Indian tips for the perfect chai

Once upon a time I visited a tailor in India, he was to make me the most beautiful pants for the most incredible price, but his services did not end at that, he actually gave me a bigger present when he shared with me how his wife made chai, here is what he told me:

Get together the usual ingredients:
Cinnamon sticks
Ginger (better if fresh)
Pepper corns
Cardamon (better if you can find the whole seeds rather than the powder)
Bay leaves
Black tea (Darjeleen works very well)
and Cloves.

Put some water and all the ingredients and let them boil, just forget about them for 20 or 30 minutes so that the full flavor of all the spices is released.

Let them boil boil boil...

Then after the 20/30 minutes of that, bring milk in a separate container, to a boil.







Then, and here is the nice tip, do this number (see video), where you mix them together and pass them from one container to another.



Add more suggar than you could possibly want and ENJOY!

You may have difficulty sleeping if you drink this after 5 PM, or so I have found.

Sandwiches de Miga Argentinean Style

The picture (left) comes from an amazing Argentinean blog of a woman that started cooking for family and friends, got some compliments, and now shares her culinary art through a blog.

Depicted you can see an Argentinean delicacy, they are called sandwiches de miga, which means sandwiches made out of the white of the bread (no borders).

They are so delicious (and expensive), that they belong in every argentinean party that prides itself in food delights.

I decided to try a more "yogic" approach and use bread from the farmers market in Cold Spring.  HB found this seven grain that called his attention and we tried it.

The thing with Sandwichitos is that they are moist, even though the bread is dry, and the trick relies in getting the balance between moisture and dryness just right.

So I cut away the borders and then chopped fresh ingredients for the inside:
Tomatoes
Eggs
a little mayo
fresh oregano
fresh dill
a touch of garlic

Then I put olive oil on the pieces of bread.  I am lucky to have brought some Argentinean olive oil in my last trip, but any good quality one will do.

I made sure to dry the mix before i placed it on the bread.  I actually put a paper towel around the mix.

If I would do them again (which I will) I think I would put a little more olive oil.  I would say about two soup spoonfuls per slice.  At least for this type of bread which is much thicker than the Argentinean style.

These are the first two that came out.  I know, I must put them under more light for next time, but let me tell you, they are delicious!

Enjoy!

Raw Falafel

After trying recipes from two books I can say that this is definitely the best recipe, it tastes like the real thing and it only takes 4 hours to dehydrate instead of overnight, so right there there is a plus.

I also like that this recipe includes veggies and not just nuts and spices.  It is delicious and very nutritious.

I served it with my favorite salad which includes pieces of oranges (now that they are a plenty), tomatoes and cucumbers.

Based on Sarma's book, with my own measurements


Falafel:
1/2 cup pistachios, almonds, sunflower seeds, raw.
1 portobelo mushroom cap, cut in squares
2 carrots shredded
2 lemons
1 bunch of parsley (big bunch)
salt and pepper
olive oil
1/2 cup sesame seeds raw
1/2 cup flax seeds

Place the carrots and mushrooms in a bowl and poor olive oil on them, then dehydrate for one hour.

Separately place all the nuts in a blender and blend till smooth.  Set aside

Blend the carrots and mushrooms with the juice of one lemon, all the parsley and 1/4 cup of olive oil, add salt and pepper.

Then mix the blended vegetables with the nuts, and shape them into falafel balls.

Grind the sesame and flax seeds in a coffee grinder.  Roll the falafel on the grinded seeds to cover them up.

Dehydrate for 3 hours, and serve with raw tahini and salad.

Enjoy!

Raw meatloaf with bbq sauce

This one is for Tony who was in search of some raw "meat" :-)

You see the bite taken out of the meatloaf? well I could not wait! I based the recipe on ideas from the Juliano's book, but I also added my own spices

Meatloaf:
1/3 cup sesame seeds/walnuts/sprouted lentils
1/3 cup olive oil
1 red pepper
1 carrot grated
little garlic and onion
fresh oregano, rosemary and dill to taste
Salt and pepper to taste
one or two big spoons of agave syrup

Blend and dehydrate basically forever... OK, maybe for like a day or two, I let it dry for 26 hours, within a cake container, that is why it came so roundy and pretty.

BBQ sauce
2 tomatoes
1/2  cup sun dried tomatoes
1 head of garlic
1/2 onion
1/2 cup nori sauce
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup olive oil

Blend it and once the meatloaf is ready, on the day you are to eat it, put the sauce on top and dehydrate for a good 3 hours.  It will be slightly warm by serving

Compliment with a salad

Enjoy!

