Samosas and Mint Chutney

Today I made samosas for the first time. It was a bit time consuming but the first time trying a new recipe always takes me a little longer.

The Samosa recipe is on page 283 and I found her directions and drawings of how to put a samosa together to be very helpful. I substituted cauliflower for potatoes as the author suggests and ended up with 24 samosas. Next time I will cut the recipe in half and make each samosa larger than the recommend 3 inches. This is just a personal preference for more filling and less dough.

Miriam says that traditionally samosas are served with Mint Chutney so I made her recipe on page 520. The mint chutney was just a few minutes to make and really added a fresh flavor to the samosas. It was delicious.

Daily Dal

 I made the Daily Dal but I added fennel seeds and coriander seeds (not in the recipe) thus eliminating any internal heat problems after eating since these spices are good for reducing pitta.

Dal I

I made Dal I, it has mustard seeds and cloves both of which I love but are heating. About an hour after eating, I was internally hot... I know that for me, these spices will have to wait until cooler weather. I remember a vaidya telling me that pitta is strongest in October because it has accumulated in the physiology from the summer heat.

The Vaidya's Salad

Here's the photo I took of the The Vaidya's Salad recipe. It is made with grated carrots, beets and fresh ginger. A little eaten at the beginning of the meal will increase the digestive fire or Agni.

Summer Pasta for Pitta

Heavens Banquet has several suggested menus for the main meal of the day. I decided to try one that sounded good for the end of the summer season.

Summer Pasta for Pitta (left)

The Vaidya's Salad
'Swonderful Shortbread

Summer Pasta for Pitta was delicious, very quick and easy to make. Miriam has what she calls Homage to Vivaldi: The Three Ayurvedic Seasons of Pasta. Fun and yummy.

The vaidya's salad is one of my husband's all time favorite salads. It was sometimes served to us on Residence Courses at the local TM center. I never had the recipe before now and it is as wonderful as I remember.

The 'Swonderful shortbread was easy but I think I did something incorrectly. It came out so crumbly that I can not cut it into squares for serving... but the crumbs taste great.

Dal #2

During the last 2 days I've made 6 new recipes from Heaven's Banquet. I'm finding more and more things about this book that I really like. The most recent discovery is the rhythm of the book.
When I first started using it, I could not find what I wanted easily. I thought this was because the table of contents was rather brief and the index only fair compared to my other cookbooks.
However, now I think the layout is done in a more holistic way. Let me use an example to explain. When I was busy painting, I would lay my paints out in "families" of color. I could have laid them out alphabetically but that's not how I work. I paint and cook very intuitively and after using this book for a few weeks I now feel in tune with the rhythm of the author.

I'm very happy with the flavors of all the recipes I tried. Some are extremely subtle... like the Daily dal #2. This will make a great evening dish for those of us who eat light at night and our main meal at noon.