Spinach coconut soup

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 Tablespoon ghee
• 1 teaspoon (preferable) brown mustard seeds (or black)
• 1 red chili
• 2 Tej patta leaves (from Indian grocer, or use bay leaves)
• 1 green chili 
• 1 Tablespoon fresh ginger root, minced
• 1/2 - 1 teaspoon yellow hing
• 1 bunch of spinach, chopped
• coconut milk (see below for DIY coconut milk)
• 2 Tablespoons flour 
• 1/4 cup water
• salt, as desired

PREPARATION:

1. Make a chaunk with the ghee, mustard, chili and tej patta.
2. After mustard pops, add the green chili, ginger and hing.
3. Add the spinach and stir around in the spices a minute.
4. Pour in enough coconut milk to cover the spinach. Cook about 5 minutes.
5. Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, add slowly the 1/4 cup water to the flour, stirring out any lumps.
6. Add the flour mixture to the spinach soup.
7. Cook about 10 minutes more to thicken and get out any raw flour flavor.
8. Add salt. A rule of thumb is 1/4 teaspoon of salt for every cup of finished soup.

DIY COCONUT MILK from dried coconut

Let coconut soak in boiled water for at least 1 hr or preferably overnight.

Blend and strain out the liquid to use for coconut milk

Variations : Put dry coconut early on in beginning of cooking. Softened and no waste product

Use 1/4 fresh ground black pepper and 1 teaspoon minced ginger for a nightshade free version, omitting the chilies

Mango kulfi

 Kulfi is homemade icecream. This recipe originally is from the first Hare Krishna cookbook, with countless variations. In this case it is mango flavoring.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
• 1 cup cold milk
• 1 c kheer made from 6 cups of milk and 1/2 c sugar (or use sweetened condensed milk)
• 2 mangos, chopped

PREPARATION:

1. Blend all in a blender until the cream is semi whipped
2. Use an ice cream make OR freeze in a bowl, stirring every hour or two until the mixture is solid frozen. Then leave in the freezer at least 48 hrs. for the best texture. We learned this from an expert homemade icream maker: That is, if you want the cream to not coat your tongue when you offer this icecream, freeze it for a good amount of time first.  
3. When getting ready to offer, let it thaw about 10 minutes first. 

TIPS ON EATING ICECREAM ACCORDING TO AYURVEDA:

Avoid night time eating

Avoid cold season eating

Use warm spices like cinnamon and ginger powder if you need a digestive boost! Even fresh ginger is good, (but a little chewy/not for everyone!).

Quick and easy desserts for Krishna's offerings

Papaya or mango chunks!

Prunes!

Dates!

 Applesauce!

Also see: Bananas and Cream

Stuffed Dates

Candied Pecans

TO BE CONTINUED..

Ghee wicks

We use them for Tulasi worship each morning.

Helps for making these can be found on the web if you have no live tutor. 

How to Make Ghee Wicks for Lamp Offering

Mayapur Style

Soaking Wicks in Ghee

Most Expert Ghee Wick Maker We Know Personally

There's more, whereas years ago there was very little information on the web. So grateful people are taking the time to instruct us all to perfect this art. :)

Mother cow, source of ghee wicks, ki jaya! Tulasi Maharani ki jaya!

LATER NOTE: Try to get unbleached cotton. Bleached cotton has traces of a very dangerous chemical called dioxin.

Granola II

 

There are countless variations to granola. This one had besan flour and craisins instead of raisins!

INGREDIENTS:

2 1/2 cups oat groats, coarsely ground

1/2 cup besan

1 Tablespoon dry coconut flakes

a handful of pecans, chopped

a handful of almonds, chopped

1 teaspoon cinnamon powder

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 cup water

1 Tablespoon maple syrup

a few Tablespoons of ghee

a handful of craisins or raisins

PREPARATION:

Combine the oat groats, besan, coconut, nuts and cinnamon in a bowl.

In a saucepan combine the sugars and water and boil until the sugar dissolves. Cool.

Add maple syrup and ghee to the sugar water.

Stir the sugar water into oat combination and stir thoroughly 

Bake mixture spread on a couple baking pans. Deep cast iron pans also work well.

Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minute intervals, stirring in between to make sure the granola evenly browns and does not burn. Can take about 30 minutes tops.

Stir in the craisins when granola comes out of the oven.

Offer to Krishna with fresh milk and lots of love and devotion. Hare Krishna

DIY Scotchbrite

My most favorite pot scrubbing tool is a scotchbrite pad, especially the one without any sponge and not the one that is meant for teflon. No, the powerful one that takes off the most minute stains in stainless steel. 

Unfortunately, as do all things in this world, the pads wear out pretty quickly. Others use things like Bar Keepers Friend and Ajax etc, all of which carry warnings not to breathe in. No thanks. And baking soda just doesn't do much in this case.

But then there's something I learned in India. People cleanse their stainless with sand. Luckily, we have areas of fine sand where the soil is washed away by continuous rains. Couple that with the homemade sponges mentioned earlier and you  will learn how Indians keep their pots so shiny. Or use any terry cloth or sponge, etc. that can be used to rub on the sand.

The example below is not the best. This pot had not been scrubbed in a very long time so the stain required a lot of elbow grease but its now looking a lot better. Next time I'll get the wok in here after a cooking session that even metal steel scrubbers cannot remove but the sand and luffa does with ease!

Ok here’s the wok it was a mess, but I missed hitting a photo of that. Anyway, first  the grease was removed with a regular long handled brush to keep hands out of the dish soap.

Next, the stainless steel metal scrubber was used. 

And the remaining stain as seen in the photo could not be removed with the metal scrubber was easily removed with a loofah and a little sand outside in my designated pot scrubbing area.

Success! Best of all it was done with natural supplies from Krishna.

UPDATE : the luffa is such a gentle cleanser along with fine sand; we discovered it can polish copper and silver, too.

PS Some people are repulsed by this idea for some reason I personally don't understand, but I've seen regular soil ( that isn't contaminated, of course) is also used if sand is not available.  And it works, too!

Besan halava

 Ingredients:

4 Tablespoon ghee

1 cup besan (chickpea flour)

2 cups water 

1/3-1/2 cup sugar 

1/4 teaspoon cardamom 

Chopped cashews and or pistachios 

a few strands of saffron (opt)

Preparation:

In the ghee toast the besan, nuts and cardamom  until it turns a couple shades darker.

Meanwhile, bring the water to a boil with the sugar.

When the water is boiling and the besan hot, carefully  pour in the boiling sugar water while stirring out the lumps. Stir until thickening enough to begin  pulling away from the edges of the pan.

Pour the results into a greased pan or mold to cool and or cut into pieces. 

Garnish with saffron strands if desired.

VARIATIONS:

For more crunch,  toast  the nuts ahead of time and set them aside to be added at the end. 

Also the besan can be toasted first without ghee and then add the ghee (or butter) very close to the time when the boiling water will be added or even add the ghee to the water instead, when bringing it to a the boil.

Peanuts!

This year's experiment was planting a couple nuts inside a single peanut shell that was uncovered while digging in the back yard. We found out later that a crop of peanuts used to be grown here. From those two small nuts came two sprawling plants.  

Harvesting requires patience for maximum yields because peanuts spread as they continue to grow and produce individual peanuts at different rates. 

Helpful Peanut Info:

Harvesting Peanuts

Peanuts
Beginner's Guide

National Peanut Board

How and When to Harvest

Leftovers

Our family is divided, so here is my take on the topic of leftovers. At least we don’t make a week load of food and freeze it for eating all week, which is something we’ve seen on the web. No, thankfully we aren’t that lazy. 

In my experience, however, unless one is poverty stricken, leftovers are not a good idea for various reasons.. 

When we eat leftovers, usually Krishna  has to go hungry; there’s no new offering made for that meal. 

Leftovers take up space in the refrigerator. And there’s  the risk that the bhoga will touch the leftovers and then become unfit for offering to Krishna.. 

Leftovers are wasteful because if we are eating leftovers then the good bhoga that’s in the fridge has to sit another day or so and it just gets less nutritious and not as nice to offer to Krishna .