Raw Pasta with tomato and basil sauce - and Nori Sushi

I won't lie to you, it takes patience to make that but it is so worth it!.

The recipes come straight from Sarma and Rod's books respectively.

Delicious raw oregano crackers

The picture shows the crackers as they are going into the dehydrator.  They turned out delicious.  The thinner you make them the more crispy and interesting.

I found that the oregano is what made them really tasty, so make sure to put a bunch of it.

Ingredients

1/2 cup of lentils, sprouted (soak for 6 hours then let them rest for 2 days, washing them twice a day)

1/2 cup wheat (soaked and sprouted)

1/2 cup  almonds 

1/4 cup lemon juice

1/2 cup olive oil

salt

pepper

1/4 cup of flax seeds

1/4 cup of sesame seeds

one bunch of fresh oregano cut thinly

a little rosemary

half a small shallot peeled and cut

half a garlic head peeled and sliced

a touch of agave nectar

Blend the lentils, almonds and wheat adding a little water to get a dough going.  Put in a separate bowl

Grind the sesame seeds and flax seeds, then add all the other ingredients and add to the bowl with the dough. Mix well.

Spread thinly on dehydrator sheets as one sheet or cut into shapes (rounds or squares), and put on the dehydrator.  Turn them around after about 4 hours, and let it continue drying for about 12 more hours (overnight).  

Raw Beet Ravioli

Inspired by the beet ravioli from the Living Raw Foods book today, I tried my own version, and they came out looking pretty.

I had some preconceptions about them, for example, I thought the beets could potentially be hard to digest, but nothing like that happened.  Actually because they are marinated and thinly cut, they were almost unrecognizable.  And even though they are still much crunchier than a ravioli pasta shell, they were manageable and blended well with the filling.

The filling was a pine nut cheese raw attempt.  And the sauce was the same paste, only I added some basil for taste.

I felt very satisfied and enjoyed it very much.  Not sure it is an every day recipe, more for a flashy occasion I would say.

The Shells (beets)

1 large beet (or two if you are serving more than two people)

1 lemon

1/2 cup olive oil

sea salt

use a mandoline to cut the beets very VERY thinly.  Then marinate for 1/2 to 1 hour in the oil with the lemon and salt.

The filling

1 cup of pine nuts soaked for one hour

zest of lemon

1/2 cup olive oil

a quarter of an onion

1/4 cup lemon juice

sea salt

ground pepper

Mix everything, that is your cheese.

The sauce

Separate half the filling and add basil to it, and blend.

To serve

Put four think beet slices on a plate, add a spoon full of the filling and cover with another beet shell.

Serve with a little of the basil sauce on the side.

Tasty.

Raw Burgers with Pesto Sauce... hmm

That is raw...  and it tastes delicious!

The recipe is a combination of what I read in  raw foods for real people and my own experimentation, i.e. I used yellow peppers instead of celery.

You need to plan ahead for this one, the dish takes 2.5 days to make (2 days sprouting 1/2 day dehydrating), which is great as you can plan ahead, way ahead!

I am experimenting with making bread but until I get it right I am using the Ezekiel brand which is organic and sprouted and live, or so they claim.  You can find it everywhere these days, I got it at Whole Foods.

The burgers are VERY easy to make but they require the dehydrator,  making them on the oven at low temperature is just not the same.

Bugers:
1 cup lentils sprouted
1/2 cup raw walnuts
1/2 cup raw hulled sunflower seeds
1 lemon peeled and cut into little pieces
1/2 cup olive oil
1 yellow pepper cut in little pieces
Oregano (I prefer fresh)
sun dried tomatoes (I tend to put a bunch, I like them, about 10)

Mix everything in a blender, dehydrate for a few hours 2, or 3, then turn around and dehydrate for 10 or 12 more hours.

For the pesto sauce:
1 cup basil
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup of those really expensive pine nuts, yes that is why my ratio is low for these guys, besides I found out that the sauce tastes better with not so many of these anyway....
1 lemon peeled and cut in little chunks
1 or 2 depending on how you like it heads of garlic
1 shallot
a little spinach if you want to

Blend everything

To serve
Brush the Ezekiel bread slices with the pesto, then paint the burgers too and put them inside.

Serve with a salad and place some more pesto on the side for added lubrication.

Enjoy!

