Varada's Kitchen and Garden

This recipe is my new favorite. The flavors of spiced up chickpeas and avocado are great! This chickpea and avocado spreadable salad is great on its own as a side or can be spread on toast for a great breakfast or lunch sandwich.  A hint of lemon juice enhances the flavor or do not leave that out. I made this chickpeas avocado spreadable for my daughter last week. She used it on her toast for breakfast. It is a great alternative to egg salad or avocado toast. It is nutrient rich and keeps you satiated for a long time. That makes it a perfect recipe for breakfast. It is not messy and travels well so it can be used for school lunches as well. It is best kept refrigerated. You will need 1/2 cup dry chickpeas or 1 can of garbanzo beans 1 avocado 1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper powder (increase quantity to taste) juice of 1/2 a lime salt and pepper Soak the dry chickpeas overnight and cook them in a pressure cooker the next day. I usually cook them in the instant pot for 17 minutes on

Healthy nutritious snack options are always on my list of recipes to try. Spicy roasted chickpeas were on my list for a long time. I finally got a chance to post the recipe today. I keep this recipe simple for a spicy tart taste. You can increase the amount of spice or use your favorite spice mix for the flavors you love. The question I get asked a lot is can you bake without oil? The trick to baking without oil is to keep the temperature lower than the recipes with oil. This prevents the food from burning up. If I were to use oil I would roast these peas at 400 F. Without oil 375 or even 350 F will suffice. Keep them longer to get them dry and crunchy. You will need 1/2 cup dry chickpeas or 1 can of garbanzo beans salt and pepper to taste 1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper powder Spice mix 1 tsp. Chaat masala or 1 tsp. garlic powder 1 tsp. cumin powder or 1 tsp. coriander powder 1 tsp. cumin powder Soak the chickpeas overnight and cook in a pressure cooker until fork tende

Today I am posting a tried and tested recipe for channa masala without oil. If you have ever eaten channa masala in a restaurant you had to have seen the oil. You may then wonder how it is possible to make this dish without oil. The reality is oil does not add as much flavor. As long as the onion tomato mix is thoroughly cooked with the spices the channa masala turns out perfect. You will never miss the oil. I made this channa masala after my daughter returned home for summer. She wanted some of her favorites and this dish places somewhere at the top of her list. You will need 1 cup dry chickpeas or garbanzo beans (or 1 can) 1 small onion 1 medium tomato 1 tbsp. ginger garlic paste 1 tbsp. tamarind paste 1 tbsp. channa masala spice mix 1 tsp. turmeric powder salt to taste Soak the dry beans overnight. Next day pressure cook the beans under fork tender. For me it is 15 minutes under pressure or if using the instant pot then 17 minutes manual mode under pressure.

One pot meals are a favorite in my house. But they have taken on a whole new form lately. About 3 months back I decided to stop using oil or processed food. The family was not really on board so I made small portions for myself. To make it easy on myself I would cook one pot meals. As the recipes evolved everyone in the house wanted what I was having. We all love fresh vegetables and with the right spices and legumes for flavor these one pot meals are delicious. I add a whole grain to the pot to make it it a complete nutritious meal. There is so much variety in beans, lentils and whole grain, there are endless flavorful combinations. Try it, you will love it. This is a very nutrient rich dish. Each serving is rich is protein, fiber, vitamins, minerals and complex carbs. When you eat this kind of food you have to remember that a large volume accounts for a relatively small amount of calories. Each serving of a large filling bowl of food is about 140 calories. Note: Cook the legum

This Sweet and Sour Tofu recipe is a favorite in my house. The flavors are so good together. The roasted sesame seeds enhance that flavor and best of all it is baked. The recipe itself is very simple. The sauce adds all the flavor and is made with ingredients you should have around the house. Baking simplifies the cooking process even further. I rarely prepare tofu at home. I usually never get around to buying it. But when I do this is one of the recipes I make. Here in the US, Tofu is often used in restaurants as a vegetarian/vegan substitute for animal based add-ins, fondly called 'protein'. I have always found that weird. Protein is not a food group, it is a macro. And we know there is protein in all plant based foods, even potato. But I digress. I like tofu and so does my family. We prefer the extra firm kind that holds its shape. You can eat this Sweet and Sour Tofu as a snack, a side to a stir fry or you can eat it as the main dish to a side of fried rice. Y

