Vegan Kitchari How To

I fell in love with kitchari the first time I tasted it at Anapurna's Vegetarian Cafe in Albuquerque. The cafe doubles as an ayurvedic cooking school and every item on the menu is assigned a dosha. Kitchari is balancing and nourishing no matter your dosha and is therefore tridoshic. Upon tasting the kitchari, I could honestly tell that this was a food that was healthful and easy to digest. You can taste the goodness. Your gut says "thank you" even as you are consuming it. Naturally, I wanted to make my own.

My first attempt at preparing this magical food was almost catastrophic. I couldn't find the split yellow mung beans the recipe calls for, so I bought whole green mung beans, but this was not close to being my biggest problem. The pot that I used was not quite big enough for all the beans, quinoa, and vegetables that I filled it with. In honesty, the pot was filled to the brim before I added the last ingredient. When I did finally add the last ingredient (hot coconut oil with spices), the pot overflowed and the hot oil spilled onto the electric stovetop and immediately combusted. The flames were tall and angry. Being that I was basically squatting in a friend's apartment when this happened, I panicked. I poured water on the fire: apparently not what you are supposed to do to an oil fire, turned off all the fire alarms, opened the doors and windows, and turned the fans on high. The fire burned out and the apartment building did not end up a pile of ashes, but the bottom of the pot of kitchari was burned and I had a serious mess to clean up. I tried to eat the kitchari anyways, but it had a faint burnt flavor and really wasn't particularly pleasant. It certainly did not provide the culinary experience I was hoping for.

When I decided to try to prepare kitchari a second time, I was understandably nervous. I figured fate might be on my side this time, however, as I had procured split yellow mung beans from an Asian food store in Northern Virginia. Having just finished a bowl of leftovers, I can tell you that my kitchen is still standing and my second attempt brought forth some delicious kitchari.

Ingredients:

1 cup split yellow mung beans
1 cup white jasmine rice
1 cup chopped carrots
1 cup chopped celery
2 cups chopped kale
2 table spoons coconut oil
cumin
turmeric
powdered ginger
salt & pepper

Procedure:

1. Pour the split yellow mung beans and jasmine rice into separate bowls and rinse repeatedly until water runs off clear.

2. Add the cleaned beans and rice to a LARGE cooking pot with six cups of purified water. Since this is meant to be a detoxifying meal, it is worthwhile to use clean water. Bring water to a boil and then lower to a simmer for 20 minutes.

3. Thoroughly wash carrots, celery, and kale before chopping into bite sized pieces. Again, as a detox food, spend extra time making sure vegetables are extra clean.

 4. When the mung beans and rice are soft (after 20 minutes), add the vegetables to the pot and stir them into the mixture. Continue stirring occasionally as they cook for 10 minutes.

5. While the vegetables are cooking, add the coconut oil and spices to a small saucepan over high heat. Stir occasionally, and remove the pot from the heat source when the spices become slightly browned and very fragrant. It is important to let the hot oil cool for a couple minutes before adding it the large cooking pot.

                                               

6. After the vegetables have cooked for 10 minutes, stir in the coconut oil and spices. Let the kitchari cool, and then serve (season to taste with salt and pepper) and enjoy!

Kitchari is commonly used for detoxing and is often served at yoga and meditation retreats. However, it is not meant to replace all meals for a long period of time. 

For more information on Ayurvedic cooking and Ayurveda, visit the website of the Ayurvedic Institute in Albuquerque, NM: http://www.ayurveda.com/

Dinner at Home

The move into our new house can best be described as fractured. We closed on the house on the Thursday before memorial day weekend. The highlight of the day was the electrical utility worker backing into my parked car while he chatted on his mobile - the first time I ever parked in my new driveway. The final walk through (my first time in the house) was otherwise uneventful and we drove the hobbled Fit to the lawyers office. The signing of papers was long and boring, and the grumbling in my tummy did not help my patience. Dealing with insurance companies and making sure the Fit was safe to drive ate up our allotted time for lunch. There was some hold up in the communication between the loan office and the lawyers office, and we sat for an hour waiting for final clearance to be passed down to issue checks to the sellers and us. I was not pleased. Eventually we gave up, said we would come back later to pick up the checks, and we raced to find something to eat. Jamie and I killed some Moe's Burritos; I even ate all the complementary chips with my burrito and started in on Jamie's chips.

Officially homeowners, Jamie dropped me off at our friends' apartment so I could finish up the lesson plans I created for my summer trip. Jamie graciously brought the Fit to the autobody shop and procured a rental vehicle. After loading up the rental, we drove to our new house for a celebratory champagne toast with friends. Jamie and I fell asleep that night on an air mattress is an empty house, that we owned.

