Popeye, The Sailor Man

I bet you can guess what this post is about!  Spinach!

No. Actually it’s about having disproportionately large calves.

Just kidding. I have those, but you were right the first time. It’s about spinach.

Raise your hand if you’re tired of spinach. Personally, I feel like I eat it all the time. In omelets at brunch, in salads at lunch, as a side at dinner, on pizza, etc. And I really, really can’t stand that minerally, nails-on-a-chalkboard feeling I get on my teeth from eating cooked spinach.

Gag.

But spinach is something that my stomach doesn’t get bent out of shape about, and also, I just got a bunch of it (two bunches, to be precise) in the farm box.

Much like I am tired of cooking bok choy with the same flavorings over and over, I’m not sure I can do sautéed spinach with garlic and olive oil any longer. I’m done. After 30ish years of eating spinach prepared that way, it’s time for something new. Surely there’s another way to cook spinach. A way that's not creamed.

Thanks to last year’s 2011 “Learn to Cook Some Indian Food” foray, I pulled Madhur Jaffrey’s Indian Cooking at Home off the shelf and looked up “spinach”.  And there it was. Several of the usual ingredients – garlic, olive oil – but also some new ones – cumin seeds, cayenne.

Intriguing.

Figuring I had nothing to lose, I whipped it up. It honestly couldn’t have been easier. This is not a dish you need “cooking skills” to make. All you really need are tongs.

You have tongs, right? If you don't, go get yourself some, they are the most indispensable kitchen tool I own. Seriously.

Heat a few tablespoons of oil in a large skillet. I used a combo of olive oil and grapeseed oil, and my 12” pan.

When the oil gets hot, add a teaspoon of cumin seeds.

When those little guys start dancing in the pan, add three cloves of garlic that have been, essentially, julienned (cut into thin strips lengthwise).

When the garlic starts to become golden, add the spinach (washed, stemmed, still damp, and coarsely chopped if not the baby variety).

Use tongs to toss/distribute the oil/garlic/cumin and then put a lid on it.

Let it steam/sauté for about 4 minutes or so? I don’t know. Check it.  Toss it with the tongs occasionally. You know what cooked spinach looks like.

When it looks done, add half a teaspoon of salt and a pinch of cayenne. Turn off the heat and toss with the tongs to incorporate.

It’s wild how different this tastes than your typical spinach. I actually stuffed some into a quesadilla I made with Monterey jack cheese (and a spelt tortilla, THANK YOU RUDI’S ORGANIC BAKERY) which was amazing, like some kind of Indian-ish burrito.

Try this sometime. It’s eye-opening, in a good way.

Ode to A Green Monster

I love Oscar the Grouch. Always have. Even as a young child, I found him so much more compelling than, say, Big Bird, whose naivete bothered me even as a three year old. Big Bird was, and is, a big yellow idiot. Grover wasn't so bad, mostly because he seemed to understand that he was doomed to screw things up constantly. I appreciated his self awareness in spite of his incompetence. And I liked Mr. Snuffleupagus, because he also seemed to realize that Big Bird was a moron. (Were we the only two? I suspect so.) But Oscar, oh Oscar. You had me at SCRAM! You're witty and charming, and your pet is a worm named Slimy. Slimy is, I am convinced, one of the most underrated characters on Sesame Street. Not least because he was clearly not slimy; he was obviously made of something like felt. Oscar, you slay me.

If Oscar the Grouch cooked Indian food, his favorite dish would be one of the things I cooked tonight: Broccoli with Indian Spices and Asafetida.

No, not because it tastes like trash. Because the colors and textures and the smell of one key ingredient make me think that Oscar would really be into this. Actually, it's more than that. If Oscar himself were a food, he would be this. It actually looks a bit like him.

I was a smidge worried this dish would taste like trash as I was subbing sometimes smelly broccoli for the much milder, sweeter cauliflower called for in the original recipe. But with a fridge full of produce and a looming vacation, I had to deal with what was on hand. There will be no trips to Whole Foods this week. So broccoli it was.

The asafetida was originally what had me thinking about Oscar the Grouch. The fragrance of this stuff is really hard to characterize. I wouldn't say it smells good. You do not want to get a big noseful of this stuff. It's no garam masala. Evidently James Beard once likened the scent of asafetida to fresh truffles. I personally feel it smells like Funyuns. I hate Funyuns.

