damn there are so many food blogs out there

gosh.. I just was browsing out there and practically every person that is cooking has a blog up and they have pictures too.
One good thing out of all this is that .. a lot of recipes will not get lost.. a lot of women who are old and cook old world recipes are managing to leave behind a legacy of cooking for the younger teenagers whose parents only fed them packaged food..these teenagers can now get online and learn cooking from some other older person other than their parents.. there is a worldwide exchange of tastes and practises and I am loving it..
I shall soon contribute to this cookbook world with my own cookbook but not just yet.. but prolly by next year.. till then.. I love the exchange of cooking love that goes on on the internet.

revelling in purple cabbage

judging from the previous blog entry ,which happens to have been my grocery list since i turned vegan.. YOu might notice that there is a lot of different colored veggies
At this point.. I am so in bliss with the harricot beans and the purple cabbage..Oh so crunchy, oh so tasty and a sense of peace pervades if eaten after having cooked them the right way.. Love , love it
As usual, no recipes here..coz a lot of recipe stealers on here , not only steal the recipes , but then proceed to put them on their own blogs and a while later, before you know..they are publishing a book of the recipes that they stole from all over...So yeah.. till i write my own cookbook, all the recipes are under wraps

My vegan Grocery list

Grocery list suggestion for newbie vegans wanting to shop for a vegan meal

here goes people
i turned vegan 5-6 months ago and i have been loving it..I had been wanting to become vegan since the age of 14 and it suddenly happened after so many years.
So, yeah.. as soon as i tell people that i am a Vegan..they raise their eyebrows and say,”Oh, but what exactly does a vegan eat?there is nothing much to eat , don’t ya think?”

And  now, it is my turn to raise an eyebrow..

I bring it to their attention that they themselves are far more vegan 

than they think they actually eat

.. They themselves do eat a lot of vegan food without realizing that is is vegan.

Anways.. to give you a gist of what goes into my vegan cooking..Here is a list of things i purchased when i very recently went grocery shopping
1/Large bag of white rice
2/Small bad of Brown rice
3/Semolina
4/Couscous flour
5/Red lentils
6/yellow lentils
7/green lentils
8/Black lentils
9/Black beans
10/White beans
11/garbanzo beans
12/Noodles-plain whole wheat noodles
13/Rice noodles
14/Soba noodles
15/sphagetti
16/macaroni
17/fusilli
18/unrefined corn flour to make cornbread and to make masse
19/Tapioca pearls
20/Burgul of wheat
21/Aubergine
22/japanese egg plant
23/green and red peppers
24/zuchinni
25/mushrooms-button and oyster
26/broccoli
27/carrots
28/brown sugar
29/refined sugar
30/Chayote squash
31/Yellow pumpkin
32/Japanese lotus root
33/REd kidney beans
34/onions
35/tomato
36/potatoes
37/Sweet potato
38/Garlic
39/Tofu-firm and silken
40/Silk soy milk
41/Silk soy yogurt
43/Tofutti-mozzarella cheese
44/potato flour
45/Rice flour
46/Soy flour
48/Pure dark cocoa powder
50/Dark vegan chocolate
52/Vegan crackers
54/Baking powder
55/pears
56/Apricots
57/Pears
58/Small watermelon
59/naval oranges
60/plain oranges
61/Cabbage
62/Lettuce
63/apples
64/Spinach
65/REd amaranth
66/Picked up all varieties of greens.. one bunch each..
67/Large bag of malt-o-meal breakfast cereal—they have minimal packing and thus environmentally friendly
68/Avocados
69/jalapenos
70/Mustard seeds
71/Cinnamon bark
72/cloves
74/Nutmeg
75/Fennel
76/Cinnamon
77/Paprika
78/Cayenne pepper
79/Tamarind
80/Iodized salt
82/Mixed dried Italian herbs
83/Cilantro
84/Red cabbage
85/Rodicchio
86/Persimmons
87/Dark grapes
88/Grean beans
89/Cluster beans
I forget a few other things i bought
90/lemon grass
91/Sesame seeds
92/Rice bran oil
So yeah..I am pretty sure , all of you buy all the above and then perhaps purchase a piece of some dead slaghtered animals leg or hand or thighs or heart… along with all the above..
And i guess.. dontcha think, you are more vegan than you actually give yourself credit for ?
I promise i can cook around 120-250 dishes with just the ingredients i bought
yeah, i also bought
93/corn cobs
94/pimento
This article was originally created on dec 19,2008 and slightly modified as on jan 12.2009

Lost taste for coffee-Coffee the vice of the vegans

I recently turned vegan from having been vegetarian all my life.
so yes, coffee was one vice that transcended into my vegan life from my vegetarian life.. Coffee was one external drug like stimulant my strict ethical lifestyle permitted..
So last week when i got real sick.. the antibiotics kinda made lose all taste.... I mean.. I lost my craving for coffee altogether.. and the smell of coffee started making me sick..
I figured that the metronidazole was doing the trick of altering taste but looks like even after days of getting off the drugs.. I still havent regained my coffee liking... I am thrilled by this development..
I always used to be scared , I do depend on coffee each morning..Mind you, I am no coffee guzzler ever. it would mostly be only a cup or two per day.. but then that one cup in the morning i surely needed..
So yes, this new found aversion to coffee has actually improved my self esteem.. I made me realize that i can start off a day without coffee and not feel a loss..Yay for Antibiotic induced pica which caused this coffee aversion..Makes me feel less of a dependant..LOL

