Multigrain warm salad: A road to greater satiety!

Armed with an arsenal of vegetables, a plethora of spices, and a deep rooted desire to cook and share, is all one needs to create deliciousness that is at once delectable and good for you. 

Comforting foods do not need to be poison. 

One must cook in comfort, with pride in the act of cooking, feeding (and sharing). 

Mindfulness, being present in the present, and a hunger for sating ones senses and feeding ones soul are the most essential ingredients needed for cooking comfort food that is also good for mind, body and soul.

Lovingly assembled (chopped and measured or bought chopped at a market, or frozen or canned) ingredients are the beginnings of a delicious journey. They are beautiful to look at. Incredible to cook with. They ensure success at the most important test - the taste if the dish - the ultimate proof of the pudding, sweet or savory.

Sweet corn, frozen green peas, diced potatoes, leek greens and whites, zucchini, broccoli florets and stems, green beans, mixed sprouted beans and lentils, red onions, and tomatoes are the vegetables I used for this version of the salad. 

Creature of habit and also busy body that Smita is, she repeated what we did last time. It was OK. We would use the same ingredients, and create a different enough dish, that the family would be seduced and enamored, the taste buds excited, and hunger happily sated. 

Use a mix of 1/4 cup amaranth, 1/4 cup brown rice, 1/4 cup wild rice, 1/4 cup forbidden black rice, 1/4 cup red quinoa, 1/4 cup quinoa, to make 1.5 cups of mixed grain. 

You can use any combination that you like. 

 

Cook the 1.5 cups of mixed grain in 3 cups of water. Bring the water to a boil. Cover the pan and cook on low simmer for 20 minutes. Leave covered for 5 minutes after you turn stove off. Open lid, put a teaspoon of oil, and gently fluff the grains. Set aside till ready to use, with lid open. 

In a large wok or sauteuse, heat oil with cumin seeds, fennel seeds, black peppercorn, mustard seeds, fenugreek seeds, curry leaves, dried red chiles and asafetida. Bloom the spices in the oil till the mustard seeds are popping and dancing in glee and the curry leaves have gotten crispy. 

 

Add onions, broccoli stem bits, and the whites of the leeks into the pan with the spice-bloomed oil. Stir the contents for 5 minutes until the onions are wilting some. 

Add the peanuts into the center of the wok, by making a well in the middle. Stir fry them on high heat for a few minutes. Then mix the contents of the pan for another 5-8 minutes, until the onions are softened and the broccoli stems have lost their whiteness and cooked down a bit. 

Add the chopped carrots and stir them with the contents of the pan for 5 minutes. 

Add the leek greens next and stir them with the contents of the pan. Cook for 2-3 minutes till they are wilted some. 

Next add the diced potatoes. Cook for five minutes.

Now add saambaar powder, cayenne pepper/paprika (depending on how spicy you want the salad) and turmeric into the dish. 

Nicely mix the contents of the pan with the added spice powders, cooking for 3-5 minutes. 

Add the corn, green beans, mixed sprouted beans and lentils, and zucchini into the wok. Stir and cook the ingredients of the pan for five more minutes. 

Add the cilantro stems into the wok. 

Add the broccoli and tomatoes next. Stir them in nicely with the contents of the pan. 

Add the cooked mixed grains next. Stir them in nicely with the vegetables. Cover the wok and cook on low heat for 8 minutes. Stirring once after four minutes to scrape the bottom of the pan to ensure nothing is sticking. 

Uncover the pan and stir the contents one more time. Allow to cook over a low flame as you get the tempering oil started. 

In a tablespoon of oil add some cumin seeds, brown mustard seeds, curry leaves, red Chile, and heeng. Cook till the curry leaves are crispy and the mustard seeds are popping and the cumin is golden brown. 

 

Add desiccated coconut into the tempering oil once the mustard seeds are popping. Immediately after the coconut starts turning a deep golden brown, pour the oil over the warm salad. 

Add lime juice once you have added the tempering oil over the salad. Taste for salt. Mix the contents of the pan nicely and gently. Remembering to fold the ingredients on themselves rather than stirring them. You want to keep the vegetables intact and enjoy their texture as well as brilliance taste as you bite into the dish. 

Healthy tasty food never has to be dull or boring, It is up to us to make the effort and turn delicious wholesome food to be everything that is truly is. Tasty, healthy, delectable, crave-able, comforting, exciting sexy and addictive. 

When cooking with veggies, one has to be mindful of their taste, texture and color, both pre and post cooking. Vegetables are a tad more delicate than a hunk of meat. But when you indulge them with a tad more time, they give you good health, healthy living, happy lives and sharing, in plentiful. 

Smita and I couldn't stop our selves from eating more than we were full with, of this warm and delicious multigrain salad. We kept going back for spoonfuls and more. 

Since the salad is made with so many vegetables and a plethora of whole grains, one also does not need to eat too much of it.

The beauty of whole grains is that they bring satiety at a much greater level, and maintain satiety in the body for longer, thereby not making us get sugar lows after eating, and become hungry within a couple of hours. 

A small bowlful of this salad will keep you sated and feeling wonderfully able to tackle whatever your day entails, for hours on end. 

This is the power of mindful eating, wholesome cooking and sharing.