About this blog

Why I am doing this?

I have been lucky enough to have grown up with a large variety of cooking techniques. Indian cooking being one of the dominant, influenced through my heritage. So most of the recipes are authentic Indian cooking, some may have had modern twists!

I decided very early on in my life that I wanted to be a vegetarian and in my teens stopped eating meat and fish.  My diet was supported by my love of Indian food, since then I have learnt many other cuisines sometimes adapted the dishes to fit my food choices.

In this blog I want to share and celebrate my love of vegetarian and vegan food and show you how easy it is to recreate. Some of these dishes may be familiar from restaurants others totally alien, they are all yummy so give them a go!

Hope you enjoy the recipes I share, please try and have the best fun cooking these dishes and sharing them with your friends and family!

Why eat Indian vegetarian foods?

The other huge advantages this food caries is :-

• Tends to be lower fat, so better for your waist line, 
• Cheaper than cooking with meat,
• The majority of these dishes are gluten free as well as vegetarian,
• The spices used in Indian cooking have medicinal properties helping you to maintain a strong and healthy immune system, many of them help with digestion, speed up metabolism and ...the benefits go on,
• Daal, lentils and vegetables are naturally very low in fat but high sources of easily absorbed protein and vitamins, there naturally lower LDL cholesterol levels in your body and also help regulate your insulin production,
• Easy to cook for large numbers 
• All of the dishes I share can be cooked before and reheated on demand in a pan or microwave, so great for busy families who eat at different times.
• Any leftovers are good for a few days in a sealed container in the fridge. just make sure you get it pipping hot before you reserve it. And it is just as good, so there is no waste.
• Most importantly really YUMMY!

What you need to cook this food?

Pans - In most of these recipes I will recommend use of a thick based pan, it is worth investing in a good stainless steel sauté pan and saucepan that will fit your family. We bought most of ours over 13 years ago and they look less than 6 months old.
Spices - I mainly cook Punjabi style food so the main set of spice mixes I use are similar, I have purposely kept many of these this way to simplify the process of Indian cooking for those that have not done it before.
I would recommend getting a good Garam masala, I get mine off my mum so can't recommend one!

Finally useful thoughts to bring to your cooking practice...

I remember when I first started cooking Indian food. I was so worried about getting things wrong, however if I could go back and tell myself self some top tips this is what I would say...

1. Keep the heat low, then you can't burn anything while you are chopping and preparing vegetables.
2. Love your time preparing and cooking, you are going to put this food in your body and loved ones bodies so why not spend sometime just being really present with it and comfortable with it. You will get out what you put in.
3. Know whatever you cook is going to be yummy, if it doesn't taste right just play with the spice mix, remember you can always add more but not take it out!
4. Trust you can do this and it is really easy!