I Cooked Indian Food!

I'm a lady who loves food. I love eating. And I love going out to restaurants. However with the economy being the way it is I'm tightening my belt - both figuratively and literally. A crappy economy won't stop me from enjoying good eats. Luckily for me, I don't mind cooking and sometimes I get a bee in my bonnet about a particular something.

For example, I've been craving Indian food for a few weeks. And it didn't help or hurt that I stumbled up a Yellow Dal recipe. Then I found a super deelish sounding chicken recipe that would go perfectly with the Dal. And then I determined that I need to make Saag Paneer again. From there people were invited to the house and a dinner party was born.

I had cooked Indian food before. When Paul and I first moved to Toronto. We didn't know anyone and I wasn't working so it was the perfect thing to do. I made Butter Chicken and Saag Paneer and it took all day. Get details and photos here. To sum up: my Butter Chicken rocked but my Saag Paneer was totally tasteless.

Once again, I made my own paneer. It's an incredibly easy thing to do. You just have to follow the steps just right.

Here I am cooking the onions, garlic and spices before I add them to the lentil/tomato puree.

Here's the spinach before we chopped it up and added the paneer. Still not the best saag paneer but much better than my first try.

The chicken was outstanding! In fact it was the "best" of all the dishes.

All-in-all dinner wasn't half bad. I definitely will make both the chicken and the dal again. And I really want to get the paneer recipe right. I kinda wish I had gotten better photos of the finished food but we were too hungry to wait. Maybe next time.

I'm back!

Did you miss me? Or are you wondering who this person is who barely posts? Are you even reading this anymore? (Bueller? Bueller?)

Anyhoo, I have to say that the trip was awesome. I spend quality time with a friend in need, ate amazing food (natch!) and soaked up the sun when I could. I even came back with the slightest of tans. (Go me!)

Yes, that is a fried chicken sandwich. I'm drooling just thinking about it. Of course, I didn't take a picture of my favorite SF food, the burrito. But trust me when I say I enjoyed a few. If I'm stumped as why my pants no longer fit maybe you can remind me of that fact.

Unfortunately I had very little time for knitting, but I'm not asking for a pity party. I did have something like 10+ hours waiting in airports/airplanes, so I did get a little time for my favorite craft.

Behold, it looks like a sock!

Although don't look too closely at my heel. I was trying to multi task and my eye of partridge looks like normal knitting in a spot or two. Also the heel is really tight. I can get it on my foot but not without a little bit of a struggle. I'm trying to decide if I should rip it out or not.

Any thoughts?