Blow-Your-Mind-Away Golubtsy голубцы

The secret to a phenomenal Golubtsy that is much, much more than plain Cabbage Roll is:

Mixing butter with the cooked rice.


Ingredients:
1 head of cabbage, frozen then thawed
500 g minced lean beef
500 g minced lean pork
1 cup cooked rice
2 tbsp salted butter
1/2 onion diced, sauteed in 1 tsp oil
salt, pepper

2 tbsp tomato paste
1 tbsp flour
1 cup water

Method:
1.  Mix beef, pork, rice, butter, salt and pepper and set aside.
2. Separate the cabbage leaves.
3.

Vegan Spinach Potato Curry/ Shaakh Alu/ Aloo Palak Recipe (no onions or garlic)

I woke up this morning, and wanted a Sattvic meal. I wanted that Mandir (Hindu Temple) food taste without going to the temple.

The key to achieving that was skipping the onion and garlic. Then the rest of the ingredients were vegan. And the spices are a mixture of sweet-smelling and earthy. And voila.

A beautifully aromatic dish, perfectly vegan, pure, holistic and absolutely delicious. I ate this with home-made Rotis. But I only made the rotis because I ran out of pita bread, so feel free to eat this with rice or bread or anything that tickles your fancy. It would go really well with quinoa or couscous.

Ingredients for 1 serving:
1 tbsp canola oil
2 tsp fennel seeds (this adds that sweet-smelling aroma)
1/2 tsp grated ginger or ginger powder
2 tsp coriander powder (earthy flavour)
1 tsp cumin powder (another wonderfully earthy spice)
1 tsp turmeric powder
1/2 cup tomatoes, chopped
1/3 cup boiled potatoes, chopped
2 cups spinach, shredded or torn to smaller pieces

Method:
1. Heat the oil in a frying pan on medium heat.
2. When the oil has warmed up, add the fennel seeds and 30 seconds later, add the ginger. Saute for 1 minute. We don't want the ginger to brown. We just want to release the lovely ginger smell.
3. Add the coriander powder, cumin powder and turmeric powder. Stir for 10 seconds and add 2-3 tbsp of water to prevent the spices from burning. Cook for 2 minutes. The beautiful aroma of the spices will be wafting through the room.
4. Add the tomatoes, stir around and cook for 3-5 minutes. Add the potatoes and stir.
5. Add the spinach, stir till it wilts and stir in the salt.
6. Cover the pan and cook for 10 minutes.

Enjoy!

Breakfast Scramble: Easy, Delicious, Healthy

Last Sunday I boiled two Russet potatoes in their skin to use in a recipe. I never got to making the dish so I covered the potatoes in plastic wrap and saved them in the fridge not knowing what to do with them.
On Tuesday morning, after my workout, I suddenly realized my fridge was full of things I could put into a frying pan and something interesting might materialize. So here is what materialized:

Ingredients:
1 egg or 3 egg whites
1/3 potatoes, boiled, peeled and chopped or crumbled
1 cup of spinach, ripped into smaller pieces
1/3 tomato, chopped
1-2 tbsp onion, chopped
2 tsp butter
salt

Method:
1. In a medium heat frying pan, melt the butter and throw in the onions for 2 minutes.
2. When onions are soft and aromatic, add tomatoes. Cook 2 minutes.
3. Add the spinach and stir till it wilts. Add salt to taste.

Your vegetables are cooked. All you need to do is cook the egg.

4. Crack the egg or egg whites (use egg whites for a protein boost) over the vegetables, stir into the vegetables and cook for 1 minute. The eggs will still be undercooked. Turn off the heat and cover your frying pan to cook the eggs in the residual heat of your electric heating element or the heat from the vegetables.

This is a phenomenally tasty dish. A treat first thing in the morning. It took me 6 minutes to prepare from start to finish because I cut up the onions and tomatoes while the pan was heating up and the butter was melting. I tore the spinach directly above the frying pan so I didn't need to waste any time prepping that. The 1/3 potato was also something I just crumbled over the frying pan. And the result was absolutely phenomenal.

