Tag: healthy

Tasty cabbage – Indian style

One of the wonderful things about living in Southern India was the food. Dishes are simply classified into veg or non-veg, and the choice of veg dishes was vast! Using this classification, veg excludes egg but does include dairy, so eating dairy free was still a challenge. I often grilled a poor waiter about the potential dairy content of a dish, only to find it laden with paneer or ghee. I had to become very un-British and be very specific with my food order!

Eating at friends houses was much simpler,  once they knew what to avoid. And many of my Indian friends just loved to feed me, which was such a joy! They all had cooks who created these amazingly simple yet delicious dishes – 2 or 3 different ones for a light lunch! It was often a dhal, bean based curry and a dry vegetable dish (sauce, or gravy as they call it, is definitely more of a ‘Briti
sher’ requirement!). And I fell in love with stuffed parathas and freshly made chapattis; I still make heavy-handed attempts to make my own at home.

One of my favourite simple dry vegetable dishes is called poriyal. It’s basically a cooked vegetable – green bean, cabbage, carrot or a mixture of different ones – garnished with a tasty tempering and grated coconut. It’s ever so simple to make and is gorgeously tasty.

Cabbage has been a dominant feature of my veg box just recently; cabbage poriyal makes a tasty change to plain simply steamed cabbage or one of my many versions of coleslaw!

One of the wonderful cruciferous family, cabbage is amazingly good for you, particularly if it’s steamed rather than boiled to death as per school dinners! It’s packed full of phytonutrients that help protect against cancer, loads of fibre which will help reduce cholesterol levels and vitamin C, a natural antioxidant. On top of that, it has a whole variety of B vitamins, potassium and manganese. So it is definitely good to eat your greens!

Tempering is a method used in Indian cooking in which the whole spices are heated in oil (or ghee) until the aromas are released then poured on top of the dish prior to serving. Briefly cooking at a high heat releases the essential oils in the spices, and therefore their delicious flavour. If you want to be low or no fat, omit the oil and just heat in a non-stick pan – once the mustard seeds start popping, add the other spices and turn off the heat whilst still stirring. This stops the spices singeing but still releases their flavour. Give this a go and see what you think – you won’t find it in your local curry house, that’s for sure!

Cabbage poriyal
1 tablespoon oil
1 medium sized cabbage, finely chopped
2 tablespoons grated coconut, fresh or frozen (defrosted)
tempering:
1 teaspoon black mustard seeds
1 teaspoon urad dahl (split lentils)
pinch asafedtida
ginger chilli paste
1 red chilli, chopped
5 curry leaves
salt
tumeric
fresh coriander
Steam the cabbage until just done. When it’s nearly ready, heat the oil in a pan and toast the mustard seeds. Once they start to splutter, add the grad dahl, turmeric and asafoetida. Once you can smell the gorgeous aromas, add the chilli and curry leaves, stir briefly then turn off the heat. Continue to stir for a moment then mix the tempering into the cabbage along with the coconut and ginger chilli paste (if you so desire). Season with a tiny sprinkle of salt if you need to, garnish with fresh coriander and serve alongside another veg dish such as a dahl and freshly cooked chapattis. Enjoy!

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TGIF – totally great information on food and an Estofado recipe

Life is just so busy at the moment, it’s hard to find time to blog. Our shipping still hasn’t arrived back either, so I’m missing the computer as well as all my cookery books and paraphanalia.

Although I’ve not been writing as much, I have been cooking! Being back in the UK, I feel like I’m discovering a whole new range of products again. It’s amazing how things have changed in just under three years. And how much things cost!

One of the great things I’ve noticed is how much awareness of food allergies and sensitivities has increased, as well as recognition of different diet choices. The range of products on a menu may still be limited (unless it’s a vegan restaurant!) but it seems much easier to order food that’s not going to create problems a few hours later. For example, I visited TGI Friday’s yesterday with the kids, and they have a special menu for people with allergies, mainly gluten and lactose. Our waitress was so helpful, and not only told us about this menu (you need to ask for it) but got the kitchen to serve our nachos in a way that it was half with cheese and sour cream, and half plain near to the guocomole. And they happily swapped bits around so we had a meal we could all enjoy without worrying what was in it. And there’s more information on their website too that takes the guess work out of  how to avoid intolerances.

