How to Bake

Don't ask me - I havent the faintest clue. Though, I absolutely love the smell of baked goods and am really intrigued about making bread or a vegetable cake.

Here's an excellent and really comprehensive e-book on How To Bake I found today on tPB.

My Miso Soup

I had this for dinner last nite as I was eager to taste what Korean miso tastes and looks like - definitely a lot darker in color than the Japanese one - almost a brick or burnt red color. I wanted to stay true to the original recipe and make it just with miso paste and tofu, but I made the mistake of putting my tofu in the freezer and it wouldn't thaw fast enough for my post-work hunger. So I improvised with cabbage, baby corn and asparagus. I boiled the asparagus for 2-3 minutes, which did leave some of the stalks a bit chewy and sinewy - So, I'd recommend boiling them for an additional minute or so.

Ingredients:

• 1 large tablespoon of Korean miso
• Two baby corns, chop into bite size morsels
• A big handful of green cabbage, julienned
• A small handful of asparagus (stalks?)
• A small knob of ginger
• Sesame seeds to garnish

To make:

• Boil the cut asparagus for 3-5 minutes.
• Drain and plunge into ice water.
• Retain the water used to boil the asparagus.
• Pour some of it over the miso paste in a seperate bowl.
• Stir till the miso is dissolved and gives off a lovely brown color.
• Add that back to the asparagus water.
• Add the ginger, finely chopped, to the boiling water.
• Put this back on the gas and bring to a boil, then turn off the gas.
• In your serving bowl, add the cabbage, corn and asparagus at the bottom of the bowl.
• Pour over your miso-ginger water over the vegetables in the bowl.
• Garnish with sesame seeds on top.
• Serve immediately.

Note: I did not forget to mention salt. The miso is salty enough on its own. Plus, I dont use salt or sugar.

Time to make: 5-10 minutes, tops.

Salads Galore

I'm giving my blender a break and using up my abundant, organic harvest from Sunday. So, salads it is! Yesterday it was my Veggie Delight Salad, and today for lunch I had my Carrot Salad with Tahini Sauce.

Veggie Delight Salad:

Toss together:

• Baby lettuce
• Red pepper
• Yellow pepper
• Green pepper
• Black and green olives
• Cucumber slices
• Red cabbage
• Dried basil

I added some of the salty water from the olives and left it overnight in the refrigerator -So I didnt need any dressing.

Carrot Tahini Salad

• 2 Whole Organic Carrots
• Some asparagus ends
• Sunflower seeds
• Handful of raisins
• Handful of black olives
• 1 tablespoon of tahini paste

To make:

• Cut the carrots into thin strips.
• Boil the asparagus for 3-5 minutes and immediately submerge into icy water to retain the color and stop the cooking.
• Toss the carrots, asparagus, olives and raisins together. Then add the dressing before you eat it. The sunflower seeds go in last for the crunch.
• Dressing: Add some water and lime juice to your tahini paste and mix it together till there are no lumps.

Note that the tahini is going to make the salad extremely filling (I still have 1/3rd of my salad from lunch left over!), so you may want to reduce the portions.
Also note that the tahini dressing will dry up as the day goes on. It wont go bad, but the salad's a lot yummier when the dressing is still liquid.

Sunday Shopping at the Farmers Market and Nature's Basket

The kind folks at The Farmer's Market tempted me there today for a visit with promises of organic avocados...I've been meaning to get them forever, but cant seem to find them anywhere. So, off I went to Wind Chimes Playschool, Bandra, to buy 2 kilos worth. Avocado season is over, said the farmers at the market. So I was a bit annoyed having travelled more than 30 kilometers just for the avocados! Determined not to let this little setback ruin my Sunday, here's what else I bought at the farmers market, and just ahead of the road at Nature's Basket. All organic and locally sourced produce at the farmers market - Can't wait to dig into my carrot salad with tahini dressing and sunflower seeds!!!

Gotta say, I LOVE Nature's Basket!!! Feel like a kid in candyland.  - Liquorice, olives, sunflower seeds (been searching for ages since I finished my last pack from California), peppers, and a wild card - Korean, not Japanese Miso. Now that I have it, I'll look for recipes to build around the ingredients I have - Like this miso soup recipe.



Sunflower seeds, green and black olives, jalepeno peppers, Korean miso, liquorice candy



Very excited about the miso!!!





Organic Asparagus



Add caption





They even handed me a leaflet of recipes to make with my asparagus



Organic carrots are butt ugly! ;)



Zuccini




Dont they look oh so pretty?





Organic gluten and sugar free muffins (Got a bit mushy on my way home)



This one's made of ragi, I think.

My Very Own Walnut, Date, and Orange Zest Balls

Raw and vegan power balls - a tasty and healthy treat.

Ingredients:

• About 200 grams of unsalted walnuts
• About 200 grams of dates (deseeded)
• Zest of an orange -- about a fist full - The imported big oranges work better than the local ones.

