It's Been a While: Aloo Chana & Pumpkin Muffins

The other day Andrew said to me, "Remember when you had a blog?" This was joke of course, but it made me feel bad for abandoning the CV for so long. I recently received a copy of "The Conscious Cook" that I promised to try out and post about-- and while I have several good intentions to make some recipes from it, I haven't quite had the time recently. But that's changing. So, here I am. Crawling back. With a post about one of my longtime battles: Indian food. [[I'm trying out "The Conscious Cook" tonight, and will report back.]]

Anyway, Indian food, for whatever reason, is really flippin' hard to make taste right. The recipes online or even in cookbooks just don't match the flavors you get in restaurants. They're either bland or too sweet. I combated the sweetest in past attempts by removing things like cardamom and garam masala [[lots of cinnamon]], but a lot of flavor was still missing. After talking to a fellow vegan in the area [[evolution]] about enchilada recipes, it occurred to me that maybe a tomato based sauce wasn't right for an aloo chana. He mentioned that the enchilada sauce he liked is chili pepper and water based. So with this aloo chana, I cut out the tomatoes and went chili based.

And while this isn't exactly right, it's damn near the best Indian food I've ever made. You'll like it. I'm just trying to blindly recreate a flavor in my mind, so whenever I don't get it right, I'm frustrated. But at least this recipe tastes good.


[[Aloo Chana]]

2 14 oz cans of garbanzo beans, drained
3-4 red potatoes, chopped into bite sized pieces

2 Anaheim chilies, roasted and chopped
1 white onion, chopped
2 small red bell peppers, chopped [[when I say small, I mean organic small]]
5 cloves of garlic, minced
1 cup of no-chicken broth
juice of one small lemon

3 tbs vegetable oil
1/2 tsp mustard seed
1 1/2 tsp freshly ground Indian cumin
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper or more for heat
3/4 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp ginger
1-2 tsp of salt

1/2 cup soy creamer
3 tbs fresh chopped cilantro
a lemon peel
brown rice

-- Place the two Anaheim chilies on a cookie sheet under a high broiler and roast until they are blistered and black. This should take about 10 minutes. Be sure to rotate to get all sides. Remove them from the oven and place in a paper bag for 10 minutes.
-- While you roast the chilies, chop the potatoes and boil in salted water until tender, about 20 minutes.
-- Remove chilies from the bag, and remove the blistered skin. Chop the tops off and remove seeds. Place in a blender with chopped onion, bell peppers, lemon, garlic and 1/2 cup of broth. Blend until smooth. Set aside.
-- In a skillet, lightly toast the mustard seeds on medium heat for about five minutes. While that's toasting, blend the cumin seed in a coffee grinder or spice grinder. Add the ground cumin to the skillet and toast that with the mustard seed. Add the rest of the spices, except salt. Stir for about 2 minutes.
-- Add 2 tbs vegetable oil and the chickpeas. Stir coat the chickpeas and allow to cook for a few minutes.
-- Add the boiled potatoes and stir those to coat. Add the remaining 1 tbs of vegetable oil if necessary.
-- At this point add your puree. Let the chickpeas and potatoes sit in the chili puree on medium high heat for about 10 minutes. Add chopped cilantro, creamer, and salt. Stir. Let sit for another 2 minutes.
-- If it becomes to thick, use your left out broth to thin it out. Serve over brown rice or basmati rice. Garnish with more more cilantro and a lemon slice.


I realize Aloo Chana isn't very festive. A lot of bloggers this time of year go out of their way to give you awesome holiday recipes. And if I were more on top of things, I'd probably do that, too. But I'm not. I did however, have this looming can of puree pumkin that never made it's way to a pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving, so I made these pumpkin spice muffins from Vegan with a Vengence. If you've never made them [[and I've had this book for a while, and neglected to try them]], you definitely should. They taste like winter and smell like heaven. Really. Sub in whole wheat pastry flour, and they're practically guilt-free [[maybe]].