One thing that's not in question about asafetida is that it smells. A lot. This is what has earned it such fantastic monikers as "devil's dung" and "stinking gum." The container my ground asafetida came in was clearly not airtight, so after a trip to the Container Store to, well, contain the smell, I felt ready to start cooking. Here's the recipe I used, adapted from Madhur Jaffrey.

Broccoli with Indian Spices and Asafetida

Ingredients
1 large head of broccoli, cut into florets
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
generous pinch of ground asafetida
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 medium-small onion, peeled and cut into very thin rings
1 serrano pepper, stemmed and finely chopped
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric
1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 cup water
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

Directions
Put the oil in a large frying pan (I used my saute pan) and heat over medium-high. When shimmering, add the asafetida, then a second later, add the cumin seeds. Stir for 10 seconds or so and then add the onion. Saute until beginning to brown, about 4-5 minutes. Add the broccoli and green chili, then turn the heat down to medium, tossing and stirring. Add the ground cumin, coriander, turmeric, cayenne, and salt, and continue to toss and stir until evenly distributed, about a minute. Add the water and lemon juice and bring to a simmer. Then cover, turn the heat to low, and cook for about 5 minutes until the broccoli is just tender but not overcooked.

In the end, it looks like this:

And on the plate, it looks like this:

It's pretty good. Saucy, savory, with a delicate spiciness. I'd make it again. Oscar would definitely approve. I am sure he'd give it two thumbs down.

However, broccoli does not a dinner make, so I've got another recipe to share with you. This one courtesy of the farm box, which has provided me with more mangoes. I am slowly coming around to the idea of mangoes. I am not sure where or when but at some point earlier in life I decided I didn't like them. To be honest, I think I got them confused with papaya. Ripe papaya smells to me like the worst dirty baby diapers. Gag. Somehow, I think I lumped the mango into this unfortunate tropical fruit club.

I'm so sorry, mango. I had you all wrong. Can you ever forgive me?

The mangoes in the fruit basket on my counter have started exuding the most intoxicating scent the past few days. Which means I really need to use them. I found this fantastic recipe on Epicurious and co-opted the rice portion. I should preface this by saying I cooked this in my rice cooker. I love my rice cooker. I am terrible at making rice on the stove and my little Sanyo is a godsend.

This is not an attractive recipe. It's not supposed to be the star of the meal. That's ok. It's still tasty. It would really be very delicious with the yogurt marinated chicken suggested in the Epi recipe (but again, I had no chicken at home and I am not allowed to buy groceries this week. T minus 3 days to vacation, people!

Kate's Herbed Rice with Mango
adapted from Epicurious

Ingredients
1 mango, peeled, pitted and cut into 1/4 inch dice
1 handful fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 handful fresh cilantro
2 garlic cloves, peeled
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup brown jasmine rice

Directions
Prepare the mango and set aside in a medium bowl. Combine the parsley, cilantro, garlic cloves, cumin, salt, and cayenne pepper in a food processor and puree. Scrape down the sides, add the olive oil, and process until combined. Add the rice to the rice cooker along with the specified amount of water in the rice cooker instructions. Stir in the herb mixture. Cook until done. (Alternatively, if you do this on the stove, you can cook the rice with 1.5 cups of water and the herb mixture for about 45 minutes. But you should check that time - as previously cautioned, I am no good at making rice on the stove.)

Once the rice is cooked, combine it with the mango and toss to distribute the mango and rice evenly amongst each other. The end result is slightly spicy and slightly sweet. Really delicious.


Again, not much to look at, but really very tasty.


With a belly full of stinky broccoli and sweet mango, clean sheets on my bed, and a new book on my night table, I think it's time to bid adieu to the weekend. Good night! (Or, channeling Oscar: Have a rotten night! Now go away!)

Two and a Half

In a nod to the utter horror that is Charlie Sheen, this post is not about Two and a Half Men (a show that, in my opinon, used to be funny before the "half man" hit puberty, but I digress). No. This is about Two and a Half Indian dishes.

I'll explain.

I have been on an Indian food bonanza lately not least because my allergist, charming man that he is, put me on a yeast-free diet in an attempt to figure out if I have allergies to anything in the Kingdom Fungi (which includes yeasts, fungi, and molds). This eliminates a surprising list of foods - not just your typical yeasted favorites like bread and crackers, but also vinegars, wine, beer, liquor, cheese, and mushrooms (duh, fungi). And a lot of other things. A LOT of other things. It's something of a challenge to find interesting things to eat with such restrictions. Indian cuisine is proving a godsend in this regard.

