This summer CIM is producing a cooking show, “Cooking in Motion,” a series of video tutorials on how to cook a variety of recipes while camping in the outdoors. Each episode of the show features Sarah, the CIM Adventure Coordinator, and a CIM community member “guest chef,” cooking together in the outdoors while having open conversations about diabetes, as well as other topics near & dear to their hearts! Follow along on the CIM socials and blog to watch each episode and find the recipes we try!
On the finale episode of Cooking in Motion, I was joined by CIM community member and REAL chef, Siva Swaminathan. Siva invited us to her beautiful backyard in Toronto, where she showed me how to make her own original recipe, watermelon rind curry, and taught me a little bit about traditional Indian cuisine.
Siva’s curry recipe is vegan and extremely versatile. It can be served with rice, couscous, quinoa, naan, or even a hotdog or hamburger bun, and best of all, it reduces food waste by recycling watermelon rinds!
To start off, we sautéed some onion, garlic, and ginger in oil in the frying pan, and then added in the curry powder and ground pepper. Siva showed me some of the base ingredients of curry powder and explained how she makes her own curry powder from scratch, as do many traditional Indian households. It never occurred to me to make homemade curry powder, but it just makes sense! That way you can control what goes into your curry and you can experiment to find your unique combination of spices to suit your own taste or recipe needs.
Next, Siva showed me how to peel and cube the watermelon rinds, and we added those into the pan along with the tomatoes and some water, and then we let it all cook for about 10 minutes. After that had simmered we added in the red beans, some tomato paste and more water and let it cook for another 10 minutes.
While we were cooking, I asked Siva about her career-change to becoming a professional chef, her diabetes story, and her spontaneous decision to hike the Santiago Camino trail in France and Spain.
S: So how long have you had diabetes, when were you diagnosed?
SS: Ohmygoodness, would you believe I was diagnosed November 14th, World Diabetes Day?
S: What?!
SS: Yeah! That was 2005, so this year November 14th, I’ll be rocking it!
S: Amazing. So you are an experienced chef and you’ve worked all over the world, did you want to talk a little bit about your career? How did you get started in cooking?
SS: That’s a good question. Well, I love eating, but I actually used to be an IT geek! I have a computer science degree, so I was in the IT area, and I just got bored. So I said this isn’t for me and I quit my job and went to the culinary institute at George Brown College. To fast-track my career I went and lived in Europe because I didn’t take the traditional route and I needed to get experience, and European culinary experience goes a long way.
S: Wow, that’s so exciting! So in 2013, you hiked 1000 kilometres of the Camino de Santiago trail. You’ve said you don’t describe yourself as an athlete, so tell me how did you decide to go do that?
SS: Well that’s a good question haha! Everyone knew me as a chef and a type 1 diabetic, and I thought to myself ‘I’m not a runner, I can’t do marathons, so what can I do?’ So I started to take up walking, and then I heard about the Camino de Santiago trail through a friend- it’s about 1000 kilometres from France to the coast. And it was a very interesting challenge and I love challenges, but that meant I had to walk A LOT. I trained for about four months. I started at five kilometres and worked up to about 35 kilometres a day. And I figured out I needed a 50% basal rate through trial and error. So I highly recommend whether you’re an athlete or not, that path is pretty awesome.
S: Wow, that’s incredible. And I definitely think you are an athlete for doing that!
Once our curry was done cooking, we added in some coconut milk for a rich flavour as well as some fresh coriander, and then it was time for the taste test!
Siva served the curry on couscous with some green chilli peppers- and let me tell you they were HOT.
I have rated this recipe in a few different categories to give an overall assessment of it for cooking while camping:
Level of Difficulty
Rated on a scale from 1-3 with 1 being very easy (beginner camp chef), and 3 being difficult (advanced camp chef).
Verdict: I rate this recipe a 2/3 on the difficulty scale. Certainly, anyone can make this recipe with a little preparation, but if you’ve never made curry before (or peeled watermelon rinds!) you may want to practice before taking this recipe on a camping trip.
