Since chickpea flour can be mixed with just water and it will still bind like eggs do it is perfect for vegan recipes. For my Vegan fritters I used another overlooked green from my garden: carrot leaves. I always end up planting carrots to close, and fail to thin them when I should (I just don't have the heart to do it...) so I had to pick up a few little ones to let their sisters grow in peace. Baby carrots are great anyway, but what a waste throwing out all those pretty leaves! Then I read on the blog Galline 2nd Life (a blog that I enjoy a lot!) a recipe for a frittata with carrot leaves.
Carrot leaf fritters
I washed and roughly chopped the carrot leaves, made a batter with chickpea flour, water, salt and pepper, added a chopped red onion, and fried my fritters. In the end I topped them with some smoked paprika and a few sesame seeds. Good hot or cold.
Natural face mask and exfoliant
I discovered that chickpea flour can be used as a face mask and an exfoliant. The Indian lady that was serving me in the shop told me so, she gave me her recipe: a little chickpea flour mixed with natural yogurt and lemon juice, make a paste (last photo on the right, above), put it on your face like a mask, leave it for a few minutes and then rinse. She told me the she used it for acne, and it was the only thing that worked for her. I guess that vegans could omit the yogurt or use some soy one.
Well, I tried for my daughter, and myself, and I am very happy with it, especially because in the last few years, since after reading The world without us by Alan Weisman, I have been avoiding commercial exfoliants, as many seem to be made with synthetic polymers. There is a chapter in this book entitled Polymers are forever, you can actually read the whole chapter by following this link (although if you are the eco type I suggest that you read the whole book :-), but I can tell you that the sentence that most impressed me was this one:
“Can you believe it?” Richard Thompson demands of no one in particular, loud enough that faces bent over microscopes rise to look at him. “They’re selling plastic meant to go right down the drain, into the sewers, into the rivers, right into the ocean. Bite-size pieces of plastic to be swallowed by little sea creatures.”
I still remember rushing to the bathroom to check my exfoliant, fortunately it was St. Ives Apricot Scrub, which Thompson claimed to be ok (i.e. 100% natural) but I have not been able to trust ready made exfoliants ever since.
Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©
Wow crispy fritters looks excellent..i do the face mask with chickpeas too..
ReplyDeleteCiao Priya, I should do it more often too, I love it, I just find it hard to have the time for face masks... Maybe I am too addicted to blogging :-).
ReplyDelete