After almost two years, we returned to my favourite Indian stall at the international foodcourt situated opposite Stamford Auckland hotel. The mixed veggie korma is still excellent and sweet! Yum!!!

On a completely different note, I made Indian food last night. Well, I made half and my microwave made the other half. My microwave had it easy, because the Tandoor Chef Palak Paneer is delicious in only five minutes! I also had the Tandoor Chef Garlic Naan. I've discussed both products before.

I must admit, my half of the meal was pretty easy as well. I made Chicken Biriyani from Cooking Light. I had to scale it down quite a bit, and I really should measure spices a little more accurately when I'm cooking. This was spicy the way I made it! However, it was still delicious.

Sorry about the awful picture. Click on the link to the recipe for a much better one.

I used a small amount of brown rice to use up the rest of a box. I omitted the saffron (wayyy too expensive), the cashews, and the cilantro. The recipe directions say that low-fat yogurt will curdle, but I already had non-fat plain yogurt, risked it anyway, and it turned out just fine. Using instant rice and cooking my chicken on a George Foreman made this recipe even faster. I also added mushrooms.

Nutrition of this Meal

This meal (just the Chicken Biriyani) contains 11 ingredients from the World's Healthiest foods list:

• Mushrooms
• Chicken
• Garlic
• Onion
• Brown rice
• Yogurt
• Raisins
• Cayenne pepper
• Cinnamon
• Ginger
• Chili pepper

Its been a long week. The flu did not worsen like I had thought it would, thankfully. The cold is still giving me a hard time though. The good thing that has come out of all this is, I have had about 16 cups of yellow lentil soup soup with two dozen pieces of mini-naan over the span of the last seven days. No, seriously.

I remember, Amanda's (from Konosur) comment on the stuffed peppers, about an Indian flat bread or naan recipe. I guess I was waiting for a bout of influenza to finally get off my bum to blog about it.

The naan has Central Asian origins, resembles a pita but softer, in India its a North Indian staple.

Naan (makes one large or 4 bite-sized ones):

- Half cup plain white flour

- Half a teaspoon baking powder

- 1 teaspoon of sugar (naan is more sweet than savory)

- A pinch of salt

- 1 tablespoon white oil

- 2 tablespoons of milk

- 1 egg, beaten

- Chopped parsley, or chopped coriander, or sesame seeds or nigella seeds

Pre-heat the oven to maximum heat. Sift the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt together. Mix the oil, milk and half the beaten egg well and add this to the flour mixture. Pour this into the center of the flour and knead adding water if necessary to form soft dough. Grease a bowl with a few drops of oil and roll the dough around in it. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and let rest in a cool corner for about half an hour. Roll out the dough in an elliptical shape. Stud the surface with the coriander/parsley/nigella seeds/sesame seeds. Brush the top lightly with the remaining egg. Prepare the baking tray and bake for about 10 minutes or till the naan's puffed up and golden brown. Serve with a hot lentil soup.

As a land that has experienced extensive immigration and intermingling through many millennia, India's cuisine has benefited from numerous food influences. The diverse climate in the region, ranging from deep tropical to alpine, has also helped considerably broaden the set of ingredients readily available to the many schools of cookery in India.

In many cases, food has become a marker of religious and social identity, with varying taboos and preferences (for instance, a segment of the Jain population consume no roots or subterranean vegetable; see Jain vegetarianism) which has also driven these groups to innovate extensively with the food sources that are deemed acceptable.

One strong influence over Indian foods is the longstanding vegetarianism within sections of India's Hindu, Buddhist and Jain communities. People who follow a strict vegetarian diet make up 20–42% of the population in India, while less than 30% are regular meat-eaters.

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Lunch:

salad of mixed greens topped with a handful of whole grain cheese fishies. They're so addicting. We bought a HUGE container that should last normal people at least 1 month. For us....it might last just 2 weeks. I also had left over Indian food from last night and a couple of days ago. The flavors in the dish must have developed overnight or something because it tasted better than the first time. I also had chai iced tea to cool me down in from the heat.

