Chola Tikki / veganmofo 2009

© 2009 Andrea's easy vegan cooking

Have you been to Manjula's Kitchen? I love it there. Manjula cooks up mouth-watering Indian dishes, like Chola Tikki, a crispy chickpea and potato cutlet. All of her dishes are vegetarian, though not all are vegan, but I can find just about any Indian dish I want, there. In addition to providing recipes, Manjula offers some videos of her cooking, which is where I watched her make Chola Tikki. I made chola tikki to go with the soup we were having for supper, and it made a great accompaniment.


© 2009 Andrea's easy vegan cooking

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I'd been wanting to visit Alki Beach in West Seattle because it's supposed to be so beautiful. When I saw a notice for a vegetarian, vegan and raw food festival (above), I thought it would be a great opportunity to learn more about raw foods, take in some performances, learn something new and see the beach at the same time. When we arrived there were two tables set up, one piled with copies of the Bhagavad Gita, and another at which plates, heaped with an assortment of food, were being handed out. My husband and I accepted a plate of food which we decided to share. Most of the food was Indian, but there was also a pile of tabouli and a green salad.


© 2009 Andrea's easy vegan cooking

The food was simply handed out - no demos, no discussion. There were no exhibits and no music while we were there. So, we got our plate of food to share, and set about looking for someplace to eat it. We were kind of freezing - the wind was extreme - but we really wanted to eat at the beach near the water. We'd only taken a few steps away from the table when the chapatti blew right off the plate! We got another, and wandered towards the water to sit on a low wall. As I snapped the photo of our plate, my husband had to hold onto our replacement chapatti so it wouldn't blow away; you can see his thumb in the picture! The food was incredibly delicious - maybe the best Indian food I've ever had.


© 2009 Andrea's easy vegan cooking

This was our view of the Sound while we shivered and ate. You can see how choppy the water was. We didn't hang around long but now I'm sorry I didn't try to find out more about the food and who had prepared it.

© 2009 Andrea's easy vegan cooking

Potato, green bean, kidney bean curry

Whenever my son announces he wants to cook dinner I'm delighted because I know we'll be having great food. He doesn't use recipes in a conventional way or measure ingredients, so it's usually hard to pin him down on just what he's added; but this time he was inspired by a recipe from one of my favorite Indian cookbooks, and I grilled him on what he did, so I could share his interpretation of the recipe.

He started with "Spiced Green Beans" from Lord Krishna's Cuisine: The Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking by Yamuna Devi and David Baird." With this recipe as inspiration, he changed spices and added ingredients to come up with a truly delicious main course dish.


Potato-green bean-kidney bean curry

• 1 – 2 tablespoons oil (or half oil and half Earth Balance margarine)
  
• 2 teaspoons black mustard seeds
• 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 12 ounces fresh green beans, stems trimmed
• 12 ounces canned chopped tomatoes in their juice
• 1/4 cup water
• 4 small potatoes, cubed and steamed until half cooked
• 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
• 1 can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
• 1/4 teaspoon sugar
• handful chopped fresh cilantro
• salt to taste

1. Heat the oil and fry the cumin seeds and mustard seeds until the cumin seeds darken and the mustard pops and turns gray, about a minute.
2. Add the onion and saute until it softens, about a minute or two. Add the green beans and cook about 2–3 minutes.
3. Add the tomatoes and simmer about a minute.
4. Add the water, potatoes, turmeric and kidney beans, cover and simmer 10 minutes.
5. Add the sugar, some cilantro and salt to taste, cover and simmer about 10 minutes until the vegetables are cooked and the sauce reduces and thickens.
6. Garnish and serve with brown basmati rice.

Seattle diary: delicious home cooked Indian dinner, Carmelita and contra dancing

After college our middle son spent a year doing internships in D.C. At the end of the year he decided to come home for a few months, save some money and figure out what to do next. Since he wasn't paying rent, he decided his contribution to the household would be to cook dinner. This was fantastic. Every night we'd come home to a delectable meal. Aaron is an exceptional cook — the kind who grinds his own spices in a mortar and pestle so they'll be fresh and exactly as he wants them to be. The day he announced he was leaving town, my husband and I looked at each other in panic and whimpered, "but what will we eat?" It wasn't that we didn't want him to move on with his life, or that we weren't capable of cooking, but we'd become accustomed to really good food magically appearing every night, and were panicked at the thought of this luxury coming to an end.