The past few nights I have made three recipes which I have liked-slash-loved. One of the recipes I changed so much from the original, I'm not sure it's fair to call it Indian cuisine any longer, but it's still pretty darn tasty.

The lineup:
Liked: Blackeyed Peas with Butternut Squash (At Home with Madhur Jaffrey)
LOVED: Cauliflower with Potatoes aka Aloo Gobi (Epicurious)
Hacked but Still Loved (how can you not love your own kid?): Yogurt Sauce with Walnuts and Cilantro (Madhur Jaffrey Indian Cooking)

I am beginning to realize that a lot of the recipes in Indian cooking start the same way:

1. Heat oil in a pan until shimmering
2. Add whole spices, saute for a minute
3. Add aromatics (usually an onion, garlic, ginger and sometimes a hot pepper) and saute until browned
4. Add ground spices, saute for a minute

Knowing this, new recipes are starting to make more sense the first time I read them, as the process is always so similar. It's comforting, actually. I am beginning to feel like I can make anything in these books. Except maybe naan. Not quite there yet.

For the Blackeyed Peas recipe, I cannot emphasize enough how thrilled I was to take down one of the butternut squashes I got from the farm box a few months ago. It was a little on the small side, so I supplemented it with some butternut squash I had chopped and frozen from the '09 deluge of butternut. Truth be told, the frozen stuff had suffered some freezer burn and didn't taste as awesome as the fresh stuff. I think if it had, this recipe would have been outstanding.

There was one other thing I did which I think held this back from being amazing (instead of just tasty, as it was). The recipe requires soaking the blackeyed peas overnight, which I didn't do. I cheated.

Cheater, cheater, legume eater.

I know I paid the price for these substitutions in flavor, and that's a price I'm willing to pay given an acceptable end result. It's really asking a lot of me to plan dinner 24-hours in advance. I like to cook according to mood.

With those two subs, this recipe proceeds pretty much as all the others do. Again, it's published in a book rather than online, so I'm just going to give you the highlights.

Sizzle some cumin and fennel seeds in hot oil in a big pot. Add chopped onion, minced garlic, ginger, and jalapeno. I acutally used a serrano because for some reason the jalapenos at Whole Foods were gargantuan. Add a little tomato puree, handmade per Madhur Jaffrey's instructions that basically involve cutting a tomato in half and grating it on a cheese grater. Incidentally, this works great and whenever I need just a little tomato puree (1/2 cup or less) I am not opening a can ever again because all the rest of it just goes to waste. At the same time as the squash, add cayenne, salt, and butternut squash, diced. Simmer for 10ish minutes and add the canned, drained black eyed peas. Simmer another 10 minutes or so. And you produce this:

It's pretty good. The squash brings a little unexpected but not unwelcome sweetness to the dish. And the fennel seeds give it some meatiness, almost like there's sausage in here. It's really intriguing. I wish I hadn't removed the seeds and the ribs from my serrano as I would have liked a little more heat, but it was still good enough to eat for dinner and then lunch the next day.

So that was a good start for the week.

Tonight I branched out further, thanks to an unexpected farm box delivery yesterday that I thought I'd cancelled. My refrigerator is now busting at the seams with vegetables. I'm not kidding. I kind of wish I had a bunch of pet rabbits. Ok, not really, pet rabbits are totally gross. But that's how jammed full of produce my fridge is. In addition to full crisper drawers, the entire middle shelf is stacked 6 inches deep with veggies, apples, and citrus. Ah, winter.

One of the organic gifts bestown upon me this week was a head of cauliflower, which I actually love. It's so homey and hearty. Typically I like to roast mine with capers, a Martha Stewart recipe from the first cookbook I ever bought (but conveniently repeated in a 2006 magazine and therefore linked here). Sadly, capers are cured in vinegar and therefore outlawed on this yeast-free fiasco.

I was browsing Madhur's two books last night (well, the two that I own - she has written quite a few more)and ran across a recipe for Cauliflower with Potatoes. Madhur likes to use its full name so she has subtitled this recipe phool gobi aur aloo ki bhaji but when I was looking at other recipes for this online, I got clued in on its nickname: aloo gobi. Yes, I think I'll type that going forward.

In the end, it wasn't Madhur's recipe that I followed, although her ingredients are identical to the ingredients in the recipe I used. I was browsing Smitten Kitchen and found this Epicurious version of aloo gobi some time back, and it seemed far easier than Madhur's recipe which requires you both boil the potatoes and soak the cauliflower for 30 minutes. (Check out Smitten Kitchen when you have some time and are in a position to drop drool on whatever surface is in front of you. I'm not exaggerating when I say I kind of want to be this lady. I am making those goldfish crackers from today's post as soon as I can eat cheese again.)

