Saturday, December 31, 2011

Year Review: 2011

Posted my cookbook draft with a dozen rice recipes, with photos and recipes, tips and ingredients, as an epub file. This was one of my goals for the last year.

How much traffic did my recipes get? My recipe blog on Blogger (http://wholeplants.blogspot.com) had 33 posts in 2011, and 14 posts in 2010. Traffic averaged about 100 views/month, and the all time total has been about 1500 views. My recipe shares on BigOven (http://www.bigoven.com/user/michaelswarm) had 24 recipes. The favorite recipe was Spicy Baked Potato Wedges, with 5 reviews, 212 favorite, and 187 try soon.

I learned many things, from shopping and cooking, to computer photography and blogs and ebook publishing. There are still many more photos and recipes on my computer. I traveled for 4 weeks during the summer, sticking to this meal plan on trains, at beach houses and in other people's kitchens. I also spent many summer weeks on the boat, the longest period being 2 weeks.

For the next year, I look forward to adding Indian lentil recipes and cooking tips, and posting more European flavored soups and stews.

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Green Lentil Curry

This mung bean dal is a rustic spicy soup or curry. Warm and colorful soup, good served with flatbread or rice.

Mung beans are type of green lentil common in Indian and Chinese cooking. They can be purchased whole and split with a couple of pulses of a food processor.

Ingredients
MAIN
1 cup split mung beans, (green lentils)
SPICE
1 in fresh ginger, chopped
1 whole green chili pepper
1/2 tsp turmeric
2 cups water
FINISH
2 plum tomatoes, chopped
1 tsp cumin seeds, ground
1 tsp garam masala
1/4 tsp salt
handful fresh cilantro, chopped

Preparation
In pot add split mung beans, ginger, whole chili, turmeric and water, and bring to boil, 10 min. With strainer remove foam.
(Use split mung beans, or use whole mung beans and give 5-10 pulses in food processor, until more beans are split open than not. Don't process too much, or you quickly get just lentil flour and dust.)
Then reduce heat and simmer, 15-25 min., until lentils are tender.
Meanwhile, in spice grinder, grind cumin seeds. After lentils have simmered, add tomatoes, cumin powder, garam masala and salt, and simmer additional 10 min. (Total cooking time for lentils is 45-55 min.) Garnish with fresh cilantro and serve.
Quick use of stick blender turns into finished soup, or serve chunky and rustic. (Remember to remove the chili if you don't want hot!)

NOTES
Curry can be made more or less hot by adding or leaving out chili pepper.

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Cookbook Download

My cookbook of everyday Indian rice recipes, with photos and recipes, tips and ingredients, as EPUB file for download. 11 recipes, 18 Photos, 6 Drawings, 82 Pages.


My goal was a dozen rice recipes for breakfast, lunch and dinner. All recipes have photos, ingredients and preparation. Also shopping and pantry tips, and cooking methods and tips. This is my first effort, so it's first draft or beta quality. Comments are welcome.
Recipes are brown rice, whole plant, no added oils, no meat or dairy, vegetarian, vegan and McDougall friendly.