Broccoli-My love

I had some broccoli craving...You might start wondering, "Does anyone actually even crave broccoli?"
you know what, you do .. people do .. people who know how to prepare broccoli well, end up missing it if they haven't had it for long.
A wonderfully light steamed broccoli with a touch of salt is so soothing when you want humble food .
Many of you might not be a fan of broccoli prepared the above mentioned way.
For you guys, may i suggest, slightly sauteed broccoli which has been chopped real fine(please use the cleaned and rinsed stems too along with the florets).. and suatee in sunflower oil or peanut oil if you please with chopped garlic and salt..You can eat it as a side with freshly steamed white rice.. oh so goooddd.
OH so goooooooooooooooooooood.

craving for deep fried foods

All last week and the week before that ,I had a sever deep fried food craving.I have also a peculiar issue.. If i eat something oily, within two hours, the fat is already in my blood and then starts getting secreted on my facial glands. Ya know. could be some type of LDL receptor shortage coz of which , none of that fat that gets absorbed gets taken up ty the tissues or whatever..
Anyways..then i get some acne due to all that oily skin.
I fare best therefore with not eating that much of oily food.Either ways. I like the taste and texture of steamed or shallow fried foods better..more mellow and more light to eat.
But then, the last two weeks.. I have been studying hard for an upcoming test and i guess the brain was seriously and severely forming a lot of synapses as part of informatiion processing and memory storage and well,, the brain needs a lot of fats to function right..(not lot as in obesity fat, but the right amount of fats) ..the more and more i studied, the more and more , the brain started using a lot of glucose.. and perhaps the synapse formation also called for more fat in the diet.
This is where the fatty food craving started. I started thinking of deep fried tofu, churrios,, deep fried sweet potatoes and what not..
finally . once i have a craving, i go for.A craving could sometimes be our body's way of asking for a particular type of nutrient that it is needing .
I made all the deep fried stuff i was crying( i hate standing in front of a smoky oily wok and deep frying stuff-i hate the smoke of oil) ..but i made all of them and ate bowl after bowl of this and that of fried foods...I had some oily face days too..but i continued on my pigging on fried foods till finally one day..i felt satisfied.. now the craving is done. it is fine.. I am not any fatter but i guess my overworking brain needed that fat .. so i gave it that ...
Ofcourse i never went and bought deep friend stuff from outside..I took the time to make it all myself.
Moral of story?
If you crave something.. As long as it is vegetarian ...just go for it for a few days..indulge
be vegan but go ahead and have your quota of oils..the body does need them for a variety of metabolic pathways necessary for the health of our nervous system

Addictive substances in Processed foods

Given the fact that really feel like puking each time i take something out of a pack full of processed foods and daring to eat it.. I am surpised that i constantly going back and buying this shortbread cookies with lemon creme over and over again...yeah btw,, they are vegann..the ingredients have all vegetarian ingredients(most cookies end up with milk solids and such for some reason, give the fact that when we make cookies at home, we really don't add any milk solids..or is it that they refer to butter as milk solids ? whatever )
I do think that some kind of addictive substances are added either intentionally or unintentionally ( as in they add certain preservatives or colors for a whole other reason and these additives infact also have undiscovered or unresearched addictive properties too)
for sure Coke and pepsi and other sodas definitely are full of chemicals and for someone who doesn't drink them for a good two months and then attempts to drink them after a gap..the chemical taste comes across immediately...So , given the fact that Gatorade and pepsi and vitamin water taste like crap, why do people drink and drink and drink them somemore?It is the additives, they are addictive ..FOR SURE

UNhealthy cravings-super processed lemon creme short bread crackers

Gosh..I just have no idea why i have been doing this the past three days..I dunked down a large bottle of fizzed coke over two days and each time i drank a tumbler of it ..it burns my gullet( that says how much my mucosa is not dead that it is able to recognize chemicals and send the signals to my brain) and yeah..I ate a whole box of lemon creme filled tea crackers...I mean..I could literally taste the chemicals with each bite-that happens when you have been eating good natural tasty foods all along..Your palate gets to know the difference between chemicals and real food ...But yet..I kept chomping down the chemicals ,,I think as a self destructive challenge that i bestowed upon myself.Seriously..Now i am done..I desperately need to drink some real pure water and ofcourse, need some cucumber carrot salad to make myself better.
I did eat a large bowl full of salad yesterday after all that suicidal coke drinking.
I cannot cannot believe that people actually just drink this crap day in and day out..I did notice that after my first large bottle,, I was automatically reaching out for coke even though it burnt my foodpipe each time i drank it..I was starting to think , what addictive substances must they add that people keep drinking this stuff though it obvioiusly tasted like chemical water that sizzles the teeth ..I could literally feel the leeching effect of these corrosive liquids..Either ways..I am done.. Can't have these processed food for months..I am done..I am done.

