Dish #19 – Coconut Curried Tofu and Vegetables

Do you ever have the best intention of cooking but no desire to go shopping for ingredients?  That was me tonight.  Fortunately, I had enough ingredients to put together this coconut curry.  I made a few modifications, though:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup diced onion
1 tbsp garlic ginger paste
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp coriander
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp curry powder
1 bag frozen vegetables
1/2 package extra firm tofu, cubed
1 cup lite coconut milk
1/2 tsp salt, or to taste

Preparation:

In a large skillet, heat the oil and add the onion, garlic ginger paste and spices. Allow to cook for a minute or two, stirring frequently.

Add the vegetables, tofu and coconut milk and stir well. Season generously with 1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste.

Cover and allow to cook for at least 10 minutes, or until veggies are fully cooked.

New Year’s Resolution: Go Vegan!

Thanksgiving, Christmas and a trip to Texas, the breakfast taco/queso/Tex Mex capital of the world, really threw me off the vegan wagon.  In the last week or so, I have resumed my vegan lifestyle and paired it with the Serotonin Power Diet, something I have had success with in the past with very little effort (that works best for me).

It is almost time to start making those New Year’s resolutions (God! The holidays crept up on us this year) and the New York Times recently posted an article called, “No Meat, No Dairy, No Problem,” about a great resolution for your health: going “semi-vegan.”

Among your other resolutions — do more good? make more money? — you’ve probably made the annual pledge to eat better, although this concept may be more often reduced simply to “lose some weight.”

If defining this betterness has become increasingly more difficult (half the diet books that spilled over my desk in December focused on going gluten-free), the core of the answer is known to everyone: eat more plants. And if the diet that most starkly represents this — veganism — is no longer considered bizarre or unreasonably spartan, neither is it exactly mainstream.

Many vegan dishes, however, are already beloved: we eat fruit salad, peanut butter and jelly, beans and rice, eggplant in garlic sauce. The problem faced by many of us — brought up as we were with plates whose center was filled with a piece of an animal — is in imagining less-traditional vegan dishes that are creative, filling, interesting and not especially challenging to either put together or enjoy.

My point here is to make semi-veganism work for you. Once a week, let bean burgers stand in for hamburgers, leave the meat out of your pasta sauce, make a risotto the likes of which you’ve probably never had — and you may just find yourself eating “better.”

The article goes on to provide several yummy-looking recipes and it got me thinking more and more about the great options out there for vegans and even for non-vegans who just want to skip the meat/cheese/butter/milk once in a while to be healthier.  It’s not that hard, people… it truly isn’t.

I’ve got plans for some new Meatless Monday posts, trying out new cookbooks, and all kinds of fun, heart-healthy and planet-friendly stuff.  Hoping you’ll come along for the ride.  In the meantime, enjoy this little number from Tumblr:

NY Times: Gifts for Non-Cooks

My friend Kate, author of The Hip Girl’s Guide to Homemaking, just posted a link to this great article on what gifts you might consider giving your friends who don’t cook but should (you know, people like me )

New York Times: Gifts for Non-Cooks

Americans spend less time cooking than anyone, and the amount we “cook” — some people count microwaving a pizza — has been on a long, slow decline. The reasons for this decline are varied and complex, but an increase in the average of both hours worked and television watched, coupled with the marketing of “convenience” foods, have turned cooking from a sometimes-pleasurable necessity into, for many people, an ominous-seeming choice.

Yet the benefits of cooking, about which I’ve written before, are many: Cooking gives you control over what you put into your body and it’s cheaper than eating out or taking in. Food you make yourself tastes better, and it’s better for the environment, for your body, for your family. It’s just plain better.

We all know people who don’t cook: not enough time, skill or stuff. Gentle encouragement could change that, and — if it does — it’s no exaggeration to call it a gift of life. So instead of your incredible cookies — or in addition to them — you might consider a gift of the means, encouragement or inspiration for non-cooks. Imagine how great it would feel if, next year, they gave you cookies.

There are some great suggestions in here – I hope you enjoy!

Wonder of the Age: Master Painters of India, 1100-1900

Yesterday I visited my favorite NYC haunt, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with two friends to catch a new exhibition that is getting rave reviews: Wonder of the Age: Master Painters of India, 1100-1900.

We began our adventure at Mughlai, an Indian restaurant on the Upper West Side.  I ordered a vegetarian thali, which gives you a little bit of everything, while my friends ordered a non-veg thali and a bhindi masala.  Good food, though the decor was not exactly authentic (some Indian art on the walls, but combined with hanging Christmas lights and a menora on the bar).

