Trip to India

   Summer has mostly been a time of trips (beach and Greenville), visiting with friends and family (yay for Lea being here from Germany and the kids' cousins coming into town!), camps, and play time (oh, and the occasional stomach bug, fever, or cough); but every now and then I would have the kids do a small school assignment to not get too out of practice.  The past few weeks, we slowly covered some information about ancient India and enjoyed reading Indian folk tales during our bedtime reading.  Tonight we journeyed deeper into Indian culture with a feast!  After our Roman Popina dinner, I decided that an evening of food and music would be a great way for us to end any of our lessons on other countries, which I'd love to continue to share with you here!  So, let's go to India!!

I have a friend who regularly makes Indian food, so I asked her for her favorite recipes (thanks, Liz!).  I printed the 5 recipes out and wrote a LONG grocery list for all of the many spices and goodness the recipes called for.  Our first trip to the store involved losing our van key (ahem, little boys going through Mommy's purse), an Uber trip to rescue the stranded, and the acquirement of most of the needed ingredients.  Later we visited the Indian Grocery, and the kind gentleman there helped me find the beans of strange names I've never heard of, paneer cheese, and fenugreek leaves.

We began cooking at 1:30, with LOTS of spices filling the counters.  William and Vera chopped and measured, and then I realized our mangos were overripe and we were missing cardamom, so I headed to the store for the 3rd time for this meal.

I learned towards the end of our cooking that Indian food has some primary ingredients in each dish, which if prepared in mass could cut way back on all the prep time (this was my first time cooking Indian food!).  So, for example, tomato puree was in three of my dishes, but I pureed tomatoes 3 separate times!  Also, making a paste of ginger and garlic was in each of these three recipes, but I prepared it twice (because I caught on after a while and at least managed to not have to do it 3 times!).  Chop all your onions at once too, while you're at it.  Oh, then I realized that during the fiasco of losing our van key in shopping trip #1 I must not have put the bag of rice in our cart, so I had to run to the store for time #4 for rice.

Once the food was prepared (4 hours of cooking!) Vera put on her fancy forehead dot that she bought at the Indian Grocery, and the gals put on our best Indian clothing.  Silas decided that his fancy jacket should be worn.  We listened to Baliwood music as we cooked and to a friend's old band, Aradhna, as we ate (thanks, Travis and Liz for the part you played in this meal!).

William loved the mango chutney, which he said "smelled like apple cider," but he didn't care for much else.  Vera loved everything (she is an adventurous eater), and the little boys mostly ate rice and mango.  Us adults, however, we loved everything!  What a delicious feast!  And I even had enough to freeze a few meals, which may come in handy after baby boy arrives.

India, you taste yummy.  

Dishes: Saag Paneer, Raita, Mango Chutney, Dal fry, Daal Makhani