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Healthy Lifestyle Change for JULY – Eat whole grain brown rice

1 Jul

Keeping with the theme of consuming more whole grains… it’s better to eat whole grain brown rice than the regular polished white rice because:

  •  It has more nutrients – Vitamin B1, B3, Iron and Magnesium naturally found in the hull of the rice grain
  • It has more fiber – helping you of any constipation issues
  • It is very flavorful
  • It comes is a variety of formats – Basmati, short grain, long grain… just like white rice.

 

All these benefits, yet you prepare it basically the same way you make white rice – you just need to add a bit more water.

 Here’s a few tips:

  • You can purchase whole grain brown rice at any major supermarket – I buy frequently Uncle Ben’s or Mahatma Brands of brown rice.  Lately I have also been purchasing Texmati brown rice, available at health food stores or at Costco.
  • To me it’s easier to make rice in a  rice cooker – but if you are used to making rice in a regular pot, all you need to do is follow these measurements:
    • 3 cups of water x 1 cup of rice
    • When you make more than 1 cup of rice, you add 1 cup of water for each cup of rice + 3 additional cups of water  SEE TABLE
BROWN RICE WATER
1 cup 3 cups
2 cup 5 cups
3 cup 6 cups

 

  • If you’re using a rice cooker, my rule of thumb is to add ALMOST twice the water you would need for regular white rice.
    • Something about Texmati rice… it only needs a bit more than the water you would need for regular white rice.  So it cooks faster than other brown rices.
  • You can make any rice dish you usually make with white rice using whole grain brown rice.

Here a few recipes you can try:

 Provencal Rice

 Arroz Provencal

Spinach Asparagus Casserole

 

Stuffed Bell Peppers

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Cheese Rice Burritos with Roasted Tomatillo Salsa

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Incredible India all over again – Sweets

29 Jun

In my trips to India I have learned Indians love their sweets…  they have great sweet treats for special occasions and for the everyday.  I was only familiar with carrot burfi, something my friend Rosani taught me how to make.  But sweets and desserts in India are very regional, and in my three trips to India, I have yet to encounter a carrot burfi.

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Let’s go from the mundane to the special…  but then again, mundane vs. special is all a matter of taste and perspective.

Something I learned to eat in my first trip to India was rasgulla.  I ate a LOT of these…  These are small balls made from milk and served with sweet syrup.  They’re spongy, chewy and sweet but not overwhelmingly sweet.  We saw many versions of ragulla during our trip – some are pale but some are browned, as if they were fried before they were immersed in the sweet syrup.  Some people loved them to top vanilla ice cream.   I preferred them on their own…    I was also told these can be bought in a tin at any regular supermarket to be brought home – a nice memento from your Indian trip. 

Something we saw quite frequently on our buffets was Halvas – this particular one was Suji Ka Halwa, made with semolina flour.  I loved these because they’re like a dry-out cream of wheat with sugar and spices.  We had several versions that included lentils and other legumes… but they tasted really good and not savory at all.  I searched some recipes on the internet and I am sure my friend Tania and I will be making a few versions of these soon at the Yoga center.

 

Mangoes are abundant in India… when you want a nice boxed juice to cool off, mango is the flavor of choice in India.  Writing this I realized you don’t see them fresh in the streets to be sold.  Hum… something to explore if I ever visit some other time.  And with as much mango juice you see in the streets, this was the first time we ran across a mango sweet treat – aamras.  We had this in Indore – a puree of mango to be eaten alone or, like I did, on top of vanilla ice cream.   This is something we can certainly replicate in any western kitchen… no?

 

We were fortunate enough to celebrate a few special occasions while in India – Annie Mariel’s birthday and the engagement of a young couple in Varanasi our tour guide was friends with the bride’s side.   The staff at our hotel treated Annie Mariel with Gajar Ka Halva, apparently the India version of a birthday cake.  This is made with carrots and nuts  and it was delicious…  I had it with chai masala tea on the side and the piece given to us was so big, some of it made it home to Puerto Rico. 

For the engagement, we were given as a memento Soan Papdi – a flaky dessert with almonds and pistachios.  It looks flaky and when you put a bite in your mouth it just dissolves.  Really good…

 

Hope this gives you a nice glimpse into the vast world of Indian sweets… and when you visit India or just go to a Indian neighborhood you will be adventurous enough to try some of their sweet treats.  Namaste!!

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Pizza Contest – a Canvas for some interesting flavors

14 Jun

For the last few weeks I have been preparing myself for a Pizza Contest being held at our yoga center.  The 1st prize was nice, worth $500 – the entry fee for one of our yoga retreats. And in this economy… that’s a HUGE prize.

