vegan

My milkshake + Cashew milk falooda

February 7, 2014 by Edlyn

The festivities at the D’Souza residence have simmered down. At an average of two weddings per person, we’re exhausted and thankful that nothing in this world can make us feel like we’re getting older like an open bar. That and the fact that people you used to make mud food with are wearing white dresses/red saris. I should be one to talk.

But just as adulthood starts to become more real, I see a new coloured vegetable and that’s the end of my plan to have a mortgage and a ceramic animal collection. “OH MY GOSH. That purple string bean looking thing is spicy! Taste it taste it. What is it?” And it’s always the purple ones.

Always.

I’ve come to realise that on some days I want to have it all figured out. I want to know if it’s okay that I still can’t understand what bank lady is saying when she’s trying to convince me to keep my bank account. Just like that, I also want to know why I should be so concerned about this “remittance” bank lady just told me about. As the offspring of a bank employee, I’m sometimes embarrassed. As grown up as I am, this holds me back.

I joke that my new brother-in-law is always counting money. Everytime I see him, he either has a big wad of cash or tea or he’s talking about fixed deposits and tea. All in very adult-like fashion. I have yet to figure out a savings plan that does not include stuffing loose change in a glass jar. I really think it will buy us a nice vacation but I also want a dining table and maybe, a house.

WE want a house.

Scared as I am about the possibility of having to start looking for this place, I think I’m ready. Getting to watch my sister get married took me back (look at me sounding like an old purse) to the day where I had to wake up to January 2, 2012. I was (still) sleeping on the sofa while Matt got my bed (thus setting a foundation for a solid marriage). I felt like i was having an out-of-body experience and that lasted the whole day. Actually it lasted two weeks. It’s a strange feeling when you know nothing is going to be the same again. That day was our big adult decision.

It’s been rough but it sure is sweet.

Everything else is just a big fat piece of a purple string bean-looking thing.

Ingredients

For the cashew milk

1 cup cashew nuts
2 cups water, to soak + 3 1/2 cups water, to grind into milk

Soak the cashew nuts in water overnight or for 12 hours. Drain out the water and put the nuts in a super amazing food processor or blender. Add 3 1/2 cups of water to the cashew nuts and grind until it all blends well into a liquid. Depending on your kitchen machine or choice, the milk might have some nut bits. You can strain these bits out through a cheesecloth or strainer. Or you can leave it be to add texture to your drink. This keeps (in the fridge) for a week and makes three faloodas.

For the rose water syrup

1/4 cup water
1/4 cup rose water
1 cup white sugar
1/2 small red beet, chopped unevenly, but not too small (to colour the syrup)

In a small pot, mix together the water and rose water. Bring the liquid to a boil. Once it starts to boil, add the sugar, a little at a time, stirring constantly to let it dissolve. Throw in the beet bits for the colour. Keep it on the stove for about 1-2 minutes more (don’t stop stirring) and then you’re done. Don’t over-boil or the syrup will get too thick. If it does happen to you, just add a tablespoon or two of water and put it back on the stove and stir to thin it out.

For the coconut milk ice-cream

1 can of creamy, full-fat coconut milk
Seeds of 1 vanilla bean
1 tbsp honey or sugar to sweeten (optional. Amount of sweetener depends on your taste buds but remember that you’re also using rose water syrup in the drink)

Would you have guessed this is my favourite part? It’s also my first time making ice-cream without an ice-cream maker. Happy to report that you don’t need one to make it! You just need to make sure the can of coconut milk is chilled before you work with it.

Empty the can of coconut milk in a freezer-safe bowl and to it, add the vanilla bean seeds and your sweetener of choice. Put all the contents in a mixer/blender and let it all mix together for about 5 minutes. This process will help add “air” to it, which is responsible for the the fluffiness* that you see in regular ice-cream. If you don’t have a blender, you’ll just need to use thy favourite arm and whisk it vigorously.

Add the coconut milk back into the bowl and pop it in the freezer for 30 minutes. After the time has passed, pull the bowl back out and whisk the contents of the bowl, scraping the slightly frozen sides of the bowl for as long as you can. I could do 3 minutes so 3 is what I did. This also adds air to the mixture so don’t forget to add vigour. Repeat this process every 30 minutes until you see the coconut milk start to look and taste more and more like vanilla ice-cream. (YUM). For me this took 3 hours because I was making sure I didn’t under-whisk it. That would be a complete downer. Once you’re done whisking it for the last time, put it back in the freezer and let it set before you use it in the falooda.

* This is coconut milk based so it’s won’t be the fluffy you’re used to.

For the falooda

3 tsp tukmaria seeds (also called basil seeds or sabja. Very similar to chia seeds)
Crushed cashew nuts
Pomegranate seeds

To assemble the drink, you’ll need to soak the tukmaria seeds in water for about 30 minutes. They expand pretty quickly so as usual, it’s better to add more water than less. Add the seeds to a small bowl with water. They’ll expand almost instantly but be patient anyway and let them all get to the size they’re supposed to. I added seeds to fill a little less than a quarter of a glass. If you like more, go for it.

Once the seeds are done soaking, coat a tall glass with the rose water syrup. This is going to sweeten and colour the drink so add as little or as much as you’d like. I coated the sides of the glass and added a little more syrup to the bottom of the glass. Next, add the seeds. Pour the cashew milk to almost the top of the glass (so you leave enough space for ice-cream. Of course). Add a scoop of ice-cream and top with a little drizzle of syrup, crushed cashew seeds and pomegranate seeds. This is falooda. Drink it.

