Ayurvedic Recipes

GHEE

2 pound unsalted butter

Preparation:

Rinse the butter with water, put it in a pot and allow it to melt on middle heat, reduce to low flame and let it simmer, till the butter is clear and slightly orange coloured. Don’t stir!

During the simmering froth develops on top of the butter, which partly sinks towards the bottom of the pot. This froth can get brownish, but should not get burnt. The other part of the froth remains on the surface and gets sieved at the end, so there is no need to remove it in-between.

Don’t let the simmering ghee too long unobserved, as it burns quite easily especially towards the end. If you can’t stay the whole time, an alarm clock is useful.

When the liquidity is clear, of a yellow-orange colour and has a nutty fragrance (app. After 20 – 30 min. in case of 2 pound), remove the pot from the cooker and let the ghee rest for some minutes. Then sieve it through a thin cloth into a clean glass jar or stainless steel container. Handy for sieving are cotton tea strainers.

For cooling cover the ghee with a kitchen towel or tissue, then close the container and store it in the kitchen cupboard.

Ghee should not be store in the fridge. If it is prepared carefully, means if it doesn’t contain any water, ghee is storable for a quite long time without getting rancid.

Ghee should not be “disturbed” too often. Therefore it is recommendable to fill the approximately daily amount into a smaller container; it stays longer fresh in this case. Also don’t leave a spoon in the ghee.

• Ghee is indispensable for the preparation of sweets
• The regular consumption of ghee lubricates the joints from the inside, makes the skin smooth and promotes the digestion.
• In Ayurveda well know since a long time and shown also by recent studies: Ghee is the only fat, which doesn’t build cholesterol. It even can help to reduce cholesterol.
• Should you burn your ghee, you always can use it for a ghee lamp, so do not throw it away.

ALMOND DATE OJAS BALLS (this recipe is taken from the Yoga International)

If you’d like to add a sweet, ojas-building food to your recipe box, try these Almond Date Ojas Balls inspired by an Ojas Ladoos recipe from the website vedicook.wordpress.com. Notice the similarity in the qualities of the ingredients to the qualities of ojas (heavy, sweet, unctuous, sticky). As stated in the vedicook recipe, “Ayurveda warns against combining equal proportions of ghee and honey by WEIGHT, however equal proportions by VOLUME is recommended for building ojas.”

Ingredients

• 1 cup raw almonds
• ½ teaspoon powdered ginger
• ½ teaspoon ground cardamom
• Pinch of Himalayan pink salt
• 7 or 8 medjool dates, pitted
• 1 tablespoon ghee (or 1 tablespoon of coconut oil)
• 1 tablespoon raw honey
• Grated rind of 1 organic orange (optional). You can also use a bit of rose petal jam if available.

Directions

1. Add almonds, ginger, cardamom, and salt to a food processor and process until well ground. Don’t process so much that it turns to a flour or a paste, but enough that it has a finely ground consistency. Remove contents to a bowl and set aside.
2. Add dates, ghee or coconut oil, honey, and the optional orange rind or rose petal jam to the food processor and pulse until dates break up. Then process steadily until all ingredients are well combined.
3. Add back to the processor all but about 1/8 cup of the almond mixture and pulse and process until nicely combined.
4. Roll walnut-sized pieces of the mixture into smooth balls. Then roll the balls in the reserved almond mixture.

Flapjacks (from the Ayurvedic Yogi)

Very taste flapjacks, excellent for lunch boxes and snacks. Sometimes I put fresh apple in as well, works excellent. Be creative:)

• 15 organic chopped dates
• 125 g ghee
• 150 brown sugar/jaggery/date syrup
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 3 ground cardamom
• larg handful of sunflower and pumpkin seeds
• larg handful of raisins
• 500 g rooled porridge oats
• rice/soya/coconut milk

Directions

1. 1. Put dates in a pan with little water, cook for 5 min until soft, then blend into a thick past. add Ghee, seeds, fruits and enough oats to make a thick consistency, mixing all ingredients.
2. 2. Add some rice, soya or coconut mild and stir the mixture over heat for a few minutes, adding more oats to bulk up. Cooking this oats in this way makes them soften and the flapjack bind. After 5 min. of cooking, pour into an oven dish and flatten down with a spoon.
3. 3. Bake for 30 min at 160 or gas mark 4 until golden brown on the top.

