We Need A Cooking Thread :-)

[Nityānanda dāsa]

Ekadasi Muffins

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups buckwheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
3/4 cup natural sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
2 big bananas mashed
3/4 cups milk or almond milk
1/2 cup melted butter (for vegan use Miyoko's as it is Ekadasi friendly)

1 cup nuts or coconut or dried fruit or a combination


Directions

Preheat oven to 350 farenheit.

Mix liquid ingredients with sugar.

Mix the rest of the dry ingredients together.

Mix the liquid and dry ingredients together.

Once mixed, add in the nuts/dried fruit.

Once it's all mixed place 1/3 cup batter into greased muffin tin (or use papers). Bake for 20 minutes.

Makes a baker's dozen (13-14).

Jai Sri Radhe! 🙏🏻

[meeno8]

I don't get it on this one. Either one is fasting from food entirely, or at least from grains, and buckwheat would be a grain, correct? Tapioca, on the other hand... You can get tapioca flour or coconut flour or almond flour, although the texture and flavor will not be the same.

[meeno8]

The secret to crispy pakoras? Ghee in the batter.

Anyone here an export in making kachoris? Found this link, among others, but have not tried it. Then again, I don't own a wok anymore. I would have to use vital wheat gluten, oat fiber and almond flour instead of white flour for a keto version anyways.
www.vegrecipesofindia.com/dal-kachori-recipe/

[Nityānanda dāsa]

Sept 13, 2020 12:14:28 GMT -6 meeno8 said:

I don't get it on this one. Either one is fasting from food entirely, or at least from grains, and buckwheat would be a grain, correct? Tapioca, on the other hand... You can get tapioca flour or coconut flour or almond flour, although the texture and flavor will not be the same.

"Despite its name, buckwheat is not a type of wheat — in fact it's not technically a grain at all! Buckwheat is one of the six pseudo grains that are not part of the Poaceae cereal family but are considered grains due to their similar uses from a culinary and nutritional perspective." From wholegrainscouncil.org

[meeno8]

Tapioca is a root, coconut and almonds are tree nuts.

From Wikipedia:
'Buckwheat is referred to as a pseudocereal because its seeds' culinary use is the same as cereals', owing to their composition of complex carbohydrates.'

I think the underlying superstition about demigods coming to earth in rain and then into rice (and other grains) is what is at play here. So, really, why concern ourselves with a restriction regarding grains for any kind of fasting? To each his own, I suppose. I think fasting from food, and only imbibing water and tea with no cream is the best approach. Nirjal? I think that is too extreme and hard on the kidneys, especially for those of us prone to kidney stones in the first place. For the type of kidney stones I get (calcium oxalate), I have to steer clear of spinach, raspberries, nuts, and a bunch of other fruits and vegetables as far as possible, along with too much calcium from dairy products.

[meeno8]

We have tried a couple cauliflower pizza crusts from the supermarket, and they are good. I have a recipe I found online for a zucchini crust pizza. After we try it out, if it is good, I'll post it here.

[meeno8]

Italian/Indian fusion cuisine recipe (samosa):

www.betterbutter.in/recipe/22359/italian-samosa/

I have created a few fusion recipes in the past based on family recipes on my father's side (Sicilian/Italian). I need to create some based on my mother's side (Polish). Indian pierogi, mainly. Kachori filling is a possibility, in place of potato and cheddar. Maybe cauliflower or eggplant fried in Indian spices.

[meeno8]

Crispy carrot chips:

Slice up some large carrots, as thin as possible and on a slant to get long slices.

Fry in a wok with hot ghee, until crispy. Salt to taste.

Simple, easy, delicious. Goes great with guacamole, sour cream and/or salsa as a dip.

[malati]

Muffins look good, will try the recipe. The last few days I've been baking, french apple cake (more like bread, actually) and peach upside down cake.

I don't use butter anymore because too much of it is not generally good for health. It's full of saturated fat. Any oil that solidifies at room temperature is not good especially for heart health. I use olive oil for many main meals and for baking I use canola or sunflower based margarine.

Meena, it's proven by evidence that the Mediterranean diet is the best diet because it's well balanced and the use of olive oil is central to it. I thought at first that Asian is the best because it most of the time includes vegetables (fiber) but it can be greasy and many Indian recipes use yoghurt and butter which are high in saturated fat.

Though lentils and beans are a very good source of protein for us, we should eat in moderation as they contain uric acid which is one of the causes of kidney stones.

I dont know about kachori, I search a picture of it and it looks like puri, maybe puri is the bengali name for it. I can post a recipe but since I have not done it in years I will cook it first then post the recipe.

[meeno8]

Depends on the type of kidney stones. Mine are the other type, calcium oxalate.

Butter being bad is old pseudo-science. Sunflower based margarine? Sounds like a trans-fat to me, which is about the worst. Olive oil is great at long as it is virgin cold pressed. Otherwise, they use toxic solvents in the processing of it. Vegetable oils are subject to going rancid rapidly. Ghee never does. Saturated fat is not the evil it was once touted with respect to heart health. It is much more the sugar and white rice and wheat flour as factors. These are not just personal opinions. There is a mountain of evidence supporting all of that.

If you are just taking your prasad on a festival day, I don't see an issue with eating anything you like. For the daily diet, eating healthy should be important.

Keep the good recipes coming, so we can make them for our Thakurs. They don't get heart disease or have to watch their weight.

[meeno8]

Bengali kacharis are like balls that are slightly flattened, and you can see the folds. I am suprised you have not partaken of any, Malati, since they are usually part of festivals in India.

[malati]

Sept 21, 2020 13:57:21 GMT -6 meeno8 said:

Depends on the type of kidney stones. Mine are the other type, calcium oxalate.

