A tradition has been established: Monday night family home evening. This borrowed term describes the gathering of friends, the drinking of wine, and the only night I have to cook. These shared meals are an antidote to the dreaded case of the Mondays.
This week's meal was particularly fun because I employed the assistance of my roommate and my neighbor. We also employed the assistance of Indian food queen Madhur Jaffrey for inspiration. We perused the cookbook and the fridge choosing dishes that helped us clean out the bounty of vegetables from the past week's CSA shares.
We chose seven dishes and two condiments. Seven main course meals that required an enormous amount of slicing, dicing and blending. The three of us, armed with numerous instruments of vegetable mutilation, managed to produce this feast in just two hours. I kept asking the girls, "I am not sure if we have enough food." I was sincerely concerned.
Friends, we cooked the equivalent of an Indian Thanksgiving dinner. We will be eating Indian food until I come home next Monday. We had plenty of food.
Here's the menu: carrots with dates and raisins, peas with tomatoes, creamed spinach, mung bean sprout salad, cauliflower and zucchini, corn and coconut milk, lentils with tomatoes, yogurt raita and cilantro chutney.
After this meal, I am confident I can orchestrate just about any family eating event -- Thanksgiving, Christmas or Monday night family home evening.
Excuse me while I heat up a plate of leftovers. Until next week!
The bounty.
I chopped three HEADS of garlic and six inches of ginger.
Thank you Pampered Chef.
Cilantro chutney lovingly assembled by my kitchen partners in crime.
No dish, pan, plate or fork was left unscathed.
As a result, dessert required some creativity:
butter knife, baby spoon, melon baller, serving spoon.
These two dishes seemed to be the favorites. This corn is out of this world. Please try it. The peas, well, the peas will make your toes curl. Just saying.
Corn with coconut milk
adapted from Madhur Jaffrey's Vegetarian Cooking
4 cups corn
1 large onion, sliced in rings
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/4 tsp ground tumeric
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
2 tbs vegetable oil
2 cans coconut milk
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a large oven-safe pan with a lid, combine corn and coconut milk. Bring to a boil and then set aside. In a separate pan, heat oil over medium heat. Add the onions and cook until caramelized, stirring frequently -- about 10 minutes. Remove and set aside. Meanwhile, combine the garlic, cumin, tumeric, cayenne and 1/4 cup water in a small bowl. Add this mixture to the same pan as the onions. Fry for about a minute. Add the onions, sugar and spice paste to the coconut and corn. Bring to a boil. Cover and place in the oven. Bake for 45 minutes.
Peas
also adapted from Madhur Jaffrey's Vegetarian Cooking
1 gigantic bag of frozen peas
1 large onion, roughly chopped
1 inch chunk of ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
3 large tomatoes, diced
1 tbs red chili flakes (or more if you like it spicier)
1 tbs ground coriander (I had coriander seeds and it was delicious)
1/4 tsp ground tumeric
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
2 tbs vegetable oil
Put the chopped onion and ginger along with 1/4 cup water in a food processor. Blend until you have a smooth paste. Heat the oil in a large pan. Add the spices and stir until fragrant, then add the onion/ginger paste. Cook until the paste begins to caramelize -- about 5 minutes. Add the chopped tomatoes. Fry for another 5 minutes. Add the peas, salt and pepper and simmer for 10 minutes or until the peas are cooked through.