Cluster-Soft drinks and Alcohol don't quench Thirst

I drank coke or was it pepsi today after almost four years..I just wanted to remind myself how bad it tastes..LOL
I mean seriously, i was shocked when some bloggers actually confessed that they never drink water..All they drink is soda or fizzed drinks..And I was like...whoa...Total liver and kidney torture..Seriously
I have noticed that people think that alchohol or soft fizzed drinks are drinks appropriate to quench thirst..The body is thirsty coz it needs water..It needs water coz it needs the water to dilute the toxins and remove them from the body ...So, water essentially is the medium to remove these toxins from the body..When the body is thirsty, it obviously doesn't have enough excess water to dissolve all the toxins waiting to be sent out from the body..Now, soft drinks have water with added toxins..so , all you are doing when you drink a fizzed soda when you are thirsty is increase the toxin levels further ..It is like using really dirty water to clean a dirty surface...YOu need to use clean water to clean a dirty surface, right?Also, infact, alchohol is a diuretic,, so it actually makes you lose the very little water that the body is hanging on to while it is on a toxin overload...
So the next time you are thirsty, please drink either warm or cold pure clean water..There is no place for fizz or alchohol when the body is drying for some real water.

Whole grains are better than processed cereals for breakfast

Use of whole cereals to make breakfast items is a far better idea than buying boxed cereals with too much of added colors and too much of processed foods and too much of added sugars.
A great vegan breakfast choice is whole grain muesli which yours so truly vegan aspirant doc made a week ago and has loved every day of breakfast since then .
I am not giving out any recipes on here on a blog..Afterall , there is already too many foodbloggers, stealing recipes off of other foodbloggers who are inturn stealing off the recipes from yet another foodblogger and there is absolutely no place for ORIGINAL RECIPE CREATERS ON THE FOOD BLOGGER SCENE HERE.You will feel robbed and your copyright clause repeatedly violated and abused if you are an original who creates recipes out of the blue.You can on the other hand take credits and accolades and never feel abused if you are yet another recipe stealer posing as an enterprising foodblogger.Ya know!.It is the time and day of people who consume and regurgitate recipes already out there written by some less known obscure food bloggers.It is the age of stealers and faking thugs.what can one say?
I would btw, suggest use of a variety of whole grain cereals, for making the meusli.Cereals are great sources of complex proteins and complex carbohydrates with tons of natural fiber thrown in , which essentially is what constitutes an ideal breakfast item.Many lesser knows and less frequently used cereals and millets are such rich sources of minerals that they would add nutritive value to this vegan diet.
All those packaged breakfast bars have so much of preservatives and additives that most of them end up giving me reflux esophagitis and gastritis and not to mention, the higher incidence of ADD in kids..I mean..they eat crap and chemicals each morning and they have tiny liv'ers which can't take the onslaught of such large amount of chemicals, NO wonder they have allergies and ADD and nutritional deficiencies.
Lazy ass parents who hate having to take care of kids just end up taking things out of packages and think they are doing their job.Come on, if you didn't have it in your to take care of kids, you should not have focked around to produce kids in the first place.But now that you have biologically done something to be responsible for their birth, do them a favor and give them some good food.Give then natural foods.
I have seen a lot of parents, who complain about how tough it is to be a parent and all i see them doing is , opening up packages and pour out the already prepared food onto the kids plates...And ofcourse these kids are going to end up with obesity problems not to mention ADD and psychiatric problems.What else can they expect ?HMmm

Homemade soy yogurt rocks

yeah, yeah, I made the soy yogurt myself from homemade soymilk..Yeah, yeah, i made the soymilk myself(didnt use a soymilk maker either--I did the original authentic muslin cloth technique)..
And then ofcourse, typical of my style..Made some rich cocoa flavored soyyogurt...It rocks..Tastier than any yogurt i have ever eaten so far..It is so soothing too.yay to me

primate hunting a flamingo and Leonardo Da Vinci

Leonardo Da vinci is one of those people who i think was the most talented man of his time.The heck, i think he IS the most talented man of all time.
It was gratifying to know that he was a vegetarian ..Great ! Smart people think alike and make their own smart decisions about what is the right matter to eat.
yours truly is finally trying to become vegan .I am kinda already vegan having given up eggs for two whole months now.
Either ways more about Leonardo Da vinci on my POETRY AND PROSE BLOG at a later point of time.
Meanwhile, i think, i saw on TV just yesterday, this primate agressively go after a flamingo's neck. I am trying hard to find out the name of the primate,not a gorilla, not a chimpanzee..perhaps a baboon? perhaps..It had the largest canine teeth that i had ever seen in any primate and it looked like it was in a drug induced maniacal frenzy..seriously! It scurried around this group of flamingo birds near the water(what the heck was this animal doing near water anyways?) and suddenly charged at the neck of one flamingo.
Gosh ! that was horrifying.Almost all primates are herbivores and fruitivores for 99% of times.It is only very rarely that they resort to killing another animal.You see, we are not naturally physically designed to hunt with bare hands.we don't have heavy paws and large claws like the real carnivores. Meat is a very acquired diet pattern of man which perhaps became a practice only after man learned to make instruments to hunt.
With the cute lil hands that man has, all he can do naturally is pluck fruit..seriously !

Tofu cravings

I know , I know, started off this cookblog saying all bad things about how chalky tasting tofu is and such..
But now,i rediscovered tofu...The trick is draining the water off, marinating it with different tastes and such..More than anything, I happened to eat stif fry tofu at a very very authentic chinese place and maaaan..that tofu stir fry sure had wonderful texture and great taste.
fried tofu changes the texture..the texture now is what got me hooked and from time to time, i end up having the fried tofu cravings..seriously..Somebody make me some very good hot fried tofu and gimme some saki flavored soy sauce to go with it..yum

Nutty Biscotti and Nutty coffee !

