Skip to main content

Indian Food Intimidation

Hello friends.

I have something I need to get off my chest.  For years, I have been intimidated by curry.  I don't know a Vindaloo from a Tikka Masala.  What I do know is that I always enjoy an authentic Indian meal, I just want to be able to cook one myself!

Last night a friend put on a fantastic Indian spread...butter chicken (none for me!)  a delicious vegetable curry and a chick pea curry.  There was of course naan bread and basmati rice.  Delicious.  Today I was inspired...I entered the grocery store without a list or any concrete plan.  I just knew I wanted a curry dish, I knew what I wanted in it and how it should look and taste.  Brave I know...but this story has a happy ending.

I grabbed all my vegetables first.  Onion, garlic, red pepper, cauliflower, potato and peas.  I moved on to organic chick peas, light coconut milk and brown basmati rice.  A great base...but then the curry conundrum.  I approached the Asian Foods section with much trepidation.  I know, I know many of you probably mix your own curries!  My hat is off to you!!!  I do have a yellow curry powder in my spice drawer...but it's not really inspired.  I looked at different varieties of curry, some in jars, some pastes.  All had added fat and ingredients I couldn't pronounce.  Then I spotted this!


All natural, real ingredients.  Perfect!!  The directions on the back are very straight forward if you're making a straight Chick Pea curry...I however had something slightly different in mind. I know many of you are probably shaking your heads...a mix might be cheating, but it did taste really good.  I chopped all the veggies and didn't worry too much about which ones would cook faster...I just threw everything in the pot.



I started with coconut oil (I love fats that make your belly flat!) grated in two garlic cloves, added the spice mix and cooked for about a minute.




I added the diced tomatoes, veggies then chick peas and coconut milk.  Coconut milk was not actually called for...but it was part of my vision!



I brought it all to a boil, then covered and simmered for about 45 minutes.



Viola!  My amateur curry!  I served it with brown basmati rice and coleslaw.  Coleslaw you say??  Well, if you've read my past posts, you know my kids wouldn't touch this with a ten foot pole...so I also made pulled pork in the crockpot for the rest of the family.  Coleslaw goes nicely with the pork...and, as it turns out, just as nicely with the curry...cooled it off a bit!

I am sharing this story because I love it when 'winging it' turns into a meal that could become a staple.  Do you have any experiments that turned into signature dishes?  Let's share!

Happy cooking!

Toby

Comments

  1. Don't be intimidated, Toby!I love cooking Indian food...Two of the greatest books out there are by a woman named Mridula Baljekar and you can find them on Amazon.ca (or Chapters.ca - can't remember which I ordered my books from)...Secrets from an Indian Kitchen - the best book! And Indian Cooking without Fat...Also good..Indian cooking is very inexpensive, but can be a wee bit time consuming - still, it's easy. Helps to have a coffee or spice grinder and a food processor (even a mini one is fine) - and you don't HAVE to roast and grind your spices - it is perfectly OK to use ground spices, but grinding them freshly if you have a few extra minutes is a pretty yummy way to cook..I keep my Indian spices in three rubbermaid containers, I have so many! Staples are corinader seed, cumin seed, ground cumin, garem masala,and tumeric. Everything is pretty readily available and cheap, cheap, cheap...I love the Masoor Masala (spiced red dahl) recipe in my Secrets from an Indian Kitchen book.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Shawna! Such great tips! Thank you for the advice and encouragement!!!
    Toby

    ReplyDelete
  3. You are most welcome! There are so many wonderful recipes to try and so many healthy ones, too. I'm really glad I discovered Indian cooking - thankfully my husband and kids like it, too. I love that it is so flavourful! By the way, one thing I learned is that ghee is just clarified butter ..So don't bother looking for it, if you do decide to cook with it - just melt some and then throw it back in the fridge to re-harden. Or, do what you are doing and use coconut or olive oil instead...For peppers I use Jalapeno or Serrano...And if you can't find curry leaves, you can use bay leaves instead...

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

LASER UPDATE

Hello Friends. Just checking in after what's been a long break from the blog!  I wanted to update you as I continue my laser treatments at Advantage Body Clinic. A bit of history ~ I have stretch marks from two pregnancies.  I had a tummy tuck six years ago to get rid of sagging skin and repair a separated abdominal muscle.  The surgery was wonderful, no more sagging skin, but it didn't get rid of the stretch marks. For the last half year (or so) I've been undergoing treatments at Advantage.  Using 'Fractional Laser' technology, Kathryn and Karen are adamant I will be stretch mark free when this process is complete.  I have had six treatments, I have noticed much improvement in the appearance of my stretch marks, but they aren't gone.  It seems my surgery, which stretched the skin, impacts the laser treatments.  It doesn't mean it won't work, it will just take longer. Again, one of the great perks of these treatments, which promote collagen pr...

New Life, New Job, Same Goals

Hi Friends! It's been a while.  I lost my blogging mo-jo a few years back just before everything in my life changed.  I've been through a time of extreme reflection, growth and change.  I left my marriage in 2017, started an amazing new job at Kelowna's NEW 103.1 Beach Radio in the spring of 2018 and somewhere in there found the love of my life. This period of adjustment has been at it's core, a shift to happiness.   Ensuring my daughters are happy and secure in the new arrangement has been of paramount importance.   This transition has been so worth while but as with any new journey some of the old, familiar things fall by the wayside.   If you follow me on social media or if you read this blog when it was active (2011-2014), you know that healthy eating and exercise have always been part of my daily life. Through my 20's and 30's, I was up and out of bed at the crack of dawn running, riding or doing some form of exercise.  I...
Hello Friends. For as long as I can remember I have dreamed about being thin.  Life would be better, I would be prettier, people would like me more...if I was thin. Recently, I came across a picture of me that was taken 15 years ago...I was not thin...in fact the person staring back at me was 30 pounds heavier and almost unrecognizable.  It made me cry...not just tears, but sobs.  How could anyone have liked me...let alone love me?  Once I re-gained control of myself, I felt depressed, sad for the girl in that picture...but as I flipped through all of the photos (a trip to NYC with Curtis before we were engaged) I started remembering the places we'd visited, the laughs we'd shared and the memories made.  Wait, life WAS good then...I was just too obsessed with my weight to notice. Fast forward to the present and I now realize how much time I wasted 'vying' to be thin.  How much of our lives drift by while we're trying to be something else?  N...