Dinner: Chai iced tea, again. A hot bowl of Mi with stimulated beef and morningstar crumbles. I also munched on a few strawberries.

and my favorite part? all the food comes on these awesome aluminum plates.

I spent the next half an hour trying to get back to sleep. When I was just about there, my phone rang again. It was Jamie. She wanted to invite me to lunch with some of her friends – Taylor, Amber, Megan, and Sydney. I knew Sydney, and I had met the others all once or twice, but it was all good. I was all for that, since I wanted to see Jamie again anyway, particularly if she was going to be wearing cutoffs again. Jamie picked me up and we went to the India Oven. My first experience with Indian food. It was great. I loved it. I also loved the fact that I was surrounded by four good looking women and everyone around us seemed to be questioning how I had gotten so lucky. They probably assumed one was my sister.

The girls and I had a fabulous time. We went out afterward to Oak Park and hung out there for a while, playing on the playground equipment and more or less being weird. It was pretty obvious the others were trying to hook me up with Jamie, but like I said, I wasn’t really looking for anything like that at the time. They suggested a party at their place that night, but I explained I wasn’t going to be able to do that, because I had plans. They told me they’d throw one the following night and to bring my swim trunks, because it was a hot tub party. I couldn’t resist that, so I agreed.

I went back to my cousin’s house and played online for a few hours, until it was about time to go to dinner with the ex’s sister. I was getting pretty hammered on UV Grape (I drank an entire bottle) and then I sobered up enough to drove out to Fireworks, where we were meeting. I had specifically asked her not to tell anyone else we were meeting. Stupid me didn’t take into account that practically told her that she should tell the ex, but whatever. So I got there, and we talked about their recent wedding. We ordered some food and she ordered the wine. Zin-Fat-U-A-Tion. Delicious. I’m not normally a big wine fan, but I fucking loved this stuff. I kept up glass for glass with V, which is unheard of for a person like me. Even her husband, D, was amazed. V and I talked about job opportunites, where I was going to get my PhD, etc. D got up to use the bathroom and V said, “So why are you really here?” I said, “I wanted to see you guys.” She said, “No, in Lincoln.” I said life had gotten too overwhelming and some stuff had gone down, and I didn’t know how to deal with it, so I came to Lincoln. (Keep in mind for the rest of this story that V is a lawyer and she’s great at tricking people into talking… and that I was half hammered out of my mind with wine and UV Grape). So D came back and we went back to talking about normal things. We were discussing Vermillion and Lincoln and the new house they bought, etc. Our food came and we ate. Everyone was in a good mood.

V asked me why I thought I needed out of Vermillion. I told her that there comes a time when we all need to leave this hellhole. That mine was probably up about a year and a half ago, but I had stayed on to teach at the U. Now, it was just time to leave. Then, for no apparent reason at all, other than the wine and I’m stupid, I added, “Plus, too many bad memories and bad decisions.” She said, “Like?” And I said, “like [girl’s name deleted],” who she knew. She laughed and said, “Or my sister?” And I tripped all over my tongue. As far as I had known, she had never known that ex and I had anything. I knew there was no way she could have known everything, but I was still amazed she knew anything at all. I panicked and went to the bathroom. So not the right answer.

When I returned, she laughed and said, “It’s alright. I’m just asking.” And I replied, “You’re a lawyer and understand when people can’t talk about things, so I’ll give you a lawyer’s answer.” I looked her in the eye and I said, “Your sister could NEVER be a bad decision.” She smiled like someone who truly respected what I had just said and who could tell I honestly meant it. Then she tried to get more out of me. I kept dodging questions, so she finally just asked me straight out, “Did you ever date my sister?” I did the most horrible thing I could do. I looked her in the eye and I lied to her. I said, “For one day. Back in July. And then it all fell apart.” And I felt horrible, but I still believed that since I had promised ex I wouldn’t tell her sister, that I was honoring that on some level, but that V obviously knew enough that I couldn’t totally lie to her and say no. We dropped it after that and we talked about life in general.

