Tuesday Eats...

My day started off with a cup of basic Chia Pudding and sliced banana. Recipe for Chia Pudding to come!

Lunch was one cup of brown rice with half a cup of channa masala and half a cup of daal. I also had sautéed string beans. 

In between lunch and dinner I had a bowl of pita and pretzel chips as a snack. 

Dinner was Mexican Lasagna with a side of sautéed kale, carrots and bell pepper. 

And that's my food in a day! 

I think I'm going to start updating my blog more regularly with my daily meals. This helps me keep myself in check on what I eat :-)

Restaurant Review: Bombay Sandwich Co.

Bombay Sandwich Co. is a new and healthy Indian sandwich shop that has opened in Chelsea. Ever since I heard about this place I was dying to try it! 

Not only is the food full of flavor but it's all vegetarian and full of good for you ingredients. 

When walking into Bombay Sandwich Co. you know it's a small space that has been decorated very clean, neat and simple. You walk in and you feel like you are walking into a warm, inviting place. There's something about the comforting atmosphere and the warm hearted people that make you want to stay. 

Bombay Sandwich Co. uses local ingredients and pairs them up with fragrant Indian spices. The menu offers an array of dishes such as platters, salads and bowls, all of which are gluten free. Sandwiches and wraps can also be ordered but are not gluten free.  

Last week, I ordered the Bombay Club which is potato, cucumber, onion and tomato in between THREE layers of seven grain bread. In between all the fresh veggies was a schmear of green chutney. Ah, heavenly. This was so fresh, the toasted bread added a great crunch and heartiness. The green chutney added deep, smoky flavor. 

I also ordered myself a cup of chai (black tea infused with ginger and cardamom and milk). The chai was very delicious and comforting on such a cold day. You could taste the ginger in every sip. The chai was also milky without feeling heavy and was slightly sweet.

The chai was great but then I sampled the cardamom coffee. OH MY GOOODNESS!! This is the first time I had cardamom coffee and it blew my socks off. At first, I didn't know how I would like the combination of cardamom and coffee but as soon as I took a sip I realized these flavors should have married a long time ago. We are talking a rich coffee taste paired with a sweet slightly licorice like flavor, blended with creamy milk. I could seriously have this every day. Good job Bombay Sandwich Co. 

Overall, I LOVE this place and am excited to try out more dishes. Next time, I'm going to get myself a bowl and a smoothie (I'm looking at you, Yogis Choice :-p). 

Bombay Sandwich Co... Keep dishing out these amazing, healthy and flavorful dishes!

Address:  48 west 27th St. Ny, Ny

Web: http://www.bombaysandwichco.com

And We're Back...

Good Morning All!

Happy Monday. Time to start the workday. I hope you all had a great weekend. My weekend was full of fun and eventful things. 

We kicked things off Friday night at a Thai restaurant. I got the Garden Green dish which is suppose to be a bunch of vegetables. I was a bit disappointed because there were a bunch of limpy vegetables, such as cabbage and bok choy. I was hoping more for broccoli, carrots and string beans. 

The husband ordered a chicken dish which looked far more interesting than my dish:

Yeah... It's on fire. 

The rest of my weekend included a lot of healthy eats:

We also did a lot of cooking and prepped meals for the week. We are on an Indian food kick and made a pot of channa masala and daal. We also made a batch of falafel burgers. 

I also made a stack of oat waffles for myself for the week:

And that's a wrap with good eats :-)

Jersey City Restaurant Review: Rajbhog Sweets

The other night we decided to go out for Indian food. It had been a while and we were both craving it. If you're in Jersey City, the place to go for Indian food is Newark Avenue, near the Journal Square Path Station. On Newark Avenue you will find all things Indian. Indian grocery stores and Indian restaurants. I've been going to Newark Avenue for the past 10 years. There are about 15 restaurants on Newark Avenue. Out of the 15 probably 5 have remained the same. I feel like every year a new restaurant opens but then closes with in a year.

One of these restaurants is called Rajbhog Sweets. Their sweets are AMAZING. I have never gotten a sweet I didn't like from here. Rajbhog Sweets also serves savory food plates. For $8 you get a huge thali(selection of indian food on a plate) of Indian food. This includes an appetizer AND DESSERT. The thali also comes with two rotis, two vegetarian dishes, rice and dhal. When you have this with the apps and dessert, it's a pretty big meal!