I like the concept of Biscotti.The nuttier the bisocotti the better.I would always choose a biscotti over a cookie..esp the American cookie coz they seem very undercooked to me.It almost always feels like they could have done with a lil bit more time in the oven so that they would go crispy and not so cookie doughish still.
Anyways, biscotti suits my palate in the texture and taste department coz it is rich and denser than a cracker but yet crunchy enough and yes, it is rustic in some way.
To me, the nuttier the biscotti the better.It adds an alternative bite , alternative type of crunch amidst that hardy crunch of the biscotti persay.
Having said that, now the deal in question here is, I made this hardy nutty rustic vegan biscotti(no soy involved-no earthbalance or other processed stuff involved)..I am slowly at drifting towards becoming a non soy, non fake meat vegan from a previously ovolactovegetarian-Never eaten any meat in my life thanks to my parents who never made meat at home except the accidental serving and chomping on calamari one time and another time, found chicken bits in my suppossedly mushroom mayo sandwich.I was so hungry too ,, but for a person who has never eaten meat, the texture of meat fibers comes out as bad and not natural(too soft ).Not to deliberately gross anyone out , but trust me, if some muscle of human body is adequately cooked and put in a mayo sandwich it might easily pass off as chicken or lamb, coz the muscle fibers are essentially the same.Which is exactly why, meat is not our natural diet at all.
Anyways coming back to this pleasant topic of biscotti, i made this rustic chocolate biscotti with no egg and no milk and no soy and no earthbalance( i am quite sceptic about using foods that utilize rarely found products coz we risk exhausting these commodities-we would rather choose readily available products to substitute butter rather than use something that is so less produced that if at all everyone on earth chose to eat it, we won't be able to keep up the production needs enough to match the needs-so sugar is just okay for me, oil too-we can do wonders with just oil and no earthbalance.I see this earthbalance craze amongst vegans nowadays and as a physician i have to insist that it is not a great idea.More about it on another blog , k?)
Gosh, why do i digress?
Biscotti, nutty, chocolate, vegan..and i made it at home .It was great.And i had nutty coffee with it.
NOw , now, what does nutty coffee mean?Well, if the coffee bean is roasted a lil bit more before it is grinded, it gives out a roasted coffee,,, a not so as much as burnt, but over roasted taste..That kinda taste sometimes works very well with biscotti.
So, i made the coffee, i made the biscotti, it was good.Happy times just after waking up .

The glory of Dark Chocolate/Bitter chocolate

What exactly is bitter chocolate?..Well ! It is cocoa nut paste in its purer form..where the butter it has got is the cocoa butter in more or less its natural percentage and with not that much of added sugar.You must understand that cocoa paste is very bitter, so, unless any sugar is added to it, It will remain bitter and may not be edible as a chocolate bar or a snack.Cocoa does have natural butters aka the cocoa butter.Natural cocoa paste has a different percentage of cocoa butter in it from what the actuall cooking chocolate has.Any chocolate bar irrespective of whether it is cooking chocolate bar or eating chocolate bar, essentially has a different percentage of butter and cocoa from natural cocoa bean paste.That is because, cocoa paste is first sepearated to its cocoa powder and cocoa butter components first and packaged off for seperate use.While making the chocolate bars, these ingredients are remixed again in a different proportion and packaged.Cooking chocolate has re added cocoa butter in a different percentage so that the chocolate bar is more stable at room temperature.
Now that i have given a simple insight into food chemistry and food technology, let us get back to bitter chocolate.
Pure cocoa has considerable amounts of caffeine which is deemed a stimulant.It also had a lil bit of other substances which are stimulant in some way too.Cocoa also is deemed to be cardioprotective too. It could be by virtue of the caffeine per say or by virtue of the other substances which are antioxidants .
Having said that, lot of people mistake milk chocolate to be beneficial to the heart and such.WEll, milk chocolate or the other commercially available edible not so dark chocolates have very high quantities of refined sugar in them, not to mention the added preservatives since milk has been added to make the milk chocolate and will go bad if there are no preservatives..The percentage of original cocoa butter is not as high as there is substitution with added animal milk butter instead of the cocoa butter in milk chocolate.So, milk chocolate is not healthy.
Bitter or dark chocolate in comparison is definitely healthier .Dark chocolate has a rather aquired taste appeal though.It is bitter and sometimes if it almost 80% cocoa, it is medicinal tasting to some palates ..LOL..but i am a great fan of Bitter chocolate,,Love it to death.

Rice and lentils cooked in a pressure cooker-Ultimate comfort food

Firstly, well made fluffed up rice with a bowl of cooked lentils with just a lil bit of salt ..That is all it takes to feel that comfort..It is soul food.
Never overspice your lentils.Ofcourse, if you are in a mood to spice up things, go ahead and do so , but if you are looking for soothing food on a rainy day, just good bowl of rice with a good smaller cup of semi thick semi mashed boiled lentils with just enough salt in it is the best.
The trick is to cook the lentils in pressure cookers.I know, I know, the concept of pressure inside a cooking pot scares the bonkers out of people who have never attempted cooking things in a pressure cooker.Pressure cookers are available for sale on Amazon and other places.Never open the pressure cooker till the steam settles down. Follow safety precautions and you have a very reliable gadget that not only cooks lentils and beans in a jiffy and here i mean, just ten min or fifteen tops...and it saves energy too.
When you choose lentils to go with rice, choose, red lentils or the yellow ones..These lentils are available dry at an African or Indian or Middle easter grocery store.It is dry packaged..All you need to do is rinse and pressure cook.No soaking required.there ya go.I actually gave you a whole recipe on my blog.I am deliberately trying not to post any of my own recipes on net coz every other stay at home person goes around fishing for recipes on the net and before you know..she is making adaptations of your recipes and then put it up on her foodblog and then the blog has ads on them too..Come on,,these people want to make money of someone else's recipes..Sharing recipes even if they are not your own is still acceptable , but making money off someone else's recipes is a bit too much.Anyways...there are always going to be mediocre followers who still want all the accolades an original would deserve..People are desperately greedy like that.