Almond butter + Made with love and a food processor.

March 21, 2013 by Edlyn

Remember here where I said I was driving myself crazy that I hadn’t take pictures of almonds. This post is the reason why. I’m over it.

All you need to make almond butter is almonds and a food processor. That’s it. Nothing was every this simple. Unless you choose to use a grinding stone. In that case you need almonds, upper arm strength and a grinding stone. Even then it’s no big deal.

I feel silly listing the ingredients (because there’s only one!), so I’m breaking off from my usual style (show off) and going nuts. When I made this for the first time, it took the food processor 15 minutes to reach almond butter status. The second time it took 5 minutes. I’m assuming this was either due to the quantity I used, or that I stopped the food processor to do the amateur cook version of “are we there yet?”. However long it takes, you’ll eventually get there.

Roughly chop the almonds and throw them into the food processor. I did not use raw almonds because as I just found out, they’re not really raw. Apparently they’re only ever raw 1% of the time. Be a champ and use natural almonds.

Set it to low and let the almonds be ground. You’ll notice that part of the almond meal gets stuck to the sides of the container, like a well. Whenever this happened, I would stop the motor and scrape whatever was sticking to the sides and started it back up. Eventually, the almonds start releasing their oils and form into ball. At this point, it becomes impossible to work the food processor without thinking it’s going to explode. Hence, your almond butter is done.

Here is a photo step-by-step of how the almonds ultimately get cool for school.

Your turn.

(You can use this recipe for almond butter in this, this, and of course, this)

Can’t live without snack bars Thursday

March 21, 2013 by Edlyn

I might be exaggerating a little when I say I can’t live without a snack bar. I can definitely live without them. Now more so than ever since going to a grocery shop requires every drop of determination I store in my quads to take a bus there. If you must know, a more accurate representation of what I can’t live without is quick to-go healthy snack things that I can just stuff in my bag for my bus rides. As if to say I’ll get stuck in traffic and might have to start chewing my shoe. I’m kooky but I’d never do that. What do shoes taste like anyway? Assuming you have a distant uncle who makes edible wearable shoes…you know, the usual.

For a person who takes her snacking so seriously, you’ll always find seeds and dried fruit in the house. Like a squirrel. My friend Claire (who quotes lines from my blog and makes me feel shy) would joke everyday about me eating bird seed when we worked together at the world’s best newspaper. It was the best, right Claire? I feel like she can hear me.

Last last week when we (not Claire and I {I wish}, rather Awesomeshoes and I) went for a hike on the island, I knew we had to have snacks. Even if we didn’t walk 5 hours and instead chose to vegetate in our stretchy pants, I’d still know we had to have snacks. I’m very intuitive that way. The old me would go to Trader Joe’s and pick a selection of granola bars and fruit-roll ups but the new me wanted to be more efficient. In the spirit of making the best of what we already have, I did exactly that.

I found this great guide to making protein/energy bars on this blog and I thought how lucky I was because I knew what all of those ingredients were. Admit it, sometimes you look at a plain and simple recipe and it’s plain and simply WTF. This wasn’t like that at all. Great!

The day before the hike, I put all these ingredients together and thought I’d leave out the flour because the other ingredients seemed sticky enough to bind everything together. They weren’t. No big deal except I had to fill crumbly crumbs into a Ziploc bag and those make for slightly difficult “on the move” snacking. On that day however, I felt blessed to be alive with my favourite person. As long as I had my water bottle, we’d be okay.

The next week, I tired it again and down below lies a successful second attempt and a new “Can’t live without…” recipe. Except I can live without them.

Black bean snack bars

As I (think I) mentioned, I did a lot of what this recipe entailed from a scratch. Here’s a little prior guidance if you choose to do the same. I soaked 3/4 cup of black beans overnight and then cooked them in plain water until they were soft. This generally takes 30-40 minutes. You can use a pressure cooker but since I don’t own one like a bad Indian, I just boiled them. Once cooked, drain them and leave aside. I also made the almond butter for which I’ll share the recipe in a separate post tomorrow. Can you wait that long? Okay fine, I’ll just do it today.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cup cooked black beans
1/2 cup almond butter
1/4 cup agave nectar
1/4 cup dates, chopped
1 tsp vanilla extract (optional)
1 tsp juice of a blood orange (optional)
Sprinkle of cinnamon
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
1 cup buckwheat flour
1/4 tsp salt
Chocolate chips, raisins (to stir in at the end)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F, which is 2085 degrees F for my oven. It’s still broken, thanks for asking.

In a food processor, pulse together the beans, almond butter, agave nectar, chopped dates, vanilla extract, blood orange juice, cinnamon and salt until combined into a paste. To this, add the buckwheat flour and process a little at a time until it’s all mixed well. Pour this out into a big bowl and mix in the rolled oats with your hands. You can also do this in the food processor but if you do, pulse it only until it mixes together. You don’t want the oats to get too crumbly and dry out the mix. Add the chocolate chips and raisins at the end and mix them manually. ROAR like a lion/ess.

Grease a deep baking pan and then spread and flatten the mixture into it. You want the the snack bars to be at least an inch thick.

Bake for 15-17 minutes on the middle rack. Let it cool before dividing it into individual bars. I always have the hardest time with the whole “letting it cool” part.

The heart wants what it wants.