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Uncategorized You are what you eat

A Simple Guide to Eating Healthy

Hey y’all,

It’s been a while. Working in healthcare remains an adventure, but one that’s taken a dark turn lately. I’ve been cooking at home a lot more because of all this, and have several new recipes to share, but I have been slow in finding the motivation to write them up.

So instead of a recipe, I’m sharing some tips on eating healthy.

Why now? (After all, in times like these, chocolate is very comforting.)

We’re heading into the perfect time of year to make this amazing salad: creamy avocado, sweet mango, and juicy tomatoes tossed with a spicy dressing (rof). Vegan to boot!

What you eat, however, makes a big impact on diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, and obesity/metabolic syndrome, which are common risk factors for becoming very sick and/or dying from coronavirus. More than ever, it’s important to eat healthy to stay healthy.

Nowadays, however, eating healthy can seem confusing. Wondering whether you should go vegan or jump on the ketogenic diet wagon (previously popularized as the Atkins diet)? Or might you long for the easy days when the food pyramid ruled? Confused about what to eat? Confounded by the bewildering array of diets that cycle in popularity every few years?

Read on. I’m here to help.

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Recipe Box Uncategorized Vegetarian/Vegan

Pea Soup with Mint and Tarragon

#nofilters! Nothing like a fresh-tasting pea soup to capture the color and taste of spring.

“We are proud that our food is always made from fresh ingredients, never frozen,” the restaurant’s menu proudly proclaimed.

That’s great for those pro chefs who know how to hunt down amazing fresh produce in the dead of winter. For the rest of us, however, the produce section of the grocery store’s freezer aisle can be a lifesaver in the dead of winter. Especially when off-season, frozen vegetables (often harvested and frozen at their peak ripeness and freshness) can bring more flavor than “fresh” produce sitting in the grocery store for several days after being imported from thousands of miles away.

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Foodie Finds Uncategorized You are what you eat

Making eating out special again

If only insects actually tasted like this delicious passionfruit marshmallow caterpillar we tried at Jose Andres’s DC restaurant Minibar. It was definitely the type of one-of-a-kind meal I can’t make at home.

One of my resolutions for 2018 is to make eating out a special occasion again.

Growing up, eating out was something my family only did occasionally and at select restaurants. In large part this was because my sister and I were not easy to take out to restaurants when we were younger. I apparently had the habit of loudly drumming utensils against dinner plates; Sumi, while more well-behaved, knocked over at least one glass of water during every meal. So when we did eat out, it was at casual restaurants (that tolerated our shenanigans) that still served pretty darn good food (to make all the stress worthwhile). Even after my sister and I outgrew those antics, we still ate most of our meals at home because my Mom cooks food tastier and healthier than most restaurants.

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Recipe Box Uncategorized Vegetarian/Vegan

Savory Cranberry Walnut Relish

Cranberry walnut relish

Posting about Pongal, the Tamil festival of thanksgiving, reminded me of a recipe for cranberry relish that I tried out last Thanksgiving. Today I bring that post out from the purgatory known as “Drafts….”

Until recently, I never heard of this thing called cranberry relish. Not that my Thanksgivings growing up followed a traditional menu—sure, there was usually turkey, but often with a second main of tandoori chicken or biriyani. But with our turkey, we almost always had a jelly-like cranberry sauce with just two flavor notes: cranberry and sugar. I assumed that was how everyone ate their cranberries on Thanksgiving Day.

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Recipe Box Uncategorized Vegetarian/Vegan

Easy Oven-Fried Plantains

The last of my oven-fried plantains (We ate the rest before remembering to take a pic!)

Difficulty level: Easy

I enjoy eating fried plantains, but the frying and cleaning part? Not so much. After many botched attempts at frying them myself, I finally decided to give oven-frying a try. After reviewing a few different recipes to see whose plantains looked the tastiest, I decided to try this blogger’s technique. If you’ve never cooked with plantains before, she has helpful instructions (pics included) on how to best peel and slice them.

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Food and the World Foodie Finds Recipe Box Uncategorized You are what you eat

Welcome!

Welcome to Spice and Kisses! A guide to the blog:

Recipe box: Our online catalog of recipes both original and those that have been reviewed/closely adapted from other sources. There will be many family recipes from South India, but since we cook and eat all sorts of food, we’ll also have many other cuisines represented in our recipe box. Our goal is to present flavorful and healthy recipes suitable for cooks of many skill levels (and since Saranya is the cooking runt of the family, trust us, there’ll definitely be some easy ones).

Happy holidays!

You are what you eat: It’s true. From time to time, we will post tips about the relationship between the food you eat and your health.

Food and the World: Our thoughts on food and the environment

Foodie Finds: Food, products, and dining experiences that we enjoyed and want to share with you, all out of the goodness of our hearts (no one’s paying us to share!)

xoxoxo – S