Breakfast is usually a busy time of the day in most homes and my house is no exception. Fixing lunch, getting ready for work, feeding the cats and taking them for a stroll in the garden are some of the things that have to get done. When everything is done, I like to sit down with the family for breakfast. Oatmeal is my go to breakfast. It is the easiest breakfast to put together with a variety of ways to cook it. Last year I posted my favorite oatmeal recipe. That was before I cut dairy out of my diet. Today I am posting my current favorite vegan oatmeal recipe. I had toyed with using water instead of milk for a long time but I have a problem with mushy texture so I was not sure it would work for me. If you do not like mushy food try this recipe. Have fun with the toppings. Anything that enhances the flavor works. Here is are some ideas of what I like and use frequently. You will need 1/3 cup old fashioned rolled oats 1 scant tsp. chia seeds 1 tsp. ground flax seeds (I b

This year mother nature seems to have forgotten that spring is around the corner. Most days are still cold and chilly. The cat loves to cuddle and is usually waiting for us to finish up in the kitchen and snuggle up with her. I have a little table by the window in the breakfast nook that I use to click pictures for this blog. The cat is not allowed on the dining table. She sits at the very edge of the little table and stares at us, waiting for us to be done eating so we can move to the family room. Back to the recipe. A warm bowl of Red lentil soup or a bowl of this masoor dal with rice is perfect for a cold evening. Red lentils are very flavorful and a few vegetables and spices are enough to make a flavorful soup. I like to add a lot of vegetables as everyone in my family loves vegetables. Masoor dal turns mushy when cooked. Sometimes I let it cook until mushy and mash it with the back of the spoon. Sometimes like today I let it cook but turn off heat before it gets mushy. You ca

Dhirdi or crepes are an easy alternative to flatbread. I usually make them once a week with different flours. Today I am posting the millet, chickpea and oats dhirdi. I made this for an easy light dinner after a long work day. One cup of flour is enough for two people. Increase the amount of flour if you want to make more servings. Usually we eat these with some dal or vegetable side. Sometimes we eat it with chutney. I had some red pepper hummus I wanted to finish so we had that instead. This millet, chickpea and oats dhirdi is a nutritious and simple recipe made with mixed flours. I usually buy millet, buckwheat and oats in bulk bins at Whole Foods. I grind it to a flour in my Vitamix dry grinder. The flour can be stored for several weeks, longer in winter. Addition of chickpea flour makes the dhirdi very flavorful. There is no oil or soda in this recipe. You will need (for ~6  crepes or 2 servings) 1 cup flour (I used combination of millets, buckwheat, chickpea and oats) 1

When kids go off to college cooking is the last thing on their mind. But campus food options are such that they have to cook in order to eat healthy. My daughter is no exception. When she started spring semester she was looking for easy breakfast options. I made these Oats Chia Peanut Butter bites and she loved them. But peanut butter is not her favorite so I kept thinking of alternate flavors. A week before her last visit I happened to pass by the nut grinder at Whole Foods. I had always wanted to try the fresh peanut and almond butter but had never done it. I figured using almond butter to bind the oats would work just as well as peanut butter. When my daughter came home for a visit we stopped at Whole Foods and bought a tub of fresh ground organic almond butter. My daughter suggested I add mini chocolate morsels for flavor so we got some of those and some maple syrup. And this recipe was born. These oats almonds and chocolate breakfast bites are great as breakfast on the go. T

My post today is a simple vegetable side. This was the first side I cooked after I decided to stop using processed food like oil. Almost all recipes I make start with heating oil in a pan. I have always wondered how much influence that step has on the final taste. I was going to find out. Cashew or almond paste is routinely used to make the gravy think and creamy. Since I took out the fat content from the recipe when I dropped the oil I decided to replace it with almond butter or crushed almonds. Whole Foods has a little grinder in their bulk bins section where you can grind your own almonds and peanuts. I had bought almond butter for a different recipe and had some left over. I added almonds to the recipe, skipped the oil and left everything else the same. When it was almost done I asked my husband to do a taste test. His response was 'Bhadhiya' or awesome! I have since made a wide variety of foods without oil. My family loves it. You will need 1 cauliflower 1 handf

At this time of the year butternut squash is in all the grocery stores. It is very flavorful and lends a beautiful color to anything you use it in. I am not very fond of the soft texture of squash but I love it in a bowl of butternut squash soup. The last several weeks have been very cold. After a long day at work a hot bowl of soup is perfect to warm you up. Butternut squash soup is one of our favorite dinner recipes in winter. With this recipe you will see a big change in this blog. For the longest time I have pondered over giving up dairy. I usually had a cup of milk in my morning oatmeal and occasionally had cheese. During the summer months a little ice cream. But the more I read up on osteoporosis the more I wanted to move to a whole food plant based lifestyle. With this post you will see recipes geared towards this lifestyle. Focusing on whole foods let you move away from processed foods like oil. This recipe does not have any added oil. This was the single biggest change I

Last week I was very surprised to find that I had not posted any green lentil recipe in this space. Green lentils in my opinion are the most flavorful of the lot. I use green lentils frequently and usually in a simple preparation like the one I am sharing today. The day I cooked this my husband had lunch and dinner plans at work and I was cooking for one. I had bought some green lentils during the weekend grocery shopping and decided to make this recipe. It is a one pot meal. I have used feta cheese in all three recipes this week. I rarely use feta cheese though we all like it a lot. Crumbled feta is usually available in tubs and 1-2 tablespoons of it goes a long way. Once you get a tub you have a couple weeks to finish it so I use it as garnish on everything. I always keep a small stock of green lentils in the pantry. In fact I usually have all varieties, yellow, green, orange and black in the pantry as we like them all. If you have not tried the green lentils yet you should

I frequently bake a medley of vegetables as a snack or a side. Most combinations do not make it to the blog. This is a very rustic flavorful mix so I wanted to record it. I made it on a weekend when my daughter was visiting and we all enjoyed it a lot. Next time you see these vegetables at the grocery try roasted winter vegetables. It is said you should try to eat five different colors everyday. This one vegetable mix will suffice to provide all the colorful foods for a day. I had leftovers so I used it in a winter warm salad with chickpeas. A little lime juice and paprika is all that it needed. That was my very filling lunch. This combination tastes great on its own as a snack. You could add it to noodles as I have done here  with a different set of vegetables. Except for the yellow squash which I added for color the other vegetables all take a while to cook. Make sure all the chunks are on the sheet in a single layer. You will need An assortment of vegetables. I used Re

My daughter is home for the long weekend as we have Monday off - Martin Luther King day. She will leave for school some time tomorrow and I am packing all kinds of goodies for her. I may have to make a second batch of these if there are not enough left by tomorrow. I do not make cookies often but there are a couple of recipes we like and when I do make the cookies I stick to those recipes. Today I wanted to bake cookies but wanted to try something different. I had cocoa but no chocolate chips. I had raisins so I tried these Chocolate and Raisin chewy cookies using the base cookie recipe I follow. The batter is gooey and sticky from the cocoa powder but on the thicker side. The cookies do not spread much in the oven. The trick is to take them out when they are still soft so you get that soft chewy cookie we all love. You will need (about 18) 1/4 cup butter, softened 1/2 cup cane sugar (use any granulated sugar you have on hand) 1 egg 1/2 cup flour (all purpose or whole wheat)

Today I am posting a recipe with a combination of flavors mixed into a small ball. Rolled oats and chia seeds combined with peanut butter, coconut flakes and honey make a delicious snack. This recipe is quick to put together and is the perfect mid morning snack. Just one of these energy balls and you are good to go for a couple of hours. Energy balls have been on my list of recipes for the blog for a long time. I am glad I was finally able to post it.  When my daughter came home for winter break she brought home leftover jars of honey and peanut butter. The raw unfiltered honey had turned to a soft solid mass as the temperature had dropped. And unlike the processed peanut butter with loads of additives, the organic peanut butter she had was just peanut paste with very little salt. I had the rest of the ingredients on hand. The oatmeal chia peanut butter energy balls were ready in no time. You will need (for 16 balls) 1 cup old fashioned rolled oats 1/3 cup dry coconut flakes