India

Dear all you sweet and lovely people that have been requesting a blog update:

It's just the nature of blogs... to occasionally get neglected! However, I am in Bangalore at the moment, eating tons of fantastic Indian food (and some not so brilliant Italian food :))! And I have lots to say about it all, as usual. And recipes for you. And I'll see if I can remember pictures too...

So, this is a post to appease you.. and maybe tease you... and a real one is coming very soon!

Love (and tons of ayurvedic food) from India ♥

One (of many) reasons to stick with veggies

Here is an article from the Washington Post that I love. It covers a few of the big environmental reasons to become vegetarian concisely and, personally, I like his attitude...

Fresh Pasta

My birthday this year was a truly delightful day. I received a pasta roller! And proceeded to spend the entire day (luxury of luxuries!) cooking an Italian meal for a few close friends.

The one thing that I wish to impress upon the world from this experience is that egg-free fresh pasta is not only possible, but wonderful.





My current working "recipe":
3 parts white flour
1 part chickpea flour
olive oil (some)
salt (large pinch)
water (enough)

Knead until silky smooth. Proceed to roll out as per pasta maker's instructions (ie. many many times). Let dry briefly. Boil very briefly. Rinse well with cold water. Return to pot to heat with olive oil and season.


Since my first try, seen here, where we made garlic and squash filled ravioli to go with a
margherita pizza and white bean bruschetta, I have had wonderful luck with fettucini, and as of yet, problems with lasagne noodles. But I'm working that out now, and will soon post a wonderful vegan lasagna recipe...

Raw White Chocolate Fudge

Here I am! With raw white chocolate hearts for everyone, to make up for being the most absent blogger in history! School and my beloved thesis have been keeping me quite occupied since... September. But many lovely food adventures have taken place since then. Like over Christmas, when the brilliant Jeffery, founder of Rawesome Foods, not only let me in his magnificent workshop of a kitchen, but let me (having no experience in chocolate making OR raw dessert making) create my own chocolate recipe. The fudge (which, admittedly, I had envisioned as solid chocolate but which decided to incarnate as fudge at some point during its birth) was incredibly rich and delicious and sweet and gooey, with heavenly cranberry and orange infused throughout. Being sweetened only with agave nectar (and man, does Jeffery ever choose his ingredients with absolute food snobbery! The best of the best! This agave was clear and pure and rich) it was too sweet for some refined raw foodist palates... but no sweeter than any fudge or white chocolate you might have out on the table at Christmas... just purer, and silkier... talk about melting in your mouth...

Anyway, the point is not that the fudge was awesome. (Though it clearly was.) It is that raw food is fascinating. Btw, I don't remember the quantities anymore, or the solution we had come up with for making a future batch into solid bars of chocolate, but the ingredients for my fudge were cocoa butter, agave syrup, cashews, almonds, dried cranberries and orange rind. Simple and beautiful, like all raw food! The idea with raw food is to retain all the energy and life in the food we eat by keeping all the wonderful little enzymes in tact. In order to do this, the food is not cooked, or heated beyond 116 degrees F. Food preparation, then, involves special tools and methods. We melted the cocoa butter painfully slowly in double boiler fashion (only the cocoa butter sat over a bowl of warm water on the counter instead of boiling water on a stove). We made cashew paste by running it through a fancy juicer attachment. Jefferey told me about how raw food at its most pure is not even pureed in a normal blender as the style of its blades oxidizes the food too much, thus destroying more enzymes. Not that the home cook who wants to integrate more living foods into their diet needs to worry about all this. The whole idea here is simplicity. But it sure is nice to have a friend running a thriving raw snacks and sweets business, who goes to all the trouble of preserving all the goodness of every wonderful organic ingredient for you. For the record, my grandmother is hooked on the raw chocolate chip cookies, and I'm in love with the cherry fruit leather.

As I was telling Swamiji about how interesting it was to see how the Rawesome kitchen operated he replied that it is fascinating, and that all this wealth of knowledge about food was known in ancient times, was found in ayurveda, but it has been (almost) forgotten, and now is the time to bring it back!

