Delicious Dining

In the mist of not writing entries lately due to the state of exhaustion I've been in since last Sunday (3.5 hours of sleep a very busy day and not really catching up on successive evenings is not conducive to a stable frame of mind) I have strangely managed to prepare no less than 3 really fantastic meals adapted from cookbooks my Wife checked out from the Minneapolis Public Library system. From a cookbook for casseroles I prepared a Turkey Wild Rice Au Gratin casserole which was devastatingly tasty. Monday and Tuesday of this week I prepared recipes from The Ayurvedic Cookbook [which has a very, very direct and accurate title]. Monday night featured the recipes "Dark Leafy Greens [I used curly kale] with Cumin" and a variation on the tofu and vegetables recipes where I merged chicken [in substitute for tofu] with the recipe for mushrooms and peas [substituting fresh chopped and steamed green beans for peas because we had just eaten peas in the Turkey Wild Rice casserole]. Tuesday the brown rice I prepared both evenings was accompanied by a dish called "Tofu Middle Eastern Medley". This time out I used chick peas/garbanzo beans in place of the tofu. I don't have anything against tofu, but it doesn't always agree with Kristin, and it falls short as a protein for me in a lot of recipes, so if I have a suitable alternative I'll often take it.

If the word Ayurveda is unfamiliar, well I should probably just refer my readers to my Wife's blog, but to cover the basics here, Ayurveda is a centuries old system of medicine originating in the Indian subcontinent. Ayurveda heavily links diet, body type, physical health and mental/emotional health and utilizes a diet appropriately balanced for the individual to promote all aspects of health.

On an interesting side note, relating to my career goals, Kristin sent me a link to this web page discussing Ayurvedic analysis and care for typical [North American] house pets. This got the gears turning in my brain. While I found the information on the page interesting, my primary interest as a [hopeful] future Veterinarian is to specialize in food supply animals rather than companion animals. I find myself wondering and brainstorming about the prospects of integrating ayurveda for the care of animals such as goats, sheep, cows, chickens, hogs, etc. I think there definitely is room to apply some of the practices. Kristin checked out another book from the library about ayurveda that made mention of ayurvedic veterinary medicine in ancient and early modern India (including ayurvedic veterinarians dedicated wholly to the care of elephants!). I don't think that there necessarily is anything contrary to ayurveda about working with food supply animals and, by extension, promoting dietary practices that are not vegan or vegetarian. Indeed ayurveda isn't necessarily vegan at all; ghee, clarified butter is absolutely an animal product and is a staple as a cooking oil in many ayurvedic dishes. While excessive meat consumption is discouraged by ayurveda it is not significantly more so than excessive, imbalancing indulgence in anything else. I've got food for thought I guess. Pun intended.