The recession, and the general need for people to reduce their household expenditure has also increased the popularity of vegetarian food, with food magazines and programmes jumping on the bandwagon. Generally, vegetarian food is cheaper than  meat based, as long as it’s made from scratch rather than just another ready meal, over processed and full of sugar and salt..And campaigns like Meat Free Monday, which promotes the environmental benefits of a plant based diet, not just the financial, is gaining more support.

This is good news for those who eat a wholefood plant based diet, or have to avoid certain foods like dairy. I love reading food magazines and articles, but so often the recipes are packed full of items that are a no no. One of my favourites is the Obeserver Food Monthly; a couple of weeks ago I excitedly bought my first issue for some time. The theme was cooking on a budget. One article challenged top chefs to come up with a family meal for under £5.00. There were some interesting suggestions in there, including a mouthwatering dahl, but the one that caught my eye was this vegetarian estofado.

Estofado is Spanish for stew (so the internet tells me!), or slow cooked food. This dish doesn’t really take much time to cook and the flavour develops well. The outstanding surprise was the amount of garlic – a whole bulb! I have to say that it does give you serious garlic breath, but it’s what gives this stew a deep, rustic flavour.

Nutritionally, it has just about everything you could ask for – protein in the chickpeas, beta carotene and vitamin C in the pumpkin, folates and other B vitamins in the spinach and omega 3 fats in the walnuts, as well as the healthy heart properties of the garlic. Unless you have a nut allergy, there’s not much in there to upset any sensitive eaters, and it passed the kids test with flying colours (I did cut down on the garlic a bit!!). Serve this with some rustic wholemeal crusty bread, or wholegrain rice, and you have a fabulous tasty and cheap dinner.

Chickpea, pumpkin, spinach and walnut estofado (recipe by Jose Pizarro) 1 small onion
1 bulb garlic
1 tbspoon olive oil
400g tin chopped tomatoes
800g of pumpkin or squash flesh, chopped into 2.5cm pieces
800mls vegetable stock
400g tin chickpeas, drained
1 bag baby spinach
50g walnuts roughly chopped
Chop the onion and garlic. Heat the oil in the base of a large pan and sizzle the onion and garlic for a few minutes, stirring constantly so it doesn’t burn. Add the tinned tomatoes and fry off the excess juice gently. Once reduced, add the pumpkin and vegetable stock, and simmer until the pumpkin is tender. Add the chickpeas and seasoning, and cook for another 5 minutes or so. Most of the fluid should have evaporated by now. Just before serving, stir in the spinach and heat through for a couple of minutes until it’s wilted. Serve out into dishes and scatter the walnuts over the top. Enjoy!

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Sunday vegetable bake

We do love a good, hearty Sunday meal in our house. Eating a plant based whole food diet, it’s sometimes hard to find a dish that will satisfy everyone Sunday lunch desires, without having to cook three separate meals.. This wasn’t so much of a problem out in India;  putting together a roast dinner was a real challenge – the hot weather, lack of something suitable to roast and a rubbish oven was just all too much!. And once we started to (over) indulge in long lazy Sunday brunches laid on at Bangalore’s lovely hotels, it became a non-issue.

But now we’re back in the UK, the challenge returns. It is possible to buy roast meat replacements, but these do tend to look quite unappetising and have a long list of processed ingredients – not suitable for a wholefood diet at all. Quorn products tend to be a bit better, but it’s fermented, which is no good for someone with an allergy to yeast! In fact, it was eating more Quorn products when my daughter became a vegetarian a few years ago that finally tipped my body into mega-migraine mode and prompted my journey into finding out what was going on. So really, I should be thanking Quorn!

