Indian Setsubun

Tuesday, February 3rd

Rescued Chickpeas
The chickpeas leftovers from Thursday were not getting eaten. I rescued them by substituting them, spinach and all, into a channa masala recipe. This would have worked well if I had been more careful with the spices; I accidentally poured in some cardamom at one point when I thought I was adding cumin. It was a bit much. The channa masala and spinach combo was great, though. Tasty (if you imagined away the extra cardamom) and really beautiful.

Rice With Onions
And cashews on the side. Should have had cranberries, but I forgot to put them out. This was also slightly overspiced, but would have been a great dish if I had been just a little more conservative. Next time: puree lots of garlic, ginger, and chilies in the food processor, fry briefly in a lot of olive oil, add the rice and water with just two or three cinnamon sticks and a tiny bit of turmeric and cumin, and mix in caramelized onions at the end. One gallon of short grain brown rice needs somewhere strictly between twenty two and thirty two cups of water.

Chicken Kebabs
From Julie Sahni's Savoring India, with dried cilantro instead of fresh, and three whole lemons in the marinade. Margit grilled these outside, and they were awesome. One whole box of frozen boneless skinless breasts was just about a perfect quantity.

Brussels Sprouts with Spicy Cornmeal
From the Veganomicon. Not as interesting as I expected it to be, but still very good. Rebecca did this one start to finish. This included trimming an enormous box of itty bitty sprouts.

Carrot Soup
Epicurious recipe. Okay, but not worth making again. Again, the spices were off. This time, they had been carefully measured, and then some fraction got charred and had to be replaced, but it wasn't clear how large a fraction had been lost... Also, important lesson: do not throw huge chunks of ginger into a giant pot soup that is going to be pureed with the immersion blender. This may well work in a tiny pot, but it will not work for the house. No matter how homogeneous you try to make the soup, you will fail, and you will miss some ginger chunks, and you will burn yourself. Chunks of veggies are okay.

Raita
Grated cucumber, dried peppermint, and Zeph's yogurt.

Sweet Coconut Green Tea Black Bean Soup
Small nod to Setsubun. Green tea, coconut milk, agave syrup, black beans, dried fruit. Too sweet for me, but most of it was eaten.