Women's Ministry

Always one more meal to get;
One more train which must be met;
One more hopeless sock to mend;
One more invalid to tend;
One more salve for one more knee,
One more visitor to tea;
One more future bruised and scarred;
One more drop of spikenard;
One more problem, one more doubt;
One more mood to be smoothed out;
One more smile and one more kiss...



Ah, but ministry like this
Will outlast the radiant sun;
Woman’s work is never done.

-Fay Inchfawn

"Anyone who gives up prescribed duties as troublesome, or out of fear, is said to be in the mode of passion. Such action never leads to the elevation of renunciation." -Bhagavad gita As It Is 18.8

banana chutney

(Serves 2-3)
INGREDIENTS:

• 1 T lemon juice
• 2-3 bananas
• 1 T ghee
• 1/4 black mustard seeds 
• 1/2 t cumin seeds
• 1 t fresh ginger root, minced
• 1/2 t coriander powder
• 1/4 t freshly ground black peppercorns
• a pinch of cinnamon powder
• 1/4 t turmeric
•  2 T sugar
  

PREPARATION:

1. Mash bananas (a little lumpy is good) with the lemon juice.
2. Chaunce the mustard seeds in hot ghee. 
3. When the mustard stops popping, add cumin, ginger root and remaining spices in quick succession. Stir a bit and then pour chaunce into banana mixture.
4. Add sugar and stir until well blended.

Over to Krishna with pakoras or hot puris 

urd dahl with tomatoes

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 cup split urad dahl
• water
• 4 large plum tomatoes, chopped
• 4 T ghee
• 1 t fresh ginger, minced
• 1/2 t mustard seeds
• 1 t cumin seeds
• a pinch of hing
• 1 t turmeric
• 1/4 t freshly ground black pepper
• 5-6 curry leaves (opt)
• salt, as desired
• 2 T fresh coriander for a garnish, chopped

PREPARATION:

1. Boil urd in plenty of water with the turmeric on medium to high boil about 45 minutes.
2. Heat ghee in sauce pan until hot to make a chaunce. Add ginger and cumin and mustard seeds. Fry until the ginger is golden brown and crispy and mustard seeds stop popping. Add hing and black pepper and curry leaves. Add tomatoes and fry a few seconds. Pour all into soup  and continue to cook on low heat and covered about 30 minutes more until dahl is cooked and tomatoes soft. 
3. Turn off the heat. Stir in the salt and fresh coriander leaves

Offer to Krishna with a bowl of rice or steaming hot parathas

VARIATION 2
No mustard seeds? Try chopped mustard greens! Omit the tomatoes and add a dash of lemon juice at the end.

FOR A NIGHTSHADE FREE DAHL, replace the tomato with a cup of yogurt added right before chauncing. Let simmer with the spices at least a few minutes before offering.

Better Butter and Buttermilk

A continuation from a previous post on Butter Making.

A visiting Swami, HH Bhakti Visvambhara Madhava Maharaja from Mayapur, gave class and said that butter churned from yogurt (makhan) is healthier and more digestible than the butter churned from the cream derived from fresh milk. I looked a little more into this on the web and discovered that such butter is becoming more widespread under the name "probiotic butter".

So today husband and I decided to make some butter from yogurt. We started with a good amount of fresh cream, turned it into yogurt, whipped it into butter, strained and pressed it and then boiled it into ghee.

Krishna got special treats today. Yogurt butter and the resultant delicious cultured buttermilk, after straining the butter, we were able to offer right away. The ghee we used on His parathas next morning. 

The buttermilk can be served plain, sweetened or with pinches of salt, black pepper and ground roasted cumin. Or make it taste like strawberry or peach kefir by cooking sugar with blended fruit (boil until sugar is dissolved), cooling it and then stirring the syrup into the buttermilk. Other fruits to try are mango (good raw), pineapple and orange juice or blueberries. 

According to Ayurveda, fresh buttermilk drunk after the main meal at noon is especially healthful, acting as a digestive aid.

The most challenging part was the churning of the yogurt to produce the butter. The large temple mixer needs repair and won't be available for a few more days, so I resorted to electric hand mixers, two of them going at once ( I think it was like five gallons). It took at least an hour, but that's because I didn't add the second mixer until about half way done. LATER NOTE: A Kitchenaid stand up mixer works great for family-sized churning! I do only one or two mixer bowlfuls per day instead of five gallons at once. I generally keep the mixer on low to churn while I do other things. Once the butter and buttermilk separate, however, beware that buttermilk may start flying everywhere if you are not there to turn the mixer off!

If you want to save some butter without turning it into ghee, it's important to get all the buttermilk out or else the butter will spoil quickly. Squeeze it out by hand and then rinse with very cold water afterwards to get as much buttermilk out as possible.

LATER NOTE: Not so with yogurt churned butter. I noticed it did not spoil even though i kept large balls of it wrapped in plastic wrap in the fridge for a couple weeks!

I did a search for an old fashioned butter churn for churning large quantities of yogurt, but no luck. The biggest churn I've seen so far holds only a gallon. If I could have any churn I wanted, I find the Indian style much more appealing than western types.