Indian Spiced Cauliflower and Potatoes
Gourmet, February 2004

Yield: Makes 4 side-dish servings
Active Time: 30 minutes
Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients

1 (1 3/4-lb) head cauliflower, cut into 3/4-inch-wide florets
1 1/4 lb Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
5 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 teaspoons minced fresh jalapeño, including seeds
2 teaspoons minced peeled fresh ginger
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
1/2 cup water

 Accompaniment: lemon wedges

Directions:
Put oven rack in upper third of oven and place a shallow baking pan on rack. Preheat oven to 475°F.

(Off to the races, and already I'm not following the directions. Absolutely forgot to preheat the baking pan. It didn't matter. I roasted the cauliflower and potatoes for an extra 5 minutes and it was fine.)

Toss cauliflower and potatoes together in a bowl with 3 tablespoons oil, cumin seeds, and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Spread in hot baking pan and roast, stirring occasionally, until cauliflower is tender and browned in spots and potatoes are just tender, about 20 minutes.

While vegetables are roasting, cook onion, garlic, jalapeño, and ginger in remaining 2 tablespoons oil in a 12-inch heavy skillet over moderate heat, stirring frequently, until very soft and beginning to turn golden, 8 to 10 minutes. Add ground cumin, coriander, turmeric, cayenne, and remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt and cook, stirring constantly, 2 minutes. Stir in water, scraping up any brown bits from bottom of skillet, then stir in roasted vegetables. Cook, covered, stirring occasionally, 5 minutes.

  

Yeah, that's it. Pretty easy. This reminds me of the fourth grade.

Bear with me here.

When I was in fourth grade, we got a new student in our class. This was BIG NEWS, as most of us had been in class together since kindergarten or even nursery school. Not only were we getting a new student, but she was French. As in, moving directly to our little boring suburb from FRANCE. And she didn't speak much English. Needless to say, we were all more than a little bit fascinated. A couple of months after Raphaele showed up, I remember us asking her what her favorite food was. I think we expected her to say crepes with Nutella or mousse au chocolat (actually, that's what I would have said then) or possibly the brie and baguettes that we'd snacked on in our after-school French class. No.

I will never forget this conversation because her answer was potatoes.

Potatoes? You mean french fries?
No. Potatoes.

I obviously thought she was off her rocker. What 9 year old's favorite food is potatoes? What person of any age's favorite food is potatoes?? I was not just concerned for my new friend Raphaele, I was also profoundly concerned about France as a nation, a place where potatoes could be a favorite food. Next thing you know, I'd be discovering that those pricey Louis Vuitton bags are notleather. Oh, wait...

Well. Logo bags aside, Raphaele was evidently wise beyond her years. I spent many, many years being bored by potatoes. Mashed potatoes: boring. Baked potatoes: boring except for the toppings. But mostly boring. Fries: boring except for the dipping sauce.

But first those delicious scalloped potatoes last weekend and now this Aloo gobi and I'm hooked. Potatoes, I bow to you. And, coincidentally as I type this, the fine people on America's Test Kitchen are making aligot, which is what happens when the French get a hold of potatoes and are sans mandoline but have some fromage. How could I have ever doubted them? Naive young Kate! Again, as soon as I can eat cheese again...

Anyway. Here was tonight's dinner:

It looks a little sad on its own, don't you think? I mean, this doesn't really look like dinner.

So I added a fried egg (upper left), largely because I was too lazy to poach one. That's better.

You are probably wondering what that other thing is in the picture. That's the hacked half-Indian recipe, Yogurt Sauce with Cilantro and Walnuts, served over some Bhutanese red rice. I highly recommend picking up some of this rice if you can find it in your market. Whole Foods carries it here in the Bay Area. You cook it just like brown rice but it tastes about a thousand times better and more interesting. It's nutty and flavorful and aromatic. It's almost flavorful enough to eat plain, it's that good. In fact, the other day, I did eat it plain, wiht just a little grind of sea salt. Really, this stuff is great.

