Sprouted Bean & Lentil Salad - Healthy & Tasty

Summer means more time at the beach, which in turn means getting into shape as soon as you can! Joining the "eat healthy" bandwagon, the Sprouted Bean & Lentil Salad has become my current favorite as weeknight dinners, at least twice a week. A healthy diet should include a mix of essential nutrients, a primary one being Proteins. And for vegetarians, beans, legumes and lentils are the best way to fill up on your protein needs. I love this salad because it's easy to prepare, tastes really great, and is extremely filling! Sprouted beans are combined with chopped veggies and flavored with fresh herbs and spices to help you get the best of "tasty & healthy". Customize it to suit your liking, or enjoy this summer salad the way I like it!

Lentils are a great source of protein, calcium, and are also rich in fiber. They have a unique flavor when you sprout them, and they can fill you up in no time, which works perfectly for diet plans and portion control. Garbanzo Beans (also called chickpeas) are a good source of cholesterol-lowering fiber, and also help keep your blood-sugar under control.

For my salad, I used Horsegram Dal, but you can use any other legume of your choice. I made a mild sweet and sour tamarind sauce, which was used as a dressing for my salad. I added sprouted Green Mung, along with chickpeas and other veggies, and sprinkled some spicy chaat masala and cilantro to add a zing to the sweet and tangy chutney dressing. I had never eaten sprouted horse-gram before, and I was really skeptical about how it would taste, but this salad came out great, and now its become one of my favorite salad recipes!

Ingredients

1/2 cup horsegram dal
1/2 cup whole green mung
1/2 cup boiled garbanzo beans
1 tomato - finely chopped
1/2 onion - finely chopped
1/2 cucumber - finely diced (optional)
1/4 cup fresh cilantro - finely chopped
salt - to taste
black pepper - to taste

For Dressing
3 tbsp tamarind chutney
lemon juice - to taste
2-3 tsp chaat masala

Method
Soak the horsegram and whole green mung in 2 containers in sufficient water overnight. Cover with a lid and allow them to swell-up. Then remove the water from the containers, cover with a damp cotton cloth or kitchen towel, and allow them to sprout, probably another 6-8 hours. You can even use a sprouter for doing this. The sprouted beans can be dried and stored in an air-tight box or zip-lock bags in the refrigerator for 5-7 days.

Now mix all the ingredients for the salad in a large bowl, except cilantro. Add the salt, and black pepper to it and let it sit for 5-10 mins.

Meanwhile prepare the tamarind chutney, or you can use the store-bought one. If you are not a tamarind-person, you can easily omit it and use only lime juice for the dressing.

Add the dressing to the salad, taste and add any more spices as required. Finally sprinkle a generous helping of chaat-masala, again, according to your taste. Chaat Masala is merely a blend of spices and adds a fresh taste to your food, so don't be afraid of using it! Top it with chopped cilantro.

Enjoy this healthy Sprouted Lentil Salad on its own, or top it on a slice of bread. Combine with a glass of orange juice and you are all set for a healthy and tasty dinner indeed!

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Coconut Cookies with Vanilla Icing

I've always been a fan of Coconut Macaroons or Coconut Cookies, and it was finally time to start the oven and bake some cookies over the weekend. Starting with the simpler of the two, I opted for Coconut Cookies, which are similar to the macaroons, except that they are a lot more easier to make! Just to add some glamour, I decided to add a simple vanilla icing on the top. The cookies came out great; and with the perfect balance of sweetness and taste of coconut, these cookies did not survive in the jar as long as I had imagined they would! They came out chewy, yet not too much, and have a wonderful texture due to the toasted coconut adding a wonderful aroma as well as the texture. To kick things up a notch, just use some vanilla or flavored icing and drizzle it onto the cookies to transform these simple coconut cookies into something more suited to a festive occasion.

Ingredients
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tspn baking soda
1/4 tspn salt
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 tspn vanilla extract
1 cup flaked coconut
1/2 tsp coconut essence (optional, but recommended)
ready-made icing - as required

Method
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C.) Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt and set aside.

Take 1 tbsp butter, melt it a little, then add the shredded coconut to it. Saute lightly to get a golden, toasted look and aroma. Divide into 2 parts and keep aside.

In a medium bowl, cream the butter and brown sugar until smooth. Beat in the egg and vanilla and coconut essence until light and fluffy. Gradually blend in the flour mixture, then mix in half of the toasted coconut to it.

Cover with a plastic wrap and freeze the dough for 10-12 mins.

