Category: Beverage

by Veggie Sutra

Pretty in Pink – A Cool Summer Lunch Menu

It has been a scorching, smoky weekend in Northern California leaving me with no desire to cook over a fire.  A simple, cooling lunch that can be put together without turning on the stove or oven is what I was looking for.

My inspiration came from a book I am currently reading called Lunch at the Shop by Peter Miller.  It is about the simple, elegant mid day meals that he and his coworkers prepared in the backroom of his book shop without access to an oven or stove.  The trick (I gathered) is to have some precooked foods like rice, lentils and beans available in the fridge, and basic ingredients like olive oil, lemons and dried herbs in the pantry.  Add fresh seasonal produce to this, and a gourmet meal will come together in no time!

Sugar-free “ice cream” with pluot jam topping

And so it came together – a pretty-in-pink healthy, cooling summer lunch complete with dessert!   Here is the menu:

  1. Lunch-sized chopped salad with cooling vegetables
  2. Strawberry-mint shrub sparkler
  3. Sugar-free “ice cream” with pluot jam topping
Strawberry Mint Shrub Sparkler

Before I get to the super-simple recipes, a confession!  The sauerkraut I started 2 weeks back did not turn out well.   There is a guy in our wonderful year-round farmer’s market who sells this amazingly tasty sauerkraut.  Mine was a 2-year old’s doodle compared to his Monet!  I think I know where I went wrong, so I will try again, undaunted!

A summer salad

(1) Recipe for A Chopped Summer Salad with a simple lemon dressing

[Printable Recipe]

Inspired by ideas from Lunch at the Shop by Peter Miller.

 

Ingredients:

  • 1 long Persian cucumber or 3-4 small ones, seeded and chopped 
  • 1 cup of grape or cherry tomatoes, cut in to 2
  • 1 small red onion, chopped
  • 1 cup of chopped red cabbage
  • 1 avocado sliced in to wedges or cubed
  • Dressing:
    • 3 Tbsp lemon juice
    • 4 Tbsp olive oil
    • pinch sea salt
    • pinch black pepper
    • 1 Tbsp finely chopped basil leaves or cilantro leaves
  • Some toasted nuts (almonds, walnuts) or seeds (sunflower, pumpkin) to garnish (optional)
Method:
  • Whisk together all the dressing ingredients except herbs.  Mix in the herbs and set aside
  • Combine in a bowl all the chopped vegetables 
  • Pour the dressing over it and toss to coat evenly, garnish with nuts if desired and serve
Notes:
1) Use any summer vegetables you have at hand and don’t be limited to the ones I used.  Bell pepper (red or green), greens of any kind, cooked (or canned) beans, lentils or chickpeas, grated carrots or beets, cooked wild rice or quinoa, and radishes are some choices.
2) You can use balsamic vinegar instead of lemon juice in the dressing if you wish and also make the dressing more interesting by adding grated ginger or dried oregano.
3) Did you know that both cucumber and red onion are cooling vegetables?  So is lemon juice.

Strawberry Mint Shrub

Back in May, with the advent of an early summer here in California, I made a Ginger-Mint Shrub as part of the Veggie Sutra’s Fermentation Series.  V and I loved it so much that it has become our go-to summer drink.  That was my first attempt at making shrubs and therefore I followed the original recipe by Mary Karlin in Mastering Fermentation by the book, so to speak.   This time I substituted the ginger with strawberries.   After all, what’s more summery than strawberries?  

(2) Recipe for A Strawberry-Mint Shrub Sparkler
Adapted from Mastering Fermentation by Mary Karlin
Makes enough for around 6 people
Ingredients:

