Detoxifying Plantain stem and pomegranate juice:

Raw vegetable and fruit juices are helpful in the rejuvenation of all the organs of our body. These juices are beneficial in restoring health effectively. If one can include this juice in the early morning in your diet after working out or walking with an empty stomach, it helps to remove the toxins from our body.

You don’t need a high-end juicer or any exotic veggies/leaves to whip up these super healthy drinks. All you need is locally grown vegetables and a simple mixer grinder or blender.

 

Now we will see how I do this:

Ingredient:

Chopped plantain/banana stem – ½ cup

Pomegranate seeds – ¼ cup

Ginger powder – ½ tsp.

Water – 1 cup

Salt – ¼ tsp.

Basil or Pudina leaves–for garnishing (Optional)

Method:

-Remove the outer cover of the plantain/banana stem, cut 6 to 7 thin slices and chop.

-blend chopped plantain stem, pomegranate, water, ginger powder, and salt. If needed, add any form of sugar and grind nicely.

-Sieve this mixture and collect the juice, garnish with chopped basil leaves. Enjoy your nutrition-rich, power-packed juice is ready to kick start your day.

Kithul Flour- Sweet and Savoury Drinks:

Kithul tree is found all over south India while travelling in and around our native, at fields,  ghat section or any hilly area. Kithul palm, commonly known as Solitary Fishtail palm, sago palm, Toddy palm, jaggery palm etc.

Scientifically, Caryota urens is a species of flowering plant in the palm family from the Indian Subcontinent and South-East Asia.       

 In Kannada, it is called as ಬೈನೆ ಮರ /baine tree.

In and around Mangalore, it is known as ಈ0ದು /Eendu.

It is famous for Folk medicine in our region.

What is Kithul flour?

Starch extracted from the pith of the Kithul tree is “Kithul Flour” and known for its benefits in traditional “grandmom’s remedy” to control many ailments such as reducing body heat during summer, remedy for Sevier acidity, stomach ulcers, headache due to stomach ailments etc. in our villages. It is high in fibre and antioxidants. Hence, it helps to regularise gut health.

Extraction of Kithul flour is a tedious process; hence, we need to be extra cautious while buying the product.

Luckily, I have found a farmer who follows the traditional farming method and manages to prepare Kithul flour conventionally.

Kithul flour Porridge: One of the most popular breakfast porridge/puddings in Srilanka.

Rich in fibre and healthy Sri Lankan breakfast porridge, usually prepared by cooking kithul flour with sufficient water, then enhanced the taste by adding coconut milk, jaggery and crushed cashews or grated nutmeg.

The benefits of usage of this flour are endless.-

-Stops lose motion.                                                                   
-Reduces body heat and mouth ulcers.
-Reduces the painful periods
-Regulates acidity and improves gut health.
-improves the nerve health

Method: which I followed is straightforward.

-Take a glass of water, and add a spoon of Caryota powder and a pinch of salt or sugar or jaggery. Boil the mixture until the content is cooked and turns shiny.

-Adjust the consistency by adding hot milk. Garnish with cardamom powder and roasted cashews.

If you don’t like sweet and prefer to have it savoury, one can also make the salted version.

Boil 1 tsp of kithul flour with water, add sufficient salt and cool a bit. Add buttermilk and make a chaas / thin version of buttermilk like consistency. You can add crushed jeera or jeera powder, chopped coriander or hing.

I prefer cumin and salt. Drink as a thirst quencher and enjoy this summer drink with an added benefit for your health.

 

 

Omum and dry ginger Tambli:

Omum/ Ajwain/ carom seeds are the lesser-known spice of our Indian Kitchen. Our moms turn their hands whenever we complain about bloating or Indigestion and feed us Omum water by infusing it with water. It has been known for its benefits in treating bloating and diarrhoea due to intestinal inflammation for ages.

As we all know, Carom seeds have Anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, antifungal properties. We are here, Combining Carom with dry ginger, which has the capacity of cleansing our digestive system and nourishing our body. The taste of the tambli is so refreshing and soothing.

—such a simple preparation.

I learnt this recipe from my Foodie friend, Lakshmi Akka.

Ingredients:

Carom seed/ omum – ½ tsp

Grated dry ginger – ¼ tsp

Ghee or coconut oil – ½  tsp

Grated Fresh Coconut – ½ cup

Buttermilk – 1 serving spoon

Method:

Take ½ tsp of ghee or oil, fry omum and dry ginger.

