Latest Book: “Illuminated Recipes - Sacred Recipes, Nourishment & Kitchen Alchemy”
Retreat, Ashram, Satsang, & Workshop Vegan Recipes compiled & collected over many years and compiled by Melissa Shubha Abbott
I have collected myriad vegan and vegetarian recipes over the years as I have spent much of my life being a vegan or vegetarian. Since I have been a long-time meditator, healer, and yoga teacher, I have used the support of delicious healing foods in my practices while spending many years in and out of meditation retreats, yoga training, ashrams, and workshops. These recipes are my go-to ways of immersing myself in a lifestyle of calm and serenity, using plant-based recipes to find the sweetness and divinity in my kitchen and household. I have had a loose compendium of recipes I have treasured and cooked repeatedly throughout the years, and I decided to make a little book of them to share with my family, friends, students, and neighbors. May this benefit the world in a positive and uplifting way.
Why would I be interested in this kind of cooking?
Your consciousness, your awareness is the inner fire 🔥 within you. This fire metabolizes your emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual bodies. This fire, this force of creation, supports and balances you, sparking cellular regeneration. Excessive fire 🔥 within a person can manifest as low energy, mood swings, lack of inspiration and energy. How many of you know this feeling of being stuck? This excessive fire keeps you from moving forward in your life. What to do? You need to give yourself the gift of a healthy life to support your radiance and illumination. Support yourself and your immune system with Hatha yoga, meditation practice, and nourishing food. Doing this daily, steadily, through practice, you will create happiness and balance in your life. However you choose to do this, whether taking Zoom yoga classes, listening to meditation podcasts, getting to a safe, socially distanced yoga class, or cooking simple, delicious meals for yourself using whole food ingredients, you are stoking your inner fire, your illumination, and contentment.
I will share a couple of recipes with you below.
Chai Recipe
4 cups water
1 inch fresh ginger sliced
4 cardamom pods slightly crushed
1 Tbsp ground cardamon
1 Tbsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 c. Red Label Indian Tea or other Black Tea
3/4 c. dark brown sugar
1/2 tsp. Ground black pepper
4 c. milk
Bring the water to a boil, then reduce and simmer the grated ginger for 5+ minutes. Add the cardamon, crushed cardamon pods, cinnamon, and nutmeg, and continue to simmer for ten more minutes. Add milk, brown sugar, tea, and black pepper. Let steep for 5-6 minutes—strain into a pitcher. Taste and add more sugar if desired. Serve hot or cold with breakfasts. It’s a delightful substitute for coffee. If you take the time to get the Red Label Tea from an Indian shop or Amazon and use dark brown sugar, it tastes authentic.
Amrit Bakery Banana Cake with Whipped Cream Frosting
Amrit Bakery Banana Cake with Whipped Cream Frosting
Prepare two ten-inch cake pans by greasing the bottom and sides and then lining the bottoms of the cake pans with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Butter 1 1/4 cups
Sugar 3 cups
Fresh bananas (packed into cups) 2 cups
Vanilla 2 teaspoon
Sour cream 1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon
Buttermilk 1 1/3 cup
Flour 1/2 cup
Baking Powder 1 Tbsp
Baking Soda 1 1/2 tsp
Salt 1/2 teaspoon
Roasted and chopped walnuts 1/2 cup
Raisins 1/3 cup (optional)
Sweetened whipped cream
sliced bananas for garnish
Cream butter and sugar well. Add bananas and vanilla and blend well. Blend in sour cream and blend, then add buttermilk and mix well. Sift the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt) together in a different bowl.
Add the dry ingredients to the butter/sugar/sour cream mixture in 3-4 separate sections. Blend, but do not overmix, as this toughens the cake. Mix walnuts and raisins by hand. Pour equal amounts of cake batter into 2 cake pans and bake for 40-45 minutes at 350 degrees. The cake will get quite brown, which is fine. Use a toothpick to test for doneness. When cakes are cooled, remove them from the pans.
Ice the cake by using sweetened whipped cream between the 2 layers and on top. Another nice touch is to add a few sliced bananas between the layers. If you feel skillful enough, I like to cut the cake rounds in half so I have a 4 layer cake with whipped cream and fresh bananas between each layer.
You can be very fancy with the whipped cream on top!
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If you treat food as God,
you choose the most nourishing
food you can find - fresh fruits
and vegetables, plump grains -
and you cook it in a way
that preserves the life force.
You give it your total attention.
You handle it with respect and with love
Your shakti, your energy,
enters the food as you work with it
and you become the food while you cook.
You reach inside yourself
to the place where you are God or Goddess,
the place of identification,
and then you cook from that place.
- Baba Muktananda