Easy Indian Cuisine - Curried Dal and Aloo Palak

I love Indian food, but Curried Dal (lentils) and Aloo Palak (curried spinach and potatoes) are two of my favorite Indian dishes! They're fairly fast and simple to make, as well as delicious and nutritious! Lots of fiber and protein from the lentils, extra protein and carbs from the jasmine rice (whole grains, too if you use brown rice!), and antioxidants and iron from the spinach. Since vegans don't get too much saturated fat, I like to use regular CANS of coconut milk in the Dal curry sauce, but one could probably use lite coconut milk (these aren't to be confused with the cartons of coconut milk 'beverage'). I season the Dal with a wonderful green curry paste I found that has Thai ginger and lemongrass in it. I fry up the potatoes and onions with a little oil and water and use a mix of yellow (Hot Madras) curry powder, and a little red curry paste - adding the spinach right at the end so as to not overcook it. I try to make extra Jasmine rice - it's so tender AND it smells like buttery popcorn when you're cooking it!

 

The Difficulty with Donuts

As you may or may not know, ordering food from the internet is awesome but not always possible: difficult with timing of my presence for delivery, not to mention cost of shipping frozen and refridgerated foods. And vegan donuts are not widely available in this area...so I missed donuts. I decided it was a good idea to make a full batch of about 50 chocolate donut holes, and double a recipe for yeast-raised donuts so I could have some to freeze for later and plenty to share. I'm the kind of gal that figures, if you're going to go to the trouble of doing something, go all out. So I made the batters - chocolate (with extra goodness from pulverized vegan oreo-type cookies) had to chill while yeast batter rose. Then you have to carefully cut them out, making sure the cutter doesn't get sticky, let them raise again/chill again if needed, etc. After a couple hours of messing around, I finally heated the oil on the stovetop in a huge pot. They only take a couple minutes to fry, but you can only fry so many at a time or the oil temperature will lower, and things get crazy. It seemed like I was frying small batches of donuts and donut holes for well over an hour, but it was probably closer to 40 minutes. Halfway through or so, it started to get hot. And I started feeling the sensation of my eyes burning...I imagined it was from prolonged heat from the stove, and started to visualize terrible things happening to my eyes. Turned on the stove fan and eventually opened some windows and the doors. Spent several minutes directly in front of the air conditioner when I was finally done. So, I decided while these are some of the best donuts I've ever had, and I love eating donuts...it's just not worth it to make homemade all the time. Maybe every 5 years or so I'll make donuts.



I took these pictures right after I finished cooking them, "in case something destroyed them overnight."

Cinnamon-sugar and plain yeast donut holes

 

"Mochanut" - chocolate with coconut, inspired by the new Starbuck's flavor!

Yeast-raised donuts filled with coconut-vanilla custard

Chocolate donut holes with vanilla glaze

Chocololate donut holes with chocolate ganache and toasted coconut (and the one big donut!)

Part of the disaster area

Better pictures I took the next day:

Summer Salads

It's about the time of year for the annual family reunion and Father's day dinner. Last year for the Father's Day dinner I made my French apple pie and the following pasta salad and everyone enjoyed them, so I wanted to replicate that this year. I also wanted to try to veganize what I remembered of mom's potato salad recipe. These are traditional to me; I grew up with them - but everyone's got different tastes. These are slightly sweet and tangy. I like to use these shells in the pasta salad because they catch the sauce better for more of a flavor kick. I used mustard, vegannaise, rice wine vinegar, sugar and coconut milk as the base before seasonings. Nutritional yeast provides the eggy flavor I was used to in these. I like to use as many colors of sweet peppers and onions for a garden-fresh presentation. I wrote down ingredient amount approximations this year!

 Also used the same sauce base for the potato salad with less sugar, vinegar, and coconut milk, and the addition of celery seeds.