Shopping at Nature's Basket and Lunch for One

//The good part - I got myself some egg replacer, blueberries, red wine vinegar, kalamata olives, granny smith apples, white mushrooms, lettuce, and chives. The bad part is I have no idea how to use red wine vinegar or egg replacer or chives. An afternoon of indulgence cost me Rs. 1500 at  Nature's Basket.

The biggest disappointment were these Seriously Sours candy. I was expecting like a dozen lemons being squeezed inside my mouth, going by the box cover. Instead the sweets were very much edible and pleasant. What a ripoff for Rs. 150!

On my way back - a dinner for one. I find ordering in much safer than just sitting there all alone in a restaurant. Eating out alone - and actually enjoying your meal rather than just hurriedly scarfing it down - was one of my to-do items - I need to do it more often. I just sat there for a couple of hours eating (salad), drinking (celery orange apple juice), smoking indoors (one of the big draws of eating at this place!), and enjoying my meal (a chocolate dessert).

The big bowl of salad at Mocha Mojo is a real bargain. Its Rs 90 for a BIG bowl (I couldnt eat it all, I had half of it parcelled and had the remains for dinner) with your choice of dressing. I chose the honey mustard and light mayo. The salad's got lettuce, cabbage, mushrooms, corn, carrots, tomatoes, peppers, onion, and peas. I'm going to make a version of this salad myself for later.

And for dessert, I usually go for Vertigo - a stacked six layer brick of a chocolate cake, but I usually need a strappy lad with me to polish off my remains (there always are!). So this time, I chose a smaller chocolate dessert named That Chocolate Thing. Its a flourless, eggless chocolate cake, dusted with chocolate ganache, and accompanied by a scoop of chocolate icecream. I know, its got milk and is not vegan. But I'm not even sorry! An occasional treat is alright.

Beet and Bean Sprouts Burger

Milk solids. Two words that are increasingly cropping up on things I have bought. Two words that are making me question how I can in good faith call myself “100% vegan”?! A miniscule amount of milk isn’t the greatest sin in the world, but still.

First my cracker biscuits and now my store bought burger buns contain milk solids. What does ‘milk solids’ even mean?! And why the heck is it mindlessly added to everything? As a former non-vegetarian, I am just not used to scrutinizing food labels – It may be unhealthy, but there’s nothing on those food labels that would make me stop and go “Oh, I can’t buy this. This contains XXX”. That habit of mindlessly picking up stuff that I think should and ought to be vegan will have to be seriously managed.

But I believe in learning my lesson and moving on. I just don’t see the point of just throwing away a perfectly good burger bun that I already wasted my money on. I’ll eat it now, but will never buy the same brand again, and examine all burger bun food labels now that I am aware there might be milk solids. After all, this is a journey and I’m still learning – only about 3 months since going completely vegan. At least I do not consciously crave more obvious no-go items like meat and milk.

Anyhoo…there are a ton of vegan burgers that mimic various meats. I especially liked this burger recipe that uses beets to mimic meat. It looks great, but there is so much effort involved with making stock and cooking and grinding up various nuts and seeds. So, my version – not nearly as pretty or great tasting, for sure – uses beets and bean sprouts. You just grind it all up and deep fry the pattie. However, you do need some sort of flour or beans to hold the whole thing together because beets will start to shed water, and you – like me – risk having a runny pattie.

Beet and Bean Sprouts Burger

Ingredients:

For the pattie:

• 1 beet
• 1 cup mung bean sprouts
• ½ cup fried onions
• 1 teaspoon chilli powder
• ½ teaspoon curry powder
• Juice of half a lime
• Handful of coriander
• Corn starch or plain flour (if needed)
• Dash of semolina

Other trimmings:

• Burger bun
• Green chutney (coriander and chillies with some coconut)
• Tomatoes, sliced
• Lettuce, finely chopped
• Jalepeno peppers

To make:

• In a blender, blend together all the ingredients except corn starch/ plain flour.
• Make a pattie. If it’s too runny, add some corn starch or some sort of flour.
• Let the pattie rest in the fridge for 4-8 hours so that the wateriness goes away.
• Coat the pattie in semolina (or bread crumbs if you have them).
• Fry for 2-3 minutes on each side.

To assemble:

• Cut the burger bun and gently toast it on both sides.
• I added a green coriander and chilli chutney to my buns, and added tomato, lettuce, jalepenos.

Ah, well, you live and learn (or you're dead and none the wiser)

I’d read somewhere that only 1% of all the plants in the world are toxic. So if you are famished, you theoretically can pick up any ol’ weed or plant off the road side and eat it with a lesser chance of dying than being killed in a traffic accident.