According to Ayurveda,  leftovers are not so healthy to eat. Especially as a habit. that’s because leftovers become very heavy food and therefore harder to digest. And digestion is one of the most important factors for good health.. Without proper digestion, toxins develop  that over time can create havoc for the body. 

Solution? Prasada is meant for distribution. Guests, friends, neighbors, drop in visitors, homeless on the street and the hungry person. Cows and birds and other animals will benefit too. Finally, there is the compost bin to nourish your plants.

Also it’s helpful to cook smaller amounts of a certain dish but accompanied by a variety of other dishes. Or if you run out of something while serving, have another option available that can be prepared quickly.

Fruit trees!

It’s like having kids. A day neglected can spell disaster. You can’t leave home either without finding someone to look after them...We got fruit trees!

It all started with Figgie. Figgie is a fig tree that came into our life last year late in October 2019 after being dug up from the spot where a playground was being built. Figgie has more than tripled in size since then. Fig trees do especially well in this area, making a good fit.

But then Figgie looked lonely sitting on an acre of pasture with no other trees in sight,  so it was off to the local nursery. Coming home with us was Chitra, a satsuma mandarin orange tree, 

Parijata, a pear tree, 

and Phalla (Sanskrit for "fruit"), a peach tree. 

Chitra has tripled in size since then. Pari and Phalla  were doing really well, too, all spring and summer until recently they started losing leaves and so are looking a bit thin. We’ll need to contact the extension office for help to identify what’s going on. 

Meanwhile, after the above were being planted, a neighbor had offered some blueberry runners we could dig up and also plant. We got a couple (Nila and Syama), and then bought two other blue berry bushes (Tippie and Prema) from the nursery because blueberries do best when there are different varieties growing nearby. 

Another thing about having different varieties is you can choose ones that produce at different times of year to extend the harvest.

Not long afterwards we acquired another pear tree when we found out pears do best in pairs. Of differing variety. Paramahamsa is a pineapple pear from a Walmart nursery. 

Para is still very young but did an amazing job growing not one, not two, but three new lower branches, thanks to a method taught on YouTube called "notching". That's because Para had branches missing on one side but now more balance has been created. 

And note how the young branches have weights hanging on them and Pari above has branches tied down. This is called "training a tree" to grow outward for easier access to future fruit because pear trees have a tendency to grow straight up. And training is the gentler method compared to pruning or actually cutting a tree. But it's not that we don't want to prune; pruning is also a way for shaping a tree. And also for taming its growth, perhaps similar to training children to behave a certain way rather than let them grow wild and only do what they want. 

Pruning, however, should be a last resort for shaping a tree. It is best done to remove any dead or interior-growing rather than exterior-growing branches in order for sufficient light and sunshine to come in. Also before pruning nursery trees, they need to get established first, which means no unnecessary cutting until the first year after planting. And fruit is also removed prematurely, so the trees can focus on root development.

Young trees called whips or "bare roots" are a whole different story. For various reasons, they are pruned right after planting and rather shockingly, for the inexperienced (Which is why others prefer notching). We have yet to try raising a fruit tree from the whip stage of life. 

As we learned more about proper pruning, we noticed, however, that all the trees from both the local nursery and the Walmart nursery had suffered from terrible pruning done to them while potted. Whoever pruned, did it either to cram the trees together to save space while being sold or didn't know what they were doing because the cuts were done in all the wrong places.

In any case, other additions to the yard have been three loquats and two avocados grown from seed and another loquat and a camphor tree given as gifts. Meet Lokanath, one of the loquats here, gradually rising over the horizon.

And this is Avadhuta, one of the avocados, still so very young. 

It has been quite an adventure, with so much to absorb. Another thing is how Krishna made each variety of trees and plants with specific needs. And how especially when they are young and just getting established they need a lot of TLC. After that initial period, things should get easier. Over time we hope to post for future reference what we discover for each variety growing here, along with useful links.

To be continued...

A Wish Come True

Tulasi is famous as a wish fulfilling tree. Well it's been a long time wish to have her grace our home. Then one day in November 2019, Tulasi Devi made her appearance here via a kind friend. 