Recently, on our visit to Seattle, we had the pleasure of dining on Aaron's elegant cooking again, as he whipped up a simple but wonderful Indian-inspired meal of cauliflower-rice pilaf and kidney bean stew. These dishes were served with tamarind chutney and coriander chutney, both made by Aaron. Aaron found the pilaf recipe in the Seattle Times and it's a great recipe, easily veganized by using Earth Balance instead of butter. It's from "Vij's: Elegant and Inspired Indian Cuisine" by Vikram Vij and Meeru Dhalwala. Vij's is a restaurant in Vancouver. It's not a vegetarian restaurant, nor is the book vegetarian. Aaron says the kidney bean stew is very similar to Madhur Jaffrey's Punjabi kidney bean stew in "World Vegetarian."


Cauliflower pilaf


Tamarind chutney and cilantro chutney


Kidney bean stew



The Seattle trip was winding down. Our oldest son left after our dinner on Thursday evening for a teacher conference in Vancouver, and the rest of his family plus our middle son and his gf, Erica, were heading to Vancouver after work on Friday. So, after a Friday morning of childcare for Miss 1-year old, we were left behind in Seattle. We decided to splurge on a special vegan dinner at Carmelita, a charming and well-regarded upscale but light-hearted vegetarian restaurant with vegan options. Our waitress was just about the most cheerful person I've encountered in a long time.

We started with an antipasti plate containing muhumara (roasted red pepper dip), marinated olives, roasted garlic, chickpea salad, grilled flatbread, rosemary-white bean spread and spiced marcona almonds. It was huge, and we ate about half, leaving the rest for the airplane trip home the next day. The dips and spreads were so great — and the roasted garlic was an entire enormous head.

For our entrées I chose the artisanal polenta cake, apple/sweet potato hash, foraged mushroom sauce, fried parsnip, and my husband selected the farro tagine, spicy walnut pesto, braised squash and Swiss chard, pomegranate molasses. We were both more than pleased with our choices, though I thought the fried parsnip threads were a bit too fried.

I wish I could have taken photos of the gorgeous food but it was so dark in the room, I knew they wouldn't turn out with my little point and shoot. Just go there and see for yourself!

After dinner we went contra dancing at the Phinney Ridge Community Center where we had a chance to work off some of the calories we'd just consumed. Or, I should say, I worked off some of the calories. My husband botched his knee a few days before on a steepish walk at Carkeek Park, and he sat out most of the dances.

note: I learned something about carrying food in a cardboard container. Call me naive, but I popped the cardboard container from the restaurant into a plastic bag and took it to the airport. By the time I took it out for lunch, it had become a soggy, weeping mess. It was only quick action that prevented me from also becoming a soggy, weeping mess in the confines of my airplane seat! The food was still fantastic, but next time I'll repack it into something a bit more rigid, like plastic.

Baked samosas and aloo gobhi matar chana

Relatives in Connecticut went to a Mad Men-themed New Year's Eve party where guests were supposed to come in Mad Men appropriate attire and munch on food from the era. It's such a great idea—I was really jealous. The hosts served stuff like pigs in the blanket, deviled eggs, brisket cooked in Coca Cola, celery stuffed with cream cheese, Swedish meatballs, jello mold and whiskey cake. Hmmm. I wonder what the vegans ate in the 60s - probably brewers yeast loaf and rice patties!

Most vegan bloggers today probably weren't even born in the 60s, or were too young to be cooking. I was there, but still at home with my parents, and not cooking or thinking much about food choices. Some of the above foods, like the brisket in Coke and the whiskey cake, I've never heard of, but the others are at least familiar. (I just recently stuffed (tofu) cream cheese into celery!) But I have a clear memory of Swedish meatballs. Those were popular for a long time, and I remember my aunt serving them and telling me, with great excitement, her "secret" recipe. She mixed a bottle of ketchup and a can of 7-up to achieve the unique flavor of the sauce that made the meatballs the special treat that they were. Do people still do this? I wonder. I almost considered creating a vegan version but then had second thoughts.

Instead of 1960s American party food, here is a post about the timeless Indian cuisine that we enjoyed on New Year's Day.

My son wanted to make samosas for dinner and he found a video on the Internet with step by step directions. After consulting with me, he made a couple of changes to the recipe. He used white whole wheat flour and whole wheat pastry flour for the crust (had to add more flour than in the recipe), and he baked them instead of frying them. I didn't see him make the filling but he said he used carrots instead of peppers. He rolled the pastry really thin and the resulting samosas were fantastic—light and delicate. They weren't heavy and greasy like they sometimes are at restaurants. The pastry he used to make 8 samosas used only 1 teaspoon of oil plus a light spray before baking!




To go with the samosas we had a low-fat variation of aloo gobhi with the addition of peas and garbanzos. It was tasty and satisfying. The recipe was adapted from a book we found at our local library.

Potatoes, cauliflower, peas and chickpeas (Aloo gobhi matar chana) adapted from a recipe in "Indian Light Cooking."

• 1 cup cauliflower florets
• 2 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch cubes
• 10 ounces frozen green peas
• 1 cup cooked chickpeas, drained and rinsed if from a can
• 1/2 teaspoon ground tumeric
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon red pepper powder (or ground cayenne pepper to taste)
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 2 teaspoons canola oil
• 1 can crushed tomatoes (or 1-1/2 cups finely chopped fresh)
• 2 tablespoons fresh coriander, chopped

1. Steam the potatoes, covered, in a small amount of water for about 5 minutes. Add the cauliflower and steam about 5 minutes more until almost tender.
2. Combine the tumeric, cumin, red pepper powder and coriander in a small bowl. Heat the oil in a large non-stick skillet or wok over moderate heat. Add the spices to the pan and stir-fry for about 5 seconds. (don't burn!)
3. Add the drained potatoes and cauliflower (just remove them from the steaming pan with a slotted spoon) and chickpeas, and stir fry until they are lightly browned.
4. Add the tomatoes and cook 1 to 2 minutes.
5. Add about 1/4 cup of water. (use the vegetable cooking water if any is left)
6. Add the peas.
7. Cover and cook for 3 to 4 minutes or until the vegetables are tender.
8. Add salt to taste. Garnish with coriander.

Cauliflower and potato curry

I usually cook fairly low-fat dishes and would probably use only half the fat called for in this recipe. However, I have on occasion used the full amount to fantastic effect. I love low-fat food and think it tastes great, and you can make this dish low fat. I'm going to list the full amount in the recipe and let you decide. The original recipe calls for ghee, but I substitute olive oil and vegan margarine, or just oil. The margarine gives it a richer taste. If this is going to be only one part of a meal, I use only veggies, but if I intend it as the main (or only) dish for a simple supper, I may add chick peas. It's based on a recipe from "Lord Krishna's Cuisine The Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking" by Yamuna Devi. This is a seriously amazing book - not vegan but adaptable. This is a fairly simple dish to prepare and one of my favorites.

Cauliflower and potato curry
-2 hot green chilies, stemmed, seeded and cut lengthwise into long slivers
-1 inch of fresh ginger root, peeled and julienned
-1 teaspoon cumin seeds
-1/2 teaspoon black mustard seeds
-2 tablespoons olive oil and 2 tablespoons margarine
-3 medium potatoes, peeled and cut in 1/2 inch cubes
-1 medium cauliflower cored and cut into small flowerets
-2 medium sized tomatoes (in season) or 1 can chopped tomatoes, drained (reserve liquid)
-1/2 teaspoon tumeric
-2 teaspoons ground coriander
-1/2 teaspoon garam masala
-1 teaspoon brown sugar
-1 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 cup coarsely chopped fresh coriander or parsley
Heat the oil/margarine in a large heavy skillet, non-stick skillet or wok until hot but not smoking. Add the chilies, ginger, cumin seeds and mustard seeds and fry until the mustard sputters and pops. Add the potatoes and cauliflower and stir fry about 5 minutes until the veggies get some brown spots.

Add the tomatoes, turmeric,coriander,garam masala,sugar,salt and half the fresh coriander. Stir well, cover and cook over low heat for about 20 minutes or until the veggies are tender. Stir occasionally during cooking and make sure the veggies aren't sticking or burning. Add some reserved tomato juice or water if necessary. Garnish with reserved cilantro.
serves 5 or 6