To make:

• Grind the walnuts to a granular powder in a blender - I prefer a bit of uneven chunkiness. Set aside.
• Grind the dates or finely chop them up.
• Grate the zest of an orange.
• Using these three ingredients, form a dough, mixing all three well together.
• Form bars or balls in the size you desire.
• Refrigerate for some time

Serving: Will make about 25 laddoos.

PS: Unlike the last time I made these kinds of balls, I left out honey or water - so that this time the "dough" was really dry. That way I dont have to leave the balls out in the sun to dry out the excess moistness.

Tahini Time

So...I've been meaning to make Tahini for the last few days now but reaching home tired at 8.30 pm or later really zaps my culinary intentions. I already bought 1/2 pound of white unhulled sesame seeds (plus, poppy seeds, walnuts, and black salt) from Crawford market last weekend when I was showing someone around town - Gosh they are expensive!! So what I am going to do is use half the sesame seeds to make my dates+some seed bars. The other half I'll try my hand at making Tahini.

As far as dishes go, this one really is just too simple. Just two basic ingredients: sesame seeds and oil. However, as with all good things in life, no one seems to agree on the exact amounts of each of these ingredients. Proportions will vary widely the more you look it up on the net. To make tahini sauce, just add more water, lime and a garlic clove.

Here's a fairly decent recipe - However, I will be making my raw - so no roasting beforehand.

Meat or No Meat: Decide for yourself

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craig-goldwyn/eat-meat-or-not-vegans-ve_b_615954.html

Juliano!!!!

The Tofu Trials

Never been a big fan of soya - mainly because I haven't really given it a real shot. But when you're vegan, you have to rely on substitutes for eggs and milk. I bought a small packet of tofu today - half expecting to try a morsel, say "I gave it a shot. But i didnt like it, what can I do?" and toss the remainder in the trash. 

  

So, what I had for dinner tonite was scrambled tofu. It tasted quite like the texture of eggs that have had the hell scrambled out of them. Quite nice - and took all of five minutes to prepare - chopboard to my plate!

  To make: 

Ingredients: 

• About 100 grams of tofu, julienned, then cut again into tiny bits (alternately, just crumble it in with your fingers - thats what I will do next time!)
• 10-12 cherry tomatoes
• Quarter of an onion, chopped
• Half a teaspoon of chili powder (or add one whole chili)
• Half a teaspoon of turmeric powder
• A little bit of black mustard seeds
• A bundle of coriander, chopped (retain all the stalks)
• Teensy bit of vegetable oil
• Salt to taste

 Method: 

• Heat a wok till its blazing hot and keep all your ingredients chopped and ready by your side.
• Throw in the onions
• Then the chili and turmeric powder
• Then the whole mustard seeds
• Mix to a non-lumpy paste
• Then throw in the tofu. Mix on high speed for about 30 seconds.
• Then add the tomatoes (another 10 seconds on the gas)
• Finally add the coriander.
• Another 10 seconds and take it off the gas.

Bottom line: Tofu is a tasteless sponge. Its what you add to the tofu that makes or breaks a dish. I will definitely be buying tofu with each visit to the supermarket. 

Drink Water Regularly, But Eat When Hungry

I've always been in the underweight to normal weight category - So going raw/vegan is not an attempt to lose weight. That I have gone from 55 kgs to 51.5 kgs in a month is the cherry on the vegan tofu-based icing. But the fact that the weight is stubbornly stuck at 51 (was 53 two days ago, I swear) for quite some time now is frustrating. Add to that, its Diwali and there is Diwali appropriate foods to consume. And people at work keep dropping chocolates on my desk. Hell, even the Reliance Fresh teller pays me change in toffees! Sooo...Ok, I've indulged last Friday. Who in their right mind doesnt eat a whole LARGE cheese pizza all alone and in one sitting on Diwali, you tell me?! ;) To make amends (not that one day is the be all and end all), I decided I would fast all day Saturday and Sunday on warm lime water. Didn't really work - As in I still had one hot meal at home. But I didnt eat much else. I didnt deprive myself of food. If i felt hungry, I would eat. Its just that you dont feel hungry at predefined meal times. Thats social conditioning, I think. That we're supposed to eat at a certain time, with no thought going into whether you're really hungry or not.

Also, when you do fast for more than 3 days, its a good idea to get a colonic/enema before you embark on the fast to get rid of gunk in your trunk. I'm definietely going to get one soon. Been checking out reputed centers in Mumbai and The Center for Colon Therapy looks the most legit - but they charge a whopping Rs 2400 / - per session (of max 45 minutes) and they're all about giving people their "privacy and dignity" - meaning, I assume, you'll be left there in that little room all alone to insert that horrid tube into your "happy place" all alone. I would prefer someone show me what is supposed to be inserted where, the first time!

So my motto is: Drink water all day long. Eat when you're hungry. Remember, by the time you feel thirsty, you're already dehydrated - in other words, its already too late to drink water. A better indicator would be the color of your pee - anything other than clear means you are dehydrated (unless you're on some fancy meds - like my vitamins give me a golden shower). OK, Too much information, methinks.