Butter being bad is old pseudo-science. Sunflower based margarine? Sounds like a trans-fat to me, which is about the worst. Olive oil is great at long as it is virgin cold pressed. Otherwise, they use toxic solvents in the processing of it. Vegetable oils are subject to going rancid rapidly. Ghee never does. Saturated fat is not the evil it was once touted with respect to heart health. It is much more the sugar and white rice and wheat flour as factors. These are not just personal opinions. There is a mountain of evidence supporting all of that.

If you are just taking your prasad on a festival day, I don't see an issue with eating anything you like. For the daily diet, eating healthy should be important.

Keep the good recipes coming, so we can make them for our Thakurs. They don't get heart disease or have to watch their weight.

Butter has much more saturated fat content compared to other fats/oils. Sunflower has almost 90% unsaturated fat. I'm sure you know that moderating our intake of saturated fat reduces our risk to heart diseases. I don't know the health benefit distinctions from different methods of extraction but again it's about a high unsaturated fat content with olive oil compared to other oils.

I'm not going back to the same amount of butter I consumed in the past just because 1,200 years ago people gobbled on butter. Besides I think my ishta deva is more concerned about whether I offer the prasad with love and devotion than what the food stuff is because as you know he can eat with his eyes.

I have no issue with vegetable oil going rancid quickly because we use it regularly and it's a very cheap food item, so I throw it away if it becomes rancid. I know trans-fat is used to keep the shelf life of manufactured food items longer but some margarine don't have it at all or if at all only less than 1% of the margarine or even less.

Not saying it's evil but studies tell us better to consume less saturated fat for which butter has 65% saturated fat. Read medical and food science journals if you don't believe me that it's better to consume more unsaturated fat than saturated.

Of course, very processed food items are not good for health.

I'll have a story to tell but no time to share now. You can beat some of your medical conditions by changing your diet and lifestyle. I'm a testament to that.

[meeno8]

Gary Taubes' Good Calories, Bad Calories.
www.amazon.com/s?k=taubes+good+calories+bad+calories&gclid=CjwKCAjwiaX8BRBZEiwAQQxGx8hBFPYf2qnhYQst1epGkg-cUtC3K3vKywyU17JxzFhev_dciI8qsxoCNE4QAvD_BwE&hvadid=241612145030&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9021768&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=11237429740751971057&hvtargid=kwd-316380208485&hydadcr=15554_10342184&tag=googhydr-20&ref=pd_sl_8igc25lbhk_e

I read it several years ago when it hit the top of the best seller list. He states quite clearly that there has never been an established link between dietary fat and disease. He went through all the studies going all the way back to Banting in the mid 19th century, and has many hundreds of references and citations in the back of the book, which is quite a scholarly tome. Our great grand parents and generations before them did not restrict dietary fat, and the spike in heart disease and diabetes did not come along until the guidelines came along for those so-called 'healthy' low fat diets, as in high carb. Who funded the studies supporting that hypothesis? CocaCola and Kelloggs, among other companies standing to profit at the expense of the health of consumers. Time Magazine a few years after the book came out had this cover: Eat Butter. I can't think of a better message to put out there to counter all that misinformation. My father was immediately put on oral insulin when he had his initial diagnosis of type 2 adult onset diabetes. I was able to reverse mine in less than a month with diet alone, as in cutting out those carbs and going more high fat/high protein.  Albeit weight was a factor, and he was at least 100 pounds heavier than I was, and we were about the same height most of our lives.  My doctor was kind of surprised, not to mention delighted.

On another note, I just got my electric ice cream maker, so I can whip up batches of keto ice cream. It is better quality than what is on the shelves at the super market, for about the same price. Then again, home made tends to be better than store bought, just about all the time, correct? The Thakur Jis will not get sick from sugar, but I am not so lucky. I buy allulose (granulated and liquid) sweetener on Amazon that has no glycemic load whatsoever - zero calories and a glycemic index of zero.  That is how I 'cheat' and still satisfy my sweet tooth occasionally. 2 people in the house and we both fight the 'battle of the bulge', but at least she does not have the diabetes situation going on (at least not yet).

OK, if you have the equipment (if you purchased one of those cheaper models with a bowl you have to freeze ahead of time, you'll get icy results most of the time, so I recommend saving up to buy the better unit that has the refrigeration built into it, and the temperature in the machine gets down to -40 degrees farenheit while the ice cream is being processed.  The commercial portable units run about $600 US, but I got my machine for about $200 US, which I think was a sale price on Amazon):

Ingredients:
4 cups heavy cream
3/4 cup sugar (or 1 cup liquid allulose)
1/2 cup nuts (macadamias, pistachios or almonds, whatever kind of nuts you want), chopped small
1 tbsp vanilla extract (or a few vanilla beans, which are more pricey, and you'll have to prepare those ahead of time rather than just using them right out of the package)

Follow the directions that came with your user manual from the manufacturer of the machine.
As the mixture starts to thicken, toss in the chopped nuts. If it gets too thick, it is about to set up, then it will be too late to add them. If you add them at the beginning, they can jam up the machine, or even worse - damage the blades.

[meeno8]

Now it is just a matter of waiting for that batch of keto pizzelles from Chef Nitai Das Ji.

[Nitaidas]

Oct 16, 2020 15:28:29 GMT -6 meeno8 said:

Now it is just a matter of waiting for that batch of keto pizzelles from Chef Nitai Das Ji.

Sorry bro, we are still in Crestone. Don't have my iron here. I will send them to you and Carol when we are back in Kirksville next month. And I will throw in some rosette to make up for the delay.