Aruna's Dal

This is the best tasting dal that I have ever had! Unfortunately, I have no source for yellow lentils so I use regular lentils.

1 cup lentils
cover the lentils with water and boil until soft
1 medium onion chopped
1 heaping teaspoon ginger paste
1 heaping garlic paste
fry until brown. Add
3 roma tomatoes chopped
blend the mixture and add to the lentils plus
2 tablespoons yogurt

Garnish
one small dried red chile
teaspoon mustard seed
teaspoon cumin seed
ghee

Heat the ghee or oil until hot, brown the remaining ingredients and garnish the dal.

Mexican Dal

I have several dal recipes that I use, this is one that I adapted.

8oz lentils
1 large chile poblano, seeded, deveined and diced
1 large onion diced
3 tablespoons ghee (or vegetable oil, NOT olive oil!)
1/2 teaspoon tumeric (cucurcema)
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
1 quart water
salt to taste

Cook the lentils in water until soft. I prefer to use the pressure cooker, if you have a pressure cooker use the directions that came with yours.
While the lentils are cooking, I saute the onions and peppers in a tablespoon of ghee until transparent. Add the tumeric and salt to the onions and chile, stirring to coat well. Carefully add the onions and chile to the lentils. Simmer for 5 minutes. In batches, puree the soup in the blender or food processor.
Heat the remaining ghee in a small pan until hot, the ghee is hot enough when you can put a mustard seed in it and the seed pops. Add the mustard seeds to the ghee, remove the ghee from the stove when the mustard seeds begin to sputter and pop. Garnish the dal with the ghee.


serve warm with chutney and chapatis (or whole wheat tortillas).

If you want to make this into a soup add water until it's thinned to the desired consistancy

Day 14 of 28 days of Vegetarian Food

Where were we? Thursday, I had a salad, yup, nothing exciting here. Friday, we had dal, rice and finished off all the chutney except the green mango.
Saturday we ate out, I think it's funny that we have probably eaten out more in the last two weeks than we normally do. Anyway, we ended up at Sanbornes at La Fiesta Americana, Husband had caneloni stuffed with spinach and I had chile relleno. It was a thoroughly mediocre meal. Husband's said that the sauce on the caneloni was tomato thickened with cornstarch, it looked like tomato soup. His steamed vegetables were excellent though. My chile relleno was supposed to be stuffed mozzarella, it was stuffed with manchego. It was not good, it wasn't exactly bad, it looked nice but I have had much better chile rellenos. We both felt uncomfortable after eating, sluggish. I should have just had a salad.
Today, I was planning on making Syrian white beans but I seem to be out of white beans. We had omelettes for breakfast instead of our usual oatmeal so I am not feeling too anxious about lunch.
Right now I have dried habas (fava beans) and garbanzos quick soaking. I am going to make some hummus and a similar bean puree out of the habas. Half the of the beans are also going to get dry roasted for snacks. I need to have something to eat when we are out and about and I start to get hungry.
What is working well for me is having things like the chutneys and bean purees already made and waiting in the refrigerator. I can make a main dish or a side dish but most of the other stuff is ready. I have olives, chile en escabeche, artichoke hearts also so we can have a easy lunch, along with some pita bread.
I think I may have some bell peppers left so I can make some marinated bells to add to the plate.

How to make Chapati or Roti

This is great, I was going to type up a recipe and then I found this video when I was looking for the tofu one. If you don't feel like making your own chapatis use whole wheat tortillas.
My recipe makes more chapatis and uses half whole wheat and half regular flour otherwise it's the same.


INGREDIENTS:
This recipe makes 4 Roti's:
1/2 Cup Whole wheat flour
Pinch of Salt
1/4 Cup and 1 tablespoon of luke warm water
1/4 teaspoon of Oil
1 teaspoon of Ghee or clear butter

This video was courtesy of Manjulas Kitchen

Tofu making video

This is so cool, I watched it without sound since it has subtitles. Now I just need a source for soybeans (and a mold).