Andy's Mom & a Rachel Ray Recipe

Andy's mom cracks me up. She's a woman who loves blue cheese dressing and grilled cheese sandwiches, but gets angry when you say that's all she eats. She doesn't like rice, or Chinese, or Indian, or Mexican-- the list goes on. The funny thing is, she'll try to prove us wrong, by going out to eat at places we like, or like last night when she made Indian food. She loves Rachel Ray, so naturally when Ray made an Indian dish, she had to try it.

She made a spiced lamb chop [[seitan for us]] with sautéed peppers and onions with mint and garlic couscous [[recipe here, just sub vegetable stock for the chicken]]. Before that, she made a chick pea soup with fire roasted potatoes [[recipe here]]. It was all really good-- i liked everything. I was amazed at his mom's growth, until I realized, she didn't eat anything. She hated the soup; she hated the couscous. The only thing she liked was the lamb. It made me sad to see Karen hate what she made, but maybe some people, at a certain point, are completely unable to change. Although, I find it far more likely that people are just unwilling.

Either way, if you chop up the seitan into little, bite-sized pieces and really rub that spice mixture in, and grill it until it's really crispy-- it's delicious. I adored the couscous, and the veggies were standard. The soup is great with a little soy yogurt and lots of whole wheat pita. Try it out.

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Vegan Gyros with Tatziki

Last night, I wanted to try something different, so I looked up a vegan gyro recipe. Vegan Dad's recipe showed up, so I thought I'd give it a look and try it out. When it comes to this stuff, though, you have to be realistic with yourself. You're not going to get the same flavors as lamb. You just won't. This tastes, really, nothing like a gyro [[and Vegan Dad admits he's never had a lamb gyro before]], but it definitely references the flavors and is DAMN good-- I can assure you of that much.



I made quite a few variations to his recipe. We went for a whole wheat pita-- tastes just as good, but it's way better for you [[and when you're frying little gyro patties in oil-- why add empty calories?]]. And don't use a pocket pita. It's just stupid.

We also used Bragg's Liquid Aminos instead of that mushroom soy sauce for two reasons: we couldn't find that mushroom soy sauce anywhere, and the Liquid Aminos give you those essential and non-essential amino acids you miss as a vegan [[more on it here]]. We left out the sage and used a tad bit more of all the spices. Instead of plain tempeh, we used flax tempeh-- it's no different and tasted great still. I also had to use a big more Vital Wheat Gluten, because it wasn't sticking. Eventually it became elastic, and I could patty and fry it. You really need to knead it, though. Next time I'll chop my onions really fine and use maybe half an onion-- the onions all sorta fell out. For the tatziki, I used 3/4 of a container of Tofutti sour cream instead of tofu-- which tasted great. As a final touch, we spread some red pepper hummus on it, with half-moon cut red onions and tomatoes. It was pretty delicious. Go check Vegan Dad.

Tempeh Ruben and a little Zen

Andy and I decided, after the delicious success of the Tempeh Ruben from Vegan with a Vengeance we made on Christmas Eve, that we should do a Ruben night for his parents, which turned into a Ruben night for me, Andy, his mom, his dad, his brother, and his brother's girlfriend. I was mini-caterer-Tracy last night. I can't imagine an easier thing to serve in mass quantities, though-- just get a bunch of plastic bags, marinate all the tempeh, get a big grill, and grill up all the bread and tempeh --and voula! It was awesome to watch Andy's meat and potatoes family really enjoy something vegan [[or as his dad affectionately calls it -- vegan shit]]. It was probably the most fattening, high calorie vegan thing I could make them-- they're not really the type for a healthy flavor, though. It was a good time.

