Month: September 2011

Recipe For Medium Hot Curry Powder To Use In Vegetarian Curry, or Meat Curry

Cumin, Coriander, Chilli, Garam masala, Ginger, and Turmeric are the basic dry spices which you will need to make your curry powder.  This can be mixed and stored in a tin or a jar, for ready use.  When you come to make your curry, you will also need tamarind paste, some fresh garlic, some fresh coriander leaves, and some fresh green or red chillis.

This amount of curry powder will make around eight curries of a size to serve four to six people.

3 tablespoons coriander powder

2 tablespoons chilli powder

1 tablespoon ground ginger

4 tablespoons ground cumin

4 tablespoons garam masala

2 tablespoons ground turmeric

Mix all the above spices together and store in an airtight container.

When you make your curry up, you would use 2 tablespoons of the above curry for an average family size curry.  Lightly toast the 2 tablespoons of curry powder in a fry pan with two tablespoons of  butter for one minute.  To this you would add:

1/2 cup of fresh coriander leaves, chopped up.

6 cloves of minced garlic

1 teaspoon sea salt

2 teaspoons of tamarind paste

4 fresh chillis which have been deseeded and chopped.  Do not use the seeds in your curry, as this will make the curry burning hot.  Stir well together into the butter. Remove from the heat.  Stir in a cup of coconut cream.

If using meats, then pre-cook the meats in a fry pan first.  If using beans or lentils with vegetables, have the beans cooked in advance.

Add the fried  spices and coconut cream mixture  to the vegetables or pre-cooked beans or meats which you are putting into the curry.   Add a little more  coconut milk  if necessary, to give the curry a creamy consistency. If you prefer, you can dilute the coconut cream with a little water.   Then  cook for a further 1/2 hour on low heat.   Stir occasionally to prevent burning.

Preparing your curry powder in this way saves quite a lot of messing about in the kitchen, and makes curry-making a relatively simple process.   You can experiment with more or less chilli,  and the addition of a little cardamom powder, or paprika pepper, to suit your taste.

 

Improve Your Soil With Natural Green Manure and Seaweed.

Dig in a crop to fertilize your soil:  Plants which nourish the soil are comfrey, clover, chicory, lupins, buckwheat, lettuce, mustard, turnips, radishes and alfalfa or lucerne.  Grow any of these plants, then dig them into your soil to fertilize it and fix it with nitrogen.   Lupins and clover are extremely good for bringing nitrogen to the soil.  Lawn clippings, although they are  good fibrous  matter for the soil, especially useful for breaking down clay soils,   actually draw nitrogen from the soil as they decompose.  If you are using lawn clippings or seaweed, you can help the nitrogen content of the soil by putting diluted urine over this area of the garden.  Urine is especially high in nitrogen, and this makes it a good supplement to use for  nitrogen-hungry seaweed, and lawn clippings.   All citrus trees thrive on a weekly dose of diluted urine.  Dilute the urine about one part to eight of water.

Digging in seaweed picked up from the beach is also a good way to fertilize your soil.  This is the best way to bring Iodine and other important minerals into your soil.  Seaweed is not such a good supplier of nitrogen, so remember the tip for using diluted urine if you are digging in seaweed.   Your plants will have a higher content of Iodine and all other minerals if you replenish the soil occasionally with seaweed nutrients.   Just make sure not to let the seaweed touch the plants if you are laying it on the garden.  You can make up a liquid seaweed by soaking a bunch of seaweed in a bucket for 2 or 3 weeks.  Dilute the seaweed solution with about 8 times the amount of water, and spray around your plants.  This seaweed solution helps to bring the worms, as well as bringing nutrients directly to the plants in the garden.  Seaweed used this way is also a deterrent to troublesome insects.  It is a safe way to help control the insects you do not want around, as it does not kill bees and butterflies, which derris dust and pyrethrum insecticides  do.