The Aloo gobi was a bit spicy so I decided to make a yogurt sauce accompaniment to eat over my leftover rice as a cooling counterpoint to my spicy veggies. I flipped through Madhur Jaffrey Indian Cooking (because it is not just a cookbook, it's also a picture book) and found a recipe that had at least a few of the ingredients I had on hand. That said, this had other ingredients I totally omitted, such as jalapeno and scallion. I subbed the cayenne and garlic for those. Close enough. Here's my version, which I think is delicious nontheless.

Kate's Yogurt Sauce with Cilantro and Walnuts

Makes about 3/4 cup

Ingredients

1/2 cup nonfat Greek yogurt

1/4 cup cilantro, minced

1 ounce walnuts, lightly toasted and chopped

1/2 small garlic clove, minced

pinch of cayenne

salt and pepper

Directions

Mix everything. Add a little water to get a saucy consistency. I like to eat it over rice, but you could also dip pita or naan in it. The end.

Indian Recipe #2

I decided the other day that the "rule" for my 2011 ambition of learning to cook Indian food was that I had to cook at least one Indian recipe each month. Luckily, I've been on a real streak lately and have already gotten March out of the way! So check back soon for that post.

January - Chana Masala
February - Timatar Murghi (Chicken with Tomatoes and Garam Masala)
March -  You'll have to wait to find out. (So mean!)

After the successful Chana Masala, it felt like time to branch out and try cooking some meat, something I'm generally not that confident about. I am oddly phobic about serving not-fully-cooked meat. Especially chicken. I'm really good at overcooking chicken.

But back to making something with meat. Like any American lover of Indian cuisine, I had a hankering for Chicken Tikka Masala, because let's be honest, it's delicious. So very delicious. I found a recipe in Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cooking that sounded like it might be similar, without the dairy. We had a potluck dinner planned with friends the next night, and since my wonderful friends are so willing to be experimented on, Timatar Murghi it was.

I'm discovering that a lot of the Indian recipes I'm cooking tend to move fairly quickly once you get them started. Prep-as-you-go (or, how-I-normally-cook) is not really an option unless you want to burn things, which I know because I have. Prepping in advance, or if you want to get French about it, mise en place, is critical.  I'm so glad I bought these little bowls ten years ago - if you want to feel like a professional chef (and by the way, those people have their own sous chefs), I highly recommend you pick up a set, get your mise together, and then pretend like you didn't just do all that chopping and prepping and go to town as a good chef would. Orange Crocs optional.

I don't want to reprint the recipe for Timatar Murghi here since it came out of a book, so I'll just tell you the steps.

I heated some canola oil in my big Le Creuset pot. Once it was shimmering, I added these spices:


Bay leaves, cinnamon stick, cumin seeds, black peppercorns, green cardamom pods.
Nothing too crazy.

Already, this is starting to smell wonderful, after a minute of cooking the spices in the oil.
Then, the aromatics got added: onions, garlic, and ginger.

A lot of garlic. 

Because I was making 1.5x the recipe to feed the potluck crew, this took 3 giant yellow onions. I cried lots of big, salty tears chopping those suckers up. And you would not believe how much minced ginger you can get out of a one inch piece of ginger root. It honestly seemed like half a cup. Between that and the garlic, I was a little worried about how pungent this would be.

They cooked down into this spice-and-onion deliciousness.

But damn if it didn't smell incredible. Once the onions were done, it was time to add the tomatoes, chicken, salt, and cayenne.
It looked like this:

After 20 minutes of simmering, it smelled so aromatic and amazing I had to take a peek under the lid.

Good things are happening in there.

And that's it. To finish it, you throw in a little garam masala, cook it for another five minutes, and done. If you are a fast chopper, you can get this whole thing on the table in 45 minutes, start to finish. The rice cooks in the cooker beforehand or while you're cooking this. And let me tell you, this is one hell of a lot better than one of those "thirty minute meals." I wanted to cook some of the liquid out as it seemed really soupy, so I let it boil for a few more minutes than I was supposed to until the sauce thickened up a bit. I burned the bottom of the pot a bit but it didn't seem to affect the flavor of the finished dish at all. Hooray.



Steam rising clouds the view of the yum.

I was a little worried that this extra cooking would make the chicken tough, but as it turns out, the chicken was perfectly fork-tender. I attribute this to buying organic chicken at $9/lb. (Gasp. Back of hand to forehead!)

We served the Chicken with Tomatoes and Garam Masala over brown rice (so very thankful I have a rice cooker) and alongside some yogurt and whole wheat naan and garlic naan.

