Millet with baked pumpkin salad

Millet with baked pumpkin salad with a sunflower seed dressing

I think millets are a healthy substitute for wheat or rice. Since sunny boy can't eat wheat and co., including rye and barley, I try to offer him different types of other cereals. Millets are called Hirse in German and this is a variety called gold hirse here and comes from China, with big sized kernels. These are large in size than the Indian 'sama ke chawal' a hindi word for a variety of millet which you might know usually eaten during fasting. 'Sama ke chawal' are also different in being white in colour than this variety I used.

yellow chinese variety of millet (DE: 'gold hirse')

I took the recipe of baked pumpkin salad from 101 cookbooks, a blog surely well known to you all. I made a slightly different version than as given in the recipe. I used cooked broccoli florets which were still slightly crisp and I cooked them in the same water as the millets and took them out once done. I roasted a handfull of leftover sweetened cranberries and added them to the salad and also canned corn kernels to the plate while serving. I didn't have cilantro (coriander leaves) so I used parsely instead. Apart from that I had to slightly vary the amounts of the sunflower seeds and also pumpkin seeds I added to the dressing in the dressing as I didn't get it right initially but at the end it was a fanastic change to the vinaigrettes I usually make as dressings.

Some notable nutritional aspects of the meal:

Millets: contain B vitamins just like wheat ( see link (Wiki) ), and many other trace minerals required by our body and that way make for a good replacement for wheat

Broccoli : Apart from the many vitamins it also contains the trace element selenium and many other substances suggested to be having anticancer properties (source: Wiki). contains dietery fibres.

sunflower seeds : these are not only a good source of healthy fatty acids from the oil but also proteins. It contains linoleic acid, an omega-6-fatty acid. Like most of the seeds it also contains many useful trace minerals.

Pumpkin: good source of dietery fibres, just like broccoli, and contains a good number of trace minerals and vitamins. Low in fats but contains small amounts of proteins (lower than in potato)


The roasted flavour of the pumpkin was lovely. Since I used hokkaido variety I didn't need to peel it. I made the mistake of cutting the onion into wedges but forgot to take it out in time and they got a bit too dark and almost crisp! Next time I'll keep them whole as they aren't that big in size. We all loved the flavour of crannberries
I made this meal in September and since hubby isn't that fond of kichdi type of food I haven't come to making it again, but he and sunny boy enjoyed the pumpkin. I don't remember any more how sunny boy liked the millet as such, but he did the dressing for the salad. I have to make it soon to use up my two packets of millets lying in my pantry.

Carrot, the best way to eat them....

...is with some oil or a type of fat. Give them to kids grated or cut into thin slices.

It is the oils and fats which are necessary for the good pro-vitamin A (β carotene) to be absorbed by our body. Let the children chew the carrots properly as well.

These are three tempting ways that I remember of doing it for the kids:

1. A yoghurt dip: mix some yoghurt (strained, if possible)/curd/low fat- quark with whipped cream or clotted cream (Indian malai), add some salt and pepper or a pinch of ground roasted cumin. Serve with carrots, grated or cut into thin sticks or rings to be eaten as finger food
2. Just sprinkle grated carrots (or in any form) with some edible oil (which has not been heated!), a teaspoon of lemon juice and a pinch of salt and pepper or ground roasted cumin
3. A vinaigrette: mix some olive oil (or oil of choice) with natural white wine vinegar , salt, mustard (optional), roasted ground cumin, pepper or a pinch of chili powder, stir thoroughly with a spoon till you get homogeneous mass and dip your carrots in it, like we did today (see picture above)

We will use the leftover vinaigrette tomorrow, maybe again with carrots or some cucumber and tomatoes.

TIP: try to use as much oils high in unsaturated fatty acids (mono and poly unsaturated), as they contain the types of fatty acids which cannot be produced in our body. For example.

cold pressed rapeseed oil
cold pressed mustard oil
extra virgin olive oil (EVOO)

These oils are not good for deep frying, as they mono and poly unsaturated fatty acids degrade on heating on high temperatures, the reason why one needs to buy these which have been extracted by cold pressing. But, these can still be used for cooking or (stir-) frying or baking

Some examples of oils which should :

1. not be heated (at best to be used cold),
   
2. always kept in the dark,
   
3. in air-tight containers (should not come in contact with too much air - oxidative degradation)
   
4. and at best be used up fast as they are very unstable, being so rich in unsaturated fatty acids which make them so healthy :
   

• walnut oil
• sesame seed oil
• almond oil
• pumpkin seed oil

Some more comparatively stable oils, which are good for deep frying (should not be done too often, of course!):

• peanut oil
• sunflower oil
• coconut oil
• ghee - not a plant oil, but animal fat, but, is also a good substitute. But, one should keep in mind the high amount of saturated fatty acids and cholesterol in it
  

Therefore, deep frying should best be done not more than once a month, or at best even lesser.
Any type of oil should always be stored in airtight containers otherwise it degrades (becomes rancid) and even the comparitively stable ones, once heated on high temperatures, also start to degrade much more and faster, so repeated heating of oil, especially in large gaps of days is not good. Do not store deep fried oil for long, but, either use it as much possible in the next few days or throw it away. Wastage or not, nothing is wrong if it is for your health.
Give me more names of oils if you want to know about them which I have left out. I have only mentioned the most common ones.