An afternoon in the kitchen almost wasted

Today has been one of those few days were I felt like I wasted most of my day in the kitchen creating meals that turned into disasters.

I started off with some great ideas, intending to recreate an Indian curry. I must admit, my weakness when it comes to cooked food is Indian. In Kalgoorlie we are fortunate to have access to a nice little Indian Restaurant that serves up a variety of tasty vegetarian dishes. Since choosing to follow a raw lifestyle at the start of this year, I have not succumb to wanting to eat any cooked food, other than Indian take out. Admittedly, I have caved in to my cravings and took the pleasure of devouring a vegetarian Indian meal a couple of times in over 6 months. And I cant deny the fact that the combination of spices, nuts and creams are delicious, but, since discovering the benefits of a raw vegan diet, I have also been able to become aware of the negative side effects to a tasty cooked meal. 
Firstly, I notice just how much more I do eat... I literally can pile my plate high and devour, hardly taking a breath between each mouthful. I literally scoff down my meal. I also notice that when all the food is gone and I am literally stuffed, my stomach is signalling it is full, but my taste buds are craving more. I never feel satisfied or contented afterwards, just really full and a urge for more flavours on the tongue. This is something that I never suffer after a meal of raw. I can contain myself quite easily to eat slowly and eat a small amount and feel completely contended without overdoing it or craving more. 

The other side effect I will suffer after gorging on a meal of cooked is the unquenchable thirst that follows. I will drink literally glasses of water that evening and throughout the night and still remain thirsty. I also feel a lot less energetic and will be unable to stay up to my usual midnight or later bedtimes, but instead, fall off to sleep at ridiculously early times, even once falling asleep as I put the kids to bed at 7.30pm. 
Being well aware of these effects I endure after indulging in cooked Indian, I feel a need to overcome my cravings and have a raw alternative to enjoy..hence my attempts today to create a satisfying spicy Indian dish. 

A couple of my favourite cooked Indian dishes is Saag Paneer and Jalfreezi, so I went about trying to make a raw alternative. I trialed a couple of ideas with freshly made coconut milk, curry powders, spices etc, but resulted in 2 failed attempts. The final products ended up like dirt tasting spinach green baby puree and a terrible over done mix of spices in coconut milk that did not connect at all.

The wasted ingredients were not wasted to a degree, as the kids put it all to good use and decided to 'play' with it and other leftovers to create their own gourmet masterpieces..a lot of fun for a little while until it was clean up time!

Dinner time by chefs Starzi & Rhody
Ingredients: leftovers from the scrap
bucket!

So much fun to play with your food!

   















It was when I was pouring the last of the green slop into the scrap bucket so the kids could play in a little more, that I began to wonder why meals have to be so 'made up' all the time. Why do we always have to make a tomato taste like something else and not let it just be a tomato? How can we learn to appreciate food when we hardly ever allow it be just what it is. We spend our lives mixing, whizzing, blending, churning food to turn it into something different, assuming it is better...why? It tastes great as it is. 
Anyway, I didn't quite go right back to basics and serve up a raw whole tomato with a slice of fresh coconut for dinner, I still surged on in my quest, but decided this time to keep it simple. I find a lot of raw recipes require the high speed blending of a mix of foods to create a baby food puree, but this was what I didn't want to end up with. 
So finally with my new approach of simplicity and food in its whole form, I created two fantastic Indian inspired dishes that was described as 'A new favourite' by the husband! Yay..my afternoon was not wasted after all! I was also able to reflect on food preparations once again, putting things into perspective and returning back to basics and reinforcing the fact to always keep it simple.

Here is a picture of the two meals I created - A spinach curry and a tomato curry. Both unique in flavours. I think the biggest lesson learnt today is that less can be more. 
Like usual, I didn't keep an exact record of my creations, but just added a dash of this and that and tasted as I went. These dishes also didn't require any blending, but rather, I just chopped up the tomato in one bowl, and sliced spinach in another. I then poured a little freshly squeezed coconut cream into each dish and continued to sprinkle a delicate blend of spices to create two individual and tasty raw dishes. I just played around with the usual Indian spices such as cumin, coriander, garlic. ginger. turmeric, and a curry mix until a wonderful flavour was reached.
I probably should have a note book on hand to keep a record of my ingredient content to recreate the same dish again, but then I suppose, my imagination is being restricted as I may never actually discover that my next attempt may even be better!