Herbed Couscous Bean Salad

Salads are excellent during summer but once the colder months begin, my hand quickly loses its inclination to reach for raw vegetables. There's a need for more filling, cooked foods. This is why I love salads that include cooked ingredients in them. It's a great way to get those fresh vegetables in along with some hearty components.

If you look through my blog's Recipe Hub, you'll know that I loooooooove pulses of all kinds. There is nothing more satisfying than a big bowl of cooked beans. If I could, I'd just cook beans and eat them plain every single day. And yes, I am well aware of the consequences, as the people of Portlandia have demonstrated so tastefully in the video below. :P



Since we don't have any "designated areas" at our home, I stick to cooking with beans often but not everyday. :D



In the recipe below, I've thrown couscous into the bean and vegetables mix to turn this dish into a complete meal. Even my hubby, who doesn't consider salads a whole meal, was satisfied with this one.

I created this recipe for Global Graynz. They have put together recipe boxes which include the ingredients you will need to make this Herbed Couscous Bean Salad at home.





You can visit the links below to purchase the three kinds of ingredients boxes for this recipe:

1. Rare/Exotic Ingredients (home delivery to anywhere in India)
2. All Packaged Ingredients (home delivery to anywhere in India)
3. All Ingredients Including Fresh/Perishable Ones (available in Chennai only)




Herbed Couscous Bean Salad

1 C Instant Couscous
2 C Cooked or Canned Beans - I used Pink Rajma (Kidney Beans) but others will work too
1 C Fresh Herbs - I used Parsley, Basil, Mint and Cilantro
1 Head Romaine Lettuce
1 Cucumber (it's best to use a tender one)
3 Small Tomatoes (preferably the tart, local/naati ones)
1 Small Onion (preferably white)
2 T Sriracha Sauce
1 T Extra Virgin Olive Oil (optional)
1/4 C Lime Juice
1/4 tsp Chilli Powder
Salt - to taste
Whole Black Pepper Corns - for crushing on top

Boil 1 1/2 C of lightly salted water.
Turn off the heat, add couscous, stir, cover and keep aside for 5-6 minutes.
Fluff with a fork and allow to cool down to room temperature.

If you've freshly cooked the beans, allow them to cool down.
They need to be at room temperature or lightly chilled but not hot/warm.
If you're using canned beans, rinse them and keep aside.

Chiffonade or chop the herbs.
Tear the lettuce into pieces.
Make thin half circles of the cucumber.
Finely chop the tomatoes and onion.

Now mix all the salad ingredients together in a large bowl.
Freshly crush pepper on top and serve.
Enjoy! :)

Potato Amaranth Flat Rice Noodles in Cheesy Garlicky Sauce

This is a delicious, hearty meal that is easy to put together. I love making lasagne-style, layered, baked dishes. They are so flexible and you can put a variety of elements and textures in there. Here I've used Flat Pad Thai Rice Noodles for the pasta layers to make the dish gluten free.

I've very lightly brushed coconut oil on to the top layer of potatoes but that can easily be skipped to make this a recipe that's free of any processed oils.



Potato Amaranth Flat Rice Noodles in Cheesy Garlicky Sauce

3 Potatoes
1 C Amaranth Greens (Dantina Soppu) - can be replaced with any local greens
1/2 Package Flat Rice Noodles
Optional - Coconut Oil for light brushing

For the Sauce:
1/2 C Cashews
2 T Sesame Seeds
2 T Nutritional Yeast¹
10-15 Cloves of Garlic
1 tsp Mustard Seeds
1/2 tsp Agave Nectar - can be replaced with Jaggery Syrup or Sugar
1/4 tsp Turmeric Powder
1/4 tsp Pepper
Salt

Bring lightly salted water to a boil and add the flat rice noodles.
Turn off the heat, cover and keep aside for about 5-8 minutes, until the noodles are soft.
Drain and drop the soft noodles into cold water.
Keep aside.

Meanwhile, grind all the sauce ingredients together into a powder.
Add a little water at a time and blend to obtain a paste.
Add more water and blend into a creamy sauce.

Scrub and wash the potatoes and slice them into thin rounds.
Wash the amaranth leaves, gently squeeze off the water and chop them roughly.

Cover the bottom and sides of a glass² baking dish with a layer of potatoes.
Top with half the cooked noodles and chopped amaranth.
Pour half of the sauce over this.
Then add another layer of potatoes (saving some for the final layer) and the remaining half of the noodles, amaranth and sauce in the same way.
Finally cover the top with a layer of potatoes.
Lightly brush³ with coconut oil if you like.

