Recipe- Start Your Day In Healthy Way With Oats Upma

Oats Upma is a delicious, comforting breakfast recipe where vegetables, Indian spices and herbs are cooked together to create a savoury porridge-like dish. Its a healthy way to start the day, a great way to load your breakfast with veggies and fibre and comes together in one pot.

More often than not, people who are short on time wonder what alternatives they can adopt to lead a healthy lifestyle. I turn to Oats because supermarkets are lined up with this superfood these days. Oats are trending and very easily available. You have packets available in different flavours for your taste buds – sweet and savoury to keep you company on idle nights or early mornings when you have to rush to work. They can be made quickly and are really filling. I’ve also been tempted and have tried experimenting with many varieties, my favourite being Quaker. But somehow these packaged oats always leave a bad taste in my mouth at the end of it, and a sort of guilt at consuming an unhealthy form of something so healthy. Packaged oats are a little bit plastic-y and they make me think that cornflour is added to the mixture.

Ingredients

1/2 cup Oats
Onions finely chopped
Green Chili finely chopped
6 Curry Leaves
1/4 cup Red Cabbage
1/4 cup Carrots finely julienned
1/4 cup Capsicum finely julienned
1 teaspoons Urad Dal
1 teaspoon Chana Dal
4 cloves Garlic finely chopped
1 teaspoons Mustard Seeds
1/2 teaspoon Turmeric powder
Chili Powder To taste
1/2 teaspoon Coriander Powder
1/2 teaspoon Mango Powder Raw Amchoor
1 1/2 cups Water
Salt to taste
Oil for cooking

Method

* Heat one and a half teaspoon oil in a pan. I use olive oil for cooking, but any oil is fine.

* Add the mustard seeds and wait for them to splutter. As they start to splutter add the Urad Dal and Chana Dal. Fry this on low flame for a minute
* Add the onions and saute till transparent. To this add the chopped garlic and curry leaves. Be careful not to burn the garlic but wait for the flavor of garlic and curry leaves to start wafting through air

* Add the remaining vegetables and saute for 3-4 minutes. You can cover the pan for faster cooking

* Once the vegetables are semi cooked, add the oats and all the masala and salt. Cook the oats on a low flame for 4-5 minutes. At this point, you have to dry roast the oats

* Once the oats have roasted for a while, add the water and increase the flame. Let the water reduce and in a few minutes you will see the oats getting a nice creamy consistency.

* Let the water reduce further and switch off the flame once you are satisfied with the amount of liquid. I don't like to dry this too much as oats can become a little cloggy
* Sprinkle with chopped coriander. I sprinkled some nice curly parsley that I had sitting in the fridge and it tasted yumm with the oats

* Serve hot.