I could not agree more.

Chaos

There is order in chaos. Intelligence within space. It may be difficult to see, but it's there and I can prove it: just spend one day in our ashram kitchen. 

I had lofty hopes of taking lots of wonderful pictures on this visit, especially of our stunning gardens and orchard, to show how the gorgeous organic veggies are picked early in the morning and run down to the kitchen where they are made into beautiful dishes, served in the dining hall. But as usual, the kitchen swallowed me whole, and I was really only able to get a couple of pictures, and only of things that went on within its walls... 

There, the miracle of feeding 600 people takes place 3 times a day. Sure, that's nothing compared with our Bangalore ashram, where, with joyful but military like precision, they feed tens of thousands, but for us, it still seems amazing. At first it was amazing that we could serve 200, and then we got a few more burners and a couple industrial sized pots and it was amazing that we managed to do 300 and 400. And every time we get logistically caught up to the numbers of people we need to feed, every time we get a bigger kitchen, bigger pots, a better strategy, more people show up. And thank god... otherwise what would be the point? There'd be no thrill. There'd be no need for magic or miracles, which is what our ashram kitchen thrives on...

Walking into the kitchen in the morning, scrubbing hands, tying on an apron, is more about mental preparation than anything else. You focus, take a deep breath... and go! And suddenly there is a team of 30 or 40 people--volunteer veggie prepers--all wanting direction at once (though there are only 2 sinks for washing veggies, and only 20 cutting boards). And you cannot cook for the hour and a half that they are present, but only stand in the centre of all of them and their urgent questions about peelers, and keep mentally repeating all the ingredients needed for the meal, eyes darting from fridge to sinks to chopping tables, thinking, "Is that everything? Once potatoes are done there they'll have to switch to squash... have the herbs come in from the garden yet? We won't be able to prep twenty bunches of thyme ourselves--the volunteers have to get it done... where on earth is it?" all the time reminding the choppers who have no cooking experience to keep things uniform in size. Even those who know about cooking are overwhelmed by the quantity--who isn't? The quantity detaches one from reality, makes food seem less like food and more like a dream, and when you put your hand in a bowl of chopped carrots and show them that some are the size of dimes and some of golf balls, you are greeted with looks of puzzlement. Then, in an instant they are gone. There is silence in the kitchen... and not a single empty surface--just bowls of all sizes, and pots from when they ran out of bowls, full of chopped vegetables. A sea of giant bowls and pots of vegetables. Everywhere. There is a moment of peace and then a shiver of panic as you look at the clock, quickly turn on flames beneath vessels larger than bathtubs, and begin! Adding herbs and spices and salt by the handful. Handful after handful. And as you spin around, checking on each simmering bathtub of food, and have lettuce sticking up and down both arms from tossing salad, you hear hundreds and hundreds of footsteps  above you, filing into the dinning hall, and volunteers burst in the door yelling "What goes up?!" Then you are handing them bucket after bucket to fill with soup, and reciting the names of the 4 dishes that you've made to anyone who will listen, over and over, so that no serving station will be missing a dish. You are searching everywhere for one more serving spoon, two more ladles. And then the dinner cooks come in, scrub their hands, tie on their aprons, take a deep breath, and begin... and you, though you feel you are still in the middle of a whirlwind, realize that it is over. Still in your apron you slip out the door, and only realize what has just happened when you walk upstairs into the dinning room and see all those people happily, leisurely, enjoying lunch. And you wonder where on earth all that food came from. It is as if it manifested right out of thin air.  

My favorite thing of all that happens in the kitchen is making bread. One thousand chapatis.

There is nothing in the world as soothing as standing around a table with a dozen other women rolling out bread. 

Samira and our giant vat of potato salad.

Abhi steaming 700 corn on the cob.

Wonderful volunteers doing veggie prep.

Cooking ranges and a bathtub. 

Multi-Generational Kitchens

We are always asking my grandmother for her recipes. And she always says, "Oh, that's just from the Mennonite Community Cookbook." (This is a giant old tome that is owned by all of us and, I think it is safe to say, all the other Mennonite women in South Eastern Ontario as well). Our next question is always, "Well then why doesn't mine come out anything like yours?!" 