That deliciously high calorie sandwich can't help but bring New Year's resolutions to mind, even though I've never been one for resolutions. I try to stay in the mindset that the best time to do something is now. The more you wait, the more time that's wasted. Plus, the Zen philosophies Andy's always reading gets me thinking that setting goals or starting goals is the wrong way to think-- you shouldn't commit to quit smoking in the future or commit to lose weight. Your thoughts should be centered in the present-- right now, I am no longer a smoker; right now, I am a healthy person. I feel like one of those stupid pyramid scheme, self-help seminars-- but it's really true. You won't quit smoking if you still consider yourself a smoker, right? The goal needs to be in the present. So, hopefully, any resolution I come up with, I'll keep it in the now.

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The Truth About Jalapenos

A couple nights ago Andy and I tried our hand at making some jalapeno poppers. It was a fiasco. It's safe to say I will never work with raw jalapenos again. They turned out delicious, although it was really difficult to keep the breading on the popper. When we washed out the insides of the popper, it got on our skin, under our nails, in my eyes [[apparently after washing your hands several times, it's still not safe to touch your eyes]]-- upon reflection, some gloves really would of been smart to use. The steam from the hot water brought up all the spiciness into the air, so it got in our throats, noses, and eyes. It was like cutting an onion on crack. I really didn't know jalapenos could be so spicy-- these seem so mild in restaurants, it's truly deceiving. And even after we completely removed everything from the insides, it was like playing Russian Roulette-- every now and then, one of them was unbearably spicy [[I didn't get one, but Andy, the spicy food master, was forced to drink soy milk to curb the spiciness-- a true rarity]].

But if you're braver than I and want to make these, too, I recommend not using hot water to clean them and wearing gloves. For the insides, I used some horseradish brown mustard, tofutti cream cheese, and a little vegenaise-- turned out really tasty. The breading was difficult and didn't turn out well, so maybe you have a better idea, I just dipped them in soy milk and then rolled them around in some panko bread crumbs and pan fried them in a little oil. Some stayed on but most didn't. [[I'll have pictures up soon]]

Andy also made some philly cheese steak sandwiches. We used a cheesy sauce recipe from the Veganomicon, and grilled some onions and seitan with steak seasoning. THAT turned out to be delicious.

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Once I hated Indian food, then I tried Aloo Chana...

Back in Berkeley Andy and Tristan found the Dollar Curry House. Andy raved about it-- and at the time, I absolutely hated Indian food. It's just so-- bold! But I went there with him and enjoyed it, but it wasn't really my favorite thing ever. [[Although, if you love lentil soup, they have really bomber lentil soup there.]]

Then, a few weeks ago, after a gig in Dayton, Andy insisted that we make a stop in Cincinnati to get this Indian food he missed so much-- a restaurant called Amol. Apprehensively, I went, hoping to convince myself that it was really amazing. I tried Aloo Chana for the first time, and it was amazing; ultimately, it has left me with the desire to never be without it, so I hunted online for a recipe. And although it could never compare to the sweet goodness of Amol, it was pretty tasty.

So, Aloo Chana is pretty much just chickpeas and potatoes. It doesn't have any tomato flavor at all, which made me shocked to find out that was the base of the sauce. It's going to look funny before it looks right, but just trust the recipe.



The basic recipe I found online:
* 2-3 Tbsp olive oil
* Cumin seeds [[didn't use it]]
* 1 medium onion (chopped) [[used a red onion]]
* 3-4 cloves of garlic (chopped or crushed) [[I used 5 or 6-- but I love garlic]]
* 1-2 tomatoes to taste, chopped
* 2 Tbsp tomato sauce [[just tomato puree, nothing else]]
* 2 cans of chickpeas
* 2 large potatoes cut into cubes (can pre-cook it for speed)
** My altered spice assortment [do it all to taste]: cumin, coriander, salt, pepper, red pepper, garam masala, paprika, chili powder (not very Indian, but I like the spicy flavor), some hot sauce [[again not very Indian, but it made it spicy-- I don't know how they do it otherwise!]]

Heat oil, throw a few cumin seeds in to test temperature, fry onions and garlic until soft and brown (but not burnt).
Add tomatoes, spices and salt and stir.
Add tomato sauce, chickpeas, and potato. Cook until potato it's not necessary]]

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