And the dal with Jackfruit seeds, a handful of fresh peanuts, Swiss Chard, onions, garlic, panch puran, and other spices.
And a veggie dis of snake gourd, with onions and garlic and bean prouts
And the Cassava of course.
"Vegan" is more a sociological term, designating people who don't eat (or use) animal products, and that could be for environmental, ethical, animal welfare or health reasons. But, "no meat"is not nutrition. Potato chips and coke might be vegan, it is not nutritious. The Whole Foods Plant-Based diet, without added Sugar, Oil or Salt (SOS), is the nutritionally sound basis for a healthy vegan lifestyle. The focus is on #WFPB without SOS, based on the work of T. Colin Campbell in The China Study.
And the dal with Jackfruit seeds, a handful of fresh peanuts, Swiss Chard, onions, garlic, panch puran, and other spices.
And the Cassava of course.
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Right along with Dandelions, Purslane (Spanish Verdolaga), is one of those plants that is too often disregarded, if not seen as a weed, but it is a nutrition powerhouse.
Since I have been writing about recipes with purslane, I wanted to basically post a recent article that talks about puslane.
I asked one of the Bangladeshi merchants on my street about it, why he did not sell it in his store. The answer was oh, I grow that in my yard. In other words it was too easy to sell it in the store.
Anyway here is a posting on a site called WorldCrops. It contains an album of pictures of Purslane. They have adopted the Spanish name of Verdolaga.
I find it at a Mexican store in my area.
And here is yet another article:
Next to it, you will see the stems. I cut them up in 1 inch pieces (Verdolaga is fairly soft, and freeze them, and I will have stems from Kale and Collard greens, or Malabar Spinach, and I cut those in 1/4" pieces when I use the leaves, and save them in a ziploc bag until I am ready to make dal again. Or, alternatively I can use various odds and ends to even cook my own vegetable broth one day.
And the last image is a plate of dal, along the lines of the recipe, but including stems of purslane, kale, collard greens and even malabar spinach, but it could be any stems of leafy greens. The stems can be tougher, but when you make the dal, I cook thos stems, cut in small chunks, right along with the onions and peppers to form the base. Then when you add teh lentils and simmer it some more, those stems are pretty soft and they add a lot of depth to the flavor.
Optionally, you can make this with more veggies, liek beet greens, chard, and other such. In that case, I left out the tomato puree.
I also made it more spicy and aromatic than the original from chef AJ, but by including veggies, it becomes more of a dal.
I wrote about this simple spring salad of fingerling potatoes with purslane for the first time in 2017 (link).
As a refresher, here is the basic recipe:
The reason I want to write about this now in terms of kitchen economics, is that it appears not to be economical, but it all depends on a lot of circumstantial stuff. Take note of the fact that purslane is very, very nutritions, see here (https://www.verywellfit.com/purslane-nutrition-facts-4692802) :
One cup of purslane contains:
Young jackfruit can be cooked and it has an interesting consistency. Here is how to prepare it:
I made a simple stuffing for burritos:
1 small unripte jackfruit 1.5 to 2 lbs.
1 tbsp panch puran
1 red onion, cut up fine
1 white onion cut up fine
3-4 cloves of garlic,
1-2 carrots cut up
1/2 tbsp ground ginger
1 cup of water with 1 tsp Yondu to caramelize the onions.
2 cups of veggie broth
mixed peppers, cut up fine, bell peppers, and some jalapeño, serrano, and/or thai chilis
1/2 napa cabbage
1 6 Oz can of tomato puree
Directions:
An easy meal.