One day I gave up. I wanted to be able to make my favorite snack, molasses cookies, just like she did, and following the directions in the MCC cookbook was just not cutting it. So I made them in her kitchen, from the recipe in the book, and had her watch my every move. For the first few minutes she insisted that it was a useless exercise and I had the recipe right there! But then it started, "Oh, don't put in so much flour! They'll be too tough." And then, "Never put as much baking soda as they say - half is enough." Okay. "Add a little more cinnamon, your grandfather liked that. Oh, but I don't add the ginger - I don't like ginger so much." And finally, "Put the oven a little hotter than they say, and bake them for less time so they'll be chewier." 

That was the day I realized the necessity of cooking together as much as possible. Of course, this used to be common place. This was the way recipes stayed alive--learn them from your grandmother and teach them to your grandchildren. It is harder these days though, and takes a little special effort, especially if you live far away from eachother, as is the case in my family. After the cookie experience in my teens, I put in the effort, taking a special trip to Grandma's house in the late summer to help her with canning, preserving, and jam making. And although my nieces live quite a long ways away from me as well, on my recent visit with my sister, I made sure to spend a day in the kitchen with them. The best conversations take place there, and the funnest experiments. My youngest niece and I devised a fun experiment to understand how yeast works. She also took these pictures of her older sister and I on our pizza and s'more day...

Meghan teaches a little yoga while the pizza bakes...

Potato Kale Soup

Recipes created spontaneously, and dishes cooked for people we love always come out the best... this soup was born out of both! It has a wonderful texture, beautiful, rich colours, and has become one of my favorites.  

4 C water

1/3 C red lentils

2 C chopped kale

2 medium potatoes, peeled and chopped

1/2 C frozen green peas

1 T olive oil

1 t cumin

1 t coriander

1/2 t turmeric

1/2 t black pepper

1 medium tomato, diced

3/4 t salt

juice of half a lemon

garnish with paprika

Rinse lentils, add to the 4 cups of water and bring to a boil. Simmer, covered, until they are almost tender (about 10 mins). Add kale and cook 5-10 more mins. In the meantime, boil water in a second pot and cook potatoes until tender, adding the green peas for the last 2 minutes of cooking. Strain and set aside. Remove the lentils and kale from heat and puree. Return to heat and let simmer. Add in the cooked potatoes and peas.  In the now empty potato pot, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add spices and tomatoes and saute for 2-3 mins. Add this spice mixture, salt, and lemon juice to the soup. Garnish with paprika. Serves 2-4.

Buying Organic

I'm back! After a few weeks of unexpected traveling I am very happy to return to the food blogging universe. I am still longing to get back to my own kitchen though. I'll post a new recipe when I do, next week. For now I wanted to quickly share a link I came across today, and love. 

I think that by now most of us understand the need to grow, buy, and eat organic - for the environment, our own health, and the quality and taste of the food we cook. And as demand increases for organic food, the price is dropping noticeably. But when you are standing there in the grocery aisle and know you only have so much cash in your pocket sometimes you have to make some tough choices. Personally, I have never been able to remember, at that moment, which fruits and veggies are the "so important to buy organic" ones, ie. the ones that are grown with the greatest amount of pesticides. Well, foodnews.org has made an iphone app that lists their "dirty dozen" and "clean 15" for just such times. I love it. You can check out a full list of fruits and veggies in order of greatest to least pesticides on their website as well. 

The Dirty Dozen:

Peaches, apples, nectarines, strawberries, cherries, imported grapes, pears, bell peppers, celery, kale, lettuce, and carrots.

 

The Clean 15:

Avocados, pineapples, mangoes, kiwi, papayas, watermelon, onions, sweet corn, asparagus, sweet peas, cabbage, eggplant, broccoli, tomatoes, and sweet potatoes.

