I’ve been thinking a lot about balance lately and, as life likes to do, was given nearly 3 ½ hours worth of instruction on this topic at an Ayurvedic cooking class last week at the Natural Gourmet Institute for which I signed up months ago.

For the record, Ayurveda is an ancient form of Indian alternative medicine that, as far as this Midwestern American can tell, is about achieving a balance in all things – taste, temperature, emotion, physicality and spirituality.

The class, taught by the sunny Nalini Mehta, was a crash course for me in this Indian/ Ayurvedic idea of balance. Apologies to Nalini if I don’t get this quite right, but the gist of Ayurvedic cooking is to use a balance of the following six tastes in a meal: sweet, sour, bitter, pungent, astringent and salty. These, and again I was quite distracted by the yummy food being cooked to get this exactly right, correspond to the different natural elements of air, water, earth, fire, space. And depending on you and your loved ones’ natural body chemistry, your current emotional and physical states, the weather, time of day, etc., more or less of each of those tastes is desirable in order to achieve an overall balance.

This is, quite obviously, a little different than the sort of “food balance” I grew up with in Chicago: a slab protein, 2 sides of veggies and a big ole scoopful of carbs.

What I took home from this class, besides a rather un-Ayurvedic full belly, was a fuller sense of life and the comfort that a meal cooked with love and intention can provide.

Try this Khichri. Make it for the people you love. It’s a 4000 year old Indian comfort dish extraordinaire… it’s a protein-filled risotto with a kick, and is sure to balance out holiday stress.

Serves: 6
Time: 1 hour

Khichri – Indian Rice and Pea “Risotto”, adapted from Nalini Mehta

Olive oil or ghee (clarified butter)
2 dried red chilies, crumbled
1 tsp cumin seeds
8 cloves
8 black peppercorns
1 large yellow onion, cut into rings
1 large zucchini, cut into cubes *
½ bag of spinach, roughly chopped*
1 inch ginger, minced
1 tsp turmeric
¼ tsp asafetida, optional
½ tsp coriander powder
½ tsp ground cumin
1 tsp garam masala
1 ½ cup yellow or red split peas, toor dal, or moog dal
1 ¼ cups basmati rice
7 cups water
salt
Ghee, melted butter, or oil to garnish

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Frit-ter
-verb (used with object)
1. To squander away piecemeal; waste little by little

-noun (consumed with passion and a side of dipping sauce)
2. The perfect way to take something good, and make it even better
For example:

Pakoras
Fry Balls
Crisps
Falafel
Hush Puppies
Croquettes
Bhajis

These Green Chili and Corn Fritters are what would happen if an Indian Onion Bhaji eloped to Thailand with a Southern Corn Cake Belle and spawned a spicy, sweet, and savory fritter lovechild.
 
I know 50 minutes seems like a long time to spend on these, but if you get two batches frying up at once you can cut time down the cooking time quite a bit.  However, if you’re not that dexterous, I’m sure there are worse ways to fritter away an evening.

Time: 50 minutes
Serves: 4 -5

Green Chili and Corn Fritters

1 medium onion, cut into thin rings
4 green onions, sliced
3 green chilies, minced
1 box frozen sweet corn kernels
1 1/3 cup chickpea flour
1/2 inch ginger, minced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp salt
peanut oil

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Sometimes, when deleting a chain email, dontcha just feel a little bit bad? Like, maybe you just deleted the email that really will get five million Russian rubles wired to your checking account?

It happened to me. Really.

Except it wasn’t a chain email. It was a recipe exchange. And it wasn’t five million Russian rubles. It was a Russian Bride named Katya. Ok, not so much Russian as Thai. And not a bride, but a soup recipe. That’s right. I received a very excellent, very free, very Thai, soup recipe right to my inbox. This internet stuff is great!

Check it out for yourself. Straight from whoknowswhere to my sister’s (no, not The Sistaster nor the Li’l Sis, but the older sis that is probably best described as The Ultracompetitive Sis) best friend Teha to me to you.

Time: 20 minutes
Serves: 5 – 6

Thai Pumpkin Soup

1 15 oz can pumpkin puree
1 15 oz can coconut milk
2 cups mango nectar
3 cups water
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1/4 cup smooth or chunky peanut butter; your preference
2 veggie bullion cubes
1/2 an inch fresh ginger, minced
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 green chilies, minced
1/2 bunch of cilantro, chopped
3-4 green onions, chopped

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Why is it that there are some foods that you want to taste just like they do in a restaurant?

