Indian Food, by Saul

Indian Food … as an item to be capitalized! I used to think that Indian food was healthy, so when given the opportunity to eat it, I ate as much as I could. It tasted good. Then I felt sluggish, dumb, eventually … fat. Then, I looked around at people I knew from India. Most of them did not look healthy. Neither did I although in my case it was not at all due to all Indian Food. I also ate too much Health Food, like brown rice and black beans. I used to think that Health Food was healthy, so when given the opportunity to eat it, I ate as much as I could. Who knew that all those complex carbohydrates would turn into excess fat? I looked around at people I knew from the Health Food Nut community. Almost all of them had health problems. So, I cut back on numbers of calories consumed in one day, ate a lot of very low calorie, nutrient dense foods until I felt full and lost forty pounds.

Indian Food and Creativity, by Mollie

One of my favorite things about Indian food is how warm and comforting it is. I think it shows vegetable-doubters how good a vegetarian diet can taste. And the miraculous thing is that just a change of a few spices can completely alter a meal.

I experimented with a couple of recipes from our beloved cookbook, The Green Way to Healthy Living - chapattis (pictured to the right) and naan. I tried using some chickpea flour in the chapattis, which really just made them taste like they had parts of mashed up chickpeas. And the dough for the naan didn't even rise. But the amazing thing? Both tasted so good (especially the naan). The naan ended up like thick, spicy crackers almost - which, while not at all the intention, fit perfectly with the rest of our meal and was, undoubtedly, Indian.

The last experiment I did - which was actually in this last week of November - was to try a puffed rice snack mix sort of thing which I had found online. Here's warning to my future self: don't try unfamiliar recipes when you're home alone and don't want to commit to making them correctly. By the time my father walked in the house, he became subject to the aromatic spices that filled the air and joined me in his coughing fits. Hastily opened jars of random spices covered the counter, and in the pan on the stove sat something that looked like pieces of carrot and onion surrounded by a substance that appeared burnt but was not. Which, when it comes down to it, I suppose that's really what it was. But you know what? Later in the day, when the mixture had completely cooled down and the only hotness that remained was that of the spices, it tasted pretty good. Not even just okay, but actually quite good.

I think the main thing that I've discovered over the month of October is how wonderfully flexible Indian food is. And it's quick, too - we discovered several new dishes that are more exciting because of their Indian flavor and more easily made than others we may have fallen for in our late afternoon after school stupor. I think that Indian food provides a great amount of creativity that will always - even if it doesn't rise or makes you cough in the process - turn out warm and comforting in the end.

October was Indian Month

I love Indian food. I mean I LOVE Indian food. I love the way the flavors and spices explode in my mouth. It's a great diet for a vegetarian because the Indian people have found amazingly creative ways to use beans and legumes. Who woulda thought?

The challenge for our family food adventure was to cook Indian food that is healthy not just tasty. I love samosas and pakoras, but they are generally deep friend which is not gonna work for the Greenbergs. So...we had to look through our cookbooks to find recipes that are full of vegetables for a low glycemic diet, gluten free, and low fat. Lots to think about, but we came up with some GREAT food for the month. Food that still explodes with tasty flavor, but that makes you feel good after you eat it. Below are some of our best recipes. I use all organic ingredients when I can.

Channa (Chick Peas - aka Garbanzo Beans)

This is like a garbanzo bean soup and cooks up very quickly if you have all the ingredients and get accustomed to making it. I can whip it up in about 15 minutes these days, and I love it on a chilly day when we arrive home from our various adventures out in the world and are ready to gather for a nice dinner. I never measure when I make Indian food, so the amounts are not exact. If you try it just experiment with the flavors until you get something you like. Most westerners err on the light side when using the spices. More is better! (But go light on the turmeric.)

Ingredients:

3-4 cups cooked organic chick peas

1T olive oil (or less if you are trying to stay away from oil - sometimes I just use a teaspoon)

1 onion

1 large can diced organic tomatoes (I think they are about 24 oz. cans. We use Muir Glen.)

1-2 chopped fresh organic tomatoes

1 t ground coriander

1T ground cumin

1/2 t red chili powder

1/4 t tumeric

Saute the onion, then add the tomatoes - both canned and chopped. Add the spices and let simmer for a couple of minutes and then add the chickpeas. You can eat this right away if you are in a hurry or you can let it simmer for awhile to allow the flavors to blend together. Either way it tastes delicious. It's really good if you add chopped cilantro on top.

Indian Pancakes

I think the Indian people have an actual name for these, but we just call then Indian pancakes and we love them!! Again, my measurements are very sketchy, so just experiment.

1 cup Bob's Red Mill Fava Bean/Garbanzo flour

1/2 cup water (keep adding water until the batter is about the consistency of regular pancakes)

1 T cumin

1 t coriander

1/2 t turmeric

dash of chili powder - add more if you like things spicy

1 t salt (add salt to your own taste preference - I tend to use more)

1 organic onion finely chopped

2-3 cups raw whole organaic spinach leaves

olive oil

optional: finely chopped organic carrots, potatoes or other vegetables you like

Stir the flour, water and spices together creating a batter like regular pancake batter. Then add the onion and spinach and stir it together. The batter should lightly coat the spinach so you can add more spinach if you want to. It's amazing how it sticks together when you fry it, so there shouldn't be a whole lot of batter. Lightly coat a frying pan with olive oil and use 1/8 cup or so of the batter for each pancake - this will probably make about 7-8ish pancakes. Cook like you do regular pancakes and prepare your taste buds to be utterly astonished!

We made another recipe which I'll try to get on another post - or maybe Magnificent Mango will get around to that.

Signing off for October,

Radiant Raspberry

aka Dione