-Grind fried items, coconut, salt and water to make a smooth paste.

-Add buttermilk adjust the consistency by adding water.

-If you like seasoning on tambli like me, please go ahead and heat some ghee add cumin and curry leaves. Pour on Tambli and enjoy it as a soothing drink or with Hot Rice.

Punarpuli sharbath/ Fresh Kokum Juice:

To start with this wonder fruit, I should introduce its plant, benefit, procedure to preserve the outer skin, to rest of the world. Kokum is belonging to Guttiferae family, same as mangosteen and its botanical name is Garcinia Indica, is a fruit bearing plant only found in western Ghats and coastal southern India.

It is a summer fruit, which is widely used for juices or Rasam in our region to quench thirst as well as to balance body heat. It has so many health benefits as well. It is a natural healer for acidity.

It is a ritual in our native to dry the outer skin in summer months to preserve to use whenever it is needed. Fresh fruit of Kokum is often halved, discard the inner pulpy white part which is a fleshy coating of real seed to make Kokum butter, which is used in medicinal as well as cosmetic products as a raw material. Then outer dark maroon skin will be sun dried and when it becomes crispy, it’s stored in an air tight manner. During this process, we used to prepare fresh pulp to make juice and I used to love fresh juice from its inner pulp. It is much tastier than the outer dried skin juice.

Last week found these cuties here in Mangalore stores. Picked up some and enjoyed my favourite drink after so many years.

How to prepare –

Ingredients:

Kokum fresh pulp – little

Water – as needed

Sugar – as needed

Salt – ½ tsp

Method:

-Soak fresh pulp and couple of outer shells in little water for some time.

-Mash everything by using clean hand and discard the seeds and outer shells.

-Add sugar, salt and required amount of water and mix everything and serve by adding couple of ice cubes.

-It is very good for our gut health as well as to keep us hydrated.

 

 

 

 

 

Ellu Juice / Sesame Juice:

Ellu juice is a well-known coolant drink of summer, especially in and around Mangalore and Udupi region.  As I grew up in Puttur, little away from the coastal line, never tasted this juice until my marriage. I came to know about this healthy drink very recently, may be around three years back.

Ellu juice and masala buttermilk is sold in and around coastal temples, during summer. After tasting chilled, soothing drink I asked the shopkeeper to elaborate the recipe and noted it down and tried it at home here in Bangalore. According to me, chilled juice tastes really nice in hot weather.

Sesame seeds are tiny, healthy, oil rich seeds. Un-hulled seeds are black or dark brown in colour and hulled seeds look off white and fully polished one look pure white and known as Nylon variety.

To prepare this juice, one can use any type of sesame seeds and can be used raw as well as toasted.

Here I have used raw seeds and mixed coconut milk as well as regular milk. If you want to make Vegan drink, please use coconut little more or replace milk with any other plant-based milk and proceed. Now, we will proceed with the method.

Ingredients:

Sesame seeds – 1 table spoon (for 2 cups)

Coconut – 2 table spoon (grated)

Milk – ½ to ¾ cup

Whole Cardamom – 1 or 2

Jaggery – as needed

Water – approximately one cup

Method:

-Wash sesame, grind into paste by adding coconut, cardamom, jaggery and quarter cup of water.

-Strain and collect the sesame milk. Repeat the process by adding little water until coconut and sesame turns into small, rough fibre.

-Now, discard the roughage and use collected milk, add plain milk and adjust the consistency.

-Cool this and serve.

 

 

 

Barley water/Juice:

Barley is an ancient grain and a very popular grain as a healing or soothing food. In olden days, people used to have Barley water or ganji (porridge) to heal vomiting, diarrhoea or Urinary tract infection naturally. People never used to have medicines or chemicals.

It is a wonderful healing, easily digestible food, even during recuperating from any surgery.

Sipping on barley water with a pinch of salt is an excellent remedy to overcome nausea.

Other than all this goodness, barley water when combined with a dash of lime, is recommended for kidney stones.

So, all in all it has several health benefits starting from cooling down our body temperature, detoxifying by flushing toxins from the body and keeping you hydrated, to improve immunity level, to maintain gut health by high fibre content, rich in Vit B as well as E.