When they left, I went over to Christy’s house. Christy presented me with a huge glass of Merlot, which I proceeded to drink while I wondered how bad the reaction from ex would be when V told her she knew. I hadn’t meant to hurt her. I had honestly just wanted a nice dinner where I didn’t have to talk about her too much. That didn’t work out. I don’t know why I thought it would. In retrospect, it doesn’t make any sense at all!

Christy showed me her Halloween costume, and we hung out for a while. Then my cousin called and needed something from her house, so I went and got it for her and took it to her at work. I hung out there for a while, until Jamie called me and wanted me to come over. I went over there and watched a movie alone with her and tried to forget the hurricane that was heading my way.  Jamie and I kissed for the first time, and I went back to my cousin's, where I played online for a while before going to bed.

Lunch:

I really was not in the mood to put anything fancy together. Good thing there are always a bunch of snacks here. ;-)

I decided on Chobani topped with strawberries and granola, a handful of whole grain gold fish plus 2 slices of raisin Ezekiel bread. Very filling and not heavy at all.

Dinner:

More trials from Monisha Baharadwaj's cookbook. Turned out to be OK. I tried the Palak ki Dal (Lentils with spinach and garlic). It turned out to be a little bland because I added too much water. Her specifications of how much water to put was "A Little." Looks like I put a little too much. haha. Even still I don't think I'd make this particular dish again.

On the plus side, her Batata Kaap (Crisp stacks of potato, sweet potato, and onion) was wonderful! So simple and easy. She wrote the recipe to deep fry them, but I opted for a healthier version instead: baking in the oven at 425 for 30 minutes, flipping half way. I don't think my words/descriptions do these potatoes any justice, wish I had my camera, so ya'll could see the crispy golden ginger and garlic pieces clinging to the top of each round potato coin. My favorite was the sweet potato. SO.GOOD!! I'm definitely making these again tomorrow. :-D

To drink I had Chai iced tea. I probably shouldn't have. I know I'm going to be up late again. Couldn't help, but give in to it's cold and refreshing deliciousness.

See ya in the AM!

Gosh last night I could not sleep at all! I ended up getting shut eye around 3 AM. Now I'm running on 5 hours of sleep. Getting up was really difficult, but now that I'm awake and have eaten breakfast, I'm all good. I decided not to go into my internship today because I did not get much studying done over the weekend. Today is devoted to nothing but school work. Yippie! :???:

For today's breakfast I had a cup of coffee, black, a bowl of Kashi heart to heart cereal with plain soy milk and a medium sized banana on the side.

Coffee update: I haven't posted Friday and Saturday's meals, but just to let ya'll know that I had only 1 cup of coffee over the weekend (on Saturday). Sunday I omitted both tea and coffee altogether (A FIRST!) :-) . Today I definitely needed a high dose of caffeine to get my brain jumping. Hopefully I get lots of reading done today!

(09.28.08):

Dinner

While at Di Lac yesterday, we grabbed a bag of freeze dried stimulated pork. It is basically tvp meant to imitate pork--mock meat. Long cooked one dish last night that combined the stimulated pork with vegetarian oyster sauce (which ended up having oyster in it!), soy sauce, and green bell peppers. I remade the Aloo Mutter Jeerawala. It didn't taste as good as the first time, but I think it's because I didn't have any tomato paste on hand. I also added ginger to it (the recipe calls for it), which left a funny aftertaste.

Before I go, I wanted to say thanks to everyone who helped out with tips about coaching/running. I have never coached before, so any tips/advice given was greatly appreciated.

Cashew nut cream curry with Indian cheese. Yummy savoury and creamy curry. :P~~~

Prawn curry.

Indian cheese curry again. But this time it is a different type of curry and sweeter. However, I've forgotten the name. Really delicious!!!

Fish curry ordered by my husband.

Onion bhajees. Very delicious and addictive! The sauce is slightly sour and spicy. Enhances the taste of the onion bhajees so well.

White rice. Haha comes free with the curry.

Indian cheese curry. Quite nice but not sweet enough yet. This was ordered on our first dinner at Tandoori Palace. I ordered sweeter ones after that. ;)

Chicken bryani. Yeah this is not vegetarian. My husband ate this whole pot by himself.

Garlic naan. They smelt so good! Hehe after eating all those with the bhajees, rice and curry, my stomah almost exploded!

I have used here my favorite 4 spice homemade masala, which is always ready to add in sandwich filling, fried rice, curry, paratha & so on…..i just love it .

If your ginger garlic paste is ready then use that paste but if not, then you can make a paste of them together with onion and green chilies. I always prefer to grind these four ingredients (ginger, garlic, green chilly &onion) together to save time.

Ingredients:

½ kg chicken (cut into medium-sized pieces)

2 tbsp vegetable oil

1 bay leaf

2 tbsp ginger garlic paste

1 medium-sized onion

1 medium – sized tomato (coarsely chopped)

1 green chilli

½ cup coconut milk

1 tsp red chilly powder

1 tsp aniseed

5 -6 pepper corns

1tsp cumin seeds

2tsp coriander seeds

fresh coriander leaves

For Marination:

2 -3 tsp lemon juice

1-2 tbsp Salt

2 tsp olive oil

1 tbsp red chilly powder

½ tbsp turmeric powder

Method:

Wash chicken and marinate with lemon juice ,salt, olive oil ,red chilly powder and turmeric powder for ½ hr.

Four spice masala recipe:

Place pan over heat.

Add coriander seeds and roast for a while . Remove and roast aniseeds ,cumin seeds and black pepper one by one.

Cool spices and grind into a powder.

(Make paste of ginger ,garlic ,onion & green chilies) .

COOKING INSTRUCTIONS

Heat 2 tbsp oil in pan and add bay leaf and then add ginger- garlic- onion- green chilly paste.

Fry for 5-6 min ….till then makes a smooth paste of the coarsely chopped tomato.

Add 2 tbsp of our four spice powder, fry for 2 min,add 1 tsp red chilly powder and fry for another minute.

Then add tomato paste and cook for 5-6 minutesn till it removes the raw smell of tomato.

Add marinated chicken and fry for 4-5 min .

Close the lead and cook for ½ an hr ……check in between and if necessary add boiling water.

Add the coconut milk and cook for 1-2 min .

Remove from heat, transfer to serving bowl and sprinkle chopped coriander to garnish.

Serve hot with steamed rice.

I don't usually have much in the way of meals on a Friday, aside from lunch. I tend to snack more than anything, mostly every half hour or so having a small bite to eat. It's usually something like hummus, or maybe some crisps. I've kind of gotten into that pattern for some reason.

As an aside, I go the opposite way on a Saturday: I don't eat most of the day and then have a big meal in the evening, usually right after I've worked out. Huge loads of carbs, even before I started doing this thing. Moreso now, I suppose, because I'm eating more veggies, although I suppose they fall under the category of complex carbs.

I just ate a large dinner of sweet and sour tofu with onions and peppers. I cut up the tofu into little cubes and marinated it in the sauce for a few hours. I used a bought sauce, because, well, just as life is too short to stuff a mushroom, it's also too short to make sweet and sour sauce from scratch. Trust me, I've done it.

When it was ready, I took it out of the sauce and dredged it in flour, seasoned with a little salt and pepper, and then fried it. While that was frying, I stirfried some some sliced onions and green peppers until a little soft, but not too soft: I like them with a little bite to them still.[caption id="attachment_164" align="alignleft" width="61" caption="Sweet & Sour Sauce"][/caption] I then added the remaining sauce and let it simmer a minute or two, more to heat it up than anything else.

Then it was a case of piling the crunchy tofu chunks onto the plate and drenching them in the sauce and veggies. It was tasty as all get out: the tofu was crunchy on the outside but soft and chewy in the middle, and the sauce complimented it perfectly, the vegetables and sweetness offsetting the crunch of the batter. I imagine it would probably be even better with a halfway decent sauce; I just used Sharwoods, the bog standard off the shelf stuff available in any supermarket.

