I love salads for lunch or dinner almost any day of the week, but especially in the summer when it’s just too hot to cook. Salads are very versatile and healthy. You can easily customize them to adjust to your family’s taste and of course they are quick and easy to throw together. Here’s how you turn this side dish into a filling meal…

· Caesar Salad – Chop romaine lettuce; top it with croutons, parmesan cheese, Caesar dressing and any of the following: grilled chicken, steak, shrimp, smoked or cooked salmon or any other cooked fish you have handy.

Read more about Quick Meal Ideas Salads…

I don’t know about you, but I have a lot more time to cook some nights than others. When I do have extra time, I try to cook an extra batch of food, stick it in the freezer and then just grab a meal that’s ready to be heated and served out of the freezer on the days when we’re really busy. Here’s a list of things I tend to either cook in batches, or cook while I’m working on that day’s regular dinner and then freeze for later.

- Lasagna – anything from regular meat versions to vegetarian ones. Just assemble and freeze, then bake as usual straight from the freezer.

- Soups or Stews – Almost any type of soup or stew freezes well. I always cook these in double batches and freeze one. The only exception I’m aware of is chicken and dumplings. The dumplings just don’t turn out well when they are frozen. Some soups with chunks of potatoes can also get mushy, so test a small batch first.

Read more about Quick Meal Ideas Freezer Cooking…

Today we’ll tackle one of my favorite quick meal ideas – Pantry Meals. To be honest, before I started planning our meals, I had quite a few days where I didn’t make it to the grocery store and had to make do with what I had sitting in the fridge and pantry. Over time I got pretty creative with these impromptu meals. Here are some of my favorites…

Mediterranean Spaghetti – heat a can of drained tuna with some onion and garlic in a little olive oil. Add some tomato sauce from a jar and a few olives or leftover veggies and serve over cooked pasta.

Read the rest of Quick Meal Idea Day Four Pantry Meals

I want to share with you a ‘Quick Meal Idea’ eCourse. The course is in six-parts. Over the next 6 days, I’ll share some of my favorite ideas with you to get dinner on the table in a hurry. These ideas are perfect for those days when you are coming home late from work, or have been busy driving the kids all around town all day.

Well they are perfect for people like me who doesn’t want to spend a lot of time in the kitchen

Let’s get started right away with the first idea – Make a pot of soup for dinner. It’s one of my favorite go-to dinners because it is so versatile. Plus, if you are using leftovers or canned items, soup can be ready to be poured in 15 to 20 minutes. Simply add a sandwich or make a batch of biscuits and you have a filling meal.

Here are some quick soup ideas to get you started….

Quick Meal Idea 1: Soups

Beef and Vegetable Soup

Brown some hamburger meat and onion in a little butter or olive oil. Once the meat is completely cooked add any canned vegetables you like. I usually add chopped canned tomatoes, green beans, white beans and stewed canned tomatoes chopped into bite size pieces. The quantity of each ingredient isn’t important. Just throw the meal together and add a bit of salt and you’ll have a hearty soup.

Continue Reading at Indian Food - Healthy Quick Meal Ideas

 The Times of India says:

“LONDON: The one billion pound Indian food industry in UK is showing signs of decline as most young ethnic Asians are not interested in working in kitchens and new immigration rules make hiring chefs from the Indian sub-continent difficult.

There is not a single British town or village which does not have an Indian restaurant, but staff shortage has led to several of them closing down”.

According to the news Children of first generation restaurant owners prefer to take up professions other than those of their parents.  And they don’t want to work in the kitchens.

I can understand that because I hardly spend time in cooking. Just today I had a conversation with another lady who is not been able to pursue a desired course because most of her time is spent in cooking and cleaning.

Not only in developed countries, but even in India where most people love home cooked meal, it is becoming more and more difficult to find time for cooking. At the same time we have to have healthy food rather than go for junk foods.

This has started a trend of instant ready to make items that save time, help you churn out dishes in minutes and are filled with healthy nutrients. In such food items you have to carefully note their shelf life and what type of preservatives are used.

Instant Dosa Mix that is used to make dosa batter in minutes has no artificial preservatives. Whatever is added to the mix is rich nutritious ingredients that help you keep fit. You can preserve the powder for months.

Indian food menus are becoming more popular the world over. Indian recipes are known for the healthy ingredients the use of which are based on ancient texts and this knowledge is passed on from one generation to another. What is more important is that these recipes are now being improvised to suit modern needs.

In most Indian food menus, the food item has a pair of ingredients - one working to compensate the side effects of the other.

For example, dosa is an Indian recipe that is a complete nutritious meal in itself. One dosa can provide your body with most of the required vitamins and nutrients. Hence if you are on a weight loss diet, you will be able to have a filling, complete, nutritious meal once and will not feed the urge to eat anything between meals.

The idea is to get your stomach and tongue feel the satisfaction of a delicious and filling meal that it does not crave for anything in between meals.

Ingredients Complimentary and Counter Active

In Indian dosa we use lentils called “urad dal”. This white lentil is rich in protein and is good for health. White Dal is good for improving hemoglobin count. In India herbal doctors prescribe one dosa per day for people suffering from anemia.

So urad dal has all the good qualities that we need. But nothing is perfect in this world. Good healthy ingredients do have a part that is not good for us. So does urad dal. Eating a lot of urad dal can produce ’stomach gas’. So to deactivate this component of urad dal, Indians use asafoetida called ‘Hing’. By using a pinch of ‘hing’ in the dosa batter the bad effect of urad dal is removed and we can benefit from the nutritious quality of urad dal.

Another ingredient added to dal to overcome its side effect is cooking soda. Cooking soda again is good for digestion and prevents ’stomach gas’. A third ingredient used in dosa batter is cumin seeds.

What we are doing here is to benefit from a nutritious meal and have a three pronged attack over its side effects. The three ingredients, asafoetida, cooking soda and cumin seeds, which are used for overcoming the side effects of dosa, have healthy nutrients in themselves. So we have removed the bad effects and added more nutritional value to the meal.

This is just one example of the many, many ways Indian food lovers have perfected the art of eating healthy nutritious meal. This knowledge is passed on from one generation to the next.

Modern Indians do not want to spend a lot of time in the kitchen. Necessity is the mother of invention. Instant food items that retain the healthy, nutritious quality based on the ancient wisdom of Indians are coming into the food market.

These healthy recipes have such ingredients that work against the bad effects of each other as well as compliment the nutritional values of one another.

This video is in Tamil. If you do not know Tamil, check the previous post. You can watch the video with Hariprasad Chaurasia’s exotic flute.