This year summer is very harsh, and it is our responsibility to stay hydrated and provide natural supplements to our body according to the situation or season. It is very simple to make Barley water or juice at home. Soak cook and strain. Cooked grains can be used as it is or can be used in making salads by draining.

Ingredients:

Whole barley – 2 to 3 table spoons

Method:

-Wash, soak barley in a cup of water for overnight.

-Next day, cook this in a pressure cooker by adding very little salt for 2 to 3 whistles. When pressure releases add required amount of water. (approximately 3 big glass)

-Boil for 5 to 10 min in a low flame and switch off.

-Stain and use as plain barley water for sipping throughout the day, instead of plain water.

-OR

Make lemonade by adding lemon juice, sugar or any other natural sweetener according to your preference.

-You can add chopped Pudina or mint leaves or a tsp of ginger juice.

-OR

Mix buttermilk and can have as a low-calorie drink. In this way, diabetics or weight watchers can have. One can add pudina and grated ginger to this as well.

 

 

 

Punarpuli Saaru aka Kokum Rasam:

To start with this wonder fruit, I should introduce its plant, benefit, procedure to preserve the outer skin, to rest of the world. Kokum is belonging to Guttiferae family, same as mangosteen and its botanical name is Garcinia Indica, is a fruit bearing plant only found in western Ghats and coastal southern India.

 (pic source : From, Vidya lakshmi of SAHAJA FARMS ) 

It is a summer fruit, which is widely used for juices or Rasam in our region to quench thirst as well as to balance body heat. It has so many health benefits as well. It is a natural healer for acidity.

It is a ritual in our native to dry the outer skin in summer months to preserve to use whenever it is needed. Fresh fruit of Kokum is often halved, discard the inner pulpy white part which is a fleshy coating of real seed to make Kokum butter, which is used in medicinal as well as cosmetic products as a raw material. Then outer dark maroon skin will be sun dried and when it becomes crispy, it’s stored in an air tight manner. During this process, we used to prepare fresh pulp to make juice and I used to love fresh juice from its inner pulp. It is much tastier than the outer dried skin juice.

The seed kernels which are coated with white flesh (fruit) has oil content, which is solid at room temperature. When I was young, our grand mom used to prepare kokum butter from these seeds and it used to be like a wax ball and she always used to keep this ball in hand’s reach to treat any accidental burns (that time, cooking was much more tedious and burning episodes were very frequent, due to fire wood cooking). She used to hold the ball against the fire for 2 min, oil used to start dripping and she used to apply this over the wound. She used to say, in this way, healing is very fast, and it acts as a coolant on burning wound as well. I have one kokum butter ball with me, which she has prepared almost 20 years back and when my kids were small, Amma has handed this wonder medicine to me by saying, keep this ball for emergency and it is still with me as a souvenir. ( Seen in below picture)

In urban dwellings, it is sold as a dried rind, dark purple, little sticky and shiny with curved edges. If you infuse these dried skins in water, it releases very nice colour. If dried skin is darker, you will get darkish pink and if it is little old and turned black, your dish will become dark and pale in colour. Taste wise it is tangy like tamarind and used exactly like tamarind in cooking to give tart taste.

If you want to prepare Rasam you need hardly 7 to 8 dried rind or if you want to add to any curry, you need very less, hardly 2 or 3 rinds according to the requirement. It is usually used, without any chopping.

Thanks for reading, I appreciate your patience. Now we will see the procedure of our traditional recipe for simple Rasam by using dried rind or kokum concentration.

Ingredients:

Dried Kokum – 7 to 8 (If you are using kokum extract or pulp, use 2 to 3 table spoons)

Onion – 1 big

Red chilli powder – 1 to 2 tea spoons

Jaggery – As needed

Salt

Seasoning:

Coconut oil – 1 table spoon

Mustard- 1 tea spoon

Red chilli – 1

Garlic – 8 to 10

Curry leaves – 1 spring

Method:

-Soak kokum in sufficient water for 1 to 2 hours.

-When you boil, add sliced onion, red chilli powder, salt, jaggery (I prefer little sweetish Rasam, so usually I add little more)

-When onion cooks, do seasoning.

-heat oil, splutter mustard, red chilli, curry leaves and add crushed garlic.

-When garlic turns brown, add this to Rasam and close the lid for 2 minutes.

-Serve hot with rice or drink as an appetizer.

