Kale is one tough leafy vegetable with woodsy stalks and chewy leaves similar to Murungai Keerai, leaving us with few recipe options. Cooking this with lentils was considerably easy for intake with minimal effort. Tried this with Bengal gram, following traditional kootu preparation and had no problem with picky eaters. Fresh kale (green or purple) belong to the Wild cabbage / Broccoli family, rich in anti-oxidants with high nutrition content. These type of veggies usually get a red carpet welcome in my kitchen and will be honoured with lentil studded crown.
Freshly squeezed apple juice is also called as sweet cider, mostly this is pasteurised for long life and sold in supermarkets under refrigerated section. Here my recipe is for fresh sweet cider with thick cloudy apple juice which retains most nutrients when compared to filtered store bought juice. There's always a negative factor for unpasteurized fruit juices concerning E-coli, but if done in an hygienic way this could be avoided. Moreover this recipe of mine is good for immediate consumption, if you fear contamination then heat this juice, cool and refrigerate.
Agua Fresco- literally means Fresh Fruit water in Spanish. This simple thirst quencher is a popular fruit drink in Mexico, though the name looks wierd, its nothing but plain watermelon juice.
Watermelon juice / Darboos juice / Sparkling Watermelon / Watermelon Soda / Thirst Quencher / Darboosani Kai
Lassi is a traditional North Indian yogurt based smoothie. Sweetened version of this is made with fruits and honey. Here is one such smoothie with Mango being the highlight.
Mango Milk Shake / Mango Smoothie / Lassi / Mango
South Indian style fenugreek leaves stir fry!
Taro Root (Sepang kizhangu / Chepankizhangu in Tamil / Arvi in Hindi / Chama Dumpa Vepudu / Chaama Dumpa in Telugu / Chamadumpalu Fry / Kilangu / Colacasia)
If you have diabetes, this is an ideal appetizer for you. When you’re eating too much hot and oily stuff, this soup seems to cool down your body system. It’s a great soup to add to your daily meals or at least twice a week. Wonderful recipe which I happened to learn from my mom. Use your imagination, add in a couple of veggies to reduce the bitterness and to enhance the taste. Notoriously bitter of all vegetables, so, I have added lots of ripe tomatoes (canned) to make it more like tomato soup, but not really necessary.
Dry fry pudalangai poriyal, an authentic dish from Tamilnadu served with plain rice and lentils. (Snake Gourd / Potlakaya / chichinda)