Bagel heaven and that winter morning deck

Wow... I had to think for a moment to realize what the right spelling of heavan is ..heaven..heavan..whao..some frontal injury acting up?
what ! freaks me out
Either ways.. I thought of po boys the other day.speaking of which( i secretely hope that not one single person is reading this blog at this moment ..i just want to update the blog each day without standing the danger of someone reading anything from here and yet though, i still want to have the blog public..LOL)
yeah, Bagels !..Very good breakfast for vegans...ofcourse some bagles use egg and such..but home made eggless bagels just are great and work great esp with the myriad of flavor variations, sweet and savoury that one can indulge in while making them and then freeze them and voila...each day.. a large cup of wonderfully aromatic cafe au lait(soy milk in this case) and a large bagel just warmed up and made into pieces by hands and dunked in the coffee and eaten..
Warmth is comforting in winters and soft warm bagels dunked in aromatic coffee and then straight into the mouth is absolutely worth it..worth it ,bigtime!
I made bagels..fourteen bagels ...or sixteen i think..or seventeen..seventeen..yes..9 savoury, 8 sweet ...yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Speaking of Bagel breakfasts,, I remember that one day, when i went in the earliest of one of the winter november days, and went to this starbucks that had an upstairs deck of sorts and it was so cold with the sunlight just starting to fall there and i dared to sit there outside while everyone else sat inside..Ofcourse, i had a black hoodie to help me out in the cold.. i sat there..dunked my warmed up onion bagel in my large pumpkin spice latte and looking onto the ever too familiar downtown streets...it was strangely calming, but well ! i hadn't slept all previous night..so it was not really all that fresh ..but that one breakfast was kinda gratifying and memorable...hmmmmmmm..SEriously ! i just went into an emotional tangential thought process just now..
Just incase that there is a rare possibility that someone is reading all this..Please leave a comment for me ..even if you are using a secret anonymous id to do so ...I just want to know if anyone is reading this .
p.s: Looks like there are a lot of readers to this blog of mine..come on, people, don't lurk, please comment.It is surprising that so many read the blog , but don't leave a comment.Come on.

Comfort food !The large Veggie-po boy and steamed veggies



I WROTE THE BLOG ENTRY IN 2008 ABOUT A 2007 PO BOY  .USED MEMORY RECALL TO LIST THE INGREDIENTS WHEN I WROTE THE BLOG.VERY RECENTLY I WENT AND SEARCHED MY PHOTO ALBUMS AND FISHED THIS PICTURE OUT AND POSTED IT TO THIS ENTRY IN 2012.



The fact that i mention veggies and comfort food in the same sentence, might surprise many , primarily because veggies are viewed by many as this food you eat to stay healthy but invariably is not going to be tasty ever.

This is a misconception since veggies are the tastiest .If you have not already killed the taste buds with pure refined foods , which have less complicated tastes, since mostly they ride high on pure sugar or pure salt...

pure SALT and pure sugar ARE BASIC tastes that the taste buds recongnize .

When you eat food high in either salt or sugar the taste buds are so flooded with just sugar or salt, they forget or are unable to sample and  to appreciate the more sophisticated combinations of flavors found in fresh natural foods, which consist of very little of sugar and salt and more of associated tastes from other components found in the fresh natural foods.

Appreciation of food also includes visual sensory inputs and the smell related inputs as well

People who shove in large amounts of food loaded with salt and sugar and then gobble them up are not giving enough time to let all of  the sensory organs/receptors experience things and then send out satisfactory happy signals .

Instead these FOOD SHOVELERS rely on just this satisfactory signal that goes to the brain when it senses food going down the gullet and when it senses a stretch from the stomach when it is full or overstuffed..hmmmm

We have stretch receptors in the Gastrointestinal system esp the stomach that send happy signals when stretched, as in, telling the brain that our belly is filling with FOOD!

COMING BACK TO TOPIC ON HAND,

So yeah , my ultimate comfort food is when 

a/I can eat unprocessed food ,

b/feel the myriad of natural  tastes AND

c/be  not overpowered by spices or sugar or salt .and

 that happens when I eat fresh steamed veggies very very lightly salted and well.

It is such a heaven...It is so light..feels perfect.

I once ate a large veggie po boy at a restaurant ( I DON'T EAT OUT OFTEN, so this is a rare occurance and blog worthy? k?) and when I was asked to order a side, I ended up ordering , steamed veggies too,coz when I get overly hungry ,I end up craving juicy steamed food ...

bulky

 filling

and yet light ,,

 very revigorating...