  

Pita Bread

Well, I'm at home in the ashram at the moment, and I must say it is a joy to be here. Guruji was here last week, and of course so was everyone else! It was a whirl of excitment and joy and love and then suddenly it was over! Sometimes it is a rocky adjustment for the staff here when big programs end and we go from hundreds of people to ten or twenty overnight, but I haven't noticed any sad faces this time, only a wonderful feeling of family. How lovely it is to come down to breakfast in the morning to fifteen happy faces, talking and laughing animatedly at one long table together. As usual everyone is very busy with construction, and administration, and cleaning, and ayurveda, and cooking, and generally keeping this huge place running, but we are having so much fun doing it. A few of us spent Sunday (the staff's day off) building swings and tapping maple trees (hopefully we'll have our first batch of maple syrup by the end of the week :)). And I, my strength and health having returned and feeling like my old self again, got back in the kitchen and, I have to say, really out did myself :D I've been waiting for the right moment to try out a pita bread recipe I saw on The Fresh Loaf, and having an industrial oven at my disposal, realized that there would never be a better time. The recipe worked out just perfectly! They ballooned up just like in the painting of the old Lebanese bakery hanging on Chris and Ralph's wall.

Coming soon: turning your local ashram into a maple sugar bush!

Shepherd's Pie

Perhaps it is a stretch to call it a shepherd's pie. I guess someone started that because this dish is baked and has mashed potatoes on top. In any case, no one seems to care about inaccuracy of name, but we all sort of lose our heads over this meal. I guess steaming, bubbling, mashed up beans and potatoes and cheese served out of a casserole dish really speaks to North American comfort food sensibilities. This shepherd's pie is, without question, my most sought after recipe. Which makes me laugh. It seems so... everyday and ordinary. But then I make myself remember the first time I had it, at a friends house as a child, and how I returned home insisting that my mother call and get the recipe. And then how it spread around the neighbourhood. All the mothers making this same dish, and all the kids wanting to eat at the house where it was cooking. 

It really is just beans and veggies and potatoes and cheese. And hype. And maybe magic.

Two quick notes about the ingredients. First, it is extremely easy to make this vegan, with great success (the one in the picture is vegan.) Second, this is one dish where I go ahead and use prepared, canned food (the refried beans). Not because it's easier. Because it tastes about a million times better with them. If you don't like to use canned food, you can use any kind of well cooked beans in a savoury, tomato-y type sauce. Certainly when I prepare this dish in the ashram I avoid canned food and use kidney beans, well cooked with some tomatoes, green herbs and spices (think cumin, paprika, chili powder, etc). I've heard that incredible refried beans can be easily made in a slow cooker, and hopefully I will soon be the proud owner of one. Until then, a can it shall be.

1 can refried beans

1/4 C tomato sauce

1/2 C chopped celery

1 C chopped carrots

1 C frozen corn

pinch salt, pepper and celery salt

mashed potatoes (see layer 4 for recipe)

cheddar and/or mozzarella cheese, grated

Layer 1: 

Spread about 3/4 of the refried beans on the bottom of a large casserole dish.

Layer 2: 

Cover refried beans with the tomato sauce (should be a thin layer).

Layer 3: 

Steam the veggies (preferably using a steamer basket), starting with celery, for 15 mins. Add the carrots after 5 mins, and the corn after 10 minutes. Season with salt, pepper, and celery salt to taste. Layer them on top of the tomato sauce. 

Layer 4: 

Spread plenty of mashed potatoes on top of the veggies. To make them, peel, chop and boil 4-5 medium potatoes until tender. Drain and mash with butter (about a tablespoon) and milk (about 1/4 C - 1/2 C) and salt and pepper until smooth. *Note for first time potato mashers - be sure to use a hand potato masher, or an electric hand mixer (the kind used for baking), but not a hand blender, or anything with a single rotating metal blade, as it will make your potatoes glue-y instead of fluffy. 

Layer 5:

Sprinkle with cheese.

Bake at 350 for 45 mins.  Don't skimp on the baking time - it must be very well cooked - bubbling, in fact, before it's ready. The cheese should get nicely browned on top, but if it gets too dark, or starts to burn, cover and continue baking. 

