Split Pea Soup with Baby Kale

What a perfect cloudy day for a hot bowl of split pea soup and a crusty piece of bread! I don't think I need anything more from life at this moment. Just finished reading a book called Practicing Mind by Thomas M. Sterner. Extraordinary book that talks about living in present moment and enjoy all the small and big joy that each moment brings to us. Decide your goal, keep the focus on it, but don't think that achieving the goal would be the only thing that make you happy, rather enjoy the process of reaching toward the goal while living in every moment on the path. A must read you all!

I always have great time updating and posting my recipes here on my space, but more than that I enjoy taking pictures and adding them to my post. Here is one of such pics.

Here is how they look before jumping into pot!

As promised yesterday (my FB followers would know) here is a post while we all await for the election results!

This is a kind of recipe that you can work on while you watch CNN/ MSNBC or any of your fav news channel today. 

Here is what you will need-:

• 1/2 cup organic split peas( it would be great if you can soak them for a couple of hours. If you don't have time you can use them as is.)
• 2 cups of organic vegetable broth
• 2 cups of organic Baby kale
• 1/2 medium onion - chopped
• Garlic- 2-3 cloves
• Extra Virgin Olive oil- 1 tbsp
• All spice- 1 tsp
• Bay Leaf- 1
• Jalapeno- 1 cut into small pieces
• Turmeric- 1 tsp
• Juice of 1/2 lemon
• Paprika- 1-2 tsp
• Herbamare- to taste ( use it instead of salt. If you have never used it before, you should give it a try. It's a sea salt with a nice blend of organic herbs and vegetables)
• Vegetables of your choice- carrots, mushrooms, bok choy etc.
• Water as needed.

Method-:

• In a large pan, put Extra virgin olive oil. After it gets heat up add chopped onion and saute it for a minute and then add the garlic and bay leaf.
• In a minute add turmeric and jalapeno. Then add veggies and saute for about a minute. Add washed soaked split peas. If you haven't soaked them already, take it into account that you might have to cook them longer than if you would have soaked them.
• Add vegetable broth and some water if needed. Bring everything to a boil, lower down the heat and simmer for about 20 minutes until the peas get cooked. 
• Add in the super food- baby kale and mix well. Also add all spice, herbamare to taste and some more water or vegetable broth if it is too thick for a soupy consistency.
• Give a nice mix and let everything come together for 2-3 more minutes.
• If you want you can use a hand blender to puree the soup. Pour a few ladles aside and then puree the remaining soup and mix both together to get a nice consistency. For me I love the heartiness of the soup and like it as is.
• Ladle into a bowl and serve with a crusty bread...YUMM!!!

While the discussion/ polls heat up, ladle yourself a nice hearty bowl of this soup and a bread to go along! Having said that let me go back to the news and hope for the best next 4 years ahead as last 4..:) Fingers crossed!!!

Varanfal/ varanphal (Chakolya)

If you are like me who likes hot one pot meals you will love today's post. This is a great nutritious one pot meal, providing carbs, proteins, fat all in one bowl. Oh Yes, you need good fat to loose fat!

This is a typical maharashtrian dish(Maharashtra- the state where I grew up). Growing up, my mom never made this dish, because no one at my home used to like it. I remember I tasted it at one of my friends home, but didn't like it then. After I got married, my mother in law made this and I fell in love with Varanfal(also known as Chakolya).

As this dish needs a little bit more time than just pressure cooking a simple daal and rice, weeknight is not very ideal for me to cook varanfal. I usually reserve it for the weekend lunch, when all of us enjoy this delicious hot bowl.

Varanfal is nothing but a rolled out roti of whole wheat flour with some spices, cut into squares or diamonds and then dumped into hot dal. Dal is made up of some more different kind of spices and tomatoes. Basically you can visualize it as wheat dumplings in a daal soup. The key is not to roast the roti, just roll it and toss into the daal.

So let's get to the ingredients and then to it's method!

Ingredients-:

For the Dough-:

• Whole wheat flour
• turmeric powder
• Red chilly powder
• Ajwain seeds
• Salt

For the Daal-:

• Cumin seeds
• Mustard Seeds
• Methi seeds
• Curry leaves
• Green chillies
• Turmeric powder
• Chopped garlic
• tamarind pulp
• Jaggery
• Salt to taste
• Oil- peanut/ safflower
• Ghee

Method

• Pressure cook the toor daal and keep it ready
• Add spices for the dough in the whole wheat flour, add water and salt, kneed and keep aside.
• Put some oil or ghee in a big kadai/ pan.
• When oil gets hot add, cumin and mustard seeds and methi seeds
• As they splutter, add asafoetida, curry leaves and chopped garlic.
• Saute for about a minute or so, until the garlic gets nice golden color.
• Add green chillies and pour in the cooked daal that is kept aside.
• Add water and mix well.
• Add chopped tomatoes, red chilly powder, goda masala(kala masala) coriander powder and salt to taste
• Add tamarind paste and jaggery and mix well. Let the daal simmer on low heat.
• Roll the dough by dividing into small sized balls( about the size of a golf ball)

• Roll the ball very thin and then cut into diamond or square shape.