SO,after placing my order at the counter,

I sat there waiting for the order to be ready and ended up taking pictures ,of the pictures they had up on the restaurant walls

Took pictures of tables and chairs and myself(self timer pics)

Finally,after all this picture taking much to the amusement of the regulars and the staff who possibly were wondering as to what I found so PICTURE WORTHY at this deli, the sandwich plate arrived.It didn't arrive, they called out my name and i went and picked it up at the counter..A large oval plate :))

A large po boy, fresh bread roll, slit in the center.

They hadn't cooked the cucumber and mushrooms and spinach that they had used to fill up the po boy-

I am not sure if there was cheese ,but they had jalapenos, fresh spinach, fresh mushrooms and tomatoes and cucumber, none of them blanched or cooked...

All laid  out on the po boy like a colorfest

Accompanying this  po boy was a very tiny ceramic bowl ,a white one filled with brocolli and some other veggies -carrots..yeah,carrots,steamed and very very lightly salted.

I was so hungry by then,I just shoved the po boy into the mouth and ate like crazy(again much to the amusement of the other regular eaters there)

Then i proceeded to eat the steamed veggies .GULP,CHOMP,CHOMP.Then some water...GULP

Finally!! heaven.!!LOL.

I know.

I used to be a great mac and cheese fan way back in 2004.It used to be a great comfort food for me,but now...now in 2007,I like the po boy better in comparison.

Going Fig crazy

What is more satisfying than fresh figs chilled overnight..Figs, yes..the fresher variety--not the dried ones..the fresh ones are green and pinkish on the outside with the thinnest parchment like covering with tiny cruncy individual units(which are actually are a series of fruits on their own ) the inside pink flesh gives you a million crunchy bites in one bite..
Anyways..had a great time..watching the skies and drinking coffee from a humungous large large coffee cup and then chomping on fresh figs till only the green stalk remains.

Musing over rhubarb

I have been having post dinner sugar cravings for almost a week now...far too lazy to make some dessert,,,primarily coz the kitchen is a mess.and i would have to clean the kitchen before i can get some counter space to creat a dessert...I could create some chocolate mouse( the very tasty vegan non gelatin mouusse which tastes better that the gelatin cow's milk variety) ...but very very lazy..someone clean the kitchen..some please clean the kitchen..
I suddenly was thinking of rhubarb for some reason....the fact that some stalks can be thick , juicy, sweet and succulent..so perfect..!
I need to clean the kitchen.

Alec Baldwin and Ian wright-Irish vegetarian pride.

I like each of them for a different reason
Firstly,I think Alec Baldwin is a very handsome guy. He is what, 40 plus now?He is chubby too and yet is very handsome.Trust me , I have no fancy for people much older than me,nor do I have fancy for chubby people .So, ofcourse, i don't lust for this old man.But ofcourse, i think he is really handsome.
Infact the whole of the Baldwin family has managed to look good somehow.This could have happenned only if there was some kind of severe inbreeding between similarly looking and similarly ridiculously goodlooking people..NM. that...
I like Alec Baldwin now even more coz i got to know he is a vegetarian...Very very very nice.I saw him on the meat.org video..Meet your meat...hmmmmm
Either ways I recently warmed up to him because of him getting  bashed  because he left a stressed out message for his daugther coz she missed out on his call .hmmmmmmm.(2012 update:There is a whole underlying psychiatric and sociological issue that I would discuss when it comes to divorced couples and child custody.this blog I WILL POST on my ANTIDOTE TO ANGER BLOG as a separate blog entry soon)
Anyways, Now coming to Ian wright..of the Lonely planet, Globe trekker fame...I love love love him...Ofcourse, i never knew that the lines these tv travellers belt out are all scripted and is not part of what they speak out spontaneously...Anways,,I find that he really has the sould of a true traveller, no preformed ideas about people or places, NO prejuidices, will almost try anything with a real open mind (not pretending to having one, but actually having a real open mind)..I was most surprised to learn very recently that he actually is a vegetarian too..Yay..I was jumping up and down...I mean..He just tries eating anything and everything and travels to all those 'difficult to manage' places(places which those rosy hotel travelling travel hosts would flatly refuse to go to ) and eats goat eyes and testicles of all sorts and places..and he does it just for the show inspite of him being a vegetarian..wow..that sorta defeats the purpose in a way..but hey, i was pleasantly surprised to learn that he is a vegetarian..Made me warm up to him a lil more , if hadn't warmed up enough already...
Yours truly is a vegetarian,,Yours truly is unbashedly self confessingly goodlooking too and yours truly is a true traveller too..so..yours truly now extends her hugs to both alec baldwin and Ian wright..YOu guys rock...Incidentally both alec and Ian are Irish..aren't they?Alec is...I think Ian is too.Ya for Irish vegetarian pride.

