It’s been awhile since I posted any recipes. My diet is pretty simple most days and consists out of one-pot lentil and quinoa with veggies stews, salads, and soups. I’m more about functionality and digestibility when it comes to my foods rather than gourmet dishes. If it’s easy to make, simple, and easy to digest, it gets my approval.
The recipe that I about to share was inspired by a recent visit to one of my favorite vegetarian Indian restaurants in Murray Hill. I kept thinking about this dish for a few days after and tried to create my own version at home. It came out so good that I think it deserves sharing. It is an unusual combination of tastes for a Western palate – lentils, raisins, coconut, cardamom, and dates. It might sound too weird but surprisingly it tastes pretty damn good!
Kheer or rice pudding is traditionally viewed as a cooling easy to digest dish, nourishing all tissues, cooling the body, and calming the mind. What more to ask from a yummy dessert?!
Every food that we eat affects our body on several levels including physical, emotional, and psychological. A person with a relatively clean body and a good level of awareness will be able to observe these influences quite clearly and use these observations to create a personalized experience-based diet that suits his unique body.
For a long time I knew that goji berries were good for you, that they are an ancient power food, and I even regularly added them to oatmeal and chocolate truffles. What I have to acknowledge though is that I never really knew why they were so good besides being a good source of some minerals and vitamins. Then one day while browsing through the weird looking stores in Chinatown, I saw that there were lots of goji berries there. They were sold prepackaged and by the pound, there were Tibetan and Chinese varieties, they were way cheaper than at Whole Foods and way more abundant… I had no idea that Chinese were eating goji berries so much or that they can be sold by 5lbs bags anywhere in the US. Little did I know!
Have you ever heard of roasted grapes? I haven’t until 2 days ago when I bought 2 pounds of red grapes that were a little too soft and not as sweet as I usually like my grapes. Not willing to put so much fruit in the garbage, I started browsing internet for grape recipes. While most recipes that came up didn’t look appealing because they contained a lot of mayonnaise or sour cream a few seemed very intriguing. I was especially interested in these two: Roasted Grapes and Carrots and Roasted Grapes and Blue Cheese. The combination of grapes, onions, salt, and pepper seemed to say the least weird. However, the need to do something with the grapes and an ayurvedic preference of consuming fruits and vegetables slightly cooked during Winter pushed me to the oven. Being a little skeptical about mixing grapes with onions and salt, I decide to roast them plain and see what happens. The result was way beyond my modest expectations! It was a good reminder that everything that happens, happens for the best. My mushy sour grapes turned into beautiful healthy dessert/snack that is perfect for chilly gloomy winter days, ayurvedically speaking! I dare you to challenge your expectations and give it a try!!!
