pakistani/ indian food

The other thing to be aware of...........................coconut milk. High calories for such a small amount.

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You don't need to eliminate ghee or oil entirely, just use less of them and account for it. Some fat is necessary for a healthy diet.

And you can sneakily reduce calories in things without even really noticing. Take paneer, for example. Some recipes call for whole milk, some even add a bit of cream, but there's no reason you can't make paneer out of skim milk if you want. You'll have a bit less yield from a gallon of milk so it may not be worth it but you can give it a try. There are lots of skim milk paneer recipes on the web.

Google "low calorie pakistani recipes" or "low calorie indian recipes" and you'll find lots of ideas.

(Oo - I just looked at one of the videos for low-calorie Korma and I think she was speaking Urdu and English at the same time! Ack!! I feel so inadequate as an English mono-lingue!)

ooh, I'm Indian! And I love healthy Indian food.

My weakness is white rice. I replace with brown rice often, but 1. It's really not that much more fiber, and 2. Somehow brown rice doesn't soak up the flavors of Indian food as well as white rice. So nowadays I use low fat or fat free cottage cheese instead of rice. It delivers a protein punch, is wonderfully creamy without being too fattening, and is way lower in calories than a starch. It makes it easier to eat Indian food and cut carbs, and it complements Indian spices well. If I absolutely must have a starch, I sometimes just boil a sweet potato, mash it up, and eat my curry with that. Also a much better option than white rice or bread.

My dad, when he lost a ton of weight and was trying to control his blood sugar, regularly made a stew he made in a rice cooker. He has a giant rice cooker. In it, he puts 1/3 cup of brown rice. Then he made a very low fat tadka with one teaspoon of oil and many spices. Then he filled up the rest of the rice cooker with lentils and raw vegetables. This made about four large servings after cooking, so he would refrigerate it and have it for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and then breakfast the following morning before he made a new batch. If he had a day when he was particularly hungry, he would just microwave half an eggplant and then mix his serving with that before eating it so he could have more volume and more fiber. So that's 1/3 cup of brown rice, one teaspoon of oil, some protein, and pretty much unlimited vegetables for four meals total. He cut a lot of calories that way, and lost weight quickly. He sometimes put soy chunks in there for extra protein. The stew is pretty good. If I were making it I'd put two teaspoons of oil

If you're interested in South Indian, I do like the recipes at mahanandi:

http://www.nandyala.org/mahanandi/

http://www.themahanandi.org

Since I grew up in America and eat several cuisines, it's a bit easier for me. My parents are in the same boat as you, though - they really need that kick. So they're thing is to have everything steamed, and to have it with a spoon of pickle. That gives you all the fatty oils you need along with the spice. In fact, my dad also sometimes will have a serving of cottage cheese or plain greek yogurt with just a pickle. My mother has blood pressure, so she can't do this - but this is something to consider if you don't mind eating sodium. My parents are vegetarian, by the way.

Hope this helps.

This week in my kitchen.... Chicken stir fry, oven baked chicken kebab and toaster oven chicken breast