Tastiness
Rated on a scale from 1-10 with 1 being not so delicious, and 10 being AMAAAZING.
Verdict: I don’t think there’s been a recipe that we’ve tried on Cooking in Motion that has been less than a 10…and that’s not changing today! I rate Siva’s recipe a HOT 10/10 on the tastiness scale. I want to make more of it right now just thinking about it!
Camping Convenience Factor
Rated on a scale from 1-5 with 1 meaning the recipe is very inconvenient for camping (for example ingredients are not easy to pack, difficult to cook over a camp stove/fire, time-consuming, etc.) and 5 meaning the recipe is very convenient for camping (ingredients are lightweight/easy to pack, easy to cook on a camp stove/fire, etc.)
Verdict: I rate this recipe a 3/5 for camping convenience factor. This recipe can definitely be made while camping and can be easily altered to suit your trip needs, but this recipe may be better suited to car-camping the cottage, or a leisurely canoe trip where you have lots of time to spend preparing and cooking this delicious meal. To make this recipe on a backpacking trip, you could bring dehydrated or freeze-dried instead of fresh ingredients to help keep your pack nice and light and ensure that food won’t spoil.
Final Verdict: Siva’s original watermelon rind curry recipe is impressive, delicious, and surprisingly simple to make! I would 100% recommend it to anyone who loves spicy food- on and off of trip!
We were sad to say goodbye and to finish up our final episode of the Cooking in Motion Series, but Hank, Siva, and I toasted in style to celebrate the show!
Thanks for following along and we hope you feel inspired to spice up your cooking while camping!
Check out the recipe below!
Siva’s Watermelon Rind Curry
Preparation Time: ~10 min
Cooking Time: ~25 min
Total Time: ~35 min
Equipment Needed:
A campfire or camp stove
A frying pan and spoon
A cooking knife
A cutting board
A can opener for beans/coconut milk
Ingredients
2 cups cubed watermelon rinds (washed, rinsed watermelon rinds with green skin peeled away)
½ onion chopped
1 cup red beans (washed and drained)
1 tsp finely chopped garlic
1 tsp finely chopped ginger
2 cups roma or plum tomatoes, chopped
2 tbsp curry powder or curry paste
1 tbsp canola or sunflower oil
2 tbsp tomato paste
½ tsp salt
½ tsp ground pepper
½ cup of water
2 tbsp chopped fresh coriander
¼ cup of coconut milk (optional)
Directions
- In a large deep frying pan heat the oil, sauté onion for a minute then add garlic and ginger and sauté another minute
- Add the curry paste or powder, ground pepper and dry sauté well
- Add the cubed watermelon-rinds and sauté well
- Add tomatoes and sauté well, add a little bit of water scraping all the brown bits, cover and cook for 10 minutes
- Add the red beans and mix well and add the tomato paste, little bit of water, mix and cover and cook for 10 minutes or until watermelon rind is tender but not mushy
- For richer taste add the coconut milk and cook for 2 minutes
- Adjust taste with salt and fold in fresh coriander (leaving a tiny bit for garnish)
- Let the curry rest for 5 to 10 mins, sprinkle with coriander and serve with rice, quinoa or bread. Serve with a wedge of lemon and onions.
For Bolusing
We only bolused for the carbohydrates in the couscous we were eating, and you may need to adjust your carb-counts accordingly!
A Word on Covid-19
In the making of this series, our CIM staff and wonderful “guest chefs” were very cautious in regards to COVID-19. All of the participants in these videos and our film team had been carefully isolating at home with minimal contact with others prior to filming, and we felt safe expanding our small social circles to include the few individuals involved in making Cooking in Motion. All participants took precautions before, during, and after cooking/filming, including hand washing and sanitizing, using separate cooking/eating plates and utensils, and maintaining 6 ft social distancing when possible. CIM staff have continued to remain at home and away from others as much as possible, and wear masks whenever in public places. We take our staff and community members’ health seriously and we will continue to monitor the situation, and take precautions throughout the production of this series.