 

 

Kashaya / Herbal drink:

Kashaya is a herbal drink; unlike tea or Coffee, it is a decoction of a group of herbs used in our day-to-day cooking. This recipe is my dad’s favourite one, and we have followed this recipe for ages. Kashaya is an alternative drink for people who don’t want to consume Coffee or tea due to various reasons like acidity etc. It has multiple health benefits too.   

     

I usually prepare this powder and keep it as an alternative drink to tea or Coffee and usually prefer this in monsoon season.

To prepare Kashaya powder:

Ingredients:

Coriander seed – 200 grams.

Cumin – 100 grams

Fenugreek seeds – 2 tsp.

Fennel seed /saunf – 2 tbl sp

Whole wheat /broken wheat – 3 tbl sp

Finger millet /Ragi  OR Whole Moong – 2 tbl sp

Black pepper – 2 tsp.

Cardamom – 5

Method:

-Measure everything and keep it ready.

-Slowly dry roast everything one by one till it emits an aroma.

-Spread these roasted items on paper and cool.  

-Now take one dry mixer grinder jar and powder this.                 

-Cool completely and store this powder in an airtight container.             

To prepare Kashaya:

Ingredients:

Water – ¾ cup

Kashaya powder – 1 tsp

Sugar or jaggery – as required

Milk – ¼  to ½ cup

Method:

-Boil water by adding Kashaya powder and sugar or jaggery.

-After boiling it for 2 to 3 minutes, add milk and remove it from the flame.

-Sieve the mixture and enjoy your herbal drink or Kashaya.

NOTE: You can omit whole wheat and replace it with the Whole moong or add moong as an additional ingredient. 

Fresh muskmelon seed and Watermelon smoothie:

If you are calorie conscious or under restricted diet, this smoothie is especially for you. It is nutty flavoured, rich, creamy and at the same time, No sugar and Less in Calories. It is a “No guilt” smoothie for scorching heat.With Summer at its peak, we are one happy family who consumes lots of musk melon and water melon on every day basis. I usually feel very bad to discard power packed melon seeds into dustbin.

Muskmelon has lot to offer, fruit itself is fibre rich, vitamin rich and seeds which you usually throw it away is even more nutritious. Seeds are high in fibre, plant-based protein, minerals, calcium and Omega-3 and when you add this to prepare smoothies, it gives very smooth, creamy texture without adding any high calorie substance. It is very ideal for diabetic, weight loss or even for children.

Here I have added inner core (flesh and seed part) of one musk melon fruit to give thick texture as well as nutty taste and water melon chunks to give sweetish taste.

DSC_0049_Fotor

Ingredients:

Muskmelon inner core – from one muskmelon

Watermelon – one cup

Sea salt – ¼ tea spoon

Pepper powder – ¼ tea spoon

Method:

-Peel outer skin from one muskmelon, collect inner core with seed and proceed.

Ribbet collage

-I have not used fruit part. It can be consumed as you wish.

-Take water melon chunks.

-Take your juicer jar, put inner core of musk melon, water melon chunks, sea salt, pepper powder and churn.

– Sieve this liquid and discard the roughage and serve smoothie by adding a couple of ice cubes to beat the heat.

 

Bell fruit -Raw Mango- Mint juice:

Summer is the season, when we need lot of water to keep our body hydrated. The humble bell fruit is one such fruit, which we had in our front yard while I was a kid. It is the most underrated fruit when I was growing and other than eating, fruits used to be wasted on the ground after it fell from the tree.

 Almost all the household has one or the other watery fruit plant in our native. It has several names like wax apple, java apple, water apple, Syzygium, Jambi fruit or jambu nerale.

Last week when I tried this otherwise bland, watery fruit with Raw mango and mint in the form of juice, we liked the flavour and enjoyed it.

DSC_1045_Fotor

Recipe goes like this-

Ingredients:

Bell fruits – 8 to 10

Raw mango – ¼ piece of one mango

Mint – 1to 2 strings

Sea Salt – ¼ teas poon

Sugar – as needed.

Water – 2 cups

Ice cubes – if needed

Method:

-Wash, make half, remove seed and clean the bell fruit.

Ribbet collage

-Chop mango

-Take one juicer jar and put everything and churn until sugar dissolves.

DSC_1058_Fotor

-Strain the juice, pour this into a serving glass, put couple of ice cubes and serve.