Sol Kadhi - Savoury Coconut & Kokam Drink

I'm back after a two month silence. Travel, weddings, work, baking and everything else has been keeping my off the computer. If only typing was easier on the phone! I break my silence with the simplest of recipes that is astonishingly delicious.

Solkadhi is a drink made with a fruit called kokam that is used to add sourness to recipes. Someone told me that they spotted kokam at a Whole Foods store in California. I won't be surprised if it is the next next big thing to replace Moringa, Quinoa, Coconut Oil or whatever the latest "Super food" is. It is a simple recipe that is not only vegan but also can be raw and is one of my favourites. It is a traditional Maharashtrian drink that is served chilled after a meal and is a wonderful light pink colour that is very refreshing on a sunny afternoon.

Dried Kokam

I usually make it with freshly pressed coconut milk but you could use the tinned variety too. This recipe also uses raw garlic cloves, but I stay as far away from raw garlic (or onions) as possible. I don't like my breath and my skin smelling of garlic for the next 24 hours. I also add a pinch of Pink Salt or Kala Namak which gives it a mild kick.

Sol Kadhi

Here is what you need:

2 cups of coconut milk

6-8 pieces of dried kokam, soaked in a tiny bit of water for an hour at least

2 small garlic cloves (Optional, I avoid it)

1 Green Chilli Pepper (Mildly Spicy variety)

1 tsp Cumin Powder (Omit this if you want to make it raw)

A pinch of Pink Salt (also known as Kala Namak)

Salt to taste

Coriander leaves to garnish

Blend the Coconut milk, Kokam, garlic, green chilli. Put it through a sieve. Add the rest of the ingredients, chill and serve.

If you are making Coconut milk from scratch then add the soaked kokam fruit pieces to the coconut meat with the rest of the ingredients while grinding with water. After two extractions you can add the rest of the ingredients and chill it.

Stir well before serving.

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Carrot n Coconut Date Squares

It has been too long. Way too long. I don't know where the last three months went by (apart from five weddings and a vacation)  but I'm hoping to keep a tab on the coming months. Thankfully I have no more excuses left to update recipes now, so I hope to do this more often.

I don't ever remember having Date Squares before I made this one. It intrigued me even more when I was planning to make it for a cook along because it sounded so healthy and because I knew I could make it even healthier. I used this recipe from Joy Of Baking as my base and played around with it to make it vegan and healthy. I eliminated wheat from the recipe (though I know sometimes oats can be contaminated with wheat) and also used organic jaggery instead of sugar. The addition of coconut to the base gives it a nice nutty flavour and the carrots are just for added bursts of orange.

I was not so convinced about this recipe until I tried it and I think you should too.

You need:

For the base and crumble:

3 cups Oats powdered

¼ tsp Salt

½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp Cinnamon

½ cup Desiccated Coconut

1 medium carrot grated

½ cup jaggery melted

½ tsp vanilla extract

4 tbsp oil

For the filling:

400gms pitted dates

1/2 cup water

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 tsp orange peel

Preheat your oven to 180

Mix all the dry ingredients for the crumble and then add the wet ingredients. Make it into a thick firm dough.

Boil the dates with ½ cup water for 15 minutes. Make sure it doesn’t burn. Once it cools, blend it into a smooth paste and add more water if required. Add the vanilla and orange peel.

In a square or rectangular baking dish lined with parchment paper, put 2/3rds of the oat mixture and spread evenly. Spread the date mixture on top of it. Crumble the rest of the oat mixture on top of it.

Bake for 45-50 minutes.

It should be a lovely golden brown on top.

In other news, I am on my way to improving my "make a cake look pretty" skills. This is something I made for an order as an engagement cake at The Green Stove. The bottom tier is a Vanilla Sponge with Vegan White chocolate Frosting and the top is all Dark Chocolate. What do you think?

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The 3C Cookie - Coconut, Cinnamon and Candied Orange Peel

It's holiday season all over the world and wedding season in India. Moral of the story- It's time to celebrate! While we don't really do much for Christmas other than start packing our bags to head out for the New Year parties, I wanted to make something 'Christmasy' for my friends in New York. The cookies are on their way as I write this and will be part of the festive season in NY. How I wish I was on my way instead.