Enjoy!

 Oak Cookies (recipe from Sivananda Centre)

This is a recipe for very yummy oaty cookies, easy to make, good for lunch boxes or snack in between

Spinach Vegetable

Preparation

Wash the spinach and cut it finely, if you use baby spinach, you don’t need to cut it.

Heat the ghee in a heavy pan; add cumin seeds and pieces of chilli and the fresh ginger (ginger can alternatively also be added to the spinach).

Add the spinach and salt and stir well.

Cover the spinach and let it half cook.

Add the salt, the lemon juice and the sugar, stir well/

Cover again and finish cooking till soft.

Alternatively the Oil Fodni:

The cooking method is the same. To prepare the oil fodni, heat the oil in a heavy pain. Add 2 or 3 mustard seeds and wait till the pop. When they pop, add mustard seeds, hing, turmeric and chilli powder.

Add vegetable and continue as above.

Alternatively:

Instead of lemon juice, you can also peel and cut a tomato and cook it with the spinach to add acidity.

If your body is fine with garlic, you can also use a garlic glove and add it at the end to the fodni, just before the vegetable.

To make a change, spinach can also be used in combination with potatoes or yellow mung dhal.

Warming Butternut squash and sweet potato soup

Ingredients

Peel butternut squash, sweet potato and onion, cut into cubes and place on a baking tray, roast in the oven till soft, about 45 min. at 180˚. When soft, put into a pot and blend, add vegetable stock or water till it has desired consistency. Add pepper, garam masala, fresh ginger and lemon juice to taste.

Toasted Pumpkin and Sunflower seeds

Put 1 cup of sunflower seeds and a pan and toast till slightly brown and giving of a nutty smell.

Put 1 cup of pumpkin seeds in a pan and toast slightly till starting to pop, add ¼ teaspoon Turmerik and 2 teaspoons of jeera/dhania mixture

Mix both seeds together and sprinkle over the pumpkin soup or eat as a snack

Dhal soup with vegetables

• Combine the lentils with the water in a large pot and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and let it cook for 25 to 30 minutes, add carrots
• In a small pan heat up the oil, when hot add mustard seeds, wait till pop, add methi seeds, hing turmeric and chilli powder roast for a moment
• Add this mixture to the soup and cook for an additional 10 minutes
• Finally, add the spinach and salt and cook for 10 more minutes.
• Serve with crusty bread or Cheese & Herb scones or rice

Winter porridge

This is for the dedicated ones:)
I bought an ayurvedic cook book from Germany and found this recipe which I am now eating quite a lot. Read the recipe:

1 handful of pearl barley
2 handful of pumpkin seeds (or any other seeds that suit you)
1/2 handful of porridge oats
400 ml water
1/4 tsp of turmeric
1 tbsp ghee
1/4 – 1/2 tsp cinnamon 
Any sweetener like agave or maple sirup, rose jam or sugar

Soak the barley overnight, rinse 2x next morning, put in a big pot together with the seeds and the turmeric and 400 ml of water; boil for 20 min with closed lid. Add 300 ml of hot milk and oats and boil for another 30 min. The instruction are with half covered pot, but it cooks over every time, so I don’t cover it and simmer for 30 min. Add sweetener, I prefer rose jam, which is cooling:), ghee and cinnamon. Enjoy!

Barley is very full of minerals (which sharpen our senses) and silicic acid which is very beneficial for the connective tissue, hair, nails, joints and spine. Barely is very soothing for the entire digestive system, Barley is cooling.
Porridge oats are very strengthening for muscles, nervous system, brain, digestion, helps to reduce blood pressure, to up the good cholesterol. Oats is slightly warming.
Pumpkin seeds are one of the seeds that are ok for Pitta people (with lots of heat inside).

It sounds a little elaborate, but this breakfast is very gentle on the system, does make you feel full, but leaves you satisfied for hours!!! Worth while the effort.