The next morning, Jamie whisked me to the Valdosta airport, which is even smaller than expected. I flew to Atlanta and then on to Raleigh for Broadreach summer staff training. After a week of learning about the other trip leaders, role playing possible trip scenarios, playing games, and finding out about my students and trip itinerary, I flew back to the tiny Valdosta airport. Jamie picked me up with an exuberant little Gnasher pup and we did some house shopping and went out to dinner. This night we fell asleep in a house full of unpacked boxes, but we slept on our own bed (my first time in a real bed in almost a month!)!

The following morning, Jamie's alarm starting complaining at 5:00am. I grudgingly climbed out of bed and drove Jamie to his squadron. He was on his way to N. Georgia for a week of SERE training. I spent the week unpacking boxes, teaching yoga classes, reading about Thailand, and resuming my "Clean" cleanse to get my digestive tract back on track after eating lots of unhealthy (SYSCO) food at Broadreach training. The "Clean" program requires smoothies to be consumed for breakfast and dinner; solid food is only prescribed for lunch, and I usually just have a salad and some almonds.

The point of all this, is that when Jamie got home last night we had technically owned our house for 2 weeks, but I had not cooked dinner in the house once yet and we had not eaten dinner together in our new dining room at all. So, it was a big event! Our very first dinner together in our new home needed to be healthy, filling, and delicious. I decided to try a recipe for veggie pasta that I had seen in "Natural Health" magazine that would allow me to stay pretty close to the regulations of the "Clean" program, which outlaws gluten, soy, corn, sugar, nightshades, dairy, and other things. There were some tomatoes in the recipe, but of the foods eliminated in the clean programs, tomatoes seem to be less toxic to my body than others (dairy is the worst). Now, when I say veggie pasta, that is a bit deceptive, the "pasta" is actually very thinly sliced zucchini and carrots. In the magazine picture, it really looked like multi-colored spaghetti. I think mine ended up looking like just a pile of cooked vegetables, but it did taste pretty good.

Ingredients: 

Olive Oil

Salt  & Pepper

Freshly Dried basil, thyme, oregano (from the neighbors garden)

Onion

Garlic

Asparagus

Broccoli Florets

Jalapeno pepper (from neighbors garden)

2 yellow zucchini (neighbor!)

1 green zucchini (neighbor!)

2 Carrots

1 Red Pepper

Baby bella mushroom

1 can diced tomatoes

Wash all veggies. Cut the ends off of asparagus and cut into 1 inch pieces, before submerging in boiling water until just soft. Remove soft asparagus with a slotted spoon and drop into a bowl of ice water. Cook broccoli florets in an identical manner.

Slice carrots and zucchini into the thinnest strips your cutting ability allows. Mine ended up a bit thicker than they should of been, which diminished their "spaghettiness." Submerge in boiling water until limp when picked up by the middle and then plunge into a bowl of ice water.

Dice garlic and onion and saute with olive oil in a large pan over medium heat. Sprinkle in salt, pepper, and herbs. Clean and cut mushrooms into bite-sized pieces and add them to the pan. Cut the red pepper and jalapeno pepper and add to pan. Finally, add the can of tomatoes to the pan. Continue to cook over medium heat  until liquid from tomatoes comes to a boil, then lower heat and cover to keep warm.

In a separate pan, saute zucchini, carrots, asparagus, and broccoli with olive oil. Serve the zucchini, carrots, broccoli, and asparagus first and arrange on the plate as if pasta. I used tongs to grasp the veggies and arrange them on the plates. As you can see mine didn't really look like pasta, but it was close.

Use a ladle to heap the tomato and veggie mixture on top of the zucchini and carrot "pasta."  Here it ends up looking like a giant pile of veggies, but with a little more skill it could certainly look like a veggie pasta with multi-colored noodles. 

Since it was our first dinner at home together, I actually set the table. Our table looks rather small in our new, large dining area. We have so much more space in our new house - all of our things look a little dwarfed. 

This recipe was a great first dinner in our new home. It was relatively quick and simple, but most importantly it was made up of all healthy, whole ingredients, with several even being super local (next door). I did have fun preparing it, even if it did not look magazine perfect. I feel happy and contented to have set the tone for many wholesome meals to come! I am excited to start producing more and more food in my own yard and finding creative ways to prepare them. 

Coming up... many adventures in owning our own home (yard and home projects), but first a summer teaching in Thailand!