weightloss Day 9: Kitchen Cleansing

Trust you have had your green smoothie and have removed the packaged foods from your kitchen.

Now that we have cleaned up the pantry, let’s move on to the next phase of kitchen cleansing!

Check out all the utensils that you need to remove from your kitchen and start shopping for the right things. It’s absolutely worth it! If we don’t find time for wellness today, then we will have to spend time on illness tomorrow!

Yesterday you threw out some packaged foods. Did you also throw out all those readymade sauces in the fridge? You should have! Today we are going to replace some of these so that you don’t miss anything.

Ketchup

Commercially made ketchup generally contains tomato concentrate, distilled vinegar, high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, salt, spice, onion powder and natural flavouring.

The expiry of most ketchup brands is 15 months.

Healthy Home-made Ketchup
Ingredients:

• ½ kg tomatoes
• 1 small onion, quartered optional
• 3 – 4 cloves garlic, peeled optional
• ¼ cup raisins, soaked for 4 hours
• 1 tsp ginger powder
• ½ tsp powdered rock salt
• ¼ tsp garam masala powder
• 1 tbsp natural vinegar e.g. apple cider vinegar or rice vinegar

Method:

Heat a pan with a tight fitting lid. Put the tomatoes, onion and garlic in the saucepan and cook, covered,
on medium heat. Stir after 10 minutes when the tomatoes have released a lot of juice.

Continue to cook on medium heat till the tomatoes are quite soft. This should take another 5 to 7 minutes. Remove from the heat and allow to cool.

Blend to a paste and then sieve through a wire mesh strainer to remove the seeds and skin.

Transfer the sauce to an open pan and boil for a few minutes to thicken the pulp.

In a wet grinder, blend the soaked raisins to make a smooth paste. Add this raisin paste to the boiling tomato pulp. Now add all the dry spices and cook for another 2 – 3 minutes or till you get the desired consistency.

Now remove from the heat and set aside to cool. Add the vinegar. The sauce will thicken further upon cooling.

Storage/Shelf Life:

This ketchup will last for 4 to 5 days in your fridge. You can also freeze it for longer shelf life and defrost it as per need.

Schezwan Sauce

Store-bought Schezwan Sauce may contain water, garlic, ginger, chilli, sunflower oil, salt, sugar, onion, corn starch, soy sauce (soybean, wheat, caramel (colour E150c), Disodium 5′-Guanylate, Disodium 5′-Inosinate, (Flavour Enhancers E627, E631), Paprika (Natural Colour E160c), spices (white pepper,schezwan pepper), acetic acid etc.

This sauce lasts for 1-2 years, and if unopened then 3 years!

Healthy Home-made Schezwan Sauce

Ingredients:

• 15 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 1/2 inch ginger, finely chopped
• 6 sambhar onions, minced
• 23 Kashmiri red chilies, soaked in water for half an hour
• 3 Bedgi chillies or gundu chillies, soaked in water for half an hour
• 1 tsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp vinegar
• 1/4 cup water
• ¼ tsp powdered rock salt or to taste

Method:

Heat a pan and add garlic and ginger to it. Saute on a low flame till the raw aroma goes away. Be careful not to brown or burn the ginger and garlic.

Add the minced onions and let them cook on a low flame. In the meanwhile, discard most of the water used to soak the chilies and grind the chilies with two tablespoons of water into a paste.

Once the onions look like they are almost melting, add the ground chilies, soy sauce, vinegar, salt and 1/4 cup water.

Bring this to a boil and simmer till the sauce thickens.

Switch off the flame and let it cool down. Once the sauce has completely cooled down, transfer to an airtight container and store in the refrigerator for up to 15 days.

Sev

Store-bought sev may contain tepary beans flour (43%), vegetable oil (peanut, palmolein or corn), gram pulse, red chilli powder, black pepper powder, ginger powder, clove, mace powder, nutmeg powder and cardamom powder.

Store-bought sev generally has a shelf-life of 150 days.

Healthy Home-made Oil-free Sev

Ingredients:

• 1 cup besan
• 2 tsp ajwain
• 1 tsp powdered rock salt
• 1/8 tsp turmeric powder
• 1/2 tsp red chili powder
• 1/4 cup sesame seeds, ground finely to a paste
• 2 tbsp coconut butter (recipe given under Day 4-Butter-in the side box)
• ¼ tsp ginger-chili paste or as per taste
• ¼ cup water or as required to make the dough

Method:

Sieve the besan, add all the dry ingredients and mix well. Then add the ginger-chili paste and coconut butter to it. Finally add the sesame seed paste and make a soft dough with water. Be careful not to add too much water to it. Add little by little at a time. Now tie the dough in a muslin cloth and steam in a dhokla/idli steamer for 10 minutes. Remove and cool. Knead the dough well and put in the sev machine and make sev. Bake in the oven at 200 degrees C for around 35 to 45 minutes till crisp and done.

Sev lasts for 30 days if stored in an air-tight container.

You will find many more recipes on our website https://sharan-india.org/recipes/