Date Squares

Raw Vegan Date Squares

Ingredients:

2 cups cashews/ almonds/ walnuts
1 cup raw oats
1 tsp cinnamon powder
35 large pitted dates
Juice and zest (grated peel) of 1 large orange

Method:

CRUST - In a food processor, grind the nuts and oats into powder.  Add cinnamon and pulse again. Add 20 dates and pulse again till the mixture starts clumping together.

FILLING - In a food processor, blend the 15 remaining dates alongwith orange juice and zest until smooth.

ASSEMBLY - Press 2/3 of the crust mixture into a pan lined with wax paper or foil.  Press down with your hands hard to make the base firm.  Spread the filling mixture in a thin layer on top of this.  Then loosely sprinkle the remaining crust on top of the filling.

Optional - Spread some dried grated coconut on top.

Raw Lauki soup

Try this nutritious live soup. You will love it.

Ingredients

·      2 cups chopped lauki - (unpeeled of course!)

·      3 cloves garlic

·      handful of celery leaves or fresh dhaniya

·      4 pitted dates

·      4 tbsp fresh grated coconut

·      salt to taste

Method

Put all the ingredients in the blender. Add water as needed and serve cold.

Steamed Beans with Gun Powder

Chop and steam a bowl of green beans till they are soft enough to eat but still crunchy.  Toss them in 1 tbsp of gunpowder, 1 tsp of flax seed powder and add salt to taste.

Variation: Add some crushed peanuts or toasted sesame seeds and lemon juice.

It's that simple! :)

Green Smoothies

Ingredients: 40% greens - spinach, coriander, mint, etc. 60% fruit - bananas, papaya, mango, chickoos etc.

Method
Put all the ingredients in the blender and mix till very smooth. Serve immediately.
Variation : Add a squeeze of lemon juice.

Awesome Broccoli Snack/ Salad

Ingredients: For the dressing - 1 tbsp cashew butter (FabIndia) or homemade peanut butter or seasame butter/ tahini, juice of 1-2 lemons, 1 tbsp powdered flax seeds, 1 tbsp jaggery or date syrup, salt and herbs to taste.  2 cups broken broccoli florets,

Method - Break the broccoli into small florets and chop the stalk into bite size pieces.  Steam lightly till crunchy but not too hard/ soft.  Takes 1-2 mins in a steamer.  Mix all the dressing ingedients in a food processor or whisk with fork and pour 1/4 or 1/2 the dressing as per your taste.

Cashew butter is heavy so go easy but much better than oily dressings and so creamy.  Enjoy!

Chocolate Banana Whip

Ingredients: 3 cut up and semi-frozen bananas.  Freeze for about 3-4 hours.  1 tsp cocoa powder, pitted dates, date syrup or honey, 1/2 lemon juice.  Variations - Cinnamon powder, vanilla essence powder.  Sometimes, I add a tbsp of cereal to get a crunchy feel and leave out the cocoa.  You can also add a handful of chopped nuts and some raisins.

Method: Whip banana and other ingredients in blender.

Something magical happens and it looks and tastes quite close to cream/ ice-cream.  You could eat it just as it is or garnish with chocolate sauce and nuts for kids or the kid in you!

Rice Puff Bhel

Ingredients: 1 cup rice puffs, 1/2 cucumber, 1 tomato and 1/2 onion chopped into small pieces, some coriander and green chilly for garnishing.  Tamarind chutney or homemade saunth, 1/4 cup peanuts.

Variations- For the crunch factor you could add a tbsp of seviyan or other crunchy namkeen, or some roasted chanas insteady of peanuts, you could also add 1 small boiled potato or some steamed corn.  You can also mix in some green chutney or simply lemon juice and some gur syrup.

Method:  Mix everything in a bowl and enjoy!

I love this recipe when I am craving something chatpata and don't want to have dahi as that is heavy.  So quick and easy to make with so many variations possible.

Peanut and Gur Laddoos

A great healthy sweet treat for everyone for the festive season and upcoming winter.  So easy and fun to make.  I just love these for my sweet craving fixes.

Ingredients: Peanuts 1 bowl.  Jaggery 1/2 of same bowl.

Method:

* Lightly roast Peanuts and cool.

* Grind Peanuts in a grinder with or without the skin, it makes no difference to me so I prefer with the skin on.

* Add jaggery and roasted elaichi powder (optional) and grind again.

* Bind laddus making small balls with your hands and pressing them hard.  Kids love this!
Variation- You can put some dried coconut powder or almond chhaan that gets left over from the almond/ nut milks.


Peanuts are a rich source of protein (roughly 30 grams per cup after roasting). Peanuts are a good source of niacin and thus contribute to brain health, brain circulation and blood flow.(Source: Wikipedia). Peanut ladoo (kadalai urundai) is a tasty snack which is prepared under 10 minutes.