We then walked across Central Park to the Met, where we headed straight for the exhibition (after making a quick stop at Infinite Jest: Caricature and Satire from Leonardo to Levine).  It was simply breathtaking.

• NY Times: Putting Names to the Greats of Indian Art with slideshow

One of the trademarks of this exhibition is that art historians have finally been able to identify the artists who have created the masterpieces.  According to the NY Times review, “Their motive has been to dispel the long-held view, especially in the West, that these often small, transcendent works were made by unlauded artisans toiling away in monasteries and imperial workshops.”

Nearly 200 works in six galleries explore the elaborate style wars between the raw vigor and flat color blocks of the indigenous Rajput (Hindu) court manner and the finely calibrated naturalism and delicate patterns imported by the conquering Mughals of Central Asia. Repeatedly fusing, breaking apart and fusing again, these styles percolated throughout northern and central India as the Mughals expanded their dominance over Rajput courts, especially in the late 16th and 17th centuries.

While most exhibitions of Indian paintings include only a few examples whose creators are known by name, this one concentrates almost exclusively on works that are known or thought to be by some 40 individuals. [...]

We encounter families of artists, some of whom worked for successive generations of emperors, most notably the brilliantly cosmopolitan Akbar the Great, who took over the first Mughal court at Delhi in 1556, and his son Jahangir and grandson Shah Jahan, all passionate patrons of painting. Toward the end of the show, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, when the Mughal courts were in disarray, we see the emergence of Rajput family workshops that catered to multiple patrons, both Indian and European.

If you are in New York at any time before January 8, you must go see it.

Pumpkin-licious, or Recipes of Fall

Everyone bakes around the holidays, right?  Well, I sure did this year.  Pre-Thanksgiving, I made pumpkin scones, maple walnut muffins, pumpkin spice marble cheesecake and my classic pecan “delight.”

I was really happy with all the yummy baking.  I made a pumpkin swirl cheesecake 10 years ago that tasted great but didn’t have the right, firm consistency of cheesecake.  This time – success!  I’ve also been making pecan delight every year for 10 years – it’s quite popular with my family and now with my husband’s.  So here are the recipes I used, in case anyone else (like me) still has 3/4 can of pumpkin in their fridge that they don’t know what to do with.

Recipe 1: Vegan Pumpkin Scones with Brown Eyed Baker’s Spiced Glaze

Recipe 2: Maple Walnut Muffins

Recipe 3: Marbled Pumpkin Cheesecake

       

Recipe 4: Pecan Delight aka Ritz Pecan Pie

Everyone I’ve ever met who tastes this asks for the recipe.  I’ve never made it with chocolate – it is perfect without.  Serve with a dollop of Cool Whip!

P.S. Just in case you’re disappointed in a pumpkin pastry post that has nothing to do with desi cooking, I found some Indian pumpkin recipes just for you:

• Indian Food Rocks: Curry that Pumpkin
• The Colors of Indian Cooking: Pumpkin Koftas (Meatless Meatballs for Meatless Monday)
• VaRehVah.com: Pumpkin Masala

Happy holidays!

I Want to Go to Curry College

But I don’t live in Britain.

“Now, British people from all backgrounds will be trained to become chefs specialising in Indian food to combat the shortage of Asian chefs brought on by the government’s latest immigration rules.

…

[The Communities Secretary, Eric Pickles] has a dream: namely to set up a curry college. It combines border control with foreign cooking. It would both help satisfy the apparently inexhaustible appetite for onion bhajis and prawn birianis while also providing justification for the squeeze on visas.”

Indian food without the Indians… those British are so clever, they think of everything.

Oni-oni-oni-ons

“How can you be a true Punjabi and not like onions??” my mother-in-law asked me in horror.

It’s not that I don’t like them at all. There was a time when I wouldn’t touch them with a 10 ft. pole, but I’ve come around – to my mother-in-law’s point, could I really have an Indian food blog and hate onions at the same time?  Onions and tomatoes are the basic ingredients in practically every curry recipe I’ve ever tried.

But yes, historically, I have not been an onion fan, and even now I can only eat them cooked in a dish with other things, not raw on a burger or with chaat masala and lime like my husband.  (Eek!)

But these little veggies are very important in desi cooking and Indian culinary history.  According to a 2010 article on out-of-control onion prices in India:

The lowly onion has a storied history in India. The first known mention is about 2,500 years ago in the ancient medical text “Charaka-Samhita,” which celebrated the vegetable’s curative powers.

