Adapting Recipes for What You Have
Adapting recipes for what you have on hand is a familiar strategy for any of us who cook. As a long time Ayurveda cook, I’m forever tampering with the ingredients in a dish. Yet in my forty plus years in Ayurveda, I’ve noticed it’s easier for people to get intimidated by this ancient art, as if each ingredient is sacrosanct and can’t be changed. Not so.
If what you’re making is fresh, easy to digest for you, attuned to the season you’re in, and made with love, you’re at least 80% of the way there in terms of wisely using Ayurveda principles.
As Kate O’Donnell points out in her Everyday Ayurveda podcast, you don’t have to know your dosha to use Ayurveda to jumpstart your healing process. Tuning into your senses and adjusting your eating to the weather (cool weather, warm foods; damp weather, drier foods), you ARE working with Ayurveda.
Here’s some examples of adapting recipes for what you have.
FRESH VEGGIE SOUP
Calms all doshas, fine for all seasons
Riffing on this picture of a lovely fresh soup, let’s prep some veggies with kindness.
Chop: 2 c. fresh veggies: what have you got? Could be carrot, celery, onion, zucchini. If you’ve got hard veggies (carrot, celery, onion) and tender veggies (zucchini, summer squash, asparagus, peas), put them in separate piles or bowls. The hard veggies will take longer to cook; the tender veggies you can add in the last 5 – 10 minutes of cooking.
Bring to a boil in a medium soup pot:
3 c. water
Add:
1 cube low-sodium veggie bouillon (optional)
½ tsp. mineral salt (You have some other kind of salt? That’s fine.)
Put in the hard veggies, cover, and simmer 10 – 15 minutes or until tender.
Then, if you want to add tender veggies, put these in now, cover, and simmer an additional ten minutes.
Garnish with: chopped green onion
No bouillon? Instead of the bouillon, add 1 tsp. herbes de provence or basil. Neither of these is available or speaks to you? Fine.
Do you like miso? If so, this could become Miso Veggie Soup. To use miso, you don’t cook it. You add it fresh when the soup is done, 1 teaspoon/bowl, when you serve the soup. To do this, scoop a little of the finished broth into each bowl and mash the miso paste in with a spoon. Add the rest of the soup, stir. This gives a dense slightly salty taste to the broth.
Voila! Soup’s on. Serve with rice, wraps, cheese.
To consider another way of adapting recipes for what you have, let’s look at this original recipe:
GREEN DINO DETOX TEA
From Easy Healing Drinks from the Wisdom of Ayurveda, Morningstar & Lynn
Time: a leisurely 15 minutes
Makes 3 (1 cup) servings
1 quart + ½ cup water
1 bunch Lacinato (dinosaur) kale
1 thin slice onion
1 slice (2 inches) fresh lemon
1 inch slice fresh ginger
½ teaspoon ground tulsi
Bring the water to a boil. Tear the kale off the stems into the water, discard the stems or save for a soup stock. Add the rest of the ingredients, simmer until greens are tender. Strain, using the steaming water as your drink. Use the greens in whatever dish you like. (You could serve them with extra virgin olive oil and a splash of lemon or vinegar.)
Effects: neutral Vata, strongly calms Pitta and Kapha.
This detox tea supports: plasma, red blood cells, muscle, bone, liver. Alkalizing.
DISCUSSION on this recipe
So – what if you don’t have Lacinato kale or you don’t like kale? No biggie, use whatever dark leafy green you do like, which is available. There’s a great chart in the Easy Healing Drinks print book that compares a wide range of greens: their therapeutic actions, tastes, and effects on the doshas. If you’re interested in this and want to fine – tune your improv, there’s support here. If you’re looking for an iron-rich diuretic action, parsley is excellent. If you’re needing a spicier detox, think about arugula. Yet, you can also just use whatever dark leafy green you like.
Allergic to citrus? No problem, use a splash of whatever vinegar you have.