Brown Rice Mix Veg. Pulao (Oil Free)

Ingredients: 
1 cup of boiled brown rice per person
broccoli steamed with a little salt
red, yellow and green peppers cut into small pieces
mushrooms cut into halves
cumin seeds (jeera)
green chillies cut into tiny pieces
salt to taste
roasted peanuts and/or sesame seeds for additional flavour

Method:
Dry roast jeera till it releases aroma. Add mushrooms and peppers and stir fry dry, wait till they are a little soft. Put in steamed broccoli, stir fry dry till jeera coats the veggies. Add rice and stir in salt and green chillies.
Remove from flame add some roasted peanuts and sesame seeds.

Contributed by Ruma Malik.

Veg. Moussaka (No Fat)

Ingredients: 
2 potatoes, 2 aubergines, 2 tomatoes, 1 onion, a few pods of garlic, a piece of ginger, a few olives.

Method:
Steam and mash potatoes.
Grill thinly sliced aubergines till they turn brown.
Cook tomatoes, onion, garlic and ginger and then make a paste in mixie.
Cook tomato and onion puree on simmer for 15 minutes or till the sauce mixture turns deep red.
Add salt, white pepper and oregano. Now your sauce is ready.

Layer an oven proof dish with potatoes and then the grilled aubergines, top with tomato puree sauce and grill in the oven for 15 minutes.

Garnish with olives.

Contributed by Ruma Malik.

Raw Pepper and Zucchini Soup

INGREDIENTS: One large red pepper, one zucchini chopped with skin, some fresh coriander, lemon juice, 1 clove of garlic, 1 spoon chopped onion and 1/2 green chilly, 1/2 tbsp flax seed powder, salt, herbs and pepper to taste.  Variation - Try with 1 cucumber, 2 tomatoes and a handful of spinach or green capsicum - all raw of course.  All other ingredients are the same.

METHOD:  Blend all in the blender.  Garnish with some steamed veggies or seeds.  Enjoy as a cold soup on a summer day or heat it slightly if you must.

This is my favourite most surprisingly yummy soup as it takes 5 mins to prepare and 1 min to wash the blender ;)

Raw Vegan Oats Porridge

Ingredients
1 cup of raw Oats
1 cup of Berries (strawberries, blueberries) or any of your favourite sweet fruits e.g. banana, mango, chickoo, grapes
1 tbsp of soaked Raisins
1 tbsp of Nuts (Almonds, hazel nuts or any other nuts of your liking)
1 tsp Cinnamon


Method
Soak the oats overnight (before going to bed!). You can soak in it different liquid, depending on your liking - Almond milk, Water, Apple Juice. You can mix water with almond milk if you feel that apple juice only will be too sweet (which is what I find).
When you wake up, your porridge will almost be ready! Add some berries on top, some soaked raisins (that you would have soaked in water overnight as well), sprinkle with some crushed nuts of your liking and cinnamon.
If you want to add even more sweetness, add a tsp of raw date or gur syrup or honey if you eat some.
This is an amazing breakfast! You can also have this as a snack in the afternoon, provided you don’t have this twice a day because it’s a bit heavy!

Contributed by Nandini Gulati.

Moong Daal Halwa (no oil/ghee)

Ingredients

1 cup - Yellow Moong Daal

3/4 cup - Mishri ground (you may need to use more depending on taste)

4 cups - water

1/2 tsp - Green Cardamom ground

A pinch of ground Nutmeg

A pinch of Turmeric for colour

Grated/crushed Almonds

Raisins

Method

Roast whole moong daal, then grind in blender (consistency should be like sooji - a little gritty). Then sieve this so the really fine powder can be removed, this can be used for other dishes or just added to your flour for rotis. Let this soak for 1-2 hours. 

To make halwa put all the ingredients except almonds and raisins in a steel wok (kadai) and heat, bring to boil while stirring then simmer till the water is almost evaporated, then add the almonds and raisins and turn off the heat.

Nutritional profile: Makes approx. 12 servings of 1/2 cup each.

Calories per serving - 170

Tips to decrease the fat caloric intake is to keep the nuts out.

And you can follow the exact same for dalia halwa except the soaking time will be less for that.

Contributed by Lavleen Riar.

Nut and Seed Milks

A lot of distressing health effects of milk are recently being discovered.  Below are several alternatives to regular milk.

Cashew Milk: 5 soaked cashews
Almond Milk: 10 soaked and peeled almonds
Seeds (4 magaz - which has assorted melon seeds): 1-2 tablespoon soaked

Method: Soak from 3-4 hrs to overnight and blend in mixie with a glass of water.  Sieve the milk. This will yield a glass of milk.  If you find it too thin, you can increase the quantity of nuts.  Use the "chhaan" or the leftover from sieving to mix with roti dough, rice or sprinke in veggies or daal.  It's a healthy cream replacement.   Great for kids but watch you intake as nuts are high in fats so 1-2 servings a day as described above are enough.

Source: Here and There :)

Almond Thandai

Ingredients: 10 almonds soaked overnight and peeled.  A dash of roasted elaichi powder.  A dash of pepper.  Misri or honey (not vegan) to taste.  Ice-cubes as required.

Method: Blend everything in the mixie and pour and drink!

Source: Art of Living's Ayurvedic Cooking Course (Highly recommended)