And when there’s one Tulasi, there will soon be more!

This post will be an ongoing collection of things learned taking care of Tulasi Maharani and worshiping her, etc.

So...to be continued...

“Tulasi is auspicious in all respects. Simply by seeing, simply by touching, simply by remembering, simply  by praying too, simply by bowing down before, simply by hearing about or simply by sowing this tree, there is always auspiciousness. Anyone who comes in touch with the Tulasi tree in the above mentioned ways lives eternally in the Vaikuntha world.”

Beautiful Storage

First a word of caution. Glass is beautiful but not fun if it breaks. Ceramics, if available, are safer, but with an abundance of bottles that come from the grocery store that used to contain honey and the like, why not try to put them to good use? 

And not break them. 

Another challenge can be how to get the labels off of the jars you want to reuse? Not all labels are made the same. Some come off easily. Others require more effort.

As an example, what we did here was soak a nice looking bottle of mustard oil in a pot of water for about an hour to get the label off for the owner.

Then we learned the truth. It was one of those very stubborn, sticky labels that takes effort to get off.

But after encountering such labels over the years here’s some suggestions that have worked well:

After the soaking, use a stainless steel  scouring pad to scrape the outer label off, leaving the sticky glue residue still there. 

Next, dry the bottle and then rub some vegetable oil into the sticky. Mustard oil was easily available in this case. Work it in well and see how magically the sticky starts to unstick.

Next, some dish soap and the same scouring pad is used once again and the bottle rinsed well.

Repeat the oil and washing, if needed.

Next, use a course cloth such as a terry cloth or in this case we used some denim which has a bit of a nap. This helps to get the last bit of oil and sticky off and shine the bottle or jar to its original glory. Before the label, that is.

Wash again with soap and water until all traces of oil etc are gone. Dry well and you now have a nice bottle, as in this case, or a jar. This makes for prettier storage than if you used containers with the labels still on them. They especially look nice for storing spices and other bhoga for Krishna’s offerings displayed on open shelving. 

Another place, as pictured, is for beauty products in the bathroom.

(Special Note: This is a bathroom without a toilet. This house design keeps them separated. In the case where you have no choice but to have a toilet in your bathroom, keeping the beauty supplies out of the bathroom is recommended.)

Another tip is to save bottle tops and jar lids because these can be mixed and matched. One of the bottles pictured above, for example, has a bottle top taken from a dish soap bottle. Now the bottle of oil, in this case olive oil, easily dispenses oil for a massage. 

In the case of the bottle of mustard oil, we couldn’t find a matching top to likewise easily dispense the oil, so the solution was to gentle poke a hole into the top of the conveniently thin metal lid. 

Now oil can easily be shaken out as needed.

Oat Groat Oatmeal

 Freshly ground oat groats are used in this recipe rather than factory produced steel cut oats for freshness flavor and purity. 

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 c freshly ground oat groats 
• 3 c water
• sugar or favorite sweetener, as desired
• ghee or butter, as desired
• cinnamon, as desired
• pinch of salt (optional)

PREPARATION:

1. In the ghee lightly toast the ground oat groats over a low flame. Stir often, especially if using butter. 
2. Meanwhile, bring the water, sugar and salt to a boil in a separate pot.
3. Stir in toasted ground groats
4. Turn off heat and let groats sit covered a few minutes to absorb the water.
5. Stir in butter and cinnamon 

VARIATIONS:

This is another recipe that can have many variations. In this case pictured above, craisins were added. Also try toasted nuts, nut butters, raisins, various dried fruits, dates, prunes, coconut, banana slices, applesauce, milk and or cream or half and half, jam, brown sugar, maple syrup... and let's not forget Lord Balarama's favorite sweetener- honey! 

Krishna’s Perfect Permaculture

It is Krishna’s perfect arrangement that every thing and every creature in His perfect creation have a job to do. If we learn to follow His perfect plan, gardening can become a lot less work. There are groups out there today that utilize a similar realization in the form of what is called “permaculture”. They try to get along with material nature rather than turning everything into a battle. 

Of course, learning  to work with nature will take some trial and error, since we are conditioned to rely on quick fixes rather than nature’s plan.  

