Food. Fall is about food.

Is it that this is the time of year when our ancestors used to harvest and store food, is it the natural turn of the seasons that signal our bodies to want hearty, warm meals?  I don't know what it is, but in the fall I want to cook and I want to eat hearty, filling, and probably fattening foods.

Friday I was off and I spent a good bit of time cooking.  For lunch I made curried roasted butternut squash and put it on a salad with crunch sprouts (these are new for me, I love them!), goat cheese, & french lentils.

This week I went to a class on indian cooking and learned to make a few things (theoretically).

 

Hmf.  That came out smaller than I anticipated...

Anyway.  So yesterday I roasted my own spices.

 

So that's a no-go with the plastic spoon, it started to melt.  That's a first.

Then I ground them in a coffee grinder and made chicken curry that ACTUALLY tasted like real chicken curry, not just an acceptable at home substitute, but real chicken curry.  YUM.  Of course I forgot to take a pic of that, the eating took precedence there.

I also made what the instructor called mint chutney, this is what I know as the green stuff that comes with the papadum at restaurants.

 

And I made the papadum to go with it.  First of all, this is enough green stuff to serve at a dinner party and second of all, it was so hot that you couldn't eat more than two bites without crying.  We both like spicy food, so this was no meager level of spiciness.  I think this may be my fault, the recipe said green chiles, the only green chiles I found at the market were serrano chiles, and they're green, so I put in two of those (recipe said four, but they smelled really hot, so I held back).  Maybe serranos are hotter than those little green chiles?  Either that or I got super, super hot chiles.  Whatever happened, I have no idea what we're going to do with this much of it!

Verdict:  Delicious and worth all the effort with the spice roasting & all that.

Tonight - chicken parm

 

with fresh pasta from DiBruno Bros.  Again I say YUM.

Tomorrow - leftovers baby!

Comments

[Emily]

All that food is making me drool! yummy! we used to have plastic spoons and I melted two of them.

[Jocelyn]

Ooh, so much good food! I love making my own masala; I've been feeling the craving lately, and you may have inspired me. As for the mint chutney, I'd say freeze some, and mix some with some yoghurt for a slightly less spicy sauce...

[Jodi]

Mmmm... looks delicious and sounds like great fun!

[trek]

You could make another batch and don't add any pepper then combine the two batches couldn't you?