Day 10 of 28 days of Vegetarian Food

This has been an interesting experience. I have learned several things;

1. I cannot rely on just my memory for things like past menus
2. Typing recipes is not my thing
3. I need to plan our meals in advance and not wait until I am ravished by hunger to cook

On my last report I ended with Wednesday.
Thursday,we ate out, we ran around doing errands of some sort and by 1:30 I was hungry. Since I realized this while we were passing Platos Rotos new sign that said Comida Chilango, we ate there. In case you don't know, Yucatecos call people from Mexico City, chilangos. The old sign used to say comida Mexicana, which I understood to mean food from Mexico not Yucatan, but maybe this new one is clearer( or more tongue in cheek)? I had nopales rellenos and Husband had calabasitas rellenos. Mine was a cactus paddle split and filled with a slice of panela cheese, breaded and fried. Husbands little pumpkins turned out to be zuchinni, hollowed and filled with panela and covered with a tomato sauce. I think mine had tomato sauce too.
Friday, we ate something
Saturday,I think we ate left overs. I converted the dal into a soup by adding water and made a salad. I had baked some sourdough oatmeal bread and we had that too.
Sunday, I was busy and didn't cook until after 3 pm. I had other things in mind but by the time I got to the kitchen all I could think about was how hungry I was. I ended up opening a can of chicken breast and making a sopa seca. I combined sopa seca noodles with the can of chicken, a small box of salsa verde, some manchego cheese and about a quarter cup of media crema. It tasted like chicken enchiladas but was faster and not as pretty. I did manage to eat a small portion rather than a huge one.
Monday, we once again ate out, we had left the house around 9am to pick up the car and by the time we finally got on the road again, it was around 2pm so we ate at Platos Rotos. This time I had tortitas de ejote and Husband had calabasitas rellenos again. Tortitas usually means patties, so I was expecting a green bean fritter, but what I got was more like a tortilla española. An omelette made with green beans, onions and cilantro folded into the eggs and covered with a nice tomato sauce. I think that I might make some tomorrow for us.
Tuesday, we had company for lunch, I made another coconut curry but this one had a more pronounced coconut taste, some paranthas (a type of flat bread), lentil dal and all the chutney that I had in the fridge.
Today is wednesday and we ate the left overs from my lunch at Platos rotos combined with the left over chicken sopa seca.
So in conclusion, we are doing well in the no red meat department but not as well as I had hoped in the Indian food.

Garam Masala

Garam masala is a seasoning blend used in Indian cooking. I have seen many different recipes for it. I have always been able to buy it already premixed until I moved here. so here are three very similar recipes. The first one yields 3 tablespoons the second one, a huge quantity like 24 ounces and the last is somewhere between the other two

Garam Masala #1

1 tablespoon cardamon seeds
1 inch stick of cinnamon
1 teaspoon whole cumin seeds
1 teaspoon whole cloves
1 teaspoon whole black peppercorns
1/3 of a whole nutmeg

Combine the spices in a blender or coffee/spice grinder and grind to a fine powder.

Garam Masala #2

8 oz coriander seeds
2 oz cinnamon
4 oz peppercorns
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
4 oz cumin seeds
2 oz cloves
4 oz large cardamon

Roast the coriander and cumin seeds separately. Peel the cardamons. Grind all the spices and store in an airtight container.

Garam Masala #3

2 tablespoons cumin seeds
8 cloves
2 tablespoons cardamon seeds
1 tablespoon fenugreek seeds
5 inches of cinnamon stick
1/3 of a whole nutmeg
2 teaspoons whole black peppercorns

Roast all the ingredients until lightly brown. Let cool. Grind to a fine powder in a coffee/spice grinder.



Personally, I would roast the cumin and coriander in all the recipes, but probably not the other spices.

Day 5 of 28 days of Vegetarian Food

I started on my month of Vegetarian Cooking on Monday.My plan is to have good healthy vegetarian food that I can combine with a minimum of effort. I am concentrating on Indian food because it's some of my favorite foods. Most of the ingredients are available here and since it's a hot climate the food is suitable for eating here.

• Monday, I made dal, red chutney and pineapple chutney.
  
• Tuesday, I made Saag Panir and another chutney, this one of ripe tomatoes.
  
• Wednesday, I made naan, a pilau with nuts and fruits and a green mango chutney.
  

Wednesday, we were joined for lunch by la muchacha (she loved the pineapple chutney) and our friend who I will call da Wiz. Da Wiz was over to help us with our car woes. So I reheated the dal and added more spinach to the saag panir, I put all the chutneys on the table too. Lunch was a sucess.

• Thursday, I added water to the dal to make a soup and also made a riata of tomatoes,onions, cucumbers dressed with yogurt and mint.
  
• Today, I prepared mixed vegetable curry, a dish of spicy garbanzo beans (which I didn't really like much), and chapatis. There was also chutney on the table. I made another riata this time I added some of the thai basil and purslane growing in my garden.
  

So far this is going pretty well, I am hoping to have a variety of chutneys and pickles when I am done so I can add variety to meal of just dal and rice.