SEP 2012 UPDATE

The above original blog entry was written sometime in 2009.It is 2012 now.3 years down the line.I am equipped with more information on this topic and on these people.I am updating this blog entry just to correct some POSSIBLE INACCURACIES that might have creeped into the older entry.
First off, From what I gather, Ian wright of the lonely planet/globe trekker IS NOT a vegetarian..He also is a smoker(much to my disapproval).The smoking explains his really bad teeth , maybe?
Ian wright also went ahead and started his own production company called ROAST BEEF PRODUCTIONS in the recent past,which produced this TVseries called INVITE MR.WRIGHT.Did I like it? well, they were okay, but not so "spectacularly-capturing my imagination" like those LONELY PLANET programs  did .
Anyways, returning to ALEC BALDWIN..Again,not really sure if he is a vegetarian...I have seen him on the KNOW YOUR MEAT series.But see, these days,even meat eaters get contacted by peta to promote vegetarianism,which is ironic and stupid and overall a joke.so yeah.whateva!
I recently saw alec baldwin on the emmy's of 2012...and well, he HAS GOTTEN THINNER and in the process LESS CUTER
Funny that!
Funny how some people look really raw in their young years and in their middle age with the added chubbiness to their face, they start looking cuter and cuddlier.I mean.one would assume that alec would start looking handsomer once he managed to get thinner  after how fat he was in 30ROCK(which btw is another series that saw its last season-that is what I gathered from what tina fey said at the emmy red carpet, anyways)..but he got thinner and I saw him on the emmy 2012 telecast and NOT SO HANDSOME as his chubby self..why?oh , why!
So yeah..there goes my update.btw..Not really sure if Ian is irish or british..alec is probably of irish descent but american.duh!

Addressing Vit B 12 deficiency concerns in veganism

Please note that i initially posted this entry on my 43things under the goal of BECOME VEGAN , just for the benefit of fellow vegetarians aspiring to be vegans.
I just decided to repost that entry here for the benefit of the readers here on blogger too .
Here goes the entry:
Firstly, no matter what source, the actual source of the vit B12 are the bacteria.Since farm animals tend to eat foods already rich in Vit B 12 ,primarily because they eat feed contaminated with bacteria that have already produced Vit B12 while in the feed, this vit B12 then gets concentrated in the body parts.Meat is essentially body parts of other animals .Also, it takes an average of 20 years for any type of Vit B 12 deficiency symptoms to manifest since most Vit B12 already present in our body is constantly reabsorbed.So ,technically, if i become vegan now, i might get megaloblastic anemia due to vit B 12 deficiency in 20years.Also, bacteria in our own intestines are perfectly capable of synthesizing Vit B12.Though most of it might not get absorbed,a little of it does get absorbed.This miniscule absorption might on a long consistent basis prevent development of any deficiency per say.Some soy fermented products are claimed to have Vit B12 analogues , which some say might help with preventing deficiency while some others claim might actually hasten development of a deficiency scenario since these analogues compete with the actualy vit B12 which essentially is cyanomcobalamine and thus lead to development of anemia.I am not buying this story of how veganism must cause deficiency syndrome since, I AM VERY VERY SURE THAT NATURE DIDNT INTEND US TO DEPEND ON SOME OTHER ANIMAL'S MILK OR EGGS AT ALL.I did a two years of college in food and nutrition before i started my med school.So, trust me, these entries are being made after being well informed.More info coming up on Vit B12 deficiency soon, as and when I get time and manage to gather up more concrete info on this.Ideally, we should not be needing to grind Vit B12 tablets in our vegan soymilk to make sure we dont end up with deficiencies.I am pretty sure there are plant or bacterial sources.

My Daily veggie fix

I tend to need a daily veggie fix.
I am sure some of you have this daily food craving wherein, you have to have a particular food item at atleast one meal for you to feel the bliss.
Most people tend to get their fix from potatoes or meat or some such.
For me, I need a large serving of veggies ,Fresh and juicy and crunchy and filling.
On any given day ,If i don't manage to include that amount of veggie goodness, I just feel that the meal had been incomplete.
Trust me, this is really true.
I have a craving for fresh juicy fiber filled stuff.
hmmmmmm.Do let me know if you suffer from such similar cravings.

Vegetarian alternatives for Gelatin

Let us start with, WHAT IS GELATIN?
It is melted animal bones and skin which is dried and packed in powder or sheet form. which is usually used as a thickening or setting agent with an aim to give a jelly like or a boingy texture to the finished product.

Next question.
What products usually contain Gelatin?
Well, anything that has that chewy jelly like texture might possibly but not necessarily contain Gelatin.Some examples would be jelly crystals or fruit jelly, Jello,Gummie bears,chewy fruit jellies,mouse,mousecake,marshmallows, anything that needs to be set.

Next step would be
I am a vegetarian and am looking to avoid gelatin while preparing recipes that call for setting.Please give me vegetarian replacements for Gelatin
Believe it or not , there are a lot of natural substances that work wonderfully as replacements.
If you are making jams or jellies and want things to set, you could use PECTIN crystals or fruits that contain pectin.Pectin helps achieve a far superior 'melt in the mouth' texture for the finished product.Just use the right amount.The more amount of pectin crytals you use for a given amount, the more set the finished product would be.
If you are making mousse , using agar agar crystals ,which is a great vegetarian alternative.It gives that exact texture of mousse ,had it been made from gelatin, if not better. Again, agar_agar is also called as china grass sometimes or seaweed powder ..It is a seaweed and absolutely works as a replacement.
If you are looking for a custardy texture , esp while making custard-You might as well use either whole wheat flour(trust me, whole wheat flour works as well as bleached refined flour as a thickening agent-Plus, it is healthy too ) or corn flour to thicken.First dissolve the dry flour in cold water or milk or soymilk and and then add to the whole lot of sauce or mixture that you plan to thicken while still on the stove.
If you have more questions, leave a comment for me and i shall get around to finding a replacement for ya.

Fruit preserves

I have been going crazy over this black grape jelly..A jar i purchase two years ago..haven't ever refrigerated it..but it just stays..sugar is such a natural preservative and definitely healthier as a preservative option.
this black grape jelly was indeed black and each time i smeared a lil of it on my bread..i was revelling at the blackness... black , black ..really..charmingly black..
fruit preserves are a great way to prevent fruit wastage...and tasty too.
Not giving out any recipes here...

