Arugula, Sun Dried Tomato, Peppers, and Date Salad

This salad's got a bit of everything - crunch, sweet, sour, salty courtesy of the arugula, dates, sumac, and sun dried tomatoes respectively. Indian dates are really puny, so was delighted to have some really fresh looking and sweet tasting imported dates. Don't know if these are Medjool dates - Can someone confirm? I also forgot to deseed my dates, since I am so used to buying deseeded dates.

Arugula Sun Dried Tomato, Peppers, and Date Salad

Ingredients:

• 2-4 cups of arugula
• Handful of dates
• Handful of sun dried tomato slivers
• 1 red pepper
• 1 teaspoon sumac
• 1 tablespoon olive oil

To make:

• Tear up the arugula leaves and cut the pepper into square chunks.
• Mix all the veggies and dates with the olive oil.
• Top off with the sumac.
  
  
  

Curious about Curry

Ok, I am a curry virgin! I've had plenty to eat - how can you not, in curry-heaven India. But never attempted to make it myself. It just seems like an arduous process of grinding up spices and waiting on a pot to simmer and boil.

But I had some coconut cream left over from yesterday's ice cream, and had some starting-to-wilt pak choi that I wanted to finish off. So, a spicy coconut curry it is!

The green chutney used is just coriander, a little chilli and some coconut all ground up. The chilli paste, on the other hand is just blistering hot green chillies ground up.

Coconut Curry with Pak Choi, Peppers and Tomatoes

Ingredients:

• 1 cup coconut cream
• 1 tomato
• 1 green pepper
• 2-3 cups of pak choi
• 1/2 an onion
• 2 tablespoons chilli paste
• 2 tablespoons green chutney
• 1-2 teaspoons of sugar
• Teaspoon of coconut oil
• 1 cup water

To make:

• Chop up the tomatoes, pak choi, onion, and peppers into bite sized portions.
• In a wok, heat the oil and saute the onions.
• Add the chilli paste and green chutney paste.
• Add the coconut cream and the water after a couple of minutes and see that no lumps are formed.
• Let it simmer away for 15-20 minutes.
• Have a taste test - if its too hot, add sugar to temper it down.
• Add the chopped veggies and turn off the gas.
• Let the veggies soak in the curry for 5-10 minutes.
• Serve with plain boiled rice.

Pepper and Tomato Upma

My mom, seeing that I hadn't eaten anything till 11 am today, was nice enough to make a batch of upma for me today. However, I did supervise the cooking - since she usually loves to cook stuff for much longer than I would like, and does not put in quite as much veggies as I would like. I added green peppers, carrots, and tomatoes this time.

Pepper and Tomato Upma


Ingredients:

• 1 cup semolina or an upma premix
• 1 green pepper
• 1 carrot
• 1 tomato
• 1/2 onion
• 1 large green chilli
• 1/2 cup of water
• Teaspoon of vegetable oil
• Half a lime

To make:

• In a pan, gently dry roast the semolina/upma premix for a minute or two.
• In another pot, heat the oil and saute the onions and the chilli.
• Add the roasted semolina and cook for approximately 7-10 minutes.
• Once the semolina is cooked, turn off the gas and add the chopped up vegetables.
• Serve immediately with lashings of lime juice.

Coconut & Pomogranate Ice Cream

My last attempt at making ice cream wasn't exactly the most delish ice cream I have ever eaten. In fact, it turned out more like an icy sorbet than a creamy ice cream. Since I do not have an ice cream maker, and will not use either milk or eggs, I shouldn't really ask for any thing other than what I did end up with. Therefore, understandably, I haven't rushed in to make another batch for a long time. Don't get me wrong - It was delish, but just not as creamy as store-bought ice cream.

But then I saw this no churn pomogranate icecream recipe by Nigella Lawson. I had a pomogranate at home. And more importantly, I had a can of coconut cream, that I was dying to dig into. So I did start off with the idea of just making a pomogranate icecream. But, as I added my coconut cream to the pomogranate juice, I really liked the nutty flavor and so, probably, added more coconut cream than I should have. The result is my coconut and pomogranatae no churn, vegan ice cream. No sugar as well. I used maple syrup - which is what turned the ice cream color from a rosy pink to a soft plum color.

Coconut & Pomogranate Ice Cream

Serving: 2-3

Ingredients:

• 1 large pomogranate (about 2 cups of pomogranate seeds)
• 1 cup coconut cream (more if you're using coconut milk)
• 1/3 cup maple syrup
• 1/2 lime

To make:

• Peel the pomogranate to get about 1.5 to 2 cups of pomogranate.
• In a juicer, juice the pomogranate along with the juice of half a lime. Its up to you whether you want to include the pomogranate seeds or discard them. I included them as they're very healthy.
• Tranfer the pomo-lime juice into a bowl. Stir in the maple syrup.
• Add little by little the coconut cream into the mixture, stirring all the while.
• You may also want to transfer this mixture back in a blender and just get some air in by blending for 5-10 minutes.
• Lay the mixture in a tin bowl and put it in the freezer with a lid on.
• After an hour or so of putting the mixture in the freezer, take it off and break the chunks and stir around for some time, and put back in the freezer to reset. Repeat this process a couple more times after an hour or so. Then leave it in the freezer for 4 hours to set one final time.

Spicy Pineapple Salad

I saw this amazing Watermelon Jalepeno salad recipe on PETA's website a few days back. But not having watermelon, and instead having some leftover pineapple, I decided to make a pineapple and jalepeno salad instead. My pineapple slices were precut and were paper thin, which was a bit of a downer - Coz I would have preferred to cut them into chunky square cubes. No matter.

If you are using canned pineapple, do remember it's sweet, and double the amount of jalepenos.

Spicy Pineapple Salad

Ingredients:

• 2-3 cups of sliced pineapple
• About hald a cup of sliced jalepeno peppers
• 2-3 sprigs of rosemary

To make:

• Combine the ingredients.
• Let it rest in the refrigerator for a while.
• Seve chilled.

Vegan Fashion @ 20% Off

I recently learned about Ecolissa.com, which sells 100% eco-friendly and vegan clothing. They're having a sale at the moment, with many items at 50% off. I love their chunky infinity scarf!

The kind folks at Ecolissa are offering readers 20% off their already reasonably priced eco vegan clothing and accessories line. To avail of this offer, use coupon code “vegan20" while checking out.

 

Disclaimer: I am not compensated - financially or otherwise - for this promotion. However, I admit I haven't really bought anything from them, either.

Cream of Beetroot Soup

It's probably no surprise to regular readers when I say I love beets! Here's a dead simple recipe with just three ingredients: beets, tofu and sage. I had it raw - but you can just as easily heat it up or even replace the tofu with cream.

Cream of Beetroot Soup

Ingredients:

• 1 large beetroot
• 4 sage leaves
• About 50-75 grams of silken tofu

To make:

• Chop up the beets and the sage roughly.
• Blitz the beetroot, sage, along with some water, in a blender till it its a puree. Set aside.
• In a clean blender, add the tofu cubes and blitz till its the consistency of cream or curd. Add some water if needed.
• In a bowl, combine the two. I added the two in layers - a tablespoon of beets and then a tablespoon of tofu cream.
• Serve chilled.