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.

A Taste of India - The Vegan Way

I cannot say this enough - Vegan Culinary Experience's monthly newsletters are fantastic and, did I mention, free. This month they have a dedicated India special with 45+ recipes and I really love the article 'The Sacred Cow of Vegetarianism, Religion, and Animal Protection in India'

Download the December India-special ebook at http://veganculinaryexperience.com/VCEDec10.pdf

Visit http://veganculinaryexperience.com/VCESubscribe.htm to subscribe. I promise you there's no annoying spam or "buy this" follow up emails once you subscribe.

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.

Zesty Spinach Salad

Portion sizes are a bit of a joke with me – as I end up making way more than required quite often. Let’s just gloss over the fact that I end up throwing the remains of a perfectly good salad to go and buy, not one, but two Subway sandwiches each day over the course of this week. So, today I made a new rule - No buying outside stuff until my salad bowl is empty; after that you can eat what you want to your heart's content. But actually, I have been eating dinner on the go because I have relatives staying over at my place and I’d rather just have my dinner out of their sights, than be subjected to more mock taunts. “Why are you not eating meat?” “Whats wrong with cooking food?” “You are already thin enough, you don’t need to diet!” and “Well if you’re so health conscious, how come you smoke?” – All perfectly legit, but sometimes you just don’t want to have to explain to someone for the nth time.

So, today I made a bit less than usual. But I underestimated the appeal of fruits to spruce up a salad. Normally, my big bowl of salad lasts till about 7 PM, with me portioning it in 2-3 batches. But this salad with spinach, grapes, pine apple and pomegranate with a black pepper dressing was so delightful; I’ve polished off the whole bowl by lunch time.

Fruits are expensive, though – Rs 40 for one pomegranate! BTW, the last pomegranates I bought from the farmers market were organic. This one I bought yesterday was not. You can just tell by all that extra membrane/pith-y yellow stuff inside the pomegranate. My organic one was one giant ruby ball with almost no unnecessary yellow stuff in between that we need to sift through. This one I bought had a ton of it – adding to the weight (and hence the cost), plus the effort required on your part to clean the whole fruit.

Zesty Spinach Salad

Ingredients: 

• 2 cups of spinach
• 20-30 black grapes
• ½ a large pomegranate
• 1 cup of pine apple
• 1 spring onion (onion, plus the entire green stalk)

Dressing:

• Tablespoon of olive oil
• Juice of half a lime (mostly only to ensure my salad would stay good all day - Dont really need it)
• Roughly 15-20 black pepper corns

To make:

Wash the spinach thoroughly and chop it up into bite sized slivers.

Chop the spring onion and pine apple in roughly the same sized portions as the spinach.

Clean and peel the pomegranate to get to the red nuggets inside.

Mix all the salad ingredients.

Make a dressing of olive oil, lime juice and black pepper (ground up).

Pour evenly over the salad. Mix well.

Orange, Peppers and Cabbage Salad

It was just one of those days. Between getting late for work and making the best of what's available in the fridge (My stock's run out), this salad is what I could rustle up for lunch.

Orange, Peppers and Cabbage Salad

Ingredients

• Cup of cabbage
• Cup of green pepper
• 1/2 cup carrots
• 1/2 cucumber
• Tablespoon of sunflower seeds
• 10-12 black olives
• 1 1/2 oranges
• 2 jalepeno peppers
• Teaspoon of olive oil

To make:

• Chop up the cabbage, carrots, cucumber, and peppers into thin long slivers.
• Juice half an orange. Mix this with the olive oil to make the dressing.
• Peel and seperate the remaing orange.
• Toss together the veggies with the jalepenos, olives and orange slivers.
• Add the dressing.
• Garnish with sunflower seeds.

What I Want Now: Seed and Nori Power Bars

Perfect for that extra bit of heat in the winter months - and I have most of the ingredients except the nori sheets!
Photo and recipe courtesy http://blog.asmartmouth.com/:

Carrot and Cabbage Salad with Coriander+Cumin Dry Rub

Apparently, Bugs Bunny isn't the only gone going gaga for carrots. They're everywhere, and I can't get enough of my organic carrots and mom's got a bunch of them red carrots. I made my salad today using dhana jeera powder, which is equal parts coriander seeds and cumin. If you can't find the same, dry roast some coriander and cumin seeds, then blitz them into a powder in a blender.

Carrot and Cabbage Salad

Ingredients

• 1.5 cups of carrots
• 1.5 cups of red and green cabbage
• Bunch of coriander
• Teaspoon of olive oil
• 2 teaspoons of sunflower seeds
• 1 teaspoon of dhana-jeera powder (coriander and cumin seed powder)
• Juice of one lime

To make:

• Chop up the carrots and the cabbage into slivers of roughly the same size.
• Add the dry rub powder, lime juice, and olive oil and massage it into the veggies.
• Add the coriander and sunflower seeds on top.
• Leave aside for a couple of hours for the spices to seep into the veggies for added flavor.
  
  
  

The Green Salad

Zuccini, Peppers and Beet Salad with a Spicy Green Dressing:

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup of yellow zuccini
• 1 cup of green and red peppers
• 1/2 of cabbage
• 2 beetroots

Dressing

• 10-12 black olives
• 3-4 jalepeno peppers
• 1 tablespoon of green chutney (coconut, chilli, and coriander)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• Handful of coriander
• Juice of half a lime

To make:
Roughly chop up all the veggies. Mix in a bowl. Combine all the ingredients for the salad dressing. Mix well and pour over the salad.

Hummus and Veggie Patties

There's a quiet nip in the air over the last few days - well, you can't really complain that it is cold in Mumbai! So, I am definitely craving a bit of heat from my food. There's always alcohol to do that job for me - but you can't go around boozy all day!

...And my pot of hummus (quite literally - it came in an earthen pot) needed intensive attention before its demise this Sunday (at least that's what the hummous lady at the Farmer's market told me last Sunday). Hence, the hummus, which is already boiled and ground up, was the perfect replacement for other lentils I might have used. Mine contained the usual chick pea as well as sesame and pumpkin seeds.

I made the mistake of adding some water in the blender which left the patties a bit on the soggy side. So, definitely don't do that! And I had mine with normal white (yes, processed) bread grilled with a lettuce leaf and two patties in each sandwich.

Hummus and Veggie Patties

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons of hummus
• About 1 - 1/2 cups of zuccini, peppers, carrots
• 2 whole jalepeno peppers
• 1/2 teaspoon of curry powder
• A pinch of tumeric powder
• About a cup of semolina

To make:

• Chop up the zuccini, peppers and carrots roughly.
• Toss the veggies into a blender and blitz the life out of them.
• Add the hummus, jalepenos and the spices. Mix again.
• Form patties of your desired shape.
• Coat the patties uniformly in the semolina (or bread crumbs, if you have them).
• Deep fry till a golden brown.
• Enjoy with a mint chutney or Tabasco.

Serving: Will make about 6 patties.

What I Want Now: English Plum Pudding

Here's an absolutely gorgeous looking Christmas Cake photo/recipe:

(C) http://makinglifedelicious.com/

Mmmm...