  • 1/2 cup chopped very ripe strawberries, smashed slightly
  • 1/2 cup packed fresh mint leaves + a couple of sprigs of fresh mint
  • 3/4 cup raw organic apple cider vinegar (use one with live mother cultures like Bragg Apple Cider Vinegar)
  • 1/2 cup freshly squeezed lime/lemon juice
  • 1/2 cup raw unrefined cane sugar
  • 1 bottle of sparkling water
  • A few ice cubes if you like
  • Plus about 2 weeks of patience!
Method:
I am going to be lazy here and ask you to refer to my post on Ginger-Mint Shrub.  It turned out very well, and the original recipe has step-by-step photos as well.  Just substitute strawberries for ginger. Other interesting combinations to try: Apricot-Mint or Apricot-Basil, Peach-Mint, and Mango-Mint (use fresh mango).
Banana-Date Ice Cream with Pluot Jam Topping
This year, the California-grown stone fruits that we get at our farmer’s market have been extra-sweet, apparently a consolation prize for the persisting four-year drought.  I could not resist making a batch of summer fruit jam, even though V and I are abstaining from eating any added sugar these days.  Well, I usually give away most of the jam I make, so I don’t feel so bad!  I used some of the jam to top a sugar-free dessert giving it a pretty pink look as well a sweet and tart finish. 
(3) Recipe for a Sugar-free “ice cream” topped with home-made pluot jam
Makes generous portions for 2
Ingredients:
  • For “Ice Cream” 
    • 2 overripe bananas which have been frozen ahead of time, thawed slightly to peel and chop
    • 1/2 cup pitted and chopped dates
    • Up to 1/4 cup creamy coconut milk as needed
  • For topping
    • Some toasted pine nuts and raisins
    • Home-made pluot (or any summer fruit) jam (I used this recipe, with a slight variation of spices)
Method:
  • In a powerful blender or food processor, add the banana and dates.  Blend until smooth, scraping down the sides every now and then, and adding a little bit of the coconut milk at a time if needed
  • Scrape into a container with a lid, and freeze for around 6 hours
  • Scoop the “ice cream” into serving cups, top with pine nuts, raisins and a spoonful of jam and serve
Here is that pretty Pluot Jam
Summer is my least favorite time of the year, except for the abundant variety of produce that is available.  Which reminds me, I need to get more canning and freezing done before it is too late to save any produce for winter!   What are your favorite summer produce to save for winter and how do you do it?
by Veggie Sutra

A Cleansing Juice with Celery, Peppers, Ginger and Tomatoes with a Dash of Black Salt

The granola from The Blue Zones  Solution lasted us through all of last week for breakfast.  It had just the right amount of sweetness and nuttiness, and the recipe is definitely a keeper, and I plan to play with the ingredients the next time I make it.

The other book we are reading now is Brain Maker: The Power of Gut Microbes to Heal and Protect Your Brain– for Life by Dr. David Perlmutter.  There are a lot of good recipes in there especially one for kale chips that I plan to try soon.

A cleansing juice with celery, peppers, ginger and tomatoes

In the meantime, if there is anything that makes me sad, it is seeing good vegetables end up in trash.  If I have been overenthusiastic in buying produce in the farmer’s market or we end up not eating at home for more than a couple of days that week, then I typically make a stew of any unused vegetables with beans (chickpeas, blackeyed peas, black beans, whatever I have) and freeze it for later use.

This time, as I was cleaning out the fridge in preparation for our trip, I found a bunch of celery and some red and yellow peppers, and there were a couple of tomatoes on the countertop.   (As an aside, always store tomatoes on the counter and never in the refrigerator, as they will start to taste mealy.)

So, I decided to juice.  We have a Juiceman Juicer at home as we used to juice regularly a while back: carrots, celery, ginger and apples were the standard ingredients, but then we started reading studies on how juicing could be bad as all the fiber is thrown away and just the sugars remain.  So we do it rarely now.    In any case, I brought the juicer out yesterday and threw in all the vegetables I had.  The red and yellow peppers dominated the color!

A cleansing juice with celery, peppers, ginger and tomatoes

Recipe for a Scavenger Juice with Celery, Peppers and Tomatoes with Ginger and a Dash of Black Salt
[Printable Recipe]

Yields 3-4 glasses
Ingredients:

  • 1 bunch celery broken into individual stems
  • 10-12 mini peppers – yellow and red (sliced if it won’t fit in whole in to your juicer.  Use 1 red bell pepper and 1 yellow bell pepper, sliced, if  you do not have mini peppers.)
  • 1 inch piece ginger
  • 2 tomatoes, sliced in to wedges
  • 2 serrano peppers (optional, if you want the additional kick of spice)
  • A generous pinch of Himalayan Black Salt (called “kaala namak” in Hindi and can be found in ethnic Indian grocery stores)
  • Half a lime or lemon
  • You need a juicer to make this
Method:
  • Put all the ingredients through the juicer using the harder vegetables like celery to push the softer ones like tomatoes and bell pepper in
  • Pour into glasses, add a dash of black salt and a squeeze of lemon to taste and stir
  • Serve immediately
Note: Himalayan Black Salt or “Kaala Namak” is actually pinkish in hue and is used in Ayurvedic medicine as a digestive aid.  You can find this easily in ethnic Indian grocery stores.
A cleansing juice with Celery, Peppers, Ginger and Tomatoes