At the potluck, Rayleen also made Beer Can Chicken, and Britta contributed one of her signature salads, where she pretty much just pulls whatever's on hand out of her fridge and somehow creates these amazingly delicious combinations of flavors. This one had spinach and feta and egg and I don't even know what else but it was awesome. But it was Rayleen who stole the show with the Scalloped Potatoes she made from this Tyler Florence recipe. I am ruminating on when I can make these potatoes again. Outstanding.

Here are a few highlights.



Fresh herbs in a Bud Light can. A sight you obviously see every day.



These are the scalloped potatoes, about to come out of the oven.
I can't even describe how good they are.
That cheesy crust is basically to die for.
You should make them. Immediately.

Voila! Le poulet!

Timeshifting

It seems as though I will be traveling more than I'll be home in February (I'm actually writing and posting this from a plane somewhere over Ohio I think), which makes it kind of hard to make (and blog about) anything "homemade." Hotelmade, maybe, but not homemade. Luckily, because I am an underachiever in regular life (just like my standardized test scores have always indicated) I have a cache of cooking projects undertaken as much as a month ago, which I can now document for you, dear blog reader. I must admit, I am woefully behind on the craft projects, but hope to have something new to report in that department at least once in February.

You may recall that one of my "ambitions" for 2011 was to learn to cook Indian food. Dish number one was actually done in early January. I decided to ease into Indian cooking slowly, with this recipe by a white girl from Oklahoma, a state widely known for an entirely different ethnicity of "Indians." Despite this, Molly has not failed me in other recipes so I felt good about starting this project with her Chana Masala recipe. (Also, my Indian cookbooks hadn't arrived yet. I now own three: this doorstop, plus two lovely Madhur Jaffrey books, this one and this one.)

I hate to be a spoiler about this, but the Chana Masala turned out excellently. It's incredible how velvety the tomatoes get in this process - like nothing I have ever eaten before. Also, Molly indicates that you should garnish with whole milk yogurt but I took one look at the nutrition label on the whole milk yogurt at the store and decided to take my chances with 2%. (Honestly, you might as well just use heavy whipping cream if you are going to use whole milk yogurt. Good lord.) 2% Greek yogurt was perfectly delicious and what I will use from now on.

And now for the photojournalism:


Molly says to saute the onions until they begin to blacken, so I did. At this point, I am slightly worried that the whole thing is going to taste like burnt onions, but I proceed anyway.



Deglazing the pan. The spices have already been added and this already smells delicious. Neighbors beginning to hate me.



Crushing tomatoes with my bare hands. I am strong like bull.

Time for simmering. Now this is smelling a LOT. But it smells delicious. Take that, neighbors! (This is directed especially at the ones who smoke into the air shaft that is connected to my bathroom. Jerks.)


I would like to take a moment to point something out. Do you see that spoon I am stirring with in the above photo? It is one of the best kitchen tools ever. My Grandma Velma discovered it ages ago - I am talking the early 1980s here, people - and gave one to my mom. It has a blunt rather than a rounded end so it's especially good for scraping up all the brown bits when you're making anything that produces brown bits, in addition to stirring the pot. Brilliant. I think you can normally buy these at hardware stores; don't even try to get one somewhere like Williams-Sonoma. This is a working man's spoon. It is inexpensive. It is stainless steel and dishwasher safe and lasts an eternity. Mom has never replaced hers and it's approaching its 30th birthday. We might take it to Vegas to celebrate. You can find one of these spoons here.

Chickpeas added. Simmering underway. We're in the home stretch.

But then I get distracted. This was about a month ago so I can't remember exactly what drew my attention away from the stove. Probably something on The Martha Stewart Show. She was probably shearing sheep or something. Anyway, by the time I made my way back to the kitchen, I found this beneath the layers of spicy chickpea and tomato deliciousness:



Rats! Burned like an idiot who forgot to put on sunscreen.

Despite totally charring the bottom of the pan, I give two thumbs up, five stars, and an Oscar to the Chana Masala for Best Vegetarian Entree. It could even be vegan if you leave out the 2% Greek yogurt, but I think it's worth it to add it. It really does take this simple dish to another level. I hate writing "another level" because it is so trite (It kicks it up a notch! BAM!!) but it's true. It does. You should add it.


Here's how good this was: I couldn't wait to eat it. I was excited for the remaining lunches and dinners when I had Chana Masala. You know something is good when it makes the lunch you brought from home exciting to eat. One bit of caution, though. If you happen to get one of the cardamom pods in your bite of Chana Masala, do NOT eat it. Trust me. Nothing good comes from eating one of those things.