Comfrey is also excellent:  This miracle herb brings silica and other nutrients which benefit the growth of plants.  If you are using Comfrey, then you would pick the leaves from another part of the garden to dig into your vegetable or flower garden plot.  Comfrey roots are very tenacious, so you would not grow a crop of Comfrey all over your vegetable garden, but instead, you would use some of the leaves from the plant which grows in the spot which you have allocated for it.    Alternatively, you can make a Comfrey liquid fertilizer by picking some Comfrey leaves, and soaking them in water for 2 or 3 weeks.  Dilute this liquid to put around your plants, or to spray on the plants.  This liquid fertilizer helps to bring the worms, and it is a good way to distribute the Comfrey silica and other nutrients throughout the garden.  Silica is an important mineral, because it helps all living things, including plants, to process other minerals and vitamins.

How To Grow Organic Food:  Any Green Crop can be grown as a natural green manure.  Let  your spare seeds of carrots, lettuce, silver beet, or turnips, clover and alfala, grow around your garden.  When they are about half grown, you can dig them into the soil. The plant leaf material, once dug into the soil, will attract the worms.   The worms  eat the leaf material, and carry it about while they digest it.  As they work through the soil, they aerate it, which is also beneficial for the growth of plants.  Once the leaves have been digested, they are  turned  into a rich, organic fertilizer which benefits the soil.

By using compost, or these natural green manures and seaweed solutions, and avoiding the use of chemicals,  your  organic garden will flourish.  Your vegetables will be more healthy with a higher vitamin and mineral content.  Gardening with compost, seaweeds,  and natural green manures makes your plants more resiliant to insects.  Using natural organic fertilizers helps to discourage insects at the same time as they increase the nutritive value of the vegetables.

Natural Insecticides Derris and Pyrethrum Not Always Safe

Beware as  these organic insecticides often have added chemicals.   Pyrethrum and Derris dust are advertised as being  ‘natural herbal’ insecticides, but this is sometimes misleading. Piperonyl butoxide is one of the chemicals which is sometimes added to pyrethrum.  Piperonyl butoxide is a synergistic chemical which makes the pyrethrum compounds more active, but this is a toxic poison.

And remember that herbal insecticides are likely, too, to affect the bees if it is sprayed on flowering plants.  So do not put any insecticide around flowering plants.

Many toxic chemicals are added to household pyrethrum sprays which are used to kill flies, spiders and ants in the house.  These spray-can  aerosol insecticides are very bad for the environment.  These poisons are potentially carcenogenic, and are weakening to the immune system.  Breathing these fumes weakens the lungs and may cause asthma and other breathing ailments to set in.  It is a bad thing that many people in the ‘civilized’ world have this mind-set about killing all insects in the house, as these insects are valuable to plant life.   Many of these insects are food in themselves for birds and animals. They all have a purpose and a right to live anyway, and we do not have the right, really, to go about killing these insects just for the sake of it.  The Buddhist approach is the one which we should be adopting:  The aim is not to kill any form of life at any time, for any reason.  Sometimes it is necessary to kill animals, or insects, but we need to be mindful about what we are doing.  It is best to save all creatures if it is at all possible.

Derris dust, which is derived from a plant, and is a natural insecticide, usually has chemicals added to it as well.  Both Derris dust and Pyrethrum are capable of killing bees,  ladybirds and butterflies or hoverflies, which is one disadvantage of using these ‘natural’ insecticides in the garden.  We should all be making a concerted effort to stop using any chemicals, herbicides and pesticides, which kill bees and other garden-friendly insects. .  Bee numbers, as well as those of  ants and many other pollinating insects, are declining because of the poisons used in agriculture and in household gardens.  Long-lasting potent chemical, which can be planted in the garden to kill ants and other insects, are promoted by the chemical companies:  These are VERY POISONOUS,  and are very bad for the environment.  It is an especially bad concept to kill all garden insects just because you can. You interfere with the natural food chain by doing so, and deprive a bird or another insect of its food in the process.

