Friday, August 22, 2008

660 Curries

Raita - a yogurt sauce with toasted cumin seeds, cucumbers, and carrots

Restaurant-style Cauliflower and Potatoes
Having curdled the whole milk, it's now draining. This truly was very easy!

OK, this post is just to show how nerdy and obsessed I am with food. I'm not posting a single recipe because I know one would try it! I read about the new cookbook 660 Curries by Raghavan Iyer, so I checked it out of the library. It's fabulous! It's taught me so much about Indian cooking. We did 4 curries in one week. I think my dad was pretty burnt out on curries. I made some raisin/date/tamarind chutney, raita with cukes and carrots, homemade paneer cheese (as shown in pics), and 4 different curries. Whenever you say Indian food to people, most say "I love curry, or I hate the flavor of curry." The truth is (and this is pointed out in the book) the spice curry is a mixture of spices and most Indian dishes don't even call for it. A curry means a sauce. So you could make a curry out of most any spice.
We also did basmati rice with every meal. It's pretty economical from Costco, and so easy to do in the rice cooker. Why did I wait so many years to get a rice cooker????? I'll never go back to cooking rice on the stove. If you get daring and love Indian food, I highly recommend checking this out of the library.

4 comments:

About I N D I E Marketing Genius-Bobbi said...

Oh My Gosh! How do home school with four children!I have five, and I wouldn't even know how to start!

The Cooking Lady said...

My new favorite rice is Basmati, but my in-laws keep purchasing white long grain rice for us as a gift(Nice, but I am trying to move on to healthier brown rices).

I do a similar thing with my yogurt. Sometimes I let it sit in a cheesecloth to get a firmer texture, but there are other times I do not(Mostly due to lack of time).

I take my yogurt(About 1 cup) grate about 1/3 to 1/2 a cucumber into the yogurt add about 1-2 cloves of pressed garlic and salt to taste.

You are supposed to use it as a dip, but I use it as a side dish with my meals. I love Middle Eastern food, but Indian is my second favorite ethnic food. I just have not gotten brave enough to attempt it yet.

And it took you how long to get a rice cooker? I could not live without one!

Nice blog!!!

Foodqueenja said...

Cooking Lady,

We're also trying to use a lot of brown, but I just can't get into brown rice with Indian! I've also been nervous about trying to cook Indian food at home even though I love eating it. Get a copy of this book. It will really get you excited to try it on your own. Just make sure you have a spice grinder.

JulieAnn

Beth and Shilo said...

That looks delish!! I wish I had time to cook such extravagant meals like you. I love to cook just have a hard time finding the time. Your family is so lucky to have such a great mom that feeds them REAL, HEALTHY food. You are awesome.

It was so cute when Manne brought over those cookies. She says to me " Hi Ms. Beth, here are some cookies my mom made for you. They are really good and healthy for your body." She is too cute. Thanks again for those. I love all the fun food you bring over to us.

I have you added to my blog so I can follow all your cooking adventures and hopefully try a few out.