We decided to try Rajbhog and get the thali. My thali came with a samosa appetizer and a fried eggplant pattie. I also got a paneer(cheese) dish and channa(chickpeas) masala as my vegetarian dish. There was rice, dhal(lentils) and yogurt as well. Also, lets not forget... dessert was a gulab jammun (fried dough soaked in a sugar syrup). So, how was it? I loved the samosa, roti, channa and gulab jammun. I felt the panned was over cooked and was just to oily. The dhal...I've never had dhal that looked milky and tasted slightly sweet. I'm more used to Punjabi dhal which is a bit salty and has spice. Like I said the channa was delicious. The chickpeas were cooked perfectly and had a bit of spice to them. There are options to get smaller thali's and if I do eat here again I would get the thali with one vegetarian option.

The dessert was phenomenal! I love gulab jammun and these guys did a great job with that. I've gotten a few of their sweets in the past and have never been disappointed.

The verdict: Stick to Rajbhog Sweets for their sweets. The savory food can be hit or miss.

Rajbhog Sweets:
812 Newark Avenue
Jersey City, NJ

Workouts, Parisian Night and Then Some....

Good Morning!

I hope you guys had a great Monday. I had a great weekend filled with at least one workout, a fun filled Parisian night and Indian food!

I knew Saturday night there would be a lot of food and I wanted to try a little bit of everything, soooo I went to the gym Saturday morning and worked out extra hard. Oh yes, I spent 45 minutes on the stair master working to burn at least 500 calories. So worth it and I felt so good! I immediately came out and devoured a stack of healthy coconut flour pancakes :-)

So, Saturday night I threw a little Parisian party. Our friends from CT were in town and we made plans to meet up. I started the night off with a simple cheese platter. I had Brie, goat and port cheese along with some grapes and rosemary Melba toast. This kept people noshing until the main course was ready to be brought out.

The main course was roasted rosemary chicken and lentils in a balsamic Dijon sauce. To be quite honest, I thought the lentils were so much more flavorful and delicious. The lentils were an Ina recipe. Of course they would be good :-) On the side, I had French bread, white asparagus, roasted potatoes and sautéed green beans. I have to say... everything turned out pretty good.

Dessert was none the less... CREPES!! Seriously, how could you not have crepes on a Parisian night!!! Sadly, I did not get a picture of the crepes. I made the crepes from scratch and had fun fillings such as Nutella, bananas, strawberries, pudding and whip cream. Crepes = Success.

So that was our very fun Parisian night in a nutshell. Sunday we decided to take it easy. We had a lovely breakfast with my sister, brother in law and the little one. What did we have.. Crepes of course :-p
The rest of Sunday was spent shopping and roller skating, and dinner at an Indian restaurant. Review coming up.

How was your weekend?

It's an Indian Dinner

Dinner tonight was anything but healthy! Oh no, tonight's dinner was at the Dosa Hut. I could have gotten a dosa, but no, I decided to not only get papadi chaat but to also get samosa chat. Mmmm...this was delish.

I had half a plate of each. Definitely a heavy meal.

Dessert was a couple of pieces of milk cake from The Bengali Sweet House. I wolfed those down before taking a picture...my bad :-p

What did you have for dinner?

Tips for Eating Out...

We all face obstacles when eating out. Whether it's Italian, Chinese, Indian or any other type of cuisine, we are always looking for the best options to have when eating out. I thought I would recap my Eating Out Guide... Italian Food

• If you are having pizza, go for the thin crust, you'll save yourself a ton of calories
• Avoid meats on your pizza, go for the high fiber veggies which you know are 0 points
• DO NOT, I repeat...DO NOT eat the breadsticks, ppls, its just BREAD..let it go for Italian meals
• Get your dressing on the side -dip the tip of your fork in the dressing and then eat your salad. You'll get all the flavor with minimal calories.
• When eating out, immediately ask your server to pack half of your meal to go
• If there is an option for whole wheat or multigrain pasta, get this