In all my cookie making experiences, I have learnt that it is very important to have a good oven to make your cookie. I made these using as many organic ingredients as I could in the lovely shape of a star. It's not common to see cookies other than round or square here, so when I do other shapes it draws a lot of amusing stares. Cookies store so much more better than cakes and it's always fun to make your cookies yourself so you don't end up eating as much as the store bought hydrogenated ones.

This recipe yielded 40 cookies for me, but it depends on how thin you roll out your dough.

You need:

1 and 1/2 cups organic whole wheat flour

1/2 cup dessicated coconut
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup cold pressed oil (any neutral oil)
1/2 plus 2 teaspoons cup organic cane sugar or a any sweetener of your choice
1 tbsp flax seed powder
1 tbsp water
1 teaspoon organic cinnamon
6-7 candies orange peels chopped

Preheat the oven to 175C.

Mix the flax seed powder with the 1tbsp water and set aside.

Mix the rest of the dry ingredients and make a well in the center. The flax seed mix should have become a thick pulp by now. Add that and the rest of the wet ingredients to the mix. Knead and roll out the dough and cut it in any shape you wish. You could even just make them round using a small bowl to cut it out. Poke holes using a fork in every cookie.

Arrange in a tray and put it into a freezer for 5 minutes. Bake for 10-15 minutes till the edges are firm. Remove and let it cool completely for it to firm up.

Don't forget to share some!

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Cashew, Coconut, Cows and Cholesterol

Lets get this straight, Cholesterol is only made by animals (including our own livers) and hence found in animal origin products like milk, butter,curds/yogurt, ghee, cheese, eggs and all kinds of meats (fish is also meat).

When I tell people I make/ eat cheese made with cashews or I use Coconut milk, many times they are baffled about how much cholesterol I am putting into my body. A Vegan diet is absolutely free of cholesterol because it omits anything that comes from an animal.

What baffles me even more is that when I look at dairy product labels, they say it's cholesterol free. I once read the nutrient table on a pack of flavoured yogurt (Go Dahi by Gowardhan Dairy) and I was surprised that the cholesterol content was a nice, big zero. I wrote to them asking how is that possible? Are they actually removing the cholesterol out of milk?! I got a reply saying that milk contains 10mg of cholesterol per 100g and since they only have to list the 'nutritional facts' till the first decimal per 10gms of the product, they are not bound by law to mention how much cholesterol is there in 100gms or 200 gms or whatever the weight of their product.

I don't know how much cholesterol is there in milk. The site promoting the Indian dairy industry states that cows milk has 3.14mg of cholesterol per gram. But it could be wrong since there are many conflicting articles about the amount of cholesterol in milk. All I know is that it has cholesterol and I don't need it.

Anything that comes from plants including plant based oils like peanut and coconut oil, all the nuts like cashews, almonds, peanuts - do NOT have any cholesterol, despite what people tell you. Just ask them to do some reading (which they don't do and continue to believe some crazy things). I don't think that most doctors even remember what cholesterol is anymore, so asking doctors might not be a good idea. But you have to know that oils are highly refined foods and devoid of any nutrition. It is much better to eat some peanuts rather than add peanut oil to your food, that way the food is going into your body with the fiber intact. Oils have zero fiber like all animal products (meat, fish, milk and eggs) and when you consume a diet high in non-fibrous food you are asking for trouble. Many people have successfully reversed heart disease, diabetes and obesity just by eating only fibrous food and omitting all animal products, oils and other refined foods.

Besides the questions and worried looks I get about cholesterol, I also get questions about calcium and protein. I found a good article about cows milk and implications of its consumption here: http://veg.ca/content/view/139/110/

Cholesterol is essential for our body, but our livers make it for us. Many people have been able to lead healthier lives by totally eliminating the cholesterol and the unnecessary saturated fats that are found in all products of animal origin. Plants do contain minuscule amounts of sterols (28gms in about 565 kgs) which are similar in their structure to that of animal origin cholesterol. But no one will ever tell you that the carrot on your plate is going to give you a heart attack.

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