For instance, I want my thin crust pizza to taste like Anna Maria’s greasy Brooklyn-style pizza and my deep dish pizza to taste Chicago-style like it’s from someplace like Gino’s East.  I’m also quite fond of the Southwestern Salad at The Cheesecake Factory (minus the chicken, of course) and have made a fairly accurate reproduction at home though it doesn’t quite have the presentation pizzazz of the huge mound of shredded lettuce and tortilla strips that you get at the restaurant.  I’ve also heard that the Buffalo Wings at Hooters are quite the industry standard, but I don’t eat buffalo, or chicken-that-supposed-to-taste-like-buffalo, and furthermore that bulbous owl-eye logo freaks me out.

Miso soup is easy to make at home but I’ve never quite gotten it to have the same restauranty miso soup flavor that all Japanese restaurants can someone clone quite flawlessly.  What I have, however, discovered is the secret to that other Japanese restaurant mainstay, the Japanese salad.  It’s light, sweet, crunchy and makes an easy pairing with any stir-fry.  It’s restaurant-style deliciousness in the privacy of your own home, without strange buffalos or owls.

Serves: 4
Time: 20 minutes

Japanese Salad and Dressing

1/2 a head of iceberg lettuce, finely shredded
1 small head of Napa cabbage, finely shredded
1 cucumber, julienned or sliced
4 carrots, julienned or sliced

Shred the lettuce and cabbage.
Slice the cucumber and carrots on the bias (diagonally) quite thin.  Or, if you’ve really got some time, it’s more authentic to julienne them.

Japanese Dressing

2 Tbsp soy sauce
2 Tbsp rice vinegar
2 Tbsp sesame oil
2 Tbsp honey
¼ inch garlic
¼ inch ginger

Put all the above ingredients in a jar/tupperware and shake until well combined.  Pour over the salad and serve.

I suppose I’m feeling sentimental because my mom visited me this past weekend.  She’s on her way home now, maybe flying over the mountains of Pennsylvania, or crossing that just-big-enough-that-you-might-mistake-it-for-an-ocean Great Lake Michigan.  She lives outside of Chicago where the family grew up and I, as regular readers surely know, live in Big Bad New York City.  The flight is only a touch over 2 hours but boy does it just feel like a long way home sometimes.

Mom flew in for just the weekend under the general premise that it’s her 59th birthday and what she really wants to do is to spend time with her daughters.  Life has been busy for me, last week especially so, and I hardly had a chance to look forward to mom’s visit let alone do those things that I, like everyone else, like to do to impress upon my mother that I lead a clean, safe, and adult life.  You know, things like clean my room, change my sheets, buy toilet paper, hide the bong, etc. Kidding, mom, kidding.  Anyway, I still can’t find it from when I hid it in college.

But what I did have time to do was to make some good, $0.50 per person, bean soup.  I had to buy the veggies on Tuesday because I was going to be too busy Wednesday and Thursday.  I was so stressed I even forgot the beans.  The Li’l Sis thoughtfully pitched in and bought the beans and chopped the veggies Thursday night.  Friday morning I added spices and flipped on the crock pot.   Friday lunchtime I ran out to buy a loaf of bread so I could dash out of work at the stroke of five to get home and clean before Mom’s arrival.  Instead I just crashed out on my bed until her cab pulled up.

It was just bean soup.  It wasn’t anything special.  It was borne of the necessity that I needed something hot, filling, and most importantly, ready when Mom arrived at six when I work until five.  It needed to be cheap so we sisters could splurge on Saturday to take her to one of Manhattan’s finest French restaurants.   It needed to be simple, easy, and something I’ve made and tasted so many times I could finish up with the lights off if I had to hide the state of my unwashed floors.

Mom’s eaten it a million times too but was careful to give the bean soup her fullest compliments.  Yeah, the soup is good in the way that it’s exactly what you’re expecting.  It’s modest, straightforward, and doesn’t hide its homeliness under a topping of mircrogreens.  It’s plain and cheap; it’s what grandma used make when times were tough.

But I think what mom was really saying when she complimented the soup was, “Thanks for taking the time to make me a home-cooked meal.”  Or “It’s really nice to spend time with you, Vanessa.”

Thanks Mom.  It was one of those few times when it mattered much less what we were eating than with whom we were eating it.  It was nice to spend time with you too.

ps. The sentimental nature of this post made me realize it would be a perfect contribution to the “Dishes of Comfort” food blogging event hosted by Ivonne at Cream Puffs in Venice and Orchidea at Viaggi & Sapori.  Watch for the roundup on November 16th or 17th.

Serves: 6
Time: 20 minutes of prep plus overnight and a workday hands-off in the Crock Pot

Crock Pot Bean Soup 

1 bag mixed beans, rinsed
2 leeks, chopped
3 – 4 carrots, cut into coins
4 – 5 stalks of celery, chopped
veggie broth or water and 2-3 bullion cubes
1 tbsp Herbs de Provence
greens, chopped. optional
lemon, salt, and pepper to taste

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