Healthy Cooking with Be Light.Be Well

Cooking with Be Light. Be Well.

On May 19^th we had the privilege of cooking with Nandini Gulati, founder of Be Light. Be Well and Lifestyle Advisor for Sharan. Our cooking class lasted a few hours, and by the end we were convinced that simply prepared fresh vegetables were in fact delicious. The methods and preparation were easy, focusing on drawing out the flavors of raw organic vegetables and preparing recipes that actually didn't require much stove top action at all.

Nandini's philosophy looks at food from a holistic perspective. She looks at where it comes from, how it grown, and how it is eaten. Nandini started off our class with a brief presentation on the history of food. She talked about how food has greatly deviated from it's natural state, as most products these days have many ingredients that we cannot pronounce and are derived from some chemical. We watched some film clips on fast food and industrialized agriculture. At the end she also made a brilliant statement that seemed to sum it all up: nowadays we treat organic produce is something special when it's really chemically produced fruits and vegetables that are unnatural. This phrase stuck with us as we went to the next part of the class: cooking with fresh organic vegetables.

Throughout the day Nandini had many tips to offer us. As a vegan, she knew non-animal product based alternatives for everything. Within a few hours we had whipped up a meal of salads, steamed vegetables, and an incredible pumpkin halwa. Yes, you read correctly, pumpkin halwa. Everything we made had 5 or fewer ingredients. It was truly about enjoying the best of nature in it's natural form. An important additional note: we used absolutely no oils, and ate on whole grain breads/crackers. All of these recipes can be found on sharan.com.

We started off with an incredibly refreshing mint lemonade. Nandini doesn't used refined sugar, and instead substituted palm sugar, which can be obtained pretty easily.

 

Next we made a cabbage salad with peanuts and a lemon-cilantro dressing.

Then came a delicious cashew tomato spread.

Afterwards we followed up with a pumpkin salad.

Then a cucumber coconut peanut salad.

Steamed Bhindi with an incredible besan filling.

Steamed karela served along side steamed mashed potatoes.

Finally we finished off with the pumpkin halwa.

Convinced yet? We all left seriously considering switching to a raw food diet. And even if we end up not converting, we learned a lot of great ways to prepare food that is good for us in everyway. No refined ingredients, no oil. Just natural goodness.

New Recipe: Tabbouleh

Tabbouleh is a very light and refreshing middle eastern dish, perfect as a side salad to any meal. The ingredients and preparation are very simple, and great if you have too much parsley on hand.

Ingredients: 

150 g chopped fresh parsley
50 gm chopped fresh mint
3 ripe tomatoes chopped into bite sized pieces
1 cucumber chopped into bite sized pieces
Juice of 3 lemons
1/4 cup Olive Oil
1/4- 1/2 cup packaged Couscous (tiny semolina pasta)
Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions: 

To prepare the Couscous

1. Follow the directions on the package, but generally a 1/4 cup instant Couscous requires 1/2 cup of water
2. Bring 1/2 of water, salt, a little bit of olive oil, and the juice of 1 lemon to boil
3. Turn the heat off, and add the Couscous
4. Let the Couscous absorb the hot water, fluff with a fork when it is ready

To prepare the Tabbouleh

1. Combine parsley, tomato, mint, cucumber
2. Prepare the dressing of olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper
3. Add in the Couscous
4. Pour dressing over the salad and toss

Very light, very healthy, and perfect for summer! Enjoy!