Take a little dough at a time, grease your palms with oil and roughly shape the dough into a cookie. I like the corrugated edges in my cookies so I use this method. You can even use a long fork to make some marks on the cookies for a fancier effect. Instead, you could even drop dough by spoonfuls onto an ungreased cookie sheet.

Roll each cookie dough in the remaining shredded coconut, or simply sprinkle a little on the top. Place the cookies about 3 inches apart on the baking sheet.

Bake for 5-8 minutes in the preheated oven, or until lightly toasted. Then turn the cookie sheet around by 180 degrees and bake for another 5 mins until lightly browned on the top. Cool on wire rack till completely cool.

For the icing, take the ready-made icing and add 1 tsp of vanilla essence. You could even use lemon zest or orange zest for a delicate flavor. Use a piping bag with a thin hole (about 2mm) then gently pipe the icing on the cooled cookies in any pattern you want.

You can store the coconut cookies in an airtight container (without icing) for about 20 days. As the cookies themselves are not very sweet, the icing adds a nice touch though.

These coconut cookies are on their way to Suganya who's hosting AFAM-Coconut this month!

These Coconut Cookies with Icing are a wonderful treat any time of the day. Without the icing, they taste like coconut macaroons, albeit a bit less sweet; with the icing, they are fancy enough to be served to guests at a tea-party, and I think I'm going to try orange icing next time!

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Ginger Cafe Sunnyvale - Chinese Fusion Food

We love asian food, especially Malaysian, Thai and Fusion-Asian cuisine, and I'd been having the craving to try vegetarian Dim-Sum since quite some time now. Looking around for recommended options, I couldn't have found a better place than Ginger Cafe in Sunnyvale! I had heard good reviews about this cafe's branch in Gilroy and it sure looked nice in the pictures, so when my colleagues offered to treat me to a birthday lunch, I chose to give this place a shot. And I have to tell you, it was truly worth its while! Ginger Cafe is hidden in a tiny but extremely busy complex across the street from PF Chang's in Sunnyvale. With an inviting ambience, great prices and better than average food, its a great choice for lunch options or to grab a quick bite, followed by a smoothie at Smoothie King next door!

Ginger Cafe offers eclectic chinese fusion cuisine, with a modern twist on classic asian entrees. With a modern upscale decor, with bold colors and soft lighting, as well as lovely asian-style lanterns hanging on the walls, it has an instantly inviting appeal. Authentic oriental artifacts, including large Buddha heads are tastefully placed high up in wall-brackets, adding a soothing and peaceful asian touch to the decor. The unsymmetrical table settings with sofas and high-backed chairs add their own charm to the fusion look. The staff looks helpful and friendly as well.

They call their food as Asia Pacific Rim Chinese Cuisine, which basically means asian-chinese food made with ingredients that combine the traditional taste with the freshness and natural flavor of local ingredients. The Dim-Sum is the highlight here, and they have more than 15 choices just for dim-sum on their menu. We tried the Veggie dumplings and they were simply wonderful. The Blue Crab dumplings and the Vietnamese Shrimp rolls were a hit with my colleagues. Lunch is served from 11 am to 3 pm and ranges from 8-10 bucks, which is a great price for the portion that they serve. The Lunch has an extensive menu with loads of vegetarian options. The Crispy Tofu & Eggplant in Garlic Sauce were excellent, while my friends enjoyed the Mango Chicken and Satay Three Delight. The Dinner menu is a lot more extensive, with loads more entrees for seafood, beef, chicken and vegetarian. A long list of soups and appetizers as well as salads make it a worthy meal.

They also have a nice collection of wines and cocktails, with some interesting drinks like Mudslide, Tamarind Margharita and Zombie. Desserts are normal, nothing quite extraordinary about them; just the regular asian sweets. They also have a 2- person menu where you can choose your appetizer, rice, 2 main course dishes and dessert for one price from $32-$40. The service is prompt, and the waiters are really friendly. The biggest drawback of this restaurant is the location, as there is a very small parking place and in lunch time, it took us 10 mins to find a spot. Other than that, I don't have any cons for this place. But its not an authentic chinese food, its more like fusion cuisine, so don't expect traditional chinese food.

Ginger Cafe offers decent food at a very fair price. The ambience, large range of options in food and friendly service will tempt you to visit this place again. You can surely add Ginger Cafe to your Sunnyvale lunch-place options. We enjoyed our lunch a lot, and I'll definitely be going back for dinner!

Address:
398 W El Camino Real
Sunnyvale, CA 94087
(408) 736-2828
Ginger Cafe

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