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.

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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.

Testing 123 - Sugarfest

The testing part of the title was to get the email subscriptions working. The sugarfest, is well just what it sounds like.

Over the past week or so, I made Jelly Donut Cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. I used strawberry jam in mine. Very easy way to make a filled cupcake. Yummy stuff.

I also made Isa's chocolate chip cookies from her recent post. They were very very good. Andy had his in a sundae with Soy Dream chocolate ice cream, banana, and peanut butter (that part he didn't eat because he doesn't know what tasty is).

I harassed Nibbler to get these photos. Not exactly perfect, but at least he didn't run away. The second picture is his special message to me on what he thinks of the camera.

VeganMoFo day #23 - Chickpea Pleasing

I made sandwiches with SusanV's Creamy Chickpea Salad with Fresh Herbs for lunch today. Really yummy. It does sort of remind me of tuna fish, but not in a gross fishy way. It was really easy to prepare and the flavor was awesome. Thanks so much Susan for always being so generous and sharing your recipes.

Nibbler likes to hide and he hates the camera, so this is a typical pic of him. I'm sure everybody knows where I got his name.