Hands up: Who knew raw Elephant Ear (Colocasia) leaves are inedible and in fact, toxic?! What  we commonly called Patra in India. Still lost? This plant:

No wonder my throat and mouth were severely burning and itching (like there's a bunch of ants doing a tango in my mouth) last night and had an upset stomach after I had one raw. More precisely, I was trying to have one leaf raw, and just couldn’t take it anymore and threw it all away.

I was looking for a raw alternative to rotis for my wraps - and came across these little beauties at the market, and they're a real bargain, too, for just Rs. 1 per leaf. Plus, my mom got a tub of Undhiya, which is a popular winter time Gujarati vegetable stew. I thought that would make the perfect base for my Elephant Ear raw wraps.

My mom did warn me to remove the stalks off the leaf as they will result in a burning sensation, which I did. So, then I thought maybe its an allergic reaction and was praying I don’t wake up with yet another swelling to my mouth (thankfully didn’t!).

So, today while I have some free time, I looked up Elephant Ear and did find that the plant is mildly toxic and should not be attempted raw. All parts of the plant contain the compound calcium oxalate, which is destroyed by cooking. Soak the leaves overnight in water to reduce some of the toxicity and then cook them with a pinch of baking soda. And Its supposedly best combined with milk (yuck!) to further reduce its side effects. My verdict is, to just say no to the plant from now on!

I was more than happy to donate what was remaining of my Elephant Ear leaves to my mom who can make some delicious Parsi-style Patra.

 Anyway, here's my disaster of a recipe. Probably a good idea, but badly executed.

Warning: Do not have these leaves raw unless you have the immunity/impugnity of a, well, elephant.

Raw Patra Wrap with Undhiya and Veggies

Ingredients

• 1 Elephant Ear leaf
• 2 tablespoons of Undhiya
• About a cup of chopped assorted veggies - I used cabbage, carrot, and spring onions
• 2 jalepeno peppers, chopped

To make:
Wash the Elephant Ear leaf.

Spread the Undhiya mixture all over the leaf.

Lay the chopped veggies and peppers on top.

Roll up the sides of the leaf first and then make a tidy little roll/parcel.

EDIT: Boil/steam the roll in water for 10 minutes to remove any toxicity or replace the leaf with a large spinach or cabbage leaf.

As they say, what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. Ah, well.

Subway Snafu

Speaking of Subway subs, I was shocked to learn that my favourite Southwest and Ranch dressings have eggs and milk.Says who? Check this out. I was taking a break from work and fantasizing about which dressing I'd try later that day - Only the dressing is up for debate; the sandwich is always Veggie Delight. So, I started looking up what each of them is made of, how many calories etc on the Net. I couldn't find much information relevant to Subway India, so the parent company had to suffice.

Well, I shouldn't really be surprised or disappointed - nothing that great tasting ever comes without a little suffering - be it animal or human. Even so, I guess we all prefer living in sweet ignorant bliss. Somethings are just better off not knowing, right?

So, taking a printout of the Subway Allergen chart, I demanded an explanation from the Subway guys at my local outlet - How could they not label the dressings as veg and non-veg?! In bloody INDIA! Or at least mention to customers standing in the veggie section of the store that hey, your veggie sandwich isn't all that veggie anymore?!

But they explained that all their dressings in India are vegetarian and contain no eggs. PHEW! Now, whether any of them contain milk? I didn't ask.

Wednesday Gluttony: Chole Bhature

Ahead of my dreaded dentist's appointment last night, I decided I direly needed some greasy Punjabi food. I have yet to meet a more sadistic man in my life!

Monday Gluttony: Bhindi Masala and Garlic Naan

I woke up Monday morning with a huge and painful swelling on the right side of my face - all the way from my nasal cavity down to my chin. I'm usually waking up after a boozy night out with various kinds of bumps and bruises that I have no recollection of the next day. But I can't possibly go to work looking like a chipmunk with walnuts up one cheek. Add to that, it was very painful. So, I stayed back at home to go to a doctor AND a dentist.

And even though my veggies are in the process of withering away and are crying out for me to finish them off, I decided, against my better judgment, that what a sick person really needs is some comfort food. Not some high-brow raw vegan shit. So, I ordered a bhindi (ladies finger) masala, with three tandoori rotis and 2 garlic sesame naans. And I polished that off, with a tub of orange+tutti fruit icecream. Yes, there was - shock,  horror- milk in it. But hey, when in pain, you do what you can to soothe yourself, right? I know, its no excuse, but I still don't touch regular milk (in teas, coffees, etc. And while not raw, most of my meal was still very much vegan (Which is something I'm relating to, much more than being just raw all the time).