Let’s Explore Different Culture, let’s Cook Something Mexican Tonight

I love exploring the culture of different countries. It gives me lots of vision as well as knowledge about the world. I read a lot of different countries and their food online whenever I get time. I really like Indian and Italian cuisine because in both the culinary world, they give importance to spices and vegetables.

I have learned lots of Indian dishes from my friend Neha. I think, I have told you about her in my earlier post as well. The other day only, I was sitting with her and poking her to teach me how to cook an Indian desert called- Gajar ka Halwa. In return, she asked me to teach her some Mexican dish.

After telling her how to cook some of the Mexican food, I thought of dedicating this post to her… J. Thank you for being in my friend neha. This one is for you.

So, let me share this Mexican soup recipe with you all which is easy to cook and delicious to eat. This is my favorite soup and today I will be sharing tortilla soup recipe with you all. There are so many alterations which one can make to this soup recipe. It is a soup which can be served cold and hot, both ways. This soup has crunchiness and I have seen so many people who like to have this soup very hot. 

The recipe for this soup is-

 Ingredients:

• 1 kg of fire roasted tomatoes
• 4 cloves of garlic (peeled and crushed)
• 1 ½ tbsp. of cilantro (try and get it fresh)
• ½ tbsp. of sugar
• 10 cups chicken stock (I use knorr stock cubes for making chicken stock)
• 1 kg of chicken (boneless chicken breast pieces)
• Rice
• Tortilla chips
• 2-3 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce

Introduce Health to Your Kitchen by Introduction Margarine in Your Kitchen

Are you also the part of butter vs. margarine debate? I am convinced that margarine is a healthier substitute of butter and one must not consume too much butter in their day to day life. Rather, they should look for healthier alternatives of butter and live healthy.

It is not very difficult to start leading a healthy life. Making a small switch from butter to margarine is an easy and effective way to cut back saturated fats from your daily life. We use butter on regular basis as a bread spread, for cooking, for baking etc. In a research, it was shown that by simply replacing butter with margarine one could save their body with whopping 3 kilos of bad fat per year. Isn’t this amazing?

If your family can’t get use to the idea of using margarine instead of butter, slowly introduce them to this healthy margarine. Lots of bakers, swears by the taste of margarine in their baked goods. These days market is filled with the option of gluten free margarine, one can also use them.

Margarines is now available in different flavors and one can pick them as per their need. It not only taste great as a bread spread but it is also great for cooking. Most of the margarines contains less saturated fats and in some of the country’s margarine contains maximum of 15% of fat.

Most of the people like to opt for the canola based margarines because they comprehend healthy essential fatty acids such as ALA and omega 6. However it is always recommended to choose margarine tub over margarine sticks because the more liquidity the margarine is, the healthier it would be.

Some of the health benefits of margarine are-

• They are very rich in vitamin A & vitamin D. Both these vitamins are very essential for our body.
• Margarine are very rich in omega-3 & Omega-6 acids. These acids are very necessary for our body.
• It is lighter for baking and gives a better taste to the food.

Lots of doctors are also advising the people to incorporate margarine in their regular diet in order to live healthy and maintain lean body. The debate of butter vs. margarine can go on forever, but at the end of the day one must take a right decision towards their health.

Besides eating healthy, one must indulge themselves in physical activities and outdoor games. If you do not get time during the week due to the hectic office schedule, make sure that you are dedicating your weekend to the fitness.

Lastly, I would just like to say that I don’t think margarine is unhealthy. Science has proven this time and again. Enjoy your life and eat healthy!!

Easy Pork Chops Recipe – Pineapple Pork Chops

Everyone I meet or have met likes to eat pork chops but at the same time, everyone has different recipe for it. I mean I can’t even tell you how many version I have seen of this simple pork chops. People cook them in everything possible- whiskey, cheese, okra etc.

The flavors of pork chops are such that it goes well with everything. You can simply grill it, or you can pressure cook it. Cooking easy pork chop recipe i think is not very difficult. All you have to do is to make up your mind about whether you want to grill it, cook it, put them in slow cooker etc. Once you know what you are looking for you can find the recipes easily.

To show the versatility of this amazing food, let’s cook pork chops in a little different style, let’s cook pineapple pork chops-

Ingredients:

• 4 pork chops loin (4 racks)
• ¼ cup all-purpose flour
• 1 tin of canned pineapple (drained and cut in chunks)
• Salt & pepper (as per taste)
• 2 tbsp. of vegetable oil
• 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon powder
• ½ tbsp. of brown sugar
• 1 can of yams (drained and cut in chunks)

Method:

1. Take a bowl and combine flour, salt & pepper. Coat the pork chops nicely. If you like to have a crispy pork chops than you can repeat the coating twice with the egg coating. Give them the resting time for about 10-15 minutes.
2. Now, take a heavy base pan and heat vegetable oil on the medium-high heat. Once, the oil is warm, cook the pork chops for about 6-7 minutes each side. Make sure that you do not dark brown them. They should be light brown in color. 
3. In another bowl, squeeze the pineapples (make sure that you are not making the puree of them) to take some juice out of them. Mix this juice with brown sugar and cinnamon powder.
4. Add this mixture over cooked pork chops and give a very nice stir. Make sure that the sauce is coated all over the pork chops. Cook this for about 2-3 minutes.
5. Now, add yam and stir. Let this cook for about 15-17 minutes with lid closed.
6. Serve hot with sticky rice.

Source: http://www.webmd.com

If you have kids at home, they will love this recipe because they like the sweet and sour combination in the dishes. My kids literally lick the plates whenever I cook this dish. It is actually to fun to create pork chops like this because most of us grill and eat them.