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.