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Virtual Vegan Potluck #4: Indian Beet Chutney

15 Nov

Chutney17 I’m so excited to be part of the fourth Virtual Vegan Potluck! It’s always so much fun reading through all of the creative recipes, but my favorite part is being included in this awesome group! Annie is just the coolest for setting all of this up.

I’m also very happy that she chose the beet as the special ingredient this VVP, because it reminded me of an unusual yet delicious recipe I’d tried once before. If you’re visiting my blog for the first time, you won’t know that I’m absolutely obsessed with Indian food. In fact, my first VVP dish was a curry, although a Caribbean one. (My second was a cottage pie, and third was these delicious homemade Snickers, in case you were wondering.)

If I wasn’t married, I’d probably cook Indian food for every other meal. Continue reading

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Kashmiri Kofte: Lamb Meatballs in Spicy Sauce

8 Apr

KashmiriKofte4We’re seven inches behind on rain here in Santa Barbara. Not that I’m complaining…okay, I am a little bit. I love being safe and dry inside while the rain comes down outside, with the house being warmed with the heat from the oven. We had some lovely rain on Easter Sunday morning, but it was gone by afternoon. So the mornings have been a bit grey here, then it clears up around noon to glorious sunshine, I had to give up. Damn it, I’m making a curry anyway.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know I’ve got a serious curry addiction. And although there seem to be many Indian people in Santa Barbara, the few Indian restaurants seem to have changed their food to make it more to American tastes. Boo! But let’s be honest—I love cooking it at home whether or not there’s a good curry house down the road. Continue reading

Curried Sunflower Dip (And Giveaway Result!)

11 Nov

Today’s first order of business is to congratulate Yvonne, one of my commenters, on winning the Sweet & Easy Vegan cookbook! Yvonne, since you’re not one of my regular followers, please get in touch so I can get your information to get the cookbook sent to you.

The second order of business is, of course, a recipe. I keep trying new recipes from the excellent cookbook Eat Raw, Eat Well by Douglas McNish. Everything I’ve tried has been delicious, and I keep making myself try more recipes, as it’s so good for your body to get raw, fresh produce in your body. Continue reading

Chicken Biryani—Paleo Style

22 Sep

I think my long-standing readers know my Indian food obsession by now, so don’t worry—I won’t be blathering on about how much I love it, how important it is to toast and grind your own spices, and how delicious it is.

But a main component of Indian food is rice, especially if you can’t have naan bread to soak up all the delectable saucy goodness of a good curry. And saddest of all, I recently found out my stomach is not happy with poppadums, made from chickpea flour, and I have had a hard time coming to terms with this. It’s certain that The Husband had nothing to do with it, because if he could control my digestion, he could. But I did think it for a minute, since he’s never been a fan of chickpeas! Continue reading

Another Indian-Spiced Sunday Roast Chicken

11 Mar

I know I bang on about toasting your own spices all the time. And I’m not apologizing, because if you don’t, you miss out on a fantastic range of flavors. I was very happy to see a fellow blogger find this out on her own recently (Violets and Cardamom) when she went to a Peruvian cooking course. Her own recipes look amazing, and I can’t wait to try a few.

But I digress. The other weekend I was a bit lazy and decided to grab the panch phoron, or “Bengali five-spice”, instead of coming up with my own spice mix. I did still toast those spices to maximize their flavor, but because of the fenugreek I used the coffee grinder (which has now become the dedicated spice grinder).

It was a lovely lazy option, because soon the house filled with a delicious smell as I mixed the spices Continue reading

Ahh…Curry!

27 Aug

So, when I lived in London, I missed Mexican food so much. When I first moved over there, you couldn’t even buy tortillas, and the only salsa you could buy was El Paso in a jar. Which, let’s face it, is NOT salsa.

Mmmm...curry. It just makes life worth living.

Now that I’m back in California, I miss what London does so well: Indian curry. I had the best place near me in Battersea that I used to order from all the time. All the time. How often? Let’s just say I received a Christmas card from them…

There’s an Indian restaurant a half a block from my house. I never go there because it is not authentic. The weird thing is that the owners also own Nina’s Anglo-Indian Grocery in El Toro, where the food is quite good. Weird. I think this one is trying to appeal to the American palate too much. But never mind.

The Husband loves it when I start toasting up the spices and making curry. He loves anything with a ton of garlic in it, like me, so curry always works for us. It can be a little labor intensive with all the prep and chopping, but once you’ve done that, it goes pretty quick.

You can use plain rice with this, but I’ll also include a recipe for a simple rice and a pilau rice. If you need any of the spices listed here, head to Nina’s or another ethnic grocery, where they’ll be much cheaper than buying the little jars at the store.

I’m starting you all off with a mild curry—for those of you who like it hot, throw more chili in there. And for those who don’t like spice, don’t omit the chilis I have here. Really, there will be no burning of the mouth. I promise.

For the vegetarians/vegans out there, just omit the chicken and add more mushrooms and maybe throw in some chickpeas. Some eggplant would be nice too. Continue reading

Salad Should Always Taste This Good

18 Jul
Salmon and Spinach Salad

Sorry. We had a bite or two before remembering to photograph. So sue us.

And I’ve been bored with salads recently. I’ve been trying to eat them for lunch to be healthy, and then The Husband always wants one at night, because he’s addicted to avocado. Not a bad thing, really. But sometimes—damn, just give me a green vegetable!

Yet, here we are. After our dear neighbors, affectionately called Pal and Am, cancelled on us for dinner, we decided to have the salmon we purchased at yesterday’s farmer’s market. (We were shocked and disappointed recently to find out that most of our FM is NOT organic, but that’s a story perhaps for another time.) Instead of cooked spinach, we decided to go for spinach salad.

So of course I whip out Epicurious on the ol’ iPad, and find a recipe for spinach salad with grilled red onion and tahini dressing. Well, I have red onion, but no tahini. But a little hummous??

Let me just tell you, for someone who was bored of salads, this one turned out to be one of my favorites in a while. In a word: YUM. Combined with the tasty, Indian-spiced crust on the salmon—heaven! Continue reading