As the weather has been so cold and wintry, I wanted a Sunday lunch that was warming and cosy, as well as tasty and pleasing to everyone in the family. There was one spice that was needed – my new favourite, smoked paprika.

I’d not cooked with smoked paprika until we returned from India last month. It seems to have become popular in recipes recently – or maybe I’ve just noticed it more. No chance of finding it in Bangalore though so it’s new to me. I’ve experimented with this spice in soups and stews, and it’s a corker!  Smoked paprika generally comes from Spain. Pimento peppers are smoked over oak then ground into a powder. This gives the paprika a deeper, more complex flavour. It’s great for replacing the smokey flavour of bacon in vegetarian dishes.

Proper smoked paprika has three levels of ‘heat”; dulce which is sweet and mild, agricdulce which is bittersweet and medium hot, and picante which is hot. My Tesco version didn’t give any indication and claims to be sourced from more than one country, so guess it’s  probably dulce, sweet and mild, but still has a deep rich, red colour.

The smoked paprika in this bake makes it beautifully rich and warming, a perfect dairy free, wheat free, almost every allergen free Sunday lunch. In case you wonder why there’s broccoli stem in the ingredients, I served it with broccoli and I hate throwing away the stems, so bunged them in the bake.

Sunday vegetable bake
1 onion, chopped
1 leek, washed and chopped
splash of olive oil
1 – 2 cloves garlic, diced
3 carrots, chopped
1 broccoli stem, chopped (optional)
4 big mushrooms chopped
400g tin of chopped tomatoes
400g tin of mixed beans, rinsed well
thyme
smoked paprika
4 large potatoes
salt and pepper
First, scrub the potatoes and par boil them so they are soft enough to slice but not so soft they fall apart. Leave to cool whilst you prepare the rest of the dish. I used a Le Creuset casserole dish (one of my favourite things!!) that goes on the hob and in the oven – if you don’t have something similar, then you’ll need to start in a saucepan and transfer to an oven proof dish (more washing up!!).
Pre-heat the oven to 180oC. Heat the oil and fry the onion and leek until soft. Add the carrots and broccoli stem. Cook for a couple of minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the thyme and mushrooms. Mix well, pop on the lid and simmer for 10 minutes or so until everything is soft. Add the tomatoes, beans, smoked paprika, salt and pepper and simmer for a few minutes.Meanwhile, cut the cooled potatoes into thin slices.
Transfer the mix into an oven proof dish if needed. Season with salt and pepper, then layer the slices of potatoes over the top until its all covered. I dotted the top of the potato with some dairy free spread to help brown the top. Place in the over and bake for 25-30 minutes until the top is golden brown and the bake bubbling underneath. Leave to cool for a couple of minutes, then serve with broccoli or any green veg of choice and feel your self being hugged warm by the rich, yummy flavours!

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Coconut water

I wrote an article earlier this year about tender coconut water, the fluid found in the immature green coconuts sold by the roadside, for our local expat associations magazine. The virtues of coconut water are being discovered in the West and there is much discussion about its value as a post-workout drink, so I thought I’d write about it again here.

Coconut sellers are dotted all round the city, and next to any road in South India; vibrant green, occasionally mottled, nuts either piled up high forming a little stall, displayed on a hand cart or hanging off the side of  an old, rusty bicycle.  Normal tap water is not really potable, so these coconuts provide a safer option to assuage the thirst of the passing traveller – the fluid inside the green coconut is sterile as long as the nut is not damaged and there are reports that it has been used as an intravenous fluid in cases of severe dehydration when sterile normal saline is not available. Not one to try at home though!

Harvested from trees in clusters when they are between 5-7 months old, these immature nuts contain between 200mls-1 litre of sweet, unctuous water that is highly refreshing on a hot summers day and incredibly nutritious and healthy, and possibly the secret to youthful skin!! The water is contained within a gel like flesh on the inner lining of the nut and tastes very different to the milk taken from the coconut meat (see Cocoloco). This is the endosperm of the nut and contains simple sugars fructose and glucose. These sugars change and become more complex as the nut matures, as does the flavour. Once fully matured, 90% of the sugar content is sucrose which gives it a much sweeter flavour and higher calorie content.

