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Light, healthy, tasty: Summer diet recipes!

Nutritionist and fitness trainer Samreedhi Goel provides readers with season-appropriate preparations and summer diet tips.

Summertime usually translates into irritability, low energy and sometimes, loss of appetite. Most people complain about not wanting to eat hot food or prefer to avoid everyday fare.

However, it is not a good idea to ignore your nutritional intake for these few months. Here are simple recipes which will take the boredom away from your daily meals without compromising your nutrition, followed by some tips to help you keep your diet healthy and balanced!

Mango Smoothie

Ingredients:

• 1/2 glass skimmed milk
• 1/2 cup thick yoghurt
• 1 mango
• 1 tsp sugar

Method:

• Cut the mango into small pieces.
• Use a blender to whip all of the above to a smooth consistency.
• Serve chilled.

Dahi Idli

Ingredients:

• 2-3 idlis
• 1 cup yoghurt
• 1 tsp oil
• A few mustard seeds
• Some curry leaves
• Salt

Method:

• Cut idlis into halves.
• Beat the yoghurt with salt and pour over idli pieces.
• Heat oil in a saucepan, add seasonsing and pour over idlis. Serve.

Healthy Pani Puri

Ingredients:

• Baked puris
• 25 gms imli (tamarind), soaked in warm water for 30 minutes
• 1-2 tsps readymade pani puri masala
• 4-5 mint leaf stalks
• 1 green chilly
• 1/2 tsp red chilly powder
• 2 inch piece of jaggery
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp sugar

Method:

• Make a pulp of the soaked imli and strain it.
• To the juice, add one glass of water.
• Mix remaining dry ingredients with the imli-water mixture.
• Powder mint leaves and green chillies together in a blender and add to the above.
• Boil all ingredients for two to five minutes, till everything dissolves.
• Chill and serve with whole mung or whole channa and baked puris.

Paneer wrap

Ingredients:

• 2 medium-sized wholewheat chapattis
• 1/4 cup diced paneer
• Half each of red, green and yellow bell peppers, sliced into long segments
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 3-4 cloves of garlic
• Salt to taste
• 1 pinch sugar
• 1 tsp chaat masala
• 1 tsp red chilly powder
• 1-2 tsps oil
• 2-3 tsps coriander chutney
• 2 tsps hung curd (optional)

Method:

• Heat oil, add crushed garlic and onion snd allow them to cook till light pink
• Add bell peppers and cook for 2-3 minutes.
• Add paneer and cook for another 2 minutes. Then add lime juice, salt, sugar, red chilly powder and chaat masala and switch off the burner.
• Mix coriander chutney with hung curds and spread on chapattis -- if you're not using the curd, spread just the chutney.
• Divide the mixture in two, put some in each chapatti and roll. Serve as a wrap.

Summer diet tips

Here are a few mealtime pointers to keep in mind when the mercury is rising:

• Eat small but frequent meals all day. Avoid heavy foods that are more difficult to digest such as fried food, sweets etc. Your digestive system too needs a break from being overloaded, so include cooling foods like chaas/curds, coconut water and easy to digest fruits and vegetables. Avoid too much oil and spices as cooking ingredients.
• If you are eating out, make sure you have bottled water .Ask for food that is served either piping hot or ice cold. Avoid roadside food and avoid pickles, chutneys and sauces kept at the table for a long time in restaurants. All these precautions will help prevent diarrhea, jaundice and other common summer illnesses.
• Drink at least 1-2 litres of water daily. Do you know, the body's mechanism is such that we feel thirsty only once we are almost dehydrated! So don't wait to feel thirsty -- drink water all day long!
• Avoid too much caffeine. To keep cool, people tend to reach out for colas, cold coffees etc. Avoiding too much caffeine will prevent you from getting jittery and irritated. Too much caffeine can also dehydrate you! Stick to lime juice, water, coconut water and chaas instead!