Saag Panir

This recipe originally came from Madhur Jaffrey's World of the East, Vegetarian Cooking, which I use a lot. I have done some minor changes. If you decide to buy your very own copy please us my Amazon link, I get a little money that way. Thanks!

Saag Panir

1 inch cube of fresh ginger,peeled and chopped
6 cloves garlic peeled and chopped
1 fresh hot green chili, sliced roughly (I use a whole jalapeno,seeded and deveined)
1/4 cup of water
500 grams of queso Panela cut into 1 inch cubes
1 1/4 teaspoon salt divided into 1 teaspoon and a 1/4 teaspoon.
1/4 teaspoon garam masala (link to recipe if you can't buy it already prepared)
1/4teaspoon cayenne pepper
6 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 packages of chopped spinach thawed
1/4 cup media crema

1. Heat the oil in a large wide sauté pan over a medium flame. Put the cheese cubes in the oil and brown them on all sides.
2. Remove the panela with a slotted spoon and place on a plate. Sprinkle with the garam masala,salt and cayenne pepper.
3. Put the ginger,garlic and chile into the container of a blender or food processor along with the water. I use my little mini one cup attachement for this. Blend until you have a smooth paste.
4. Keeping your face turned away, add the paste to the hot oil and fry it, stirring constantly for about 30 seconds.
5. Add the thawed spinach, 1 teaspoon of salt and stir until the paste and spinach are well mixed.
6. Cover and cook on low heat for 15 minutes.
7. Remove the cover and add the panela and cream stirring gently. Bring to a simmer, cover and continue cooking for an additional 10 minutes.
   

serve warm.

Crockpot bread update

I have been making further experiments with the crockpot as bread oven. I made some sourdough oatmeal bread yesterday. Here are my findings.

• I got the best results when I put the bread in a mold (since my crockpot is round, I used a spring form pan as my mold) that I placed on a trivet.
• I also put a small quantity of water in the pot, around a quarter cup. Since I wanted the steam, I kept the pot lid tightly on.
  
• Even though several sites recommend rising in the crock with the machine on low or warm, I wanted a slower rise so did it the conventional way. If I was using a regular bread recipe I might try that method.
• I found that the bread was cooked with in 4 hours on high. I tested it by thumping (a hollow thump means cooked).
• I need to set my timer, my crockpot goes automatically to warm after the timer. This resulted in a bread more suitable for a long voyage at sea or maybe building a wall.
• It didn't always brown on top but according to my research this is common.
• I tried using a smaller crock liner instead of a mold, according to my research on the web, it's better to have space all around the loaf. It's certainly easier to remove the bread if you do! But it seemed to work fine either way.
  

Here are some websites with recipes. The Crockpot: an Alternative Bread Machine, A year of Crockpotting bread links, Couldn't be Easier Slow Cooker Bread, and How to bake yeast bread in a Crockpot which calls for frozen bread dough, but I often freeze extra bread dough since most recipes make 2 loaves which is too much for just Husband and me.

I take up the challange

Minshap, whose blog Both sides of the Coin, I keep meaning to add to my ever growing blog roll (along with several others), posted this blogger challenge for lack of a better name:

1 - For a period of 4 weeks, you must work and report your progress on a project of your own choice, documenting the results as they occur.
2 - You can take the time you need to decide on your project and then you write an opening "DAY ONE" description, with an introductory photo, and your expectations for the end-result.
3 - If you are "in" (oh please say you'll do it!), you need to leave word in the comments section so we all know who we are and then we can all keep track of each others' progress and offer support, advice, links that could help or whatever.
4 - Each week, you will post three times (whichever days you want, but three times a week) with photos showing progress. Or simply a description of what has developed since the previous post. You can give a shout out for help or moral support in these posts, or you can brag all you want, or whatever! If you post three times a week, you'll have a total of 12 posts showing the progress and final accomplishment, but hell, I'm no slavedriver; post only once a week if that's all you can manage - just keep it steady!
5 - At the end of the 4-week period, we'll have a documented chain of events that has led us each, in our individual projects, from point "A" to point "B"! Something we can later look back on with a sense of satisfaction! If our projects don't seem to be coming out right, we'll know early on, and we can take steps to repair the situation. Maybe we'll even need more than 4 weeks, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.
6 - So are you in???? Let's do this!!! Pass the word so we can get a network of people working on something interesting for one month and sharing the outcome - as it happens - with others. Maybe someone will hit on a project that we can all contribute to from

Which explains my title, I am taking up the challenge, picking up the glove and I have a project to announce.
It is that I am going to try to cook at least 4 vegetarian meals a week, and those meals are going to be primarily East Indian cuisine.