Coconut water though is very low in calories – only 19 calories per 100ml – and contains excellent amounts of potassium and good amounts of calcium, iron, manganese, magnesium, zinc and B vitamins along with an impressive array of amino acids, cytokines and other antioxidants. This is what makes coconut water such a great medium for rehydration, specifically the potassium content which helps the body to revitalise at cellular level. And probably why the sports and health foods industry are beginning to promote this as a wonder product – with a wonder price! Seeing a bottle of coconut water on sale in the UK back in the summer, I was stunned to see it carrying a price tag of £2.50 – they cost Rs 15 here (equal to 17p).

Coconut water is a fantastic fluid replacement drink post diarrhoea, and much tastier than those revolting rehydration salts. My poor husband has been so sick the last few days with a nasty case of ‘Bangalore belly’ and has managed to recover drinking glass after glass of chilled coconut water. Lemon juice can be added to increase the flavour – I have a friend who added fanta, but not sure that’s such a good thing (you know who you are!!).
Along with hydration, tender coconut water aids digestion (in Ayurveda it promotes Agni, digestive fire), its antiseptic properties kill intestinal worms, helps clear urinary tract problems, increases mental concentration, helps cleanse the liver and reduce jaundice and, apparently, is an aphrodisiac! So even with a hefty price tag, you can’t really lose!

But that’s not all! Tender coconut water is reported to be wonderful for the skin (as are other coconut products). It can help prevent prickly heat and reduces and soothes rashes from chicken pox, measles, sunburn and just general random itching. It’s light, cooling properties soothes and calms. This is particularly useful in general skin care. If you have oily skin, tender coconut water can be used as a skin cleanser. For all skin types, it can also be dabbed on the delicate skin areas underneath the eyes – it soothes puffiness and hydrates the skin thereby reducing wrinkles. I must say, I’ve not tested this yet, but will soon and eagerly await good results!

So if you ever get the chance to stop at a roadside coconut seller, you can either drink it there and then (watch out how clean the straw is though!) or get the vendor to prepare the nut for easy opening at home, unless you happen to have your own machete in the kitchen drawer that is! Once opened, coconut water starts losing it’s beneficial properties and if left more than 48 hours could turn bitter and unpalatable. I don’t know how the coconut water that ends up on the shelves far away from their origins is prepared and stored, but it probably has lost a fair amount of goodies and maybe flavour. When I finally return to the UK at the end of the year, I’ll give it a go and see how it compares. Maybe it will bring back some amazing memories!

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Green gunge – but it’s good for you!!!

One of my dear friends recently lost loads of weight by following a juicing diet. I was sceptical at first –  how couldjust drinking juice be good for you. It may be full of vitamins and minerals, but what about the fibre and surely you get too hungry (I like my food fairly solid!) and end up bingeing? But she practically glowed with good health as she dropped 2 dress sizes, so there must be something to it.

Health, whether good or bad, comes from the food we put in to our bodies. Juicing provides extra shots of vital goodies to help our bodies deal with the constant stresses and toxins we are exposed to, both external and internal, although I believe in the long run it’s best to eat the whole food rather than just the juicy parts. But if you want to know more about juicing, including some great recipes and tips on when to drink them, check out this article on the Health Ambition website –https://www.healthambition.com/juicing-recipes-for-weight-loss/.

Our bodies know what we need if we learn to listen to it. Since living in India, I have craved green leaves which must mean I’m low in B vitamins, iron or calcium (not sure which) and have even been known to stir fry cauliflower leaves that are usually discarded just because green leaves are hard to come by. On my recent trip to Kashmir, I came across hak which is grown locally in Srinigar. It’s similar to kale and I couldn’t get enough of it and begged the hotel to serve it to me at every meal, it was so gorgeous. It was sautéed in water along with mustard oil, Kashmiri red chilli, salt and a little local masala, or seasoning. Occasionally a little spicy, it’s deep rich green flavours were just divine!