Four centuries later, it was mentioned in religious texts as a despised food anathema to a life of meditation and austerity. It remained something of a medical and sensual sideshow for centuries, judging from the accounts of Chinese traveler Xuanzang, who visited India in the seventh century.

“Onions and garlic are little known and few people eat them,” he wrote. “If anyone uses them for food, they are expelled beyond the walls of the town.”

India’s infatuation with the onion is credited to the Mughal rulers, who used them liberally in their meat and rice dishes.

Oh, those Mughals – they are credited with everything, aren’t they?

A short while ago, a friend forwarded me an e-mail with the subject line, “Creativity in India,” which contained a number of humorous photos.  I’ve selected one below for your enjoyment.  I swear I’m going to try that.

What are your favorite recipes with onion?

New York Magazine: The Latest in Indian Fast Food

New York Magazine recently published a great feature on Indian street food that I wanted to share with you.  Writer Jenny Miller highlights six NYC hotspots for kathi rolls and kebabs.  Personally, I can’t say enough good things about Masala Times on Bleecker Street (they catered our wedding!).  If you’re not a vegan like me, I highly recommend the chicken malai kebab and the paneer tikka.  Fantastic!  Now I eat aloo (potato) and channa (chickpea) rolls which are also good.  Note to fellow goris: Masala Times food is very, very hot.

I also love the Kati Roll Company and the Desi Food Truck, which didn’t make the article but which I’ve reviewed here at the blog.

Dish #18 – Aloo Tikki

When I was growing up, I was a real meat and potatoes girl.  My mother would make breaded chicken cutlets, London broil, meatloaf… always with a side of mashed potatoes.  I loved it.  Now that I’m a vegan, I’m down to just potatoes

I was introduced to aloo tikki by my in-laws.  I’ve never seen them in a restaurant, but they are an easy and yummy thing to whip up at home quick.  And they’re vegan!  It doesn’t get any better than that.

Here is my mother-in-law’s quick and easy recipe for aloo tikki:

Ingredients

6 medium potatoes

2 tbsp butter (or vegan substitute)

3 tbsp cilantro

2 tbsp ground ginger

1 tsp salt

(Optional: green chilies cut small)

Directions:

Peel potatoes and boil them until soft.  Mash well.

While the potatoes are still warm, add butter, cilantro, ginger and salt.

Knead well to make the dough smooth and form patties.

In a nonstick pan, heat 1 tablespoon of oil.  When the oil is hot, lower to a medium flame and add tikkies.

Brown one side and turn over until both sides are crispy brown.  (Don’t put too much oil; you’re not frying.  Too much oil causes the tikkies to break apart.)

Other recipes on the web:

• 365 Days of Pure Vegetarian – Aloo Tikki
• My Saffron Kitchen – Aloo Tikki {North Indian Street Food}
• Finger Licking Food – Aloo Tikki

This recipe yielded 9 large aloo tikkies, which feeds about 3 people because potatoes are so filling. You must must must eat these with mint and tamarind chutney – YUM!  My husband and I went to a friend’s barbecue where we ate these on buns instead of burgers.  Highly recommended.

Dish #17 – Vegan “Egg” Salad

I know this is not Indian, or even Indian-inspired, but I am going to start posting all of the new dishes we are trying, not just desi ones.  They’ll be designated under the “Non-Indian” category to the right.

Husband really likes egg salad (me? not so much).  He works at an office without a microwave so never brings lunch to work because he can’t reheat all of our desi leftovers.  It’s much harder to bring sandwiches from home when you’re vegan, so I am starting a whole new menu of healthy vegan options that are easy to carry and don’t need to be reheated.  Attempt #1: mock egg salad.

I followed the recipe from Chez Bettay but very, very loosely.  Below is my variation but again, all credit where credit is due, and you can check out the full recipe at the link above.

Ingredients

1 pkg extra firm tofu
1/2 cup vegenaise
1/2 cup onion, diced
1 tbsp mustard (I used chipotle mustard)
1 tbsp turmeric powder
1/2 tbsp honey
1/2 tsp pepper
Salt to taste

Directions

Dry tofu very, very well.  Roll in a clean dishtowel and/or blot and drain with paper towels.  Chez Bettay recommends letting it dry overnight so egg salad is not watery.

Crumble tofu with your fingers and set aside.

Mix mustard, honey, turmeric, pepper and vegenaise together, then mix in with tofu until tofu mixture is yellow.  Add diced onions and stir well.  Add salt to taste.

Very simple!  Egg salad minus fat and cholesterol!  Husband recommends adding hot sauce (of course) and cilantro.