Chocolate Brown Rice Roasted Almond Mylk

“Good lord! This tastes freaking delicious!!!” I said, as I slurped the smooth, light liquid delightedly. 🥛🤤

It was the first time I tasted rice mylk. I’d purchased it at a grocery store in the US. 

Initially I’d been skeptical to pick it up because the tetra packed almond mylk from the same brand had been an overwhelming disappointment.

But my curiosity won, and here I was, sipping on this incredibly soothing, vanilla flavoured beverage.

After that, I glugged down tumblers and tumblers of rice mylk on a daily basis while I could get my hands on it.

As soon as I got back to Bangalore, I wanted to try making it at home.

I did some research, cooked white rice, and blended it with water.

❗️What emerged was a thick, starchy, undrinkable mess! 😂🤣

It was nothing like the heavenly tetra packed goodness I’d fallen in love with. But I don’t give up easily. Certainly not after the first try.

It took a couple more experiments, but eventually I zeroed in on the perfect home made rice mylk recipe. 👏🏽

🍚 Use a variety of rice that doesn’t have all its fibre polished off – brown or red (Rajmudi) work great

💦 Contrary to what you’d expect, the volume of water has to be higher in rice mylk than in nut mylks (like 1/2 C cooked rice to approximately 1 L water)

That’s it. That’s the big secret. 😂

Blend well. Strain. Get ready to *glug glug slurp*.

Some bonus tips:

📝 Cook the rice very well, and cool it completely before blending.

📝 You can add any sweetener (dates, jaggery, maple syrup) and flavour (pure vanilla extract, cocoa powder, cinnamon) while blending and then strain the mylk.

📝 If you have a high powered blender, you might not have much stuff left to strain. But strain it anyway. This mylk is best enjoyed smooth and light!

If you enjoy these hacks that go beyond just recipes, join one of my Demystifying Vegan Cooking small group training sessions.

Rice mylk is very enjoyable when you drink it by itself (lightly sweetened if you like). But it also works well in:

🌼 Cereal

🌼 Payasam/Pudding

🌼 Smoothie

🌼 Fermented into Spicy Buttermylk

🌼 In baking Cookies, Cakes and Bread

🌼 Light, cold beverages

Chocolate Brown Rice Roasted Almond Mylk

2 T Well Cooked Brown Rice

3-4 Roasted Almonds

3 tsp Cocoa Powder

Date Syrup to taste (alternatives: Jaggery, Maple Syrup)

Dash of Pure Vanilla Extract (skip if you don’t have pure extract)

Pinch of Salt

2 Cups of Water

• Add all ingredients (except water) into a blender jar
• Pour in a little water and blend into a creamy paste
• Add the rest of the water and blend until smooth
• You could optionally strain this
• Pour over ice and enjoy your refreshing beverage! ☺️

Beet Avocado Wasabi Salad

 🥑 I wanted to make guacamole today to have with chapathi. But when I halved the avocado, it was so firm, I just didn’t have the heart to mash it!

So I peeled and cubed it, and stared at it lovingly, waiting for inspiration to flow.

The image of a fabulous salad rose up in my mind. It would be slightly on the sweet side, and carry a complex flavour profile that was worthy of this perfect avocado.

I didn’t know what flavours yet, but I knew without a doubt that steamed beetroot had to be in there! 😄

So I scrubbed, cubed and put the beets for steaming. They were organic, so I didn’t even need to peel them.

Then the dressing ingredients dropped into my head. Tak. Tak. Tak.

Balsamic Vinegar

Wasabi

Miso Paste

Oh my! 🤤♥️

I carefully mixed them with the avocados. And as soon as the beets were nice and soft, I put them in and quickly tossed everything together one last time.

The avos held their shape well for the most part. Some of the edges got mashed, but that worked out well, adding a creamy coating to the beets.

I tasted it.

😲🤤

It was everything I imagined it would be.

So of course I had to tell you all about it! 😄 Try it.

Here are the approximate ingredient quantities:

1 medium sized Avocado

2 small Beets

1 heaping tsp Miso Paste

1/2 tsp Wasabi

2 tsp Balsamic Vinegar

Notes:

📝 Instead of Miso, you can use some Soy Sauce if you like.

📝 And Balsamic Vinegar can be replaced with a combination of Apple Cider Vinegar and a bit of Jaggery/Date Syrup.

📝  But there’s absolutely nothing that can replace the nose watering goodness of Wasabi!

Vegan GiNNada KaDubu (Jun KuDumulu)

 

 🍮 GiNNa ಗಿಣ್ಣ is a dessert traditionally made out of Jaggery and Colostrum. Let me describe these exotic ingredients to you...

Freshly extracted sugarcane juice is boiled for a long time in large, heated vats. It gets caramelised into a delicious sweetener. That’s Jaggery. 🤤

A female is pregnant for a long time. Soon after she gives birth, an antibody rich secretion comes out of her mammary glands to feed her baby. That’s Colostrum. 😳

Now imagine what kind of a sick, twisted mind decided to put the two together and invent dessert.

Someone sees a cow give birth and says, “hey, let me push that wee baby calf aside, squeeze the very first milk out of his mother’s udders, and cook it with Jaggery.”