• Drop the squares into the cooking daal.

• After you add the squares/ dumplings adjust the water as desired. The mixture gets thicker as you continue to cook. Add more water, if you feel that it's getting lumpy.
• Mix well, cover and let it simmer for about 10 minutes. Let the dumplings get cooked well.
• Pour into your bowl and garnish with some chopped cilantro and a dollop of ghee on top.

Enjoy the delicious meal!!

Mushroom Barley Soup

Last day of 2011!!  Last post of the year 2011. I am so excited to  end this year with a warm comforting bowl of mushroom barley soup! This one is a perfect blend of vegetables and barley.

You will need-:

1. 1 cup Pearled Barley
2. Olive oil.
3. White button Mushrooms- sliced
4. Celery-  diced
5. Carrot -  chopped into small cubes
6. Tomato-  chopped into small cubes
7. Onion - chopped into small cubes
8. Garlic - minced
9. Low sodium Vegetable broth
10. 1 bay leaf
11. 1 cup water
12. Mint leaves for garnishing
13. Salt to taste
14. Freshly ground black pepper

Here is how you will prepare it-:

Wash the pearled barley in water and drain. In a pan, bring 4 cups of water and 1 cup barley to boil on high. Cover, reduce heat to medium and simmer for about 30-35 minutes. Turn off the heat when the barley becomesoft.

Heat the olive oil in a pan. Add garlic and onions. Cook for about couple of minutes. Add carrots and celery. After about 5 minutes add mushrooms and then tomatoes. Cook until they are tender. Add vegetable broth. Also add 1 cup of water. You can add more broth and water to make the consistency you want your soup to be. Add the bay leaf. At this point you can also add any fresh or dried herbs like thyme, oregano if you like. Simmer for 10 more minutes before adding cooked barley. Mix well, and simmer for 10-15 minutes. Add salt to taste, but remember that the broth you have added also has some salt. Also flavor with some freshly ground black pepper.

Garnish with a pair of mint leaves and serve hot.

Kale and Chickpea (garbanzo beans) stew

My palate recently found that one of delicious tasting greens is Kale.  Kale has a tremendous nutritional value. I steam kale at least twice a week because it's a very easy preparation and it has great cholesterol lowering benefits. I am going to reserve steamed kale as one of my future posts. Let me move on with Kale and chickpea stew.

Stews are my all time favorite. This one in particular, has veggies, protein, fiber and carbs all in one pot. It takes less than 30 minutes to prepare, if you happened to have canned chickpeas on hand.


Makes 4 servings (and by 4, I mean really big servings.)


You are going to need :

• 3/4 bunch of kale 
• 1 1/2 cups of chickpeas/garbanzo beans (soaked overnight, pressure cooked to 3 whistles next morning or a canned variety would work just fine)
• EVOO- about 1 tbsp

• Vegetables- 

Add any veggies you want and in whatever quantities you like. I always make stews when I want to empty my refrigerator. I almost put everything in there. Saturdays are usually planned for stews, because it's a farmers market day. I clean my refrigerator in order to have room for some fresh produce. 

So coming back to the stew. 

Here is a sample of veggies that I added for this stew. 

          Tomatoes

          Mushrooms

          Celery

          Onions

          Green Bell peppers

          Spring Onions

          Potato

          Carrots

          garlic-4 to 5 cloves

          Ginger - few chopped pieces

• Seasoning

         Freshly ground black pepper, 
         Italian seasoning, 
         cumin powder, 
         coriander powder, 
         crushed red chilli flakes 
         Salt to taste.

• Juice of half of lemon and a lemon wedge for garnishing.

Add EVOO to a big pot, and stir in garlic and onions. Add mushroom and tomatoes and sauté them for a couple of minutes. After this point, add all the veggies one by one. The vegetable that takes longer time  to cook will go in first, of course. Add dash of water in between, if you think the veggies are becoming too dry. Cook them for about 5 minutes and then add the chickpeas and then the chopped kale. Add seasonings as per your taste. At this point add black pepper, Italian seasoning, cumin powder, coriander powder, crushed red chilli flakes and last but not the least add some chopped ginger to the pot for some heat. Add salt to taste. 


Add water to the desired consistency. Bring everything to a nice boil and let it simmer for 15- 20 minutes. The longer it sits the better it tastes. Add some lemon juice at the last minute to enhance the flavor. Since I am trying to cut down on grains, this is a perfect stew for me, because it doesn't really need any bread on side. The heartiness from the chickpeas makes the trick..:)


Serve it with a lemon wedge.
Enjoy..:)