Chinese Food

• Start your meal off with a broth based soup and a salad. This will help fill you up and ensure you do not consume too many calories
• When at a Chinese Buffet, pick food from the top. The sauce and oils tend to fall down on the bottom of the pile of food. If you pick food from the top of the pile, you will atleast get the least amount of oil and sauce
• WATCH FOR PORTION DISTORTION. People, I cannot say this enough, if you are going to eat all that food, atleast watch for your portion sizes. Remember, you just want to taste the food, not overload and gorge on it!
• Mix your food with steamed veggies or chicken. This way you will get all the flavor for half the calories
• Go for the steamed dumplings vs. the fried dumplings. You'll be saving yourself a whole lot of saturated fat
• Try to stay away from anything deep fried, such as egg rolls or fried dumplings
• If there is brown rice, go for this over white rice, again watch for portion distortion
• Go ahead and have your fortune cookie. These satisfying, sweet treats are about 25 calories

Indian Food

• Try to stick with the vegetable based dishes, such as channa masala and aloo ghobi
• Stay away from cream and butter laden sauces -such as chicken makhani
• Have roti instead of naan. Roti's are usually made with whole wheat flour, and cooked on a flat, cast iron pan, with minimal oil
• Stay away from the mango lassis, or any other FLAVORED lassis
• Portion control your rice, keep your intake to rice no more than one cup

I hope this has helped you guys out. Are there any other types of cuisines you'd like some tips on eating out?

***Recipe Alert: Channa Masala Pasta***

Italy...meet India...India...meet Italy. Wow. This has got to be the best fusion recipe I've come up with! This is a flavor, fiber filled meal which will keep you wanting more (that's probably not a good idea though :-p) This entire recipe has over 10 grams of fiber and only 5 WW points!!! Now that is awesome for a lunch or dinner!! This is also incredibly easy.

Here are the deets: One serving of whole wheat pasta 1/2 serving of Channa Masala (http://ask-kanwal.blogspot.com/2009/04/hey-guys-i-love-cooking-indian-food.html) Cilantro for garnishing

Cook the pasta according the directions on the box. Once fully cooked, take about 2 tablespoons of the pasta water and add this to the Channa Masala. Toss the pasta with the Channa Masala, and garnish with chopped Cilantro! Delicious!!!

Hey There...

Hey Guys, I apologize for not posting much up yesterday! Due to some unforseen cirucumstances I was out all day! Anywho, yesterday was an OK day for me. You all know I had my PB&J done my way sammie. For lunch I had Indian food, but the choices were not all that great. I had a SMALL portion of chicken tikka masala, rice and kadhi pakora (a yogurt based indian dish). Although I know I kept my portions in tact I must have had about 12 WW pts. for lunch. For dinner, there was more Indian food, and again, I did keep my portions in tact. I had channa masala, rice and two samosas. Again, this was about 11 WW pts. So, let's just say I went over my points by around 10 :-\. This is when I utilize the 35 extra points and my activity points from WW. Anywhooo, I hope your day was well yesterday!

***Recipe of the Day: Samosas Done My Way***

Ingredients:

1/4lb. of extra lean ground turkey (I like Jennie O)

1/2 medium Onion, chopped

2 tb. of grated Garlic

1/2 c. of chopped, frozen Spinach

1 c. of frozen Mixed Vegetables

1/2 bunch of Cilantro, chopped

1 tsp. of Canoloa Oil

1 tsp. of Salt

1 tbs. of flour and water, mixed to form a paste

Fajita style Flour Tortilla's cut in half

Seasonings:

1/2 Tb. of Salt

1 tb. of Pepper

2 tb. of Cumin Seeds

2 tb. of Garam Masala

2 tsp. of Turmeric

1 tsp. of Chili powder

1 tb. of Coriander powder

1. In a sautee pan, cook the ground Turkey in salted water. About one cup of water, just to cover the ground Turkey should do the trick.

2. Once the Turkey is cooked, remove from sautee pan, and into a bowl.

3. Add the Canola Oil to the sautee pan.

4. Add the Onions, Garlic and Salt to the pan, cook until the onions have become translucent.

5. Add the Spinach, Mixed Vegetables, Cilantro, and ground Turkey.

6. Add the seasoning and sautee for 5 minutes on medium heat, if you find the mixture becoming too dry, add some water for the spices to incorporate more easily, however, make sure this has fully evaporated when done.

7. Let the mixture completely cool before moving on.

8. Once the mixture has cooled, take half of your flour Tortilla, and fold this in half to form a cone.

9. Seal the edge with the flour paste.

10. Spoon a generous amount of your ground Turkey mixture into the now formed cone.

11. Fold over the remaining edges of the Tortilla to close the cone and seal with the flour paste, set aside and repeat with another half of Tortilla.

12. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees

13. Bake the samosa's for 30 minutes, or until browned.

Guys, I was able to make 12 samosa's out this batch.

Now for the important part...each samosa has only 2 WW pts!!! Also, if you'd like to make these totally vegetarian, omit the ground Turkey and Tofu or more veggies...the points would also reduce to 1 WW pt.!!!! How hot is that? :-P

Enjoy!

***Recipe of the Day: Channa Masala***

Hey Guys, I love cooking Indian food. Generally, I feel Indian food is pretty healthy, if the amount of oil can be controlled! I've been craving one of my favorite Indian dishes, which is called Channa Masala. This is basically Chickpeas simmered in a spicy and tangy sauce, and is generally eaten with naan (flatbread made out of white flour) or roti (unleavened flatbread, usually made out of wheat flour). This is also a dish that tastes better as you let it the flavors marinate with each other. So, if you make it for dinner tonight, the leftovers are even more awesome!!! Now, I think Channa Masala is one of the healthiest Indian dishes you can have, and probably one of the most easiest dishes to make! One serving of Chickpeas has only 100 calories, 2 grams of fat, and 7 grams of fiber people!!! What's even better is, most of the spices and vegetables used to make this dish are 0 WW pts. and if you make it on your own, you can definitely control the oil! Here is my wonderful recipe for Channa Masala. If you notice, I also add frozen Spinach, which is not typical with Channa Masala, but this adds volume and tastes great! I hope you guys try this recipe! Note: This recipe serves 4 people, so the WW pts. are per serving Ingredients: One 1LB. 13oz. can of Chickpeas, drained: 2 WW pts. One medium Tomato, diced: 0 WW pts. One medium Onion thinly sliced: 0 WW pts. Two tablespoons of Cumin seeds: 0 WW pts. Three tablespoons of Lemon Juice: 0 WW pts. Salt to taste: 0 WW pts. One tablespoon of Canola Oil: 1 WW pt. One tablespoon of Garam Masala (you can find this in the International aisle of your supermarket): 0 WW pts. Two tablespoons of Tomato Puree: 1 WW pt. Two dried Chillies: 0 WW pts. Chili powder, as needed: 0 WW pts. 1/2 tablespoon of Turmeric: 0 WW pts. Two teaspoons of Coriander Powder: 0 WW pts. Two cloves of Garlic, chopped: 0 WW pts. 1/2 inch of Ginger, chopped: 0 WW pts. 1/2 cup of fresh chopped Cilantro: 0 WW pts. One cup of frozen Spinach: 0 WW pts. 1. Add the Oil to a hot saucepan 2. Saute the Onions on medium heat, until translucent 3. Add the Cumin seeds and saute for another five minutes 4. Add the Garlic and Ginger and saute for another minute 5. Add the Salt, dry Chillies, Turmeric, Coriander powder and saute for 3-5 minutes 6. Add the diced Tomatoes and saute for another minute 7. Add the Tomato Puree and Lemon Juice 8. Stir in the Chickpeas 9. Add the Spinach 10. Add enough water to just cover the Chickpeas 11. Allow this to come to a boil, then reduce the heat and allow sauce to thicken 12. Once sauce has thickened to desired consistency, stir in the cilantro, then take off of heat. Allow this to slightly cool. Serve with freshly sliced onions on top. Eat with warm/toasted whole wheat pita. Guys, you get a huge portion for 4 WW pts. This is awesome for dinner or lunch!!

Enjoy!!

Lunch Time...Eating Out

Hey Ppls,

So, I did tell you that I would be eating out for lunch, as I went on my 3 Buck Bite adventure. Well, I certainly found something tasty, and I'm glad I saved my points for it. I found Shammi Kabab for under $3!!! What are Shammi Kabab's you ask? Let me explain: Minced meat or chicken mixed together with various spices (cloves, cardamom, cumin, garam masala, etc.), and then shaped into patties and fried.

Let me tell you, these were delish!! I had two. I couldnt find these on the WW site, but just to be safe, I am giving them 10 WW pts., so 5 WW pts. for each. I'm giving them such high points, because, come on ppls..they are fried :-p

What did you have for lunch?

PS: for more info on the Shammi kababs, and where they are from you'll have to wait for the 3 Buck Bite article this week!