let pressure in the cooker release by itself. Once the pressure is gone, add milk and garam masala. Let it simmer for 10 minutes, keep adding milk as dal becomes thick over time.

HANDY TIPS:IMG_0146
1. If you are not using a pressure cooker, it may take 25-30 minutes of low heat setting in a pan with the lid on for the dal to become tender.
2. You may want to garnish it with cut fresh coriander leaves and if you don’t care about making it lean (fat free), feel free to add a tablespoon of fresh cream or butter while serving.

That’s Me

On By lavinamehraIn AboutLeave a comment

My name is Lavina Masand Mehra. I am a Finance and Management professional and have been associated with international humanitarian work for the last 25 years. Since my childhood I have strived to learn new things and lived through my motto that “life is too short”. With my family, I have lived an interesting life in different parts of the world. Each country offered unique and exciting opportunities and challenges that made our family learn a lot of new things.

Four Steps or Less
Lavina Masand Mehra

I have launched this website to share my ideas to make day to day routines quicker, easier, economical, and swift so that time and energy can be saved. Over the years, I have noticed so many of my friends, family and acquaintances spend enormous amount of time in the kitchen to lay a delicious and nutritious meal on the table. To add to this, it hurts when one considers the amount of fuel energy used in time consuming cooking methods like oven cooking where you may be simply roasting nuts for a minimum of 45 minutes. The carbon footprint these cooking methods and appliances leave on the environment seem sinful to me. I am starting the discussion with kitchen ideas that can save both time and energy in terms of oven use. I strongly believe that time saved can, and should, be translated into maximizing quality family time and the energy conserved can make the earth greener and a better place for our future generations.

To start off, I am primarily sharing some recipes and tips to lay a meal on the table that is cooked fast, nutritious, green and delicious. However, I don’t want to limit myself to the kitchen and write only recipes or cooking tips as I really don’t claim to be the best cook. I would rather love to be recognized as an efficient cook. I feel that having an extremely busy professional and personal life for all these years, there were so many things that I had to do swiftly to balance different priorities and at the same time maximize quality time to spend with the family.

There might be some thoughts from these experiences that might be worth sharing and may be useful for friends and readers of this site. I would like to keep the option open of sharing those thoughts at some point of time. So, stay tuned.. more will be coming soon, maybe everyday on this website.

To find out more about my initial thoughts on setting put this project, read my post about finding myself.

Read this for an overview of my basic concepts of Quick Cooking, Healthy Eating.

Here are the posts about each of those four basic concepts:

Please provide any feedback, thoughts, comments, opinions, or advice about my project through my Facebook page Four Steps or Less!

Finding Myself

On By lavinamehraIn MusingsLeave a comment

Something has been on my mind for the past few years as I have been in semi retirement mode. I’ve been thinking of going back to things that I really enjoyed doing years ago but lost touch with between work, kids and moving across the world every few years. So recently, and after a lot of procrastination I challenged myself to get past the inhibitions I thought I had developed, and really committed myself to painting, handiwork and other arts I used to adore. I alarmingly discovered that most of the things I thought I would love to go back to are no longer able to capture my amusement or interest. I thought of writing this revelation down so that I can reassure myself that how much so ever I think I am still passionate about these things; I actually may be not.

After a lot of introspection I now recognise that all these years have changed my choices, interests and passions to some extent. I used to enjoy painting, sketching, knitting, crochet, DIY projects, skating, dancing, beading and much more. However, something that I had not done much in my earlier years while studying and enjoying student life was cooking.

Over the last two decades and more, alongside practising my profession, raising the family, working in and traveling to more than 54 countries, socializing with friends and keeping up with my urge to do the crazy things on and off that I am so known for, I have had to cook for family and friends. This was new to me yet surprisingly never bogged me down. The satisfaction of creating something new, feeding the family, and looking at the content faces of people with stuffed tummies seemed to be the ultimate and most fulfilling reward. Fortunately, I found shortcuts to making complex dishes in a jiffy. Over the years, I realized that preparing four course meals for 20 people did not in fact take much time for me at all.

At the request of some of my friends I have been sharing a few of these quick cooking tips on a one-on-one basis. I feel now that I have the time; it may be a good idea to put my years of experience and experimentations in the kitchen on a public forum. Moreover, now that I have finally started using social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, I can share effortlessly with a wider community, and hope that someone may find the tips useful. When I see people spending so much time cooking, or not cooking because of the time it takes for them, it really bothers me. I believe that 60 to 80% of the average time spent in the kitchen can be reduced easily. Since moving back to Canada, something that bothers me even more is the rampant use of the oven in this part of the world. The carbon footprint that oven-cooking leaves behind is horrendous. As a basic rule of thumb, cooking on the stove and using pressure-cooking methods can save more than 70% of the electric power and time taken to cook, while simultaneously retaining far more nutrients. So, after a lot of consideration of these ideas and discussions with people from all ways of life, I see that the need is not just for quick recipes but quick, healthy and green recipes.
With these thoughts, I am going to be writing down some “4 steps or less” quick and green recipes for popular Indian dishes (to start with) that some of you may already have tasted at our home. I plan to post them on a Facebook page on my account. This should keep me busy for some time, and it will still have to be seen how long this project will sustain my interest, but for now it seems I have found my new passion.