After attending a healthy eating cooking seminar a few months ago, I discovered green smoothies. Made up of 60% fruit and 40% green leaves, they really are quite delicious and leave you feeling revitalised and full of energy – that’s after you’ve managed to get your head around the fact that the green gunge in the glass is actually something you want to ingest! Spinach is pretty easy to come by here; the little organic grocers stocks some beautifully green bunches, leaves not too big. It tastes pretty strong, much more so than the lovely baby leaves you can by in the supermarkets in the UK, so it’s green hard core from the off. Called palak, it’s not traditionally eaten raw here – my maid was horrified to find out I ate uncooked leaves, and surprised to find out I lived to tell the tale!

Green smoothies can be made with any green leaf as it’s base – spinach, celery or beetroot tops even mint. The key is to vary your intake and not have them every day – raw green leaves contain oxalic acid. Consuming large amounts of oxalic acid can be toxic (you would need a lot of greens every day for this to happen). It binds to metals, such as iron, making it unavailable for absorption in to the body. This therefore means that spinach isn’t a great source of iron in the diet, despite what Popeye might say. However, vitamin C enhances iron absorption, so matching spinach with lemon for example counteracts the negative effects of oxalic acid. And green leaves are an amazing source of vitamin B, calcium and magnesium to name a few.

I’ve featured my favourite green smoothie combination, but you can make up whatever you like. Grind the green leaves in the blender first before adding the other ingredients as the cellulose in the cell walls takes some time to break down.

Spinach, watermelon and banana smoothie
Handful of spinach leaves, thoroughly washed
Big chunk of watermelon
2 small ripe bananas or 1 medium
juice of sweet lime
flaxseed powder (if you want an omega 3 shot).
Place the spinach in the blender and blast on full power until the leaves are broken and mushy. Add in the fruit and juice and blast again until everything is incorporated and fluid – this may take up to 2 minutes depending on the speed of your blender. Sprinkle in flaxseed powder if you are using it and whizz again for a moment. Poor into a glass, close your eyes and deceive your brain as you knock it back. I managed to get my son to try it despite his dubious face – he actually admitted it tasted good but preferred his fresh pineapple juice as it looked more normal!

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The best carrot cake ever!

When I was a teenager, I had a job during the summer holidays at a small local whole foods cafe. It was simple but all freshly made; baked potatoes, salads, soups and cakes. I’m not sure if this was the start of my interest in healthy food but it certainly was the beginning of one of the loves of my life – carrot cake! Now, carrot cake is one of those ‘pretend it’s healthy’ sweet treats. Even if you make it with wholemeal flour or all organic ingredients, it’s packed full of sugar still, but hey, it’s got carrots in it so it’s got to be good for you! The carrot cake at the cafe was amazing – but it was a secret recipe and I just couldn’t get the women who owned the cafe to share it with me.

 After I left home and moved to London, my love of carrot cake reached a new level when I discovered the Cranks restaurant that used to be upstairs in Covent Garden, a dark and mysterious place that enticed you in with mouth watering aromas and served fabulous vegetarian food on beige hippy style natural pottery plates. They too had amazing carrot cake – and a cookery book. I still have that book, and its crumpled torn pages and broken spine mark it’s over use. It even came out to India!

 I have made this cake so many times over the years, and it never goes wrong. And what’s even better, it’s dairy free, so I can make my cake and still eat it! Butter cream or cream cheese frostings are out these days; just haven’t found a reasonable replacement to date. I think it tastes better plain anyway.

I have made this with egg replacer instead of eggs to make it vegan and it still works well. I’ve not tried to make this gluten free so I can’t say whether it would work – sorry! Try and grate your carrots a bit finer than mine – my food processor only seems to work on rustic size.