Bake in an oven at 220°C for 30 minutes, then increase the heat to 250°C and grill for 15 minutes.
Turn off the oven and remove the dish.
Allow to cool for 15-20 minutes.
Dig into it and serve hot with freshly crushed pepper and Tabasco drizzled on top.
Enjoy! :)



Notes:

¹ Without Nutritional Yeast, the sauce will still be creamy and delicious, but it won't have a cheesy flavour.
² If you're using a metal baking dish instead, then grease it lightly or line it with foil before using.
³ By brushing, I mean that I used my palms and fingers to rub that oil onto the potatoes so no fancy brushes required here. :p

Veganosaurus Chef's Boxes from Global Graynz

A few weeks ago, I was approached by Karthik Vasudevan of Global Graynz, a new online store in India, specialising in sourcing and selling exotic ingredients from around the world. Here is what I wrote about it on my Facebook page:

"You all know how much I love to mix up local ingredients with global ones in my cooking/baking experiments. And when one of my key ingredients isn't easily available in India, I try to post locally available alternatives in the recipe. Now I finally get to use exotic vegan ingredients to my heart's content and you get to source them easily without the need for replacements. :) Global Graynz has asked me to create vegan recipes for them using products from different parts of the world, and whenever I post a recipe on my blog using these, they will put together a customised recipe box with ingredients in the recipe and list it for sale on their website."

With this information, I posted a survey link they sent me. I was later informed that the majority of the people who took this survey were very interested in this recipe box idea.

So now I have started creating some new vegan recipes designed around the international products available on Global Graynz. Don't worry, I will continue to make recipes with completely local ingredients too. :)

I also sent them a list of speciality plant based products to procure. Once they get those, all of us living here in India can have easy access to Nutritional Yeast, Soy Curlz, The Vegg, Vegan Chocolate Chips and other such cruelty-free goodies.

To start with, I directed Global Graynz to a few existing recipes on my blog and they have created recipe boxes for two of them. These are two of my *most* popular recipes in the past year. :)

Click on the photos below to visit the recipe pages, where you can see the gorgeous Global Graynz recipe boxes at the bottom along with a link to purchase them.

Tofu Walnut Dumplings and Balsamic Vegetables in Quinoa



and

Summer Rolls with Spicy Peanut Sauce

Spiced Pumpkin Mousse - guest post by Rithika of Vegan on the Prowl

Today's special guest blogger, Rithika, is baker extrodinaire at The Green Stove, a vegan bakery in Mumbai, India and blogger at Vegan on the Prowl where she shares her innovative, healthy recipes and stories about her adventures around the world in quest of vegan food. :)

To my knowledge, The Green Stove was the first vegan bakery in India when it was launched. Rithika makes some amazingly drool worthy everyday baked goodies and desserts as well as gorgeous ones for special occasions like weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, etc. You can visit The Green Stove's Facebook Page to get updates about the vegan goodies that are baked.

Rithika and I have been online friends for a few years now. It's hard to believe that we have met in person just one time, on her visit to Bangalore a couple of years ago. She gave me this beautiful dragonfly glass jar that she hand painted with love and I still keep it in my home and cherish it. :)



Now without further ado, let's move to Rithika's recipe for a delicious, innovative and healthy...dessert (but of course)! :) Thanks Rithika! It's a pleasure having you over on Veganosaurus.

--

This guest post is very, very long overdue. Imagine being late on a submission deadline and multiply that by ten, that is how long ago Susmitha asked me to write a guest post for her. She was nice enough (multiplied by ten again) to politely remind me that my deadline was long gone and that last push was enough for me to get my act together. I have only met Susmitha once over a lovely vegan buffet lunch in Bengaluru but I feel like we've been somehow connected from a previous life. She is the most kindhearted, proactive person I know and I love all the work she is doing in Bengaluru to promote compassionate eating and living. I only wish we lived closer so it would push me to do more.

With so many of the recipes on her blog being sweet, I thought it was only apt to come up with something that would go with her persona and her blog. So here is my recipe for a Spiced Pumpkin Mousse.



Spiced Pumpkin Mousse

Ingredients:
3 cups freshly pressed, light Coconut Milk
1 cup peeled and cubed Yellow Pumpkin
1/2 tsp Cinnamon
1/4 tsp All Spice Powder
1/4 tsp Nutmeg Powder
3 tbsp Raw Organic Sugar*
2 tbsp Arrowroot Starch
1/2 tsp Turmeric

*Use a sweetener of your choice and also as much as you like. I find 3 tbsp to be more than enough but you can increase the quantity depending on when it hits your sweet spot!

Steam the cubed Pumpkin for about 15 minutes and purée it until no lumps remain.

In a small bowl, mix the arrowroot starch with a little bit of the coconut milk and stir well until it has dissolved.

