Recipes for diabetics too!

 Sure, sugar is an integral part of the sweets prepared on Diwali but for the all the diet conscious people and for those with health concerns, sugar-free cupcake or diet cup cakes are the alternate choices. The sweets can be prepared using artificial sweeteners. Says dietician Pooja Makhija, "Chocolates, mithai, rasgullas, laddoos and peda made from a sugar substitute will have nearly half of the calories as their normal counterparts. You can use naturally sweet ingredients to make mithai. This calls for use of dry fruits like anjeer or dried figs or apricot as a base as well as addition of other nuts like almonds, walnuts and pistachios." 

WATCH OUT 
Nutritionist Priya Karkera presents tips to eat right for diabetic patients. "Hunger pangs are bound to increase during Diwali when one sees so many scrumptious sweets displayed before one's eyes, but beware of the sugars," she says. "They will instantly shoot up blood glucose levels. Thankfully, today's market caters to the plenty of diwali sweets to fulfil the needs of all diabetic patients. Whatever you eat, sugar-free or out, don't binge on it ," she cautions. KHAJUR AND AKHROT ROLL 
Makes: 175 g 
Ingredients 
Dates — 100 g Walnuts — 50 g Almonds — 25 g Pistachios — 25 g Figs — 25 g Ghee — 1 tbsp Edible gum (gond) — 1 tbsp (10 g) Aluminium foil — 1 sheet Poppy seeds — 2 tbsp 
Method 
Dry-roast the walnuts, almonds and pistachios. Coarsely chop the dryfruits and figs. Heat the ghee in a non-stick pan and add the gum resin. Shallow-fry the resin till the grains are swollen. Drain and crush or chop finely. Heat the remaining ghee, add the chopped nuts and gum and saute till fragrant. Set aside to cool. Knead the mixture into a dough, and spread it on a piece of aluminium foil. Tightly roll up the date mixture with the help of the foil and place in a refrigerator for about an hour. Remove the foil and cut the nut roll into oneinch pieces. Roll in poppy the seeds and serve. 
— Sanjeev Kapoor

KHEER 
Boil one litre of milk with dried khajur then add raw rice to this. Keep stirring. There's no need to add artificial sweetener as khajur sweetens the milk. Let the milk get reduced to 2/3 rd or 1/2 as desired by the people you are going to serve. Add small pieces of different dry fruits to it at least 10 minutes before taking it off from fire. Can serve chilled. — Pooja Makhija