Raw chocolate pudding

Are we going raw? maybe, maybe not, but this raw chocolate pudding made with avocado is the stuff of the Gods, seriously if you have not tasted it yet you have not had a real life experience! Not only is it delicious, it is also live food, all healthy and good for you.

I know that the container looks as if I bought it in a deli, but I did not, is just that this is the only safe enclosed container I had available for refrigeration... yes THAT is raw.

The recipe comes from reading various blogs, books and then trying it on my own.  This is what I found to work best:



Ingredients:
1 avocado ripped but not too soft, 1/4 cup of raw chocolate powder (good idea to get a good quality one), 1/2 cup agave syrup, pinch of sea salt and a little vanilla extract.

Blend everything making sure the texture is that of pudding (add a little water if necessary), refrigerate and enjoy. I dare you to eat only one portion, may not be possible!

Country Bread

I have been looking at many recipes for bread and settled on the authors that suggest less work and more efficiency. It takes a long time to make but there is no work, it is very easy and delicious.

The flour is Gold Medal "Better for Bread".  I have also tried mixing it with whole wheat and it comes delicious.
Many books recommend using bread flour, so why not?




Ingredients:
3 cups of flour
2 cups of water
1 tea spoon of salt
1 tea spoon of active yeast

Preparation
Mix flour salt and yeast, then add the water.  Mix it for 20 seconds, no need to get fancy.  Then cover it and leave it for 18 hours.  I know... a long time.

After that, take it out, it will have probably double in size, and place it over a surface on which you sprinkled a little more flour, but do not add any to the mix and work it so that the flour is nice all over it, make it into a ball.  Then on a table cloth put some flour and seeds of your choice (I like flax and sunflower), and place the mix there, cover it and leave it for 2 more hours.

At about 1.5 hours turn the oven on at 475 degrees.  At two hours, when the oven is hopefully pre-heated, take the mix and put it in an over safe container.  Bake for 30 minutes, then take the cover off and bake for 15 to 20 more minutes.

Enjoy!

Crepes ... delicious for a winter afternoon

I love late afternoon dessert in the winter, and aparently so does BF who complimented it many, many times, and called it a "great restaurant-style crepe"  extra points for me!.

I noticed that many crepe recipes out there call for a lot of flour, but I learned the secrets from the an italian cook at a Soho coffee shop where I used to work in a previous life, so hear me out.



Ingredients:
2 large eggs
half a small cup of white all purpose flour
two table spoons of cannola oil
half a small cup of milk
For the filling you can add fruit jam (I chose peach) OR go all out and put Nutella

Preparation:
Beat the eggs until they are very well mixed, add the milk and the oil and then the flour little by little. You want a "liquid" rather than a batter. Think fluid, as if it was something to drink.

Then put the pan on the fire until it is VERY hot, add a little butter and then poor a little of the liquid. move the pan around and let it spill forming an outer circle, you want to think "very thin crepes"

leave the fire high, but not so high that it burns things, you will know when it is time to turn the crepe around because it will be easy to use the spatula to turn it over (see video above)

Once you turn it around leave it for about a minute or two, then turn it around again, and spread the jam or nutella

Then just fold it, and serve it with a little sugar powder and some fresh mint...Enjoy!

Brussels Sprouts and Veggies

108 yoga recipes - Brussels Sprouts from ClaudiaYoga on Vimeo.

This recipe comes courtesy of my Miami friend Martin. I never knew that Brussels Sprouts could be sauted, but they can...

By the way, this time I include a video... it is 2010 and we are going all out.

Ingredients:
20 Brussels Sprouts (a little container)
Olive oil,
salt pepper to tasteCilantro (half a bunch)
2 Carrots peeled and shredded
1 Zucchini
1 medium Onion
a few garlic heads
Any other vegetables you feel may go well with it

Cooking:
Cut the Brussels Sprouts in half. Set up a nice pot or frying pan, a cooking pot is better, then add olive oil until is heated (or butter if you prefer), and place the sprouts in it, then the onions (the idea is to start with the vegetables that take longer to cook). Let it simmer for about 5 minutes at a slow fire.

Keep it covered so that a "steaming" effect can take place.

Then add the carrots and the garlic, and let it stay for 7 minutes or so. After a few minutes add the zucchini cut in squares or slices, then at the last minute the cilantro. If the pan gets to dry add more oil or a little (tiny bit) of hot water.

In total it should be cooking for about 20 minutes so that the sprouts break and they are soft. Add the salt and peper as it is cooking and to taste.

Serve with rice or couscous.

Enjoy