Not only is this a great post-workout meal with proteins you can boost by varying how many egg whites you want to add, it's a delicious way to incorporate 1 entire cup of spinach into your breakfast with almost no effort.

Don't want the potatoes? Skip it. Make it a low glycemic breakfast and have an orange or an apple to add some complex carbs.

I still can't get over how someone like me who struggles to get out of bed on time, let alone pour milk in a bowl to put cereal into, could make something this is a delicious and healthy in so little time.

Great site for stir-fry sauces of all sorts

http://www.fortysomething.ca/2012/05/15_basic_stir_fry_sauce_recipes.php

Some great ideas when you've run out of them.

Vege/Bean Pate

I used to buy an incredible vege wrap at my university snack bar. It was a tortilla or pita wrap, with a vege pate filling, mayonnaise and shredded purple cabbage. I remember I absolutely LOVED that wrap because of the absolutely delicious pate in there. I always, always wondered how I could replicate that pate recipe.

And today I did. Completely inadvertently. And here it is:

Ingredients:
1 cup of cooked black eyed peas
1 clove garlic
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp tahini paste
salt to taste

Method:
1. Mash the black eyed peas thoroughly. I used a hand blender.
2. In a separate bowl, mince the garlic, add the lemon juice and tahini and mix really well. If you have a mortar and pestle, then use that.
3. Combine all of the above. Mix the beans thoroughly with the sauce and salt to taste.

Absolutely incredible. You can eat this with crackers or in a wrap like my university snack store made it.

I just made this and I've been snacking on it just as is... I'm not sure it's going to last long enough to make it into a sandwich or wrap.

To-Die-For Veggie Burger

From start to finish, I had serious doubts about this burger. My first doubt arose when the patty came out dry. My second doubt arose after I took it out of the oven, because I had baked it not fried it.
But after I put it together in an open-faced burger and took a bite, I just can't describe how unthinkably delicious this burger became. Just unfathomably delicious.

Ingredients:
1 cup of dry chick peas soaked, then cooked and mashed
1 inch piece ginger, grated
3 cloves garlic, grated
1/3 cup cooked rice
1 tbsp cumin powder
1/2 cup chopped coriander leaves (loosely packed)
1 tsp ground roasted garam masala
1/2 cup oat flour
1 cup grated carrots
salt to taste

Method:
1. Heat the oven to 350deg F.
2. Mash all the ingredients and shape into 10-12 patties. Spread a drop (literally a drop) of oil on top of each patty and spread out gently.
3. Bake for 20 minutes.
4. Take out and cool.

How to Serve:
1. Split an english muffin in two. We are only going to use half an english muffin for this open faced sandwich.
2. Spread one side with mint-coriander chutney.
3. Place one veggie burger on bread.
4. Dot with mozzarella cheese.
5. Warm up in oven. Cook till cheese melts and bubbles and turns a light golden on top.

I don't know how to describe to you how this tasted. It was absolutely, most definitely, the best veggie burger I have ever eaten. And I've eaten many, many veggie burgers.

I'm not sure how and why this burger was so phenomenal. I suspect that the ingredients were all very flavourful and somehow it all came together absolutely beautifully.

Bonne Chance!

Promising Fish recipes for body sculpting

1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HH3GalcNWY

2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jBL0Im0uU8

3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeOQFQq6TV4

Easy Cabbage

This is a simple recipe I learnt in Cuba. It's quick to do, nutritious, extremely filling, and is an excellent side for anything at all. This is a keeper for weeks when you just don't want to cook - but you still want a nutritious meal.

Ingredients:
1 head cabbage, cut into 1" cubes
2-3 tsps oil
1-2 tsp salt

Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Farenheit.
2. Place the cut cabbage in your cooking dish. Toss with oil and salt. Place in oven.
3. Cook for 30 minutes. Turn at half way point.

Goes well with anything at all. Replaces potatoes/rice/pasta as an excellent side dish. High in fiber, very filling, and delicious if you like cabbage like I do.

The Cubans cooked their green beans and squash like this as well. Can't go wrong.

Cheers!