Thursday, March 19, 2009

Indian Cooking Class

I took the Indian Food at the Speed of Life cooking class at PCC this month. It was taught by Archana Verma. She had a ton of interesting stories to tell about the recipes and life growing up in India. Not to mention all of the great food that she made. I'll be on the lookout for more classes taught by Archana - so should you if you're in the Seattle/Eastside area.

The class was a demo style class (vs. hands on). I think this made more sense because there was a lot of info / techniques that there wouldn't have been time for if it were a hands on class.

The class was especially fun because I took it with 3 people that I know.

Chai. You gotta have this w/ Indian food. It's the law or should be. Heaven would be a tea cart that delivered chai to me multiple times during the day.

Cilantro Mint Chutney. It was really good. I could eat this stuff by the plateful.

Masoor Dal (curried red lentils). Deeeelicious. If I'm eating chutney by the plateful, then I'm drinking dal by the bucketful. Seriously, I'm super picky about dal and this one was awesome.

Jeera Pulao (cumin rice) & Chana Masala (Garbanzo bean curry). The chana masala was a total winner. Archana somehow got into my head and made all of my favorites! I'm also really picky about chana masala and this one was perfect for me. It had the right balance of tomato to spice to garbanzo.
Unfortunately, If you're not careful, you can get curry on your teeth. These are parts of the other 2 vegans in the class.

Mixed Vegetable Subzi in a wrap. OMG this was really good w/ all of the fresh veggies. The wrap itself is by IndianLife and it has spinach in it - I use these all the time and they freeze well.
Here's another view of the wrap showing off it's tomato side. Don't you love the dirty plate? My plate (above) wasn't dirty because I had licked it clean. I can give Kobie a run for his money in the plate licking department.
~~~~~

Here's a rare pic of Nibbler. He hates having his picture taken, even when the flash is off. That's the snow we had last week in the background. grumble.

5 comments:

wingraclaire said...

You always do the best restaurant reporting! My friend is moving to Seattle and even though she knows her way around there, I'm sure she'd like to see all of this. (And this is her blog: http://www.cookeasyvegan.blogspot.com/ )

You make me want to live where all that good food is!

Amy said...

Sorry about your corned seitan (I've had many MANY seitan disasters!). All the food you've posted here is making me superbly hungry though! I'm dying for some of that Cilantro Mint Chutney! I'm such a Cilantro fan!!! And that dal looks awesome too. Mmmmm. I might have to make some Indian meals this week I think!

Amy said...

Oh! And I just adore Nibbler! He's adorable!

Zoey said...

I am so amazed by all the classes that you take. Everything looks delicious!

Felicity said...

I love Indian food and that all looks so awesome, especially the dal. If I ever make it to your neck of the woods, we will have to take a cooking class together. It looks like such fun.