Carrot cake (Cranks recipe)
175g carrots
100g sugar – castor or unrefined
2 eggs (or equivalent in egg replacer)
75mls oil
100g self raising (wholemeal) flour – or plain flour with baking powder if you’re in India and can’t find any!!!
1 tsp ground cinnamon
pinch nutmeg
50g of raisins
50g of dessicated coconut (if you have it – not essential)
Heat the oven to 180oC and grease a smallish loaf tin. Grate your carrots.
Whisk the eggs and sugar together until it’s thick and creamy then whisk in the oil gradually until it’s all combined. Stir in the rest of the ingredients until its all well mixed – it should be quick thick but still moist. Turn into the greased tin and bake for 25 minutes or until the top is slightly brown and firm to the touch and a tooth pick comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin for a few minutes, then turn out on to a rack until completely cold. Keeps well for a few days – if it lasts that long!! Enjoy.
Cranks don’t have any restaurants in London anymore but the brand is still out there. Have a look at their website – they have a few of their recipes on line, including old favourites of ours lentil and tomato soup (or holiday soup as my kids call it, as I always made it when we went off in the car for a camping holiday) and homity pies. http://www.cranks.co.uk

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More than just a cooking demo….

One of the great things I’ve been able to do since coming to Bangalore is attend a number of different cooking classes, some in restaurants others in people’s homes. Often, I can’t eat everything that’s on offer due to my milk and yeast intolerance, but there’s one class I’ve been to that I could eat everything on offer (well, nearly everything) that was not only really healthy but delicious too – a vegan one.
Say the word vegan and it tends to bring to mind aged hippies eating lettuce leaves, museli and chewy smoked tofu that gets stuck in the back of the throat, food with an odd taste and just not interesting. Go to a cooking demo by Dr Nandita Shah and you’ll get a completely different opinion and a taste sensation.

We had morning shakes, mayo, tongue tingling salads, curries and dals (this is India!!) and, the most exciting for me, home made vegan ‘cheese’ that was used for pizza.

I haven’t tried making it myself yet (the demo was only yesterday!) but I will, and once road-tested, I’ll put up the recipe; I’m hoping it works out as good as yesterdays. Not being able to actually eat pizza because of the yeast in the base, they kindly cooked the pizza sauce and some vegetables together, topped with the cheese and it was absolutely gorgeous!

Apart from eating mounds of yummy, healthy food, the purpose of these cooking demos is to put across a more serious and profound message – that the food we eat really does make a difference to our health and that the chronic diseases that are on the increasing around the world, such as diabetes and heart disease, can all be reversed or prevented through eating a plant based whole food diet. It’s a simple but radical message and one that can take some time to accept. Dr Shah herself is a the perfect advocate of this type of eating as she just glows with energy and vitality. This is the third session I’ve been to with her, and each time I take away more ideas and thoughts, and I’m gradually making the changes needed, although I haven’t managed to stop the tea or the alcohol!

There were some really inspiring stories yesterday of people who had made a real difference to their health – I spoke to one lady who has been eating this plant based whole food diet for 2 months and has already halved her diabetes medication. There was someone else who was almost medication free since starting in June. Years of health problems building up and growing turned around in such a short period of time – quite remarkable.

So it makes me think about why don’t more doctors advocate this instead of just handing out the pills and potions? Why aren’t governments that spend so much money managing chronic health problems promoting this kind of eating? Why are there so many fast food chains still just chucking out the same, addictive junk? I guess it comes down to money – there’s not a lot of it in carrots and brown rice, but there is in the pharmaceutical, meat, dairy and fast food businesses.  Co-incidentally, I read some startling statistics the other day. According to a UN report, 18% of the world’s CO2 emissions are produced by animal agriculture, compared to 13% from all forms of transport combined together. Also,  it takes between 4000 and 18,000 gallons of water to make the beef for just one hamburger. So just from an environmental perspective, there are big issues related to animal food products even before you start looking at the health side.

So as well as feeding my stomach, the cooking demo also fed my mind, giving me lots to think and learn about. But one thing I am sure about is that food can harm, but it can also heal, and I’m following that route, so my next burger is definately a veggie one!

If you want to find out more about Dr Shah’s work check out the SHARAN India website at www.sharan-india.org.

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