Anyone who's striving to follow a healthier diet should start by prepping more meals at home. Cooking your own food allows you to control portion sizes and ingredients used, not to mention it saves you money. But there is a learning curve when it comes to all that chopping, slicing, and dicing.
* To make softer chapattis, take the flour, add warm water and some warm milk and knead the dough. Let it rest for 15 minutes before making chapattis.
* Use heavy bottomed vessel for boiling milk and for preparations using milk like kheer. Before adding the milk, a little water can be added to the vessel to avoid the milk from sticking to the bottom and getting burnt.
* Toasting nuts, rice, rava and dal (lentils) before cooking with it increases its flavors considerably.
* Adding few drops of oil to the rice before cooking it will prevent it from becoming sticky.
* Use the excess dal water from boiling dal to make rasam. Similarly, after boiling vegetables if you do not want the extra water, the liquid can be used in gravies or for making chapatti dough.