Indian comfort food

6/24/09 Good evening people! It's 11:50 in the night. I'm comfortably ensconced on the couch watching scrubs on tv. Life post graduation is being spent on catching up on sleep, taking care of paperwork, learning some more lab techniques from the adjacent lab, plus doing some lab work of my own, working out, watching movies and trying to figure out what to do next with my life. I just need to find that 'yess! this sounds exciting' future plan for me to focus all my energies on it. It's hazy right now, but I'm sure it'll clear up in a week (it has to!).

I met a friend at the gym yesterday who's been trying to lose weight. I gave her tips that work universally-more calories out than in and no need to give up on any of the good stuff- portion control is key. It just got me thinking that stuff that I take for granted, people may not know and need to be informed. Eating healthy is so ingrained in me, that my body gets sick if I eat too much of bad stuff. Like yesterday, Jamie and me went to Easton to buy some stuff for her brother's wedding. We got a piece of cheesecake from cheesecake factory, we split it and eating even half of it was feeling like too much. Oh, we went to Victoria's Secret too and I got an itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka dot panty! So on that note, in addition to recipes, I'll try to include more nutritional information.
Today for dinner we had a typical North Indian spread. This meal felt so good and comforting. I love potatoes and so does Jamie. This time we got yukon gold potatoes and they are really waxy. We had Indian bread called roti, seasoned pigeon peas commonly called toor daal in India and spiced spinach and potato, also included is left over colocasia from yesterday.



Pigeon peas are one of the most popular pulses in India. Nearly each state in India has a unique way of cooking it and it is a staple. Nearly every other meal has to have these pulses in one way or another. The pulses by themselves cook to a creamy texture and taste well either spiced or just plain with salt and butter. These are the source of protein for vegetarians. I cup of this provides 203 kcal, 11.36 gm protein, 39 gm carbohydrate and 11 gm dietary fiber. It is rich in potassium, phosphorus, sodium, calcium and magnesium and also provides a lot of B vitamins.

Roti is a carbohydate source made with whole wheat flour. One roti is less than 100 calories. Colocasia is not a very common vegetable. Its a starch rich tuber. It is gooey when it cooks and takes on flavors well. Ideally, this meal would be accompanied by a cup of yoghurt in the end. But we didn't feel like it. In India, yoghurt signifies the end of a meal- it is the last course because it is supposed to cool your insides after all the spices.
This time, I made my own yoghurt. On Monday, I was invited to an Indian friend's house for dinner. I got some yoghurt for culture from them. You boil milk and cool it to lukewarm and then add approx 2 tbsp of yoghurt and place the container in a slightly warm place like the top of fridge or wrap it in something warm if its too cold and let it sit for 4-5 hours. It may take longer/ shorter time depending on outside temperature. The way I understand the process is that yoghurt contains the lactobacillus bulgaricus and milk acts as a culture medium in which the bacteria grows. Homemade yoghurt also has more water in it ( whey) and this is supposed to be very rich in B vitamins. Here's a picture...

How to make all this stuff?
Daal..
Pressure cook 1 cup of pigeon peas with 1 can diced tomatoes and three cups water.
Seasoning: Take some oil, when hot, add cumin seeds, onions and wait till onions turn traslucent and slightly brown, add 3 cloves of garlic, and grate about a tbsp of ginger. Add a dash of red chilli powder and asafoetida (this is a spice which adds a nice flavor, you need just a dash of this).
Mix it with cooked pulses and tomatoes. Give it a good whisk, add salt and a tsp of sugar and add fine chopped cilantro in the end.
6/25/09
Potato spinach...
2 tsp tsp oil in a pan, add cumin seeds when hot, add potatoes( I used 4 medium sized ones) and let it cook. When 3/4 cooked, add ginger garlic, saute, then add a packet of frozen spinach, let it cook a little and towards the end add 1/2 tsp garam masala, 1/2 cumin powder, red chilli powder to taste and 1 1/2 tsp coriander seed powder and salt to taste
Day before, Jamie made this portobello sandwich..she had some homemade sweet mustard salsa. She cooked the mushroom with the salsa on the pan and placed it on marble bread..pretty good..

Indian cooking is tasty but it does involve a lot of cleaning later.Just look at this..guess what our evening is gonna be spent doing..

I saw 'rainman' the other day. I really liked it. I like both Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise. I love Alfred Hitchcock movies. I love the suspense he builds with music, the camerawork, the stories are great too and his actors are very pleasing to the eye. I have two short stories DVD that I plan to watch today...
Workoutwise, I've added swimming to my list. I took a swimming 101 class at OSU and liked it so much that i named one of my email ID's as swimmingfan. At the end of the class I was able to do freestyle but now the breathing facedown is hard for me. I swim on my back which is quite fun. Water makes me nervous and I love it at the same time. I want to include it in my routine of treadmill,elliptical and biking...I did two laps today after workout..quite fun..I also practised underwater breathing on the deep end...
A new thing that we've been doing lately- we've been adding sliced orange to our water pitcher in the fridge, so we drink orange flavored water.quite nice and refreshing...