In a thick bottomed vessel, add the coconut milk, spices, pumpkin purée and turmeric and heat it over a low flame. After about ten minutes, add the starch mixture and keep stirring continuously. The mixture will eventually start to thicken. When it reaches a thick soup consistency (should take less than 10 minutes) take it off the flame and pour it into individual bowls. Refrigerate for an hour or till it sets into a mousse.

Serve cold.

Whole Wheat Foxtail Millet Multi-Seed Bread

Yesterday, a friend of mine who regularly follows my blog and my facebook pages - artbysusmitha and veganosaurus - asked me why there has been a lack of activity on my blog and I decided it was time for some action.



I made this bread a few weeks ago. I quickly clicked some pics and typed out the ingredients but this laziness causing cloudy weather and busy life in general has been getting in the way of me completing the post, until now.

I started out to make a regular whole wheat, multi-seed bread but at some point I got the idea of putting broken foxtail millet in there and I must say, it was a brilliant move! Sometimes bakers knead chiroti rava/sooji (fine semolina) into the dough to get an interesting texture. But rava is one of those nutrient-less carbs and I wanted to make this bread with whole ingredients, that's why I decided to use the millet rava instead.



The millet gives the bread an excellent texture! And don't even get me started on the delightfully crunchy, browned crust. Mmmmmmm.

The next time I make this bread, I will turn a portion of it into Rusk. I'm sure that the millet will give it the perfect kind of crunch. It's been so long since I made Rusk. Just the thought of it is making me want to bake right now.

The procedure of making this bread is pretty basic. If you're making bread for the first time, you can watch my step-by-step video tutorial for making basic bread dough to get a general idea about yeast frothing, kneading, etc., and then make this Whole Wheat Foxtail Millet Multi-Seed Bread using the ingredients and recipe below.



Whole Wheat Foxtail Millet Multi-Seed Bread

3 C Wheat Flour
1/2 C Broken Foxtail Millet (Navane Idli Rava)
1 tsp Sprouted Fenugreek Powder (optional)
2 T Flax Seed Powder
Mixed Seeds - Melon, Black Sesame, White Sesame, Poppy
2 T Wheat Berries - soaked in hot water for 15-30 mins and drained
2 T Coconut Oil + 1 tsp for greasing the mixing bowl
1 T Apple Cider Vinegar (white vinegar can be used instead)
1 tsp Salt
1/4 C + 2 T Sugar
2 tsp Active Dry Yeast
3/4 C Soy or other Vegan Mylk
3/4 C Water
Optional - Vegan Yogurt mixed with Corn Starch (Corn Flour) to brush on top of the bread

Mix the water and soy mylk and heat them together in a pan.

Add 2 T sugar and stir to dissolve

Let the liquid come down to lukewarm temperature.

Sprinkle the active dry yeast onto the liquid and keep aside for 10-15 minutes, allowing the yeast to froth and bubble.

Meanwhile, in a large bowl, place 2 C of the whole wheat flour with broken foxtail millet, sprouted fenugreek powder, flax seed powder, remaining 1/4 C sugar, salt and 2 T coconut oil.

Mix everything together with your fingers, rubbing the oil into the flour.

Make a deep well in the centre and once the yeast mixture is frothed and ready, pour it into the well.

Add the apple cider vinegar and mix everything with a fork to get a sticky dough.

Add as much of the remaining 1 C whole wheat flour as required, a little at a time, and mix with your hand to get a rough ball of dough.

Knead in the seeds and wheat berries.

Transfer the dough to a floured surface and knead well to form a smooth, elastic dough.

Grease the mixing bowl with the remaining 1 tsp of coconut oil.

Place the ball of dough into the bowl and swirl around to coat it with oil on all sides.

Cover the bowl with a large plastic bag and place it in a warm/sunny spot.

Allow the dough to rise for 1 1/2 to 2 hours.

After the dough has doubled in volume, punch it down and transfer to a floured surface.

Knead very lightly and shape into desired form (loaves, buns, rolls...anything you like).

I wanted to make mine into a braided loaf but it expanded so much in the baking tray that the shape got changed. haha

Cover again with a plastic bag and allow to rise in a warm place for another 1 1/2 to 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 190 C. Optionally lightly brush the top of the bread with the vegan yogurt and corn starch mixture.

If you've made loaves then bake in the preheated oven for about 50-55 minutes, if it's rolls/buns then 35-40 minutes will do.

Allow the bread to sit in the hot oven for 10-15 minutes after it's done.

Take the tray out and allow the bread to cool down in the tray for 1/2 an hour, then transfer to a cooling rack and let it cool down some more.

It's okay to slice the bread if it's a little warm but *do not slice into the bread while it's hot!!!*

The bread tastes great served with some hot soup/stew or just dipped in some garlic olive oil.

Since it doesn't have any additional spices, it even tastes yum with jam.

Enjoy! :)