Try This Creamy Avocado Shake to Jumpstart Your New Year
Embrace the world of Ayurveda with these healthy recipes.
Whether you're embracing new ways of thinking about health, or simply eager to explore fresh recipes, a new year is the perfect time to examine what and how we eat. Enter Ayurveda, which is the core of Indian cuisine.
How does Ayurveda work, exactly? This school of thought is based on the five elements of nature—air, water, space, fire, and earth—that form doshas, or energies, that circulate in our bodies. Ayurvedic practitioners and adherents believe that these doshas affect everything from our physical attributes (skin, hair, nail type) to mental makeup (emotions and moods). This is the premise of Ojas: Modern Recipes and Ancient Wisdom for Everyday Ayurveda by Copenhagen-based author Nira Kehar.
“Seasonality of ingredients plays an integral role in Ayurveda,” Kehar says. “Each season offers its own bounty, so there is a drink for every kind of weather.” In Ojas, she translates Ayurvedic principles into everyday dishes and drinks that “heal from within and energize.”
Indian Ayurvedic texts classify weather into six different seasons: vasanta (spring), grishma (summer), varsha (monsoon), sharad (autumn), hemanta (fall-winter) and shishira (winter). They talk about the foods to be had and forbidden during each period. For example, in fall-winter, Ayurvedic teachings prescribe sour and salted foods, the diet should be predominantly sour during monsoons, and so on.
Kehar believes that many cookbooks don’t focus enough on beverages, and it was important to her to include drinks recipes to suit every season. And so, she works a lot with ginger, an Ayurvedic staple known for its many health benefits including immunity boosting, and uses it in every drink in her cookbook.
“Yes, it’s winter, but no, you don’t need to only slow-sip on warm ginger tea throughout the day,” she says. “I wanted to find delicious ways to incorporate Ayurveda in our lives.”
Consider Kehar's recipes for this prune and avocado shake, and her grapefruit and tamarind tea. “Prunes can do wonders for your digestion, and help prevent diabetes and lower the cholesterol,” Kehar says. “The heat, bitterness and tanginess of grapefruit and tamarind make them perfect for the cold season, and all the vitamin C in this drink is a much better alternative to taking vitamin supplements.”
Prune and Avocado Shake
Serves 4-6
Ingredients:
• 2 cups water
• 2 green tea bags
• 1 cup prunes, pitted (soaked overnight)
• 1” piece fresh ginger (sliced)
• 2 cups organic almond milk
• 2 tablespoons organic raw honey
• 2 tablespoons almond butter
• 1 avocado (peeled and pitted), raw cacao powder for garnish
Directions:
1. In a heavy-bottomed pot, bring water to a boil. Remove from heat and add tea bags, prunes and ginger to the hot water and cover with a lid.
2. Let the mixture cool to room temperature and remove the bags.
3. Place the tea and soaked prunes in a blender.
4. Add almond milk, honey, almond butter and avocado and blend until smooth.
5. If you want a thinner consistency or a cooler temperature, add chilled water or a couple of ice cubes to the mixture and continue to blend. Do not add too much ice as you don’t want to drink it too cold and disturb your digestive fire.
6. Pour the shake into glasses and dust with raw cacao powder.
Grapefruit and Tamarind Tea
Serves 4-6
Ingredients:
• 2 pink grapefruits (peeled, segmented)
• 2½ cups water
• 2 tablespoons orange pekoe tea (or hibiscus)
• 2 tbsp black tea
• 1 cup jaggery or brown sugar
• 2” piece fresh ginger (roughly sliced)
• 3 cloves
• 2 cardamom pods (cracked)
• 2 star anise, 5 all-spice berries
• 1 large cinnamon stick
• 2 cups grapefruit juice
• 2 teaspoons tamarind paste
Directions:
1. Lay the grapefruit segments in a single layer in a freezer-safe box. Place the box in the freezer overnight or for at least 6 hours.
2. Pour water in a medium pot. Add the sugar, ginger, cloves, cardamon, star anise, all-spice berries and cinnamon sticks to the pot and stir.
3. Bring the water to a boil and then turn off the heat and cover the pot with a lid. Allow this mixture to steep for 30-60 minutes.
4. Strain the steeped liquid through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl or pitcher; discard the solids.
5. Place the sweet tea in the fridge and let it cool for an hour.
6. When you are ready to serve the tea, add the grapefruit juice and the tamarind in it and serve after adding frozen grapefruit segments to each glass.