Sunday, December 30, 2012

Vegetable juicing recipes & roasted broccoli

Sometimes we eat lots of unhealthy food for days together and feel like having food high in micronutrients.
I really enjoy vegetable juice esp during winter when the instinct is to pile up on unhealthy food, I sometimes try to reverse the instinct by piling up on raw vegetables and fruits. Reminds me of IIT Kanpur days where a vegetable juice vendor would be sitting in the hostel and he was the only alternative to  (the unquestionably horrible) hostel food. I used to drink those a lot (5 rupees a glass) and I looked my best in those days.

Since we got a juicer also recently and have seen some documentaries like "hungry for change" and "fat sick and nearly dead", I thought I could take juicing raw veggies seriously. Here ar some simple recipes that work wonders for our kitchen.

Apple or pears go a long way in sweetening and giving a good taste to these veggie juices.

My most common recipe is spinach, apple, cucumber( adds lots of volume because of high water content), beetroot (if my maid agrees ot peel it else painful peeling), carrots and ginger.

Saurabh's most common recipe is orange. He just likes fresh orange juice.

This is a list of some recipes that I saw on net and documenting them.
1) Carrot (5-6), Spinach (1 big bowl), Apple (1-2)

2) Cucumber, Spinach, Apple, Celery (1 stick if available)

3) Cabbage, Carrot, Cucumber

4) Cucumber (3-4), ginger (a small piece), coriander (half fist)

5) Green Grapes and a stick of celery

6) Apple, carrot, strawberry

Basically ginger and apple/pear will bail you out regardless of how bitter rest of the veggies are.

Here is another link I found and it can help you further.
http://www.raw-foods-diet-center.com/vegetable-juicing-recipes.html

*****

I think our most common dish has become roasted broccoli with garlic. It tastes yummy. Just oven roast broccoli with garlic and you can add baby potatoes (my microwave which I got as marriage gift has roast button also so I roast in it for 20 mins). Very tasty and filling.


Friday, November 16, 2012

Recipe for Indian Tea / Chai



I know everyone has their own recipe for tea where the order of adding milk, or sugar or tea leaves changes. There are many permutation of adding those ingredients.
This is mine and I think it really works everytime (if I pay attention to it). 

1) Put water for boiling. Grate good amount of ginger (grate not crush - the taste is better if you grate) 
2) Let the water boil. Add Sugar. (or jaggery as jaggery tastes better)
3) Add tea leaves
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Let it boil for a bit - till you see the true colors of tea leaves
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4) Now add milk and let the tea boil completely till the milk threatens to overflow. At that stage, put it in simmer for 1 minute and turn the stove off.
5) (Optional and avoidable) If you like cardamom in your tea - this is the stage to add. Crush one and add. If you add early -the cardamom's taste becomes too strong and over powering.
6) Whether you added cardamom or not- cover the tea and let it cool for 3-4 minutes. This really enhances the flavor and brings the tea temperature below boiling point.
7) Pour in a cup and drink :).

P.S - Trivia - Do you know that even Russians call their tea chai :).