There were a few rules we needed to stick by:

  • The crust needed to be wheat-free.  Spelt flour was allowed.
  • If using cheese, it needed to be organic and rennet-free.  Vegan cheeses were allowed.
  • If baking the pizza at home, to make sure nothing had been exposed to any meat-products ever.

Easy enough, right??  NOT!!!  Not when you are a challenged pizza dough maker.  I am a pizza fan, but as you may have seen around this blog, when I make pizza at home, I make it on alternative crusts, namely flatbreads and pita bread.  But I gave myself the opportunity to build the perfect wheat-free crust – crispy on the outside, with certain chew on the inside. Without the need of stand mixers to help me knead…

That’s why I turned my attention to no-knead doughs…  I tried several recipes with NO SUCCESS!!  I tried a recipe from foodwishes.com and a recipe from Paula Deen using the food processor to knead the dough instead of doing it by hand.  I’ll be honest, the foodwishes one was more successful, but not where I wanted it to be.

So I moved my attention to at least try out the toppings recipes – if at least I could get the flavors combinations on point, I knew that the crust issue at some point would be resolved.  I tried out a few tried and true recipes, and then experimented a few of my own.  These were my possible entries into the contest:

A take on the pizza Rosa from Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix Arizona.  People all over brag about how good these pizzas are.  People make lines for them… and believe me I will go there if I ever visit Phoenix…

A simplified version of Co.’s Popeye Pizza

An eggplant pizza I had while in Montevideo, Uruguay – seasoned eggplant on a perfect crust, no cheese, no sauce.

Absolutely delicious.

A white pizza using garlic olive oil, topped with cheese and a few scallions – I got my inspiration from foodwishes.com and I thought it would be easy enough to try it out on the grill, instead of in the oven.  I thought it would give me some edge…

 

Unfortunately, my crust experiment was a BUST and I decided to participate in the contest as a reporter for all of you.  I was not going to put my name on something that I wasn’t completely proud of.  I learned this from my Top Chef /Hell’s Kitchen/Kitchen Nightmares/Iron Chef /Next Food Network Star watching experience…  And it was a shame because at least 4 people, some contestants among them, told me they were really looking forward to my pizzas and that they were even thinking I was a surefire winner if I was participating… apparently my reputation precedes me.

Fortunately, my fellow yoga people did have more success with wheat-free crusts than I did, (or they just have different standards) Anyhow, I want to share with you some of the contest entries and winners:

 1st Prize

Chorizo Pizza by Yazmín Cabrera

This was a true trip back memory lane when we used to eat pizzas with real chorizos.  The oily grease on the bottom of the crust was exactly as the judges remembered it.  The crust is filled with cheese too…

2nd Prize

Stuffed Pizza by Manolo Velazquez

With two crusts filled with delicious goodness – broccoli, scallions, cauliflower, mushrooms… and topped with tomatoes, peppers and lots of cheese.  The judges loved it!!!

 

3rd Prize

Mediterranean Pizza by Mili Ortiz

Even though the crust felt apart when we cut into it, the flavors impressed the judges – onions, peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms, black olives…

4th Prize

Tofu Pizza by Emma Lebrón, who is also Manolo’s mom

This was a true tofu-lovers pizza – using fried tofu, tofu pups, tomatoes and other pizza favorites.

I think it even has potatoes on it.

 

Some notable and interesting mentions…

Cheese Pizza on Rice Flour crust by Angie Cruz

This one was very delicious, but it did not win for being too simple… a hint for next year’s contest, Angie!!!

The Everything Pizza by Carmen Gonzalez

The judges said this felt like a whole meal on top of a pizza crust.  It was a mile-high piled with ingredients such as a border made from tofu dogs, black and red kidney beans puree.

Now you be the judge…    would you like to try some of these winning recipes??  Do you think I stood a chance with any of my planned flavors of pizza??  Which ones do you prefer??  Tell me all about it…

Stay tuned for some of the recipes…

I would like to thank the yoga center, Centro Cultural Yoga Devanand, for allowing me to take pictures and report on this Pizza Contest.  If you live in Puerto Rico, Miami or NYC and you would like more information about the Devanand Yoga Center, please email me at karmafreecooking[at]yahoo[dot]com.

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Incredible India all over again – Street Food and Markets

11 Jun

Whenever I travel, I love going to street markets and supermarkets… I guess it’s a way to learn more about a country and culture.  Learning what and how they eat teaches you a lot about the country you’re visiting. 

 You can see how I have visited markets in Guadalajara, in Paris, even in NYC… but in India, surprisingly I have not visited any markets per se.  Why?  I think because in India, the markets come to you.  Street vendors are EVERYWHERE in India.  No matter the city, even in busy bustling Delhi, you see a food street vendor of some sort.   