Serves 4-6

Green Tea Frozen Yogurt

I fell in love with using whole crushed tea leaves in ice cream/frozen yogurt when I tasted mint chocolate chip at Montreal's incredible, all organic, homemade style ice cream shop, Meu Meu. (Incidentally, that's also where I had my life-changing first taste of lavender ice cream.) Their mint chocolate chip was creamy white--not that strange glowing green we've become accustomed too--and I was immediately smitten with its charming and delicious little flecks of crushed, dried mint. This recipe uses green or jasmine tea in just the same way. 

If you have an ice cream maker, you can make this frozen yogurt extra creamy, but I didn't use one. With a little advanced planning, it's not necessary. The agar helps in creating a nice texture without an ice cream maker (though this recipe has a slightly grainier texture than traditional frozen yogurt, I find that the texture suits the elegant flavours nicely, and gives the yogurt a natural and refreshing taste.) Agar is a very good thing to keep stalked in your pantry. It is a vegetarian substitute for gelatin, and works just as well. It is derived from a type of seaweed (though completely flavourless) and as a bonus, is packed with iron and calcium. You can find it at most health food stores and some Asian groceries. 

1/4 C water

1 T agar

2 t sugar (or other sweetener)

1 tea bag (green tea or, my personal favorite, jasmine/green tea mix)

1 ripe pear, peeled and sliced

1/2 C yogurt (low fat is fine, unless you want it extra creamy)

Boil water. Remove from heat (quickly, before it evaporates away) and stir in agar and sugar until dissolved, then break open the tea bag and add the tea leaves (or one teaspoon of loose tea). (The water should be hot, but not boiling when you add the green tea, or the tea will burn and taste bitter). Blend tea mixture with pear and yogurt until smooth in food processor or with an electric hand blender/mixer.

Pour into shallow pan and freeze for 2 hours. 

Remove from freezer, let sit for 10 - 20 mins, and blend again until smooth. Then pack it tightly in a smaller pan or container and refreeze for another 2 hours. 

Finally, remove from freezer, let sit for 10-20 mins, blend until smooth, and serve. If it still appears grainy or dry at the end of this blending, don't worry. Let it sit out for another 5 mins and then mix and smooth gently with a spoon until it's just right.

Serves 2.   

All That Paper

How many rolls of paper towels and, god forbid, paper napkins does your kitchen go through in a month? I have to admit I still use paper towels from time to time (though they are not at all necessary when you think about it, and really should be a bit more antiquated by now). Anyway, I'm on a mission to divorce the convenient little suckers entirely. (And, for that matter, to work my way towards a plastic free kitchen... but that is a subject for another time.)

For those of us who have not yet parted with paper towels, and of course all of us who buy all those boxes of tissues and rolls of toilet paper every week, Greenpeace has come out with another one of their handy little booklets, letting us know which brands are earth friendly. So don't let a picture of some green leaves on the packaging fool you. Be a savvy shopper. And then go hug a tree.   

Ayurveda

I wanted to write a few words about ayurveda, since I'm certain to mention it here and there throughout the blog, and since (though I don't always follow the rules) my general approach to cooking is ayurvedic. This is not because I think it is crucial to follow a specific set of guidelines, but rather because it is natural to me. It is the language through which I understand health and lifestyle and cooking. These days, as I meet often with a naturopath to heal a stubborn liver infection, I notice more and more how much it is my language. She may explain that there is such and such an issue in the small intestine and this is the kind of treatment that I need, but it's all just information that I don't really understand and that I take on blind faith. That is, until it gets translated into ayurvedic terms and I realize that I have a pitta constitution (which is made of heat and fire), and that the liver and the small intestine are the seat of pitta (or heat) in the body, and these herbs are bitter and sweet, which are properties that cool and balance excess heat. Then, not only do I understand what's happening in my body when I take my medicine, I know the kind of lifestyle to lead to stay calm and cool and balanced, in order to help my body along as it heals itself. 

