Waste Not Want Not!

Dear Friends!

For the past couple of years I have been following these simple recipes which are not only healthy but leaves me with at least 2 or if I am able to stretch it further, to 3 different dishes from a single vegetable I want to make for the day.

For instance I wanted to make a cabbage dish called the cabbage poriyal or curry on the 26th May. On such days what I do is the following:

If I need 250gms of the vegetable to make it, I start cutting it. I will then take out the tender portion to be used for the curry or poriyal first.
Then innovate further to use the hard portion like the stems and limpy leaves, if any, and the thick veins which we usually junk, into a clear soup (can make a white sauce based soup too).
Then step 3 would be to convert the hard boiled portion's paste into a gravy for a spicy curry.

Keep the tender cut portion of the cabbage and the hard portion separately:
1)Take the tender cut portion and cook it in a litre of water. Strain the steamed vegetable and saute it in a little oil, salt, red chilly and garnish with grated fresh coconut. One steamed dish is now ready.

2)Tip in the hard portion of the cabbage to boil in the strained stock. Strain the cabbage once again, when they are done. To this stock, one can add herb of one's choice like lemon grass or basil leaves. Or just pepper powder with salt. This could be either a clear soup or a soup with white sauce.

3)The strained and leftover boiled cabbage can now be ground to a paste with any of the following to make another dish called chutney*
OR
4)can be converted to a gravy to which diced carrots, fresh sweet corn, diced potatoes or beans can be added with the garam masala or any curry powder to make into yet another new dish.

*For the chutney, my favourite ingredients are 1 diced onion, two diced tomato, 2 teaspoons of chopped green corriander leaves, 1 green chilly - all sauted in 2 tsps of any oil. Grind all of them into a fine paste. Add salt and 2 to 3 tspns of lemon juice. Heat 2 tspns of oil in a pan, add mustard seeds and some curry leaves and garnish the chutney.

Now you have 3 dishes from the same cabbage, each tasting different with different ingredients!

for instance I wanted to make a dish out of spinach today.
Took 2 bunches of it for a lentil based dish called keera paruppu in Tamil which when translated means 'greens with lentils'.
The stems which have strings or fibre need not be thrown away because we cannot use that portion. What I do in such cases is to separate out the leaves and the stems.
Cut the bottom most part of the stem portion which could have some mud sticking to it.
Put on boil a litre of water in which add the leafy portion first. This gets cooked in about 5 minutes' time. Strain out the cooked leaves and make the dish you wanted to or any one of the following :D
(There are any number of varieties one can make with spinach* alone).
1)Like cooked, roughly mashed up spinach sauted in a little coconut oil, with one or two red chillies, salt and a pinch of asoefotida and grated coconut for garnishing or;
2)Cooked spinach sauted in a little clarified butter with red chillies, salt to which cooked and mashed up lentils are added. Finally 2 teaspoons of lime juice adds a tangy taste to the dish. Can be served with rice or rotis or;
3)Another one can be prepared with cooked spinach with diced onions and tomatoes sauted in oil, salt, spices added and a dash of lemon juice.
The list can go on with a versatile green such as spinach.

Then we come to the next part of our little story of making a dish with the stem portion.
The retained stock should be boiled alongwith washed and cut up stems (we are using up even the stems here), a small diced onion, a diced tomato, salt to taste,
pepper powder to taste. Allow to cool and grind to a smooth paste. Serve it with a blob of butter.
OR prepare a white sauce, add the green paste and serve. Both types of soups are good.

We have this green and healthy soup as a starter.
The dish will serve as an accompaniment with rotis (an Indian bread) or steamed rice.

Next time you start cutting up any vegetable think of ways to use as much of it in as many dishes as possible. All dishes will taste different if we innovate
and plan our menu in such a way. But keep all ingredients ready. Follow the steps. Did you notice how little oil you use in all the preparations as all are first steamed and the stock put to good use too.

The farmer toils in the hot sun to raise vegetables. There are many who cannot afford their daily requirement of vegetables. We could use maximum portion of any vegetable provided we have the patience to think out the steps involved in such adventures. We can save the amount of garbage we junk as vegetable refuse. Save costs over a period of time by consuming more parts of a vegetable and save on the time, energy, money, fertilizers and water to grow more and more vegetables. This type of idea should begin at homes first.

Cheers!
Mahalakshmi