In Old Delhi, you have the Chadni Chowk, and all over you see these carts selling lemon water.  They look super refreshing, especially in the April heat, but for us tourists from the Western world these are off-limits.  In India, it’s safer for us to stick to bottled water, even making sure it’s sealed from the manufacturer.  Something that I identify with a lot is the lemons available in India are criollo lemons – the same small ones we have here in Puerto Rico. 

        

 Actually, the produce available all around the streets is very, very similar to what you find here in Puerto Rico… I guess we’re close to the same latitude – you can see coconuts sold for coconut water, sugar cane to get sugar cane water or what we call here in PR, guarapo.  You can also see a lot of regular produce, like oranges, eggplants, melons, green beans, spices… 

   

                                   

 But something you see quite a lot, I mean they’re everywhere, are CUCUMBERS.  They sell them sometimes already peeled so you can eat them right there.  I wouldn’t eat them off the street peeled because the environment in India is filled with dust and dirt from the streets, but apparently people buy them because otherwise there wouldn’t be so many people selling them.  They’re a different variety than what we see here in the Americas.  They’re long and squiggly…

 

 Not food related per se, but once we even bought neem sticks off the streets of Varanasi .  Indians use neem sticks as a natural toothbrush.

 

 

Next time to travel abroad, or even to a different city from yours, make it a point to explore the markets and the street food typical of the place.  I am sure you’ll be able to appreciate a bit more the locals in your travels…

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Incredible India All Over Again – Old and New Favorites

26 May

This is really incredible… I traveled to India once again.  Hey, a palm reader actually told me when we were there about 6 months ago that I would return to India many, many, many times in the future.  One down, God knows how many more to go…

This time I went to India with my yoga center group to attend Kumba Mela 2010 in Haridwar – a spiritual celebration held every 12 years where spiritual masters come down from the Himalayas and all over the world to bathe in the River Ganges at specific very auspicious days.  I feel extremely blessed to have been able to be present for such a special spiritual event.

 In the 3 weeks we were traveling through India we visited a few places we’ve been before – Delhi, Haridwar, Rishikesh, Varanasi… but I also visited a few new places such as Mumbai, Ujjain, Maheshwar, Omkareshwar and Indore.  In doing this, I certainly got the chance to savor some of my favorite Indian delicacies and also discovered some new treasures.

Among the tried and true…

American Airlines does not “disappoint” with their Indian Vegetarian Meals in Coach…  White Rice, paneer in a spicy sauce and stewed chickpeas.  I always eat mainly the rice and paneer, but I have sworn I will never travel to India on Coach.  Business-class is definitely in my future and hopefully better food and better movie choices.

    

Breakfasts are my favorites…  I got to try again chole, without the bhature, and dosas.  My favorite dosa filling is the curry potato filling.  They usually give me the sambar and the chutneys, but I eat the dosa and filling alone like that.

 

 

I also got to drink again my favorite tea, chai masala.  I drank it out of regular cups, and in Varanasi, where I learned to enjoy this delicious tea, I drank it out of the traditional clay disposable cup.  And watching the Varanasi sunrise, this was a real treat.

   

Among the new favorites…

In Maheshwar we got to taste a delicious yet very spicy breakfast – Parathas and Cutlets.  Parathas are a sort of flatbread that can be plain or filled with various vegetables.  The first ones were filled with potatoes and scallions.  Here you can see how parathas are made so flat yet filled with so much deliciousness.  Cutlets are a potato/vegetable fritter…  I explained it to locals as vegetable “alcapurria”.  These cutlets were extremely spicy for my taste, but they were very delicious still.  Don’t they look appetizing and where the heck was the plain yogurt??

     

 Last time I visited India I had a watermelon juice every morning.  Well, this time around the popular flavor was Sweet Lime.  A taste smilar to mixing lemon and orange juice, it was available everywhere and very refreshing.  Maybe this fruit was in season in April…

 

In Haridwar we got to try a few new things…  I learned about uttapam, vegetables cordon blue and pohe.  Uttapam is a rice flour pancake with vegetables.  Definitely a savory pancake, but really, really good. 

      

As you can tell, Indians like their fried foods; very much like us Latins, so probably that’s why I was drawn to these vegetable cordon blues – a vegetable fritter with a creamy, cheesy interior.  

Pohe is a flattened rice dish, often served for breakfast.  Mine looked more like polenta or cooked corn flour than rice, but let’s trust the locals that told me I was eating pohe.  My version had petit pois and I had it with some spicy curried potatoes.  Very spicy indeed.  As you can see, I have to supplement my Indian breakfast with some Western corn flakes and banana…  It was ripe even though it looks green.  Believe me…

 

I am super excited of my recent trip to India… we definitely found much more variety of delicious foods than during my first trip 5 years ago.  Stick around so you can learn more about the delicious and interesting food things I encountered.

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