I find that it often appears that people who are really into health and natural medicine lead very restricted lives (or perhaps become a touch obsessive, to the comic relief of the rest of us), but being familiar with a holistic health care system can also bring a lot of freedom. It's like learning a subject in school. History perhaps. You can put a lot of effort into memorizing a lot of facts, though perhaps you have some difficulty remembering exactly how they all fit together, or, if you have a great teacher, you can understand an overview of a major event or era, and then suddenly all the little pieces click together, and you get a feeling for the whole thing. That is just how it is with holistic medicine. It is a way for us to understand life. (Ayurveda = "the science of life.") When we have an understanding of the whole, it doesn't matter if we know all the details or not (or if we always strictly adhere to certain principles or not). We can always look them up when we need them. And they make sense when we do, because we automatically know where they fit in the big picture.

So what is ayurveda? Most simply it is the Vedic, or ancient Indian, health care system. It's the branch of yoga that relates to health care. Unlike current western medicine, it places a great emphasis on maintaining health and happiness -- maintaining balance in the body so that disease doesn't occur. It is certainly sophisticated in its treatment of disease as well, and many other health care systems fit easily within its philosophy. Yes, even western medicine. One of the traditional eight branches of ayurveda, surgery, has today been replaced by allopathic medicine. 

To me, "following ayurveda" simply means being aware that we are part of nature. It's the process of becoming more and more in harmony with nature. Our body is intelligent. It knows what we need. Certainly, if our dog or cat's body knows enough to crave grass when it has a stomach problem, find some, eat some, throw up, and regain good health, our human bodies have some hidden talents, too. But that is why yoga and meditation are vital aspects of ayurveda -- they let the mind get quiet. If our mind is quiet enough, we know if something is good for us or not from the first bite. Our body tells us. Of course this innate intelligence of the body is easily confused these days by bad habits, chemical additives, sugar addictions, etc... But that's alright. That's why we have the rules, that have been written down and preserved through the ages. So that now, if we are sick, or we're not sure what the best things for us are in order to keep healthy and happy, we can figure it out. 

The first step is to figure out our own "constitution" or dosha: vata, pitta, kapha, or a mix. Then you can find out what foods and lifestyles are the best for your body type. It's a lot of fun to play around with, but if you're really interested in this stuff, I highly recommend reading anything by Dr. Vasant Lad and/or Dr. David Frawley, who, I think it is safe to say, are the leading ayurvedic scholars for anyone who lives in the West. They have done a tremendous service to us in bringing a vast amount of ancient Vedic knowledge to North America, and have given it in an amazing way: they easily explain the eastern philosophical concepts that put all their information into a beautiful perspective, and they adapt their practical information to suit western minds, lifestyles, climates, foods, herbs, etc. My favorite books by them are posted on the left hand column of this blog. Another good place to start is the online resources page of the Ayurvedic Institute website, Dr. Lad's wonderful North American ayurvedic college.   

Vegan French Toast

By the way, the best veg French toast recipe I have ever seen is over here at Berry Bundle. Too many recipes make this an overly complex process, and still result in toast that is either too stiff or too soggy. This recipe is as simple as all veg versions of non-veg food should be, and it comes out perfectly. Enjoy!

  

Besan Cheela

A cheela is like... if an omelet met a crepe, fell in love, and had offspring. It's one of many wonderful Indian breakfast foods, and was introduced to me by Swamiji one day when everyone was hungry and wanted something quick and easy, but we were low on groceries. It's extremely versatile, and the recipe can be played around with as much as you want to great success (even so, it probably calls for a trip to your local Indian grocery or healthfood store). A non-stick or cast iron pan is a must for these (non-stick in best for beginners). 

2/3 C chickpea flour

3/4 t salt

1/4 t pepper

1/4 t whole coriander 

1/2 t coriander powder

1/4 t ajwan

1/4 t baking powder

pinch hing

4-5 fresh curry leaves

1/2 C water

1-2 t finely chopped green chili

1-2 T finely chopped onion

1/4 C chopped fresh coriander (cilantro)

1/4 C finely chopped green pepper (or whole frozen green peas - thawed by washing with hot water)

1 t ghee or olive oil

serve with chutney, yogurt, or a squeeze of lemon

Whisk together above ingredients from chickpea flour through water. Add vegetables. Add ghee/oil to pan on medium high heat. Ladle batter into pan, making each cheela as thin and round as possible. Cook until brown on each side (about 30-60 seconds). To make the cheela softer, add a spoonful of yogurt to the batter. To make it crispy on the edges, drizzle ghee or oil around circumference while cooking.