Overhandling of Food makes it less nutritious and unhygenic !

'Overhandling of food' ,what does that exactly mean?
Cooking it too long, peeling, poaching , then frying, then baking and then cutting it in pieces and then placing it on plates in neat little tiny pieces aka food art and then touching it constantly to rearrange it on a plate, Cooking food at high temperatures, oven cooking, processing too much , all of these amount to OVERHANDLING OF FOOD.
I see a lot of online food bloggers who proudly quote how much of vit c and vit B the ingredients in the recipes have and then proceed to describe a cooking procedure which involves deep frying, oven baking , etc etc which essentially would definitely make sure that all water soluble vitamins are completely lost at the end of the cooking process.
Water soluble vitamins or any other kind of vitamins for that matter have a certain molecular structure , which makes them biologically useful.If too much of cooking is done and excessive heat is applied, these molecules either evaporate out of the foods that you are cooking or undergo molecular structural changes which make them less biologically absorbable or completely useless even.
There ya go, overhandling of food is a very bad habit that many food stylists indulge in too .It may make the plate look very very pretty , but it is not an ideal way to preserve the nutrients if you ask me.
What is the solution ?
cook as little as possible
Cook for as little time as possible
Keep the food for as little time as possible on a plate standing there between cooking time and eating time.
Speaking of which, already cut vegetables stored in the refrigerator , lose all their water soluble vitamins.It would be a better idea to not cut vegetables till shorty prior to consumption.
Either ways.Don't bake foods too much esp fruits or veggies and still expect them to have all their vitamin goodness still in them.K?

An orange is better than orange juice

An orange is better than orange juice.
Eating an orange is a far healthier option than drinking orange juice from a carton at breakfast time or even otherwise at other times.
Why?
Firstly, an orange is far more mass for far lesser calories (not that calories are bad ),An orange has a lot of fiber in addition to that valuable vit c and carotene and all the other water soluble vitamins too.
Orange juice perhaps might be a great option for people with no teeth(babies or edentate oldies) or for people who are at the hospital post operatively and can't eat solid food .Orange juice might also be a great option if one is looking for a very very instant pep in one's potassium and sodium and sugar levels in blood and this situation arises when one is involved in sports involving a lot of sweating.
When i say orange juice that has all the aforementioned benefits, i mean freshly squeezed orange juice, not that orange juice from a carton that has a lot of added preservatives, a lot of added citric acid and added color and that juice that is reconstituted from concentrate and such.
There ya go , My piece of food gyan for today.

Please don't peel and core those tomatoes !

I see that most people resort to peeling their tomatoes and even coring them while using them in cooking and all this only to make sure that what one eats is super smooth sans the fibrous bits.Super smooth baby food? Is that what we want to eat? We could do with a little bit of a rustic, chunky pasta sauce .Come on , be brave !Why do i insist that we use uncored and unpeeled tomatoes in cooking?Coz most of the vitamins and a whole lot of fiber is located in these parts of the tomatoes.Naturally occuring vitamins are better absorbed than synthetic vitamins from a bottle.Natural fiber is indigestible and thus forms a large part of our ummmmmm stools(for lack of a less offensive and 'in the face' term !) .It is only when the stools are bulky that the bowels find it easy to send them out .Fibrous stools also prevent colon cancer.Fibrous stools also prevent Constipation too.There has been a rise in colon cancer in recent times and this could be attributed to the altered food habits of people where they have taken to binge drinking and eating highly processed foods with very less natural fiber.What i am trying to get at with all this banter is:HMMMM....People essentially are trying to get rid of the natural foods off of their natural fiber and natural vitamins too all in an attempt to attain a smooth sauce.Come on.The naturally occuring fiber in our diet is actually meant to be eaten.We need bulk so that the undigested wastes move through our long intestines quite easily.. Morever, Blanching and peeling and coring the tomatoes also makes us lose a lot of valuable vitamins which lie right underneath the skin of the tomatoes.Now that we have blenders and puree makers, making those seeds into mush is no big deal.So, why give up on the fiber and the vitamins ? We can still have a very smooth sauce even while using the peel and the seeds.Don't blanch the tomatoes , just puree the whole lot without blanching and voila---smooth sauce.

About this blog

originally posted on 10:58 AM 5/4/08
This blog is all about food, vegetarian cooking, and an occasional recipe.
I am quite reluctant to post my own recipes on here , coz the recipes pretty much get stolen and reposted in no time.Pisses me off bigtime.
There is going to be a lot of talk about the best food practices, about treating one's body with dignity .
I have quite often seen that many non vegetarians do contemplate switching to vegetarianism but are at a loss as to what to cook.I am here to help.They don't know of any tasty recipes.
Trust me.Vegetarian cooking is the tastiest and healthiest only if you know how to make tasty meals with a lot of variety included.
This blog is not going to be about soy or imitation meats.
Vegetarian cooking is not about using processed foodS aka the imitation meats or the imitation cheese.
It is about pure wholesome cooking using natural products.
I am not a great fan of all the ever so prevelant food fads namely the high protein diets, the low carb diets, the slow food movement, yada yada..I believe that a balanced diet is the healthiest option.
Eating in moderation and eating as less of processed foods as possible is the key to a good diet