Cooking for Life Cooking for Delight

This cookbook with simple, easy-to-follow recipes focuses on restoring balance with proper understanding of how to use herbs and spices. Food is not just for the palate; it has to satisfy and appeal to all other senses through texture, temperature, and aroma. Many combinations of a wide variety of vegetables, herbs, and spices not only promote better health but also cater to our taste. The recipes in this book use ingredients with six distinct taste: astringent, bitter, pungent, salty, sour, and sweet. The book is divided in sections. Spices are listed according to their strength; the mildest are at the end of the list, along with sweet spices. Helpful hints are given for each section of recipes. Most dishes require fifteen to forty-five minutes; some desserts even take just about ten minutes. It is suggested that while planning menus or preparing a dish, let one dish supplement what the other lacks. Let garlic and onions neutralize the toxins of the meats and the fish preparations. It is emphasized that proper menus may not completely cure chronic, complex diseases, yet they certainly can help revitalize the body. Food lovers will be happy to know that healthy food is not insipid, sick looking, or tasteless. Balanced food is neither complicated nor tedious to make, and it is easy to combine more enjoyment with more nutrition. A typical Indian lunch or dinner includes two vegetable dishes, yogurt, chutney, one soupy dal or curry, and roti. Often, roti is replaced by rice pilao. Fresh produce, homemade dairy products, herb, and delicate combinations of mild to strong spices create healthy meals and fill the kitchen and dining area with hunger-kicking aroma.