Serves one (makes three cheelas).  

Vegetable Soup

Mennonite cooking, which shares many similarities with traditional German cooking, has a reputation for being delicious and, well, extremely rich, at least for those of us who don't burn off tons of fat and calories working hard on the farm from dawn till dusk. There are cheesy, creamy entrees, a constant wealth of fresh bread and butter, molasses cookies and brown sugar sandwiches, cold and delicious full-fat milk, puddings and pies, and sticky buns with rich homemade jams. Personally though, my favorite part of Mennonite food is the abundance of simply cooked fresh vegetables straight from the garden. The epitome of this is my grandfather's vegetable soup. 

This is a great soup to make if anyone at home is sick since it's so soothing and has a very mellow taste, but is absolutely delicious enough to prepare anytime. I made this once in the ashram, and felt a bit shy about serving something so simple and plain as the main part of the meal, and I was completely taken aback by the response. People were crazy with praises, told me they were on their 2nd or 3rd bowl, and everyone wanted to know what was so special about the taste. As you'll see from the ingredients, I had nothing to respond! There is no secret ingredient. The secret, rather, is in the flavour combination of these particular four vegetables (the only other veggie my grandmother, mother or I have added with success has been green cabbage), and the specific timing and order in which you add them...

4 C vegetable broth

1/4 dried lima beans*

pinch of salt

pinch of pepper

pinch of celery salt

3/4 C chopped celery

3/4 C chopped carrots

3/4 C chopped turnip

3/4 C chopped potato

Soak lima beans overnight (or bring them to a boil, remove from heat and let sit, covered, for an hour). Drain beans and add to vegetable broth. Add salt, pepper, and celery salt. Simmer, covered, for 45 mins. Add celery and simmer for 5 mins. Then add carrots and simmer for 5 mins. Then add turnip and simmer for 10 mins. Finally, add potatoes and simmer for another 10 mins. Keep covered during cooking.

Serve with toast or biscuits. Serves 2 - 3. 

* I've used lima beans in this recipe, but kidney beans, navy beans and pinto beans, or a mix of a couple of them, are great. Cooking times for different beans can be found here. If you are using canned beans, rinse well. 1/4 C dried beans = about 3/4 C cooked beans.

We like our guys tough.

And vegetarian.

The Great Granola Secret

Well, I've had little to add in the past 2 weeks since my diet is almost comically restricted these days. One tiny little liver infection and I can't eat dairy, most fats, excess protein, or sugar, everything is to be homemade from scratch and organic, plus there's a candida diet to follow that involves no fruit or natural sugars, bread, wheat, white rice etc.  Now, personally I love the challenge and have been eating wonderful things, and tons of amazing vegetables, but such natural, simple things that there's hardly anything to report. (Well, actually, I think I've perfected my cheela recipe, but have yet to write down the quantities for you.) Anyway, I thought that while I eat my steamed greens and buckwheat, I'd take the opportunity to share some of my family's best loved classics.

My mom's granola is well known among my friends -- so much so that in university (when it would arrive by post as the main staple of all care packages) I'd have to hide at least part of it, or roommates and friends would finish it off in a day. I've also never been able eat store bought granola as it's just, well, not very good in comparison. I believe the key to granola is simplicity. And maple syrup.

Some notes on the ingredients: This recipe has been adapted by mom to my taste, ie. there is extra maple syrup in it. The 3/4 C of maple syrup can be cut back to 1/2 C and it will still be delicious. Concerning substitution, there isn't really any healthy substitute for the maple syrup in this recipe. And for the best granola use the best quality syrup (we are a little spoiled in this regard, coming from Old Order Mennonite country). Please do not bake with honey! (And for day to day use please do buy unpasteurized honey.) Overheating honey makes an otherwise wonderful thing into a substance that your body will treat like a toxin. Eeps! 