Killing all our pollinating insects is a very serious state of affairs for mankind, as many of our food crops are reliant upon bees, ants, spiders,  moths and other insects to pollinate our foods for us. The added chemicals are probably responsible for these ‘natural’ products killing bees.  Apparently, Derris and Pyrethrum preparations are also toxic to frogs and toads, and to tortoises and fish, so their use must be avoided near waterways and ponds.   Do not use  these  ‘natural’ insecticides anywhere near your fish pond or your tortoise tank.  In fact, it is better to use less harmful alternative methods to keep those insects at bay, rather than use derris or pyrethrum products.

Use Marigolds Instead of Pyrethrum and Derris Insecticides:  Marigolds are the heaven-sent deterrent to unwanted pests. Companion planting Marigolds amongst your tomatoes and cabbages, your potatoes and beans, is a far better solution to controlling garden pests than using derris dust or pyrethrum preparations.  Marigolds are a natural insecticide which will not harm bees or moths. It does not directly kill the troublesome insects, but instead it repels and discourages them.   Marigolds  will help to deter those unwanted garden insects such as white butterfly,  and wire worm in potatoes, but they are helpful in encouraging those other insects which are beneficial for the pollination of plants.  Bees love marigolds.

Home Made Lavender Lotion Insecticide

Recipe For Potassium Rich Soup For Winter or Cleansing Diets

Vegetarian Lentil and Mung Bean  Potassium Broth

This is a very tasty and mineral-rich  soup.  It is a great thing to make in a large pot-full, so that you have plenty for the family, and for those days when you are eating only potassium-broth as part of your detox-cleansing regime.

Really, you can put any vegetables that you have on hand into a vegetable potassium broth.  One of the standard ways of making a potassium broth  for a fast is simply to use potatoes and onions, and celery:  This is simmered gently for an hour, then left to cool.  If you are fasting, then the liquid is strained off and the cooked vegetables are discarded.

But in this  potassium rich soup recipe, we leave the vegetables in the broth. Instead of a fast, you can give your digestion a rest by having days when you eat only potassium soup.  Once you have made it, you can eat a helping whenever you feel hungry. Potassium-Rich soup is an alkaline food which is very nourishing to the nerves, so it is a healthy thing to snack on.

Potassium Broth is also a good hearty  starter to a meal on those cold winter nights, to feed a hungry family.

Recipe For Lentil and Mung Bean Potassium Broth:

You need a very large soup pot for this recipe. Use a pot which will hold around 4 to 6  litres.

1 cup mung beans

1 cup of brown lentils or adzuki beans

3-4 cups of chopped celery.  Use some of the green tops, as this is where most of the potassium and other nutrients are found.

2 chopped onion

1/2 a leek chopped up.

2 carrots.

2  cups of chopped parsley picked from your garden.

2  cups of chopped coriander preferably picked from your garden.

3 cups of young silver beet or spinach, picked from the garden.

1/2 a medium sized pumpkin or squash.

2 teaspoons sea salt.

1 teaspoon red paprika powder.

In your big stainless steel pot put the mung beans and the lentils or adzuki beans.  Half fill the pot with water.  Soak for an hour, then cook  the beans and lentils for half an hour on the stove.

After the beans and lentils have cooked for a bit, put in the pumpkin with the chopped celery, the leek,  the chopped carrots, and  the onions.

Top up the pot with water to about 3/4 full.  Simmer all for around half an hour.  Then add the rest of the ingredients – the parsley and the coriander and the paprika pepper.

Now simmer the soup very gently for around another hour.

Use a potato masher to roughly mash up the pumpkin  and the carrots.

Your broth is now ready.  It is a good idea, unless you need all of this soup mixture to feed a large group, to  take some of the soup off to cool, to put into the freezer.   It freezes very well so long as it is put into  well-sealed containers.  Add a little more water to the remaining soup in the pot if needed, and perhaps a little more salt and pepper to taste.