Listening to the owl, which I think is in my back yard, while eating a rice-and-3-dal khichdi from #PlantBasedIndia. Loving it, beautifully spiced, very aromatic.

What a weekend in the kitchen!

A real focus on grains, lentils and beans, and on stocking the freezer.

🤩 I finished with a simple chole (chickpea curry) from #PlantBasedIndia. I have a very special recipe that I love - complex and multi-layered. This one is so different - simple in flavours but no less delightful! It is GORGEOUS! 🤩 It is cooling now to go into the freezer.

The rest is a summary of what I've been chatting about all weekend:

🍽️ Lots of vegetarian sausage rolls in the freezer - lots of Friday Night dinners, I suspect.

🍽️ Mung beans with greens, from #ShelfLove. I was able to use greens that I froze in Summer. That's gone into the freezer too.

🍽️ My much loved Tuscan Baked Beans - lemony and herbaceous - leftovers are in the fridge.

🍽️ A nutty, herby burghul salad from #Med. Leftovers in the fridge.

🍽️ I didn't get the cabbage koftas made. They'll get done through the week.

#FromTheKitchen #WhatIAmCooking #Vegetarian #eggFree

🧵 3/ Plant-Based India: Nourishing Recipes Rooted in Tradition/ Dr. Sheil Shukla ⬆️

Note that Shukla spells dal as dal (https://mastodon.au/@LifeTimeCooking/110521413501643592), more specifically dāl, the most correct transliteration imo.

Another aspect that I adore about this book is that he introduces and humanises his recipe testers some pages devoted to them and their favourite recipes from the book. Thank you Sheil. SO MANY authors these days do minimal testing. HE USES 39 TESTERS!

The recipes are straight forward with sufficient instructions. They are introduced with a paragraph about the recipe or dish, or some memories associated with it.

There are some real favourite recipes in this book, but also many that you might not have been exposed to before. I am loving the Kale (or spinach) and Broccoli Pudla! Pudla is a favourite of mine, a chickpea flour pancake. He amps up the nutrition with the vegetable inclusions.

Pasta is a newly introduced and much loved addition to Indian cuisines (usually overcooked by our standards), and he includes a delicious looking Creamy Chilli Pasta. Thankfully this one uses pasta cooked according to package instructions.

Another innovation are the Masala Dosa Rolls. Imagine these for a picnic.

The Sambar (spelt sāmbār) uses drumstick vegetables, my favourite along with eggplant sambar.

Honestly, I love everything about this book, and I can't recommend it highly enough. It is recommended for everyone!! At least all of you beautiful people that love eating and cooking Indian food,

#cookbookReviews #cookbooks #cookbookReview #LTCCookbookReviews #cooking #PlantBasedIndia #SheilShukla #IndianFood #GujaratiFood #vegetarian

🧵 2/ Plant-Based India: Nourishing Recipes Rooted in Tradition/ Dr. Sheil Shukla ⬆️

The book begins with around 20 pages of introductory notes on nutrition, the Indian Pantry (in an informative table style), and notes on Indian cooking. I especially love the inclusion of eno, under Misc in the Pantry section - the fruit salt but also a little known leavening agent used extensively in India.

In general you could put this into my category of #ModernIndian cuisines - I have covered a couple of such books lately - books that take traditional recipes, treat them with great respect but update them to modern fashions/ preferences and common ingredients.

Have I mentioned the photography? Outstanding. Each recipe has its own temptful, mouth-watering pic.

And I absolutely adore that traditional names for dishes are kept where appropriate, without accompanying translated names. We should respect the food of other cultures and aim to build some fluency in the cuisine languages.

The Table of Contents is one to love, with each dish included. The index is extensive and looks workable.

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🧵 2/ Plant-Based India: Nourishing Recipes Rooted in Tradition/ Dr. Sheil Shukla

A little while ago I reviewed From Gujarat with Love, a cookbook I fell in love with (https://mastodon.au/@LifeTimeCooking/110466347620082545). Today I have another cookbook based mainly around Gujarati food, and guess what!! I love it. 😍

This is the second of four Indian cookbooks I am currently reviewing.

Plant-Based India: Nourishing Recipes Rooted in Tradition, by Dr. Sheil Shukla
Published: 2022
Publisher: Affirm Press
Pages: 256
Price: Around $45AU, expensive for a cookbook these days, but always check around as prices vary. Ebooks can be cheaper.

99 RECIPES AND ALL OF THEM #VEGAN / #VEGETARIAN 💃 🎈 🙌 💯

Now, I am not such a fan of modern terms like #PlantBased, #ProduceForward instead of good old healthy eating terms, but I'll get used to it. And I understand the commercial aspect of cookbooks and target markets. And I will certainly forgive it for this book.

Dr. Shukla is a medical doctor with.a passion for nutrition. He focused on Gujarati food because that is his background, but also because it's simple approach lends itself to nutritious eating. It generally consists of a vegetable dish, a dal, a grain (usually rice) and roti, a wholemeal flatbread. So it is a great palette for interesting, tasty, fabulous plant-forward food.

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#cookbookReviews #cookbooks #cookbookReview #LTCCookbookReviews #cooking #PlantBasedIndia #SheilShukla #IndianFood #GujaratiFood #vegetarian