I'm going to try making some onion bhajis tomorrow. I don't know how available they are in the US, but onion bhajis are basically a little fried dumplings made with strips of onion and spiced gram (chickpea) flour. They're served all over the place in Indian restaurants and are widely available in supermarkets as snack food; they're also delicious when freshly made.

A symptom of loss due to veganism - I've been craving eggs and eggy things, and mayonnaise in particular, although I've said before that I probably won't be trying any egg-free mayo. It's fairly nasty from what I remember; I don't even really like light mayonnaise because it doesn't have the proper kind of eggy flavour and richness a lot of the time, and the texture is frequently quite odd, more like a kind of jelly than the smooth emulsion of an actual mayo. I shouldn't complain, really; come Wednesday next, I'll be able to eat all the mayonnaise I want. I could have a big bowl of it if I so chose. No doubt as soon as I can eat it again, I won't want to.

That about covers it for now; I'm going to go to bed in a few minutes.

There are a few tastes that I remember from my childhood. One would be my Grandmother's Mutton Curry. It had a typical aroma (I think it was the amount of garam masala she put in it) and a typically stew-like texture, without the heaviness of an Indian curry. My favorite part of the meal was sucking on the bone marrows. She also put in chunky pieces of potatoes and papaya in the curry, which would come out super-soft with a jelly-like translucence!

The other taste I've kept at the back of my tongue is that of a caramel cream pudding. She used to steam it in a pressure cooker and had this distinct eggy-ness. I've spent endless afternoons as a forever-hungry-toffee-stained kid in floral prints digging in to bowls of caramel pudding, and I couldn't care less about how many eggs or how much cream had gone in it, really.

Yesterday I woke up missing Grandma and craving caramel pudding. What did I do? I made mutton curry and caramel pudding...without the steaming!

I am surprised at myself though. I have gone almost an entire week without chocolate! But haven't been able to do without coffee mix.

Coffee-Caramel Cream Pudding:

- 3 tablespoons white sugar

- 1 tablespoon salted butter

- 3 crushed green cardamoms

- 1 small stick of cinnamon

- 3 whole cloves

- Half a cup cream (double cream works best of course, but I used toned)

- 1 teaspoon of instant coffee powder

- 1 egg yolk

For the apple-vanilla layer:

- 2 tablespoon of concentrated apple juice

- Half a teaspoon of vanilla essence

- Half a cup of cream

- 2 tablespoons confectioners' sugar

- 1 egg yolk

Melt the sugar with butter over low heat, till toffee-like, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. Add the cream along with cinnamon, cardamoms and cloves. At this point, the caramel will solidify instantly, but don't panic, with heat and more stirring it will melt into the cream. Add the coffee powder and bring the mixture to a slight boil before taking it off the heat. Add the egg yolk and stir vigorously. Pour the mixture into cups till half and chill in the refrigerator for a couple of hours.

For the Apple-vanilla Layer:

Bring the cream to a simmer. Add the sugar and stir well. Add the apple juice and vanilla essence and take the mixture off heat. Whisk in the egg yolk. Pour this on top of the set coffee-caramel layer and chill for an hour before serving.

The cuisine of India is characterized by its sophisticated and subtle use of many spices and herbs grown across India and also for the widespread practice of vegetarianism across its society. Considered by some to be one of the world's most diverse cuisines, each family of this cuisine is characterized by a wide assortment of dishes and cooking techniques. As a consequence, Indian cuisine varies from region to region, reflecting the varied demographics of the ethnically diverse Indian subcontinent.

India's religious beliefs and culture has played an influential role in the evolution of its cuisine. However, cuisine across India also evolved due to the subcontinent's large-scale cultural interactions with neighboring Persia, ancient Greece, Mongols and West Asia, making it a unique blend of various cuisines across Asia. The colonial period introduced European cooking styles to India adding to its flexibility and diversity. Indian cuisine has also influenced cuisines across the world, especially those from South East Asia.

We will talk about history and influences in our next post.

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