It felt like the perfect way to use up the vegetables in the refrigerator, whatever the studies show about juicing.  Also, I imagine this would be great for a fasting day.  If you have any thoughts on juicing, do pipe up!

by Veggie Sutra

A fermented drink: Soda with Ginger-Mint Shrub

On Mother’s Day, I want to mention how supportive amma has been of this blog.  She has often contributed the recipes featured here such as the Lemon Pickle in the fermentation series and the sweet Cashew barfi treat she made for our anniversary.  Also with a keen eye for aesthetics, she has often arranged the food for the photos.   In this and many other ways, we are blessed to have such a beautiful and wonderful mother.

It was a very lazy day today.  After initially planning to take amma out for a Mother’s Day lunch, we changed our minds and decided to eat at home.  The spicy spinach rice I made was complemented well by today’s featured item for the fermentation series, a soda with home-made ginger-mint shrub.

Soda with Ginger-Mint Shrub

Mary Karlin says in her beautiful book, Mastering Fermentation, that shrubs are sweet-sour syrups that date back to colonial America and can be used to make cocktails.  The recipe for the ginger-mint shrub I made came from the same book.  V and I can’t get enough of ginger and with fresh mint growing like weed in our garden, I just fell in to this recipe.  As with any fermented stuff, one has to be patient and give enough time for the bacteria and yeast to do their thing.   However the intense flavors that the fermentation brings out from the mint and ginger makes it totally worth the wait.

Soda with Ginger-Mint Shrub

Recipe for Soda with Ginger-Mint Shrub
From Mastering Fermentation by Mary Karlin

[Printable Recipe]

Makes enough for around 6 people
Ingredients:

  • 1/2 cup thinly sliced fresh ginger
  • 1/2 cup packed fresh mint leaves + a couple of sprigs of fresh mint
  • 3/4 cup raw organic apple cider vinegar (use one with live mother cultures like Bragg Apple Cider Vinegar)
  • 1/2 cup freshly squeezed lime/lemon juice
  • 1/2 cup raw unrefined cane sugar
  • 1 bottle of sparkling water
  • A few ice cubes if you like
  • Plus about 2 weeks of patience!
Method:
Step 1 – Infusing the apple cider vinegar with flavor
  • In a wide-mouthed mason jar, combine the ginger and mint leaves and massage them with fingers to release juices and fragrance
  • Add the apple cider vinegar, close the jar and shake thoroughly
  • Remove the lid and loosely cover the jar with a cheese cloth and leave it untouched overnight for about 12 hours
Step 1 for Making Shrub: Ginger and Mint leaves in Apple Cider Vinegar

Step 2 – Fermenting at room temperature

  • After 12 hours, screw the lid on tightly and shake thoroughly
  • Leave it to ferment at room temperature for 7 days, shaking the jar vigorously every day
  • After 7 days, strain out the ginger and mint, pressing with the back of a spoon or fingers to get the last bit of flavor from the ginger and mint
Step 2 for Making Shrub: Strain out the ginger and mint and add fresh mint sprigs

Step 3 – Fermenting in the refrigerator

  • Stir the lemon juice and sugar into the strained liquid until the sugar dissolves
  • Add the fresh mint sprigs, close with a lid and shake vigorously for 10 seconds
  • Refrigerate for 7 days, shaking the jar every day
  • After 7 days, the shrub is ready to use and will last up to 4 months in the refrigerator
Step 4 – Making the soda
  • Mix 2 Tbsp of shrub with about 6 oz of sparkling water, add ice cubes if desired and enjoy (adjust the proportions of the shrub to sparkling water to your liking after a sip)
Soda with Ginger-Mint Shrub
The ginger-mint shrub soda is a refreshing burst of flavors on the tongue with an intense aroma.  Sweet and sour, gingery and minty, V thought it would also be great for an upset stomach.  He is probably right, what with all the probiotics from the fermentation, plus the ginger, plus the mint!!   In any case, it is a super-refreshing drink.   So start a batch now as warm days are approaching.  I plan to try to make shrub in a few other flavors as well, such as Strawberry-Lemon shrub.  Will keep you posted!