And then it just becomes a special, gourmet recipe, passed on from generation to generation.

It’s bloody scary how easy it is for us humans to commodify and normalise the use of things which we have absolutely no business taking! 🤯😨

Sadly, as a kid, GiNNa was one of my favourite desserts.

Usually I’m not the kind of vegan who feels guilty about my past food choices. What’s done is done. I’m just grateful I make better choices now.

But GiNNa is the one dessert from my past that breaks my heart. 💔😢

I can’t believe how casually my tastebuds could enjoy something that an innocent new born should’ve been eating. 🐮🐄👩🏽‍🍼

If you still like GiNNa, you don’t have to wait for a cow to give birth and steal her baby’s first food.

Instead, make this Vegan GiNNa anytime you crave it!

 

1 1/2 L Soy Mylk
15 g Agar Agar Sheet – cut into small strips
1 1/2 C Jaggery

🌻Rinse the agar agar strips
🌹Add to soy mylk and bring to boil
🌻Reduce heat to low and keep cooking, stirring periodically, until the agar dissolves completely (takes 20-30 mins)
🌹Gently stir in the Jaggery and simmer on low heat for a couple of minutes until it dissolves (don’t let the mylk boil!)
🌻Turn off heat and transfer to a tray or individual cups
🌹Allow to cool, then let it sit in the fridge for at least 2 hours
🌻Enjoy cold!

📝 Other plant based mylks work, but fresh, homemade soy mylk gives the best texture
📝 You can use agar agar powder instead of sheets

Hazelnut Miso Dressing

It’s magic. Every single time. And even now after so many years I’m awed at the infinite possibilities!

Take any nut or seed, add a few flavourful ingredients, grind with a little water, and you have the best damn salad dressing (or dip or sauce or spread or or or...) in a matter of minutes! Ta-da! 🧚🏼‍♀️👩🏻‍🍳

I always harp on about how going vegan up-levelled my cooking skills in incredible ways. But when it comes right down to it, what it basically did was give me freedom.

When I learnt to use familiar ingredients in new ways (like making mylk out of sesame seeds or creamy pasta sauce out of beans), my mind blew open. 🤯 It suddenly felt like I had permission to mix anything with anything and prepare it in whatever way I liked. No. More. Rules. 😀

I never have to wait around to have specific ingredients at home when I’m in the mood to cook. Something ran out of stock? No biggie. Just try putting this in there instead of that and see what happens. More often than not, what happens is deliciousness. 😂

If I were limited to animal based butter, cheese, sour cream and such, I’d never have ventured into scrumptious plant powered magic like the dressing in this salad.

🌰 Hazelnut Miso Dressing 🥗

1/4 C Hazelnuts
1 T White Miso Paste
1/2 Soft Date
1 tsp Apple Cider Vinegar
1 small clove of Garlic
Few drops Bhut Jholokia Hot Sauce
Large Splash of Crisp Vinous Brew (from @viazeme )
Water
Nutritional Yeast (optional for additional kick)

Grind into a thick, creamy paste, using water as required. Toss salad veggies in it and enjoy! (Works great as a spread/dip too).

The salad has English Cucumber, Cherry Tomato, Spoon Lettuce, and Chives. I also mixed in a generous amount of freshly crushed black pepper and a sprinkle of dried orange peel powder.

 

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Raw Fettuccine in Almond Bell Pepper Sauce

When it comes to making raw main courses, my go-to dish is zucchini fettuccine in a creamy cashew and basil sauce. It's a hugely popular dish among our raw food guests at Carrots and pretty much anyone who's tasted it.

People who're new to this kind of cuisine barely believe it's vegan, leave alone completely raw. :)

Last week, on my usual raw food Thursday, I became quite hungry in the evening after a bit of gallivanting with my boys. I wanted to have zucchini pasta but I wanted to push myself to create something new too.

So I switched up the ingredients in the sauce a bit and the result was GLORIOUS! You just have to taste this thing to believe it.

You can also watch a video for the method of making Zucchini Fettuccine on an older recipe post: Raw Zucchini Fettuccine and Sun Dried Tomatoes in Cashew Sour Cream Sauce.

Here's the recipe for this one:

Raw Fettuccine in Almond Bell Pepper Sauce

1 small Green Zucchini

1 small Yellow Zucchini

1 small Red Bell Pepper

1/4 Yellow Bell Pepper

1/4 C Almonds

2 cloves of Garlic

2-3 pitted Dates

Juice of 1/2 Lemon

Pepper

Salt

Basil

* Wash the zucchinis well and using a vegetable peeler, scrape them into flat, fettuccine noodles (including the peel) and keep them aside
* When you reach the soft, seed part at the heart of the zucchinis, chop them up roughly and keep aside
* Into a dry grinder jar, add almonds, garlic, dates, pepper and salt grind into a fine powder
* Add the red bell pepper, zucchini and lemon juice and blend until creamy (happens very quickly)
* Place the zucchini noodles in a serving dish, pour the creamy sauce over it and mix well
* Garnish with chopped yellow bell peppers, shredded basil leaves and chopped almonds
* Enjoy! :)