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Almond Milk Chai / Smoothie
Since I first started brewing sweet, spicy teas in my kitchen ten years ago I've been looking for an alternative to black tea. Almond Chai is creamy, rich, and hearty without the black tea or cream. It satisfies that winter urge.ayurveda notes
Skinned almonds are sattvic and build ojas. Ojas is loosely translated as nutrition. Under conditions of stress and high vata the sympathetic nervous system (flight and fight) redirects blood from the digestive tract to the brain and muscles. When the digestive tract lacks blood the ojas and nutrition of almonds is inaccessible.
In almond chai, nutmeg is a nervine that calms Vata and activates the parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest). Spices also encourage blood to stay in the digestive tract. The result is a rasayana that even Vata can digest.
Butternut Squash Soup with Rosemary & Thyme
Rosemary lends a rustic feel to the sweet, orange butternut squash.ayurveda notes
Add enough black pepper and rosemary to give the butternut squash a warm feel - that will help drive the sweet nourishing ojas of the butternut to the whole body. Add turmeric for a great skin tonic helping dryness.
Cranberry Sauce with Orange & Ginger
Zesty, tangy, bursting with red freshness. Sour, sweet and spicy!ayurveda notes
Cranberries grow in water effectively because they have enough astringency...astringency which dries out Vata. They are a diuretic.
Cooking cranberries and mixing with sweet taste destroy the astringency. Pungent ginger warms them.
The strong sour taste leaves the mouth and GI tract with a gush of saliva and juiciness that directs vata inward and downward.
Mung Dal Kitchari (Vata Reducing)
A classic meal for those recovering from illness, kitchari's are Ayurveda's vegetarian answer to chicken soup. With hundreds of varieties, they are the congee equivalent of Chinese medicine. Technically, a kitchari is any dish combining rice and legumes. Typically, however, kitcharies use mung beans because they are the easiest legume to digest. This kitchari is especially suited to vata dosha.ayurveda notes
Together, rice and beans provide complete protein. A small taste of hing reveals it is a sharp and heating irritant that provokes and stimulates the tongue. The tongue is a mirror of the digestive tract. As spice stimulates the tongue so also spice stimulates the stomach. The body's effort to dilute the irritant spice increases blood flow and gastric juices to the intestines thus improving digestion. Patience with a herbs and spices is the best way to experience their effects!
Hing and the other spices help cold vata people to digest beans. Excess hing can be too harsh for dry type vata people with a thin mucosal lining of the intestine.