:: November/December 2005 Volume 4/Number 8

Ayurveda You Can Eat:

By Amadea Morningstar

Holiday eating can be healthy eating. We don’t need to let our usual high standards for ingredients and balance fall by the wayside. Amadea Morningstar’s Ayurvedic Cooking for Wes-terners offers a whole range of recipes for “normal” foods – so much so that most people still feel guilty enjoying these de-licious concoctions - but they don’t have to (unless perhaps they overeat).

Morningstar indicates the effect of each food on a dosha with the symbols -, 0 or +: - means lowers; 0 means no effect; + means increases.

The following recipe for Gingerbread Kids was tested by K. Vera Brink as Gingerbread Yoga People. The results are shown here – those that weren’t gobbled up right away!

Gingerbread Kids
Preparation time: about 1 hour
Makes 10-12 kids or yogis, plus 18 2” round cookies for zafus.
SATTVIC BORDERING ON RAJASIC*

Preheat the oven to 350°

Cream together:
1/4 c. butter or ghee
1/2 c. fructose

Beat into them:
1/2 c. blackstrap molasses
Mix together:
1 c. rice bran or oat bran
1 1/2 c. barley or whole wheat flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. cloves
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. dry ginger
1/2 tsp. salt

Stir the dry ingredients into the batter, alternating with:
1/2 c. or more water

Toward the end, the dough will be very thick, and it is easiest to knead in the last bit of flour with your hands. Use extra flour if you need it to get the dough to a manageable consistency. Pat the dough into a lightly oiled cookie sheet (about 11” x 16”) and with a cookie cutter, cut out large gingerbread kid shapes, or whatever shapes you like.

Carefully remove the dough between the “kids” leaving them to rest on the cookie sheet. Use the excess dough to make round gingerbread cookies. Rolling about a teaspoon at a time into a ball in your hands, press them gently onto a second oiled cookie sheet. Put both sheets in to bake for 10-12 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into their centers comes out cleanly.

Tip: For more ambitious shapes, try letting the batter set for awhile.

* - Vata, 0 Pitta, mildly + Kapha (with rice bran and whole wheat flour)
* - Vata, 0 Pitta, 0 Kapha (with oat bran and barley flour)
* 0 Vata, 0 Pitta, mildly + Kapha (with oat bran and whole wheat flour)

Ayurvedic Cooking for Westerners: Familiar Food Prepared with Ayurvedic Principles By Amadea Morningstar copyright 1995, Lotus Press. Reach Amadea at www.Amadeamorningstar.com or
sfmorningstar@earthlink.net

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