Don’t like or tolerate onion? It’s grounding to Vata and provides an earthy element for this recipe. Yet, the recipe will survive without it. Perhaps you like onion fine, yet don’t have any. Ditto. Or you’ve got green onions, shallot, or leeks. Sure, use them.
No fresh ginger? Try a pinch of dry ginger powder.
What is ground tulsi?? This is sacred basil, Ocimum tenuiflorum, great for the respiratory system, heart, circulation, immunity. It’s featured in many Organic India brand teas, and you can pop in a teabag if you’ve got one. Want to try this recipe and you don’t have this ingredient? Try basil. Tulsi and basil are in the same plant family. Basil, Ocimum basilicum is a lovely digestive, a plus in Ayurveda.
If you’d like to study more about this, check out Adapt Recipes: Use Ayurveda with ease, Autumn & Winter, a pre-recorded on-demand class with me.
This last recipe is a cult favorite for Valentine’s Day and birthday cakes…to get its wild deep rosy hue, you do need beets. All blessings of kindness in the world on this day and all days.
ROSY BEET CAKE
From Ayurvedic Cooking for Westerners, Morningstar
Serves 8
Time: 60 – 70 minutes, mostly unattended
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
Wash and grate:
3 medium beets (2 cups grated)
Set aside. In a mixing bowl, beat:
1 egg or 1 “flax” egg * (see how to make this, below)
Then beat in:
2/3 c. fresh orange juice (about 1 large orange)
1 Tbsp. orange zest (grated organic orange peel)
½ tsp. grated fresh ginger root
1 tsp. cinnamon
¼ tsp. nutmeg
1/8 tsp. allspice
2 Tbsps ghee (warm if you need, to blend it easily)
½ c. maple syrup
Stir in the grated beets. Stir together, then fold into the wet ingredients:
2 c. whole grain flour: whole wheat or barley
½ tsp. salt
2 tsps. baking powder
Fold into the batter:
½ c. organic raisins
Lightly oil a 10-inch round pan or a muffin tin for 8 – 12 cup cakes; spoon the batter into it. Bake for 40 minutes or until a knife inserted into the middle of the cake comes out cleanly. Without icing, this makes a good not-too-sweet snack.
Or top with:
HONEY LEMON SAUCE: Stir together 3 Tbsps. ghee, 1 Tbsp. raw honey, 1 tsp lemon juice.
Or CREAM CHEESE FROSTING: Mix together in small bowl with a fork, or with an electric beater for greatest smoothness 6 oz (3/4 c) whipped cream cheese, 2 Tbsps. coconut sugar, 2 Tbsps. fresh lemon juice.
* From Kate O’Donnell’s The Everyday Ayurveda Cookbook, to make 1 “flax” egg, combine 1 Tablespoon ground flaxseed with 3 Tablespoons water in a blender carafe. Blend on high for 2 minutes. Kate’s 10th anniversary edition is out, and it’s beautiful! Find your copy here.
DISCUSSION on this recipe
Vegan adapting recipes for what you have: it’s straight forward here. Use the flax egg, organic coconut oil in place of ghee, coconut sugar in place of honey.
Gluten free? Substitute 1:1 a gluten free flour.
If you’d like to learn more about how to skillfully play with adaptations, check out Adapt Recipes: Use Ayurveda with ease, Autumn & Winter, a pre-recorded on-demand class.
PS: If you’re enjoying a recipe occasionally, you can be more casual in your substitutions. If you plan to eat a specific dish every day, then it makes more sense that its qualities be more closely attuned to the seasons and doshas.
Delicious veggie soup image thanks to Marina Athanasiadi
Amadea Morningstar is the author of Ayurvedic Cooking for Westerners, Easy Healing Drinks from the Wisdom of Ayurveda and with Urmila Desai, The Ayurvedic Cookbook. She teaches online, including Adapt Recipes and practices in Santa Fe, NM.