As for the mixed whole grains, we buy them pre-mixed in the bulk section of our local natural food store. Any mix of rolled and flaked grains will do (ie. they should look like oatmeal). If you don't have access to a variety of these grains, you can settle for whole rolled oats.

5-6 C mixed whole grains (oats, spelt, kamut, barley, rice, etc)

1 C coconut (dried, grated, unsweetened)

1 C sunflower seeds

1 C nuts (whichever... almonds, cashews, brazil nuts are great)

1/2 C sesame seeds

mix these guys together in one or two large baking pans (preferably one with edges for less mess and easy stirring) and add

1/2 C oil

3/4 C maple syrup

that have already been mixed together well. Stir. Bake at 350 for 30 mins, stirring every 7-10 minutes. Let it cool before storing in an airtight container.

Keep in the fridge. (Or in freezer. It freezes well and thaws quickly). Serve with milk or yogurt and drizzle with honey and/or top with fruit.

Sweet and Sour Soup

There's nothing quite like a hot bowl of sweet and sour soup - it's one of those dishes that seem to enliven taste buds I forgot I had. Craving such an experience this morning I whipped up what soon proved to be a perfect bowl of soup. 

This recipe is packed with protein and nutrients. The tofu and the seaweed provide lots of easily absorbable, complete proteins - one bowl will give you about 1/3 the daily recommended intake. Nori is also the most nutritious of all the seaweeds, and is packed with vitamins and minerals (more so than the same amount of any vegetable!), especially A, B, C, calcium, and precious trace minerals. Cabbage is also a nutritional powerhouse, with tons of great stuff including massive amounts of vit. K and C and a fair amount of those elusive omega 3 fatty acids. 

2 C vegetable broth or water

1t tamari 

2 slices ginger (about half a centimetre wide)

1/4 C Japanese rice

1/2 C shredded cabbage (red or green)

1/2 C cubed medium tofu (silken tofu would also be great in this soup)

1 sheet nori, cut into strips (use scissors, and make the strips about 1 by 4 centimetres)

1/4 t cayenne pepper

1 t corn starch mixed with 1T water

2 T maple syrup

1 T rice vinegar

juice from 1/4 of a lemon 

garnish: seaweed and sesame seeds

I keep a tin of vegetable bouillon powder around for times like these, and added 2t of it to the water to make an instant broth. If you don't have any, and are in too much of a rush to make a broth from scratch, water will work fine. Put the broth on high heat, and add above ingredients down to and including the cayenne. Bring the soup to a boil, then turn it down to low heat and let it simmer. Cover, and stir from time to time for 15 mins. 

At this point add a touch more water if it looks more like vegetables than soup, but if it was covered during cooking this shouldn't be necessary. Add the cornstarch/water mixture and allow it to simmer for 3-4 more mins while stirring. 

Take it off the heat and add the remaining ingredients. If you've used red cabbage the soup will be a beautiful deep purple; with green cabbage it will be a nice light brown. Remove ginger pieces and garnish with seaweed and sesame seeds.

Makes 2 bowls of soup, which I thought would be a meal for one, but I was amazed to discover how filling it is - one bowl and I was stuffed!

   

The Beginning

Welcome!  Well I have to admit that even in the midst of our blog crazy generation I thought I'd be the last person on earth to host one. But, last year I was supposed to create a little booklet with an introduction to vegetarianism, nutrition info, and simple, fantastic recipes, and I got as far as about a 2 dozen little notes strewn among other papers, and in purses and pockets. And then the other day I realized, it's time to jump in. A blog is always finished and ready for others, yet never complete. It's so easily accessible, and so much more interactive. So, here we are, in the beginning...

Cinnamon and Nutmeg is meant for everyone, but especially dedicated to my dear Art of Living friends and family, and especially to all those people who are on their first Part 1 or YES!+ course, have enthusiastically embraced a 6-day (or lifetime!) food challenge, and are looking for a helping hand.