In any case, this year we had what is called interplanting or more diverse plantings rather than beds of monoculture or containing one kind of plant only. One example is a bitter melon vine climbing upon an okra plant. 

Besides being a natural extension to the trellis the okra was planted next to, this is said to confuse any bugs. But interplanting requires more planning. It isn't easy until you learn the needs of specific plants. Some don't mind a little shade growing next to bigger plants and some prefer dryer soil, so you have to be careful to group them with other plants with similar needs. Until then, crop rotation seems preferable. As for the okra, it gets very tall and needs to be bent a little to reach the crop above, which may strain the vines growing below. So far this has not been a problem. 

Another thing is that we are gradually adding more flowers. This is not only for deity worship, but also to attract beneficials, creatures that pollinate the plants and flowers such as marigolds can also repel pest that attack your crops. 

We have definitely seen a big increase in butterflies this season, but not sure if it’s always a good thing because butterflies mean caterpillars. Until more predatory creatures enter the ecosystem, they can be a challenge.

Also we  hope to add more perennials such as this rosemary because they save a lot of time having to replant something each year..                                                                   

In this case, we included plantings of fruit trees and berry bushes. There are pears, a mandarin orange, fig, avocados, loquats, a peach, curry and a camphor tree so far.

Most notable was a broadened spectrum of creatures and beneficial insects that made their presence this year in the garden. 

Birds come around at dawn looking for insects. Also on top of one of the trellises covered by leaves we found a bird nest where baby birds grew up and then flew away

A lizard is out and about looking for bugs.

Also seeing lots of spiders. Here is one spotted on a pear tree leaf. 

And there are frogs (and sometimes toads, too) that do a good job eating bugs.

Also spotted have been snakes, dragonflies, soldier flies, wasps, bees, bumblebees, ladybugs, a turtle, raccoon and an opposum.

All are designed to act in beneficial ways. The soldier flies broke down compost. The possum  helped  get rid of cut worms. 

Corn rice

 

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 c rice          
• 2 c water
• 2 ears of fresh corn, shucked and the kernels cut off the cobs
• 3-4 T butter or ghee
• Salt, at least 1 t 

PREPARATION: 

1. Place all in a pot and bring to a boil.
2. Cover and simmer 15 minutes. Let sit covered 5 minutes more. Fluff and offer to Krishna

"The first problem is eating. So if you produce like tons, this corn alone can feed everyone. It is so nice food."-Srila Prabhupada, roof conversation, 2/14/77, Mayapur

VARIATION: Replace corn with peas!

Drying Foods for Storage

Are you a total newb when it comes to drying foods for storage? Fear not; you’re not alone.  The following have been a couple of ongoing experiments with preserving stuff grown on the farm here.

Drying foods makes perfect sense when we study Krishna's natural arrangements. First there’s wet and sunny weather, ideal for growing the crops, which is usually followed by hot, drier weather which is excellent for drying foods for storage. There’s a saying “make hay while the sun shines” which must have been originally said for that reason.

For starters, some carrots tops and celery leaves were dried. So far they’ve been shelved since early summer and still give a very nice boost of flavor  reconstituted in soups, especially pea soup.

We got convinced to try this after successfully drying fresh coriander, ginger root and turmeric root and even grapes turning into raisins, all just on a sunny window sill.

Feeling braver, okra seemed like the next thing to play with, since we have an abundance here in the Deep South.. First we did a small batch for testing that dried in just a few days on a sunny window and then got cooked in moong dahl. While eating  the dahl, we totally forgot  it had been dried because it was so nice and tender again reconstituted. 

Next we went for a larger bunch of freshly picked  okra. 

These were first sliced into quarter inch slices that took only two days of direct sunlight to make them hard and crunchy. 

And just in case there’s any more moisture trapped inside the okra by storing them in jars,  they are instead being stored in absorbent cloth bags for long term storage . We’ll see how that goes by checking them some time this winter!

Also, with the desire to eventually go off grid without electricity, sun drying is the preferred drying method versus using electric dryers or a stove. Krishna provides everything we need for homemade independence!

To be continued