More cooking from the heart

Sangita and Arijit shared another wonderful Tastes of India event Saturday night. As always we enjoyed wonderful appetizers while Arijit showed videos and we discussed geography, history, culture and their impact on regional cooking and tastes. The dishes Sangita prepared and taught were typical of southern Indian dishes. First, there was flavorful poha and a wonderful spicy lhassi with green chiles and toasted spices to go with it. Then we gathered around and observed the preparation of the main dishes, which were Sambhar, a rich lentil curry made with a variety of fresh vegetables, and medu vada, a dumpling made from urad dal and spices. As you can tell from the video, the evenings are filled with laughter and wonderful, nutritious dishes, always an adventure in flavors. Food for body, heart and soul.

Inspired

July 5th, Indian dinner
Originally uploaded by tangocatmum

I can't say enough good things about the Indian cooking classes with Sangita and Arijit in which I have been lucky enough to participate over the last year. Such visually beautiful, soul-satisfying food, fragrant beyond belief, and nutritious as well. Sangita has demystified the ingredients and the processes so that making this meal for dinner with ingredients on hand was an enjoyable adventure.
Clockwise, from top left: Mango pickle, cilantro-ginger chutney, lime wedge, yoghurt, ghoogni, mach bhaja, cabbage rice, Trader Joe's multigrain naan bread (I was too tired to make roti from scratch after all)
Thank you, Sangita and Arijit!

Blogging Masala

As I have said before, I wish I could actually make blog posts telepathically, but it's probably a good thing that none of us can. So this will be quite a mixture, hopefully tasty, like a good masala blend.
I had really good intentions to use a recent day off to knit and make progress on my CPH, but as I looked in the fridge for breakfast, I saw the makings for upma and I knew I should get busy cooking instead. As the upma was simmering, I still had more than half of the gorgeous golden cauliflower head that I bought at the Farmer's Market left, so I thought "I should make some of Sangita's wonderful Gobi Manchurian." So I started marinating the cauliflower. "Now I need something sweet for dessert," I thought, and remembered the yummy pongal from one of the classes, so I began grating ginger for that, and pulled out the special rice needed. Then I began brewing the green cardamom and darjeeling tea I love so well. The house was absolutely filled with fragrance, and I just had to share the wealth. "I need some friends to help eat this!" I called our tango nomads (a nicer name than tango bums) just back in town from some of their travels (Paris, Portland, Washington, Lithuania and NewFunLand). They graciously volunteered to be test subjects. I'm happy they were kind enough to go back for seconds.

On the knitting front, I finally did get around to working on the sweater the next day. Both sleeves are finished, and I kitchenered the hood, always a magic moment when those live stitches become an invisible join.
I've now picked up 113,256,798 stitches around the fronts and hood and am ribbing along. I was able to score the Addi Cro-Needle, crochet hook on one end, knitting needle on the other. It works like magic, I wish I had invented it! I'm doing some short rows on the body of the button band area to add width without making the hood too deep, and I plan to try doing I-Cord bindoff with button loops. I'm excited, I may have a finished sweater to wear to the next Borders SnB, or certainly by the time of the LYS Shop Hop. To close this post, I leave you all with a recent view: