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
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