Indian Cooking Class

I went to an Indian Cooking For Beginners class on a Saturday afternoon. The class was three hours. I had a lot of fun, and I learned a lot. "Take aways" included: note to self, "I need to get a rice cooker and a wok," as well as "I should try cauliflower curry at home, and Indian chai tea." I loved the Indian Chai tea that our teacher Rachel Singapogu made. The liquid was half water and half milk. Some of the spices in the tea included: black pepper, ginger, cardamom, cinnamon and cloves. I also want to try adding cilantro to my raita like Rachel did at the class. Rachel said she's thinking about doing an intermediate level Indian Cooking class. I'm thinking I need to get to that . . .

You can find the recipes for the items in the pics at Rachel's blog My Indian Recipes. The dishes Rachel taught at the class were: Special Rice, Masala Red Lentils, Cauliflower Curry, Chicken Curry, Raita, and Chai.

Triple Leftovers

Yeah, uh huh. Who blogs about leftovers? I do. My lunch today is the combination of leftovers from three different dishes: red lentils, green lentils, and rice. I heated them all up together in the microwave for a delicious lunch.

Growing up, my family "ate out" a lot so we brought home a lot of leftovers. Restaurant portions are ginormous and nobody should eat them in one sitting! I got lots of practice through the years cleaning out the fridge, and salvaging leftovers from it. I even got excited about leftovers. I looked at them as stepped up, processed, or ready-to-use ingredients.

Sometimes I see competing chefs on Chopped snub there noses at leftovers or random processed ingredients. I just smirk watching those chefs! I don't like to see leftovers trashed.

Unusual To Our Household

When I purchased a collection of aloe, rutabaga, dates, qumquats, and bosc pears, I had never cooked with them before. I purchased the produce assortment for nutrition and experimentation. Another interesting item shown in the pictures is a crown of figs. I bought a crown of figs for the first time on a previous trip to the store. We enjoyed dried figs so much that I bought a second crown of figs this trip to the grocery store. We, especially Anthony, like to just snack on the figs. You will also see a large purple eggplant in the picture. I have cooked with eggplant before, but not recently.

Aloe

Rutabaga

Eggplant

Bosc Pears

Kalamata Crown Figs

Pitted Dates

Shari's Biryani Du Jour

Okay, so what did I put in my biryani today? Spices, brown rice, chicken, and vegetables to name some of the ingredients. I know brown rice isn't traditionally used in biryani, but hey, it's healthier, and it's the only kind I have in my kitchen right now. 

The first time I made biryani was over ten years ago when I was living in Pennsylvania. I had a Pakistani driving instructor. I told him I liked international cooking. He brought me a biryani seasoning packet with a recipe for biryani. I made the dish for my family. I think they liked it, but it was very spicy. I loved it! I froze some bags of it. I would thaw a bag randomly, and have lunches for a few days.

Back to the present, this evening was my first time putting together "the spice packet" for biryani. I had fun. But would you believe it, not wanting to make the dish too spicy, I failed to put enough spicy in it! Dinner was still amazing.

Oh, and another cool thing, a few summers ago when Anthony and I were starting to date, I had some leftover biryani in my fridge. I heated it up for Anthony. He loved it. 

Shari's Biryani Du Jour:

1 TB Oil

1 Tsp. Salt

1 1/2 Cups Brown Rice

3 Cups Water

1 TB Ghee (Clarified Butter)

1 Cinnamon Stick

1 Bay Leaf

1 Star Anise

1 Mace

Whole Cloves

Black Peppercorns

Cardamom Pods

1 Tsp. Coriander Seeds

1 Tsp Garam Masala

1/2 Tsp. Tumeric

1/2 Tsp. Red Chili Powder

2 Tsp. Ginger Paste

1 Tsp. Salt

Garlic Cloves

1 Onion

Handful of Tiny Tomatoes

2 Carrots

1 Potato

3 TB Chobani Yogurt

1 Cup Water

2 Chicken Drumsticks

1 Cup Water

1. Start cooking rice.

2. While rice is cooking, heat spices. 

3. While rice and spices are cooking, chop veggies in a mini food processor after cutting them into wedges. Add veggies to spice mix on stove, and stir. Add yogurt to spices and veggies. Stir. Add water. Stir.

4. Cut chicken and add to spices and veggies. Add a cup of water. Stir. Cook until chicken and veggies are done.

5. Drain rice. Add rice to spices, veggies, and chicken. Stir. Cover and cook ten minutes on low.

Anthony Made Dinner For Us!

Anthony made us a delicious dinner after church while I was feeding Shastya. He says it was Chinese inspired. We ate our meal with chopsticks. He made a stir-fry of chicken with the bones, green bell pepper, onion, fresh ginger, cinnamon, red pepper flakes, soy sauce, and salt. What a treat!

Cauliflower Curry

Cauliflower Curry is so easy and so delicious. I often just make rice and 1 rice topping when I cook Indian or Asian cuisine. Tonight I decided to make a side salad to go along with our dinner. Funny thing is, neither of us touched the salad, though Anthony and I both had seconds on both the rice and the rice topping.