Varada's Kitchen and Garden

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