My first foray into the pumpkin korma yielded something more akin to an aloo gobi. Very tasty, but not a korma. After revisiting the recipe again, and adding more So Delicious Plain Greek-Style Coconut Yogurt is what finally made this recipe exactly what I wanted it to be: a satisfying, rich, warming korma!

Despite the rich taste of this dish, a cup serving has only 1 gram of saturated fat, is high in fiber, loaded in vitamins, and is gluten-free too! Enjoy it as an appetizer, a compliment a homemade, Indian feast, or a fabulous, creative addition to your Thanksgiving celebration!

Since this was a dish I envisioned the first time I got to try out some of the the Greek-Style yogurt from So Delicious, I’m delighted that it was selected for the second week of the So Delicious® Dairy Free “SO Much to Love” recipe contest happening on Facebook!

The Stuff

• 6 cups diced pumpkin
• 1/2 medium head of cauliflower, cut into bite-size pieces
• 2 large cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 medium zucchini, 1″ dice
• 1 large yellow bell pepper, 1″ dice
• 1″ of fresh ginger, peeled and minced
• 15oz canned, diced tomatoes
• 1 large onion, diced small
• 2 8oz containers of So Delicious, Greek-style, plain coconut yogurt
• 1/2 t whole cumin seed
• 1 T ground turmeric
• 6 whole cardamom pods
• 1 c water
• High heat spray canola oil

The Making

Heat a 6 qt sauce pan to medium heat. Lightly spray the bottom of the pot and add the cumin seeds. Toast seeds for 30-60 seconds, until they are browned and fragrant.

Add onion and saute 5 minutes, add minced ginger and garlic. Sprinkle ground turmeric over all ingredients, add in cardamom pods and mix in. Continue to saute, stirring occasionally, for 5-7 more minutes. Onions should be beginning to brown and caramelize. Add diced pumpkin, reduce heat to medium-low, and saute for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add cauliflower and stir in.

Combine yogurt and tomatoes in blender. Process until smooth and creamy. Add mixture to pot. Rinse blender container out with the 1 cup of water, and pour into the pot. Mix everything together well.

Cover pot with lid. Reduce heat to low and let simmer for 25-40 minutes, until pumpkin is tender.

Serve by itself, with rice, or along with some dahl. Just watch out for those cardamom pods, they’re quite shocking to get whole.

Makes 8-9 1-cup servings, depending upon the size of your head of cauliflower.

Nutrition Details

Serving Size: 1 cup
Calories: 85
Total Fat: 1g
Saturated fat: 1g
Sodium: 49 mg
Carbohydrates: 17g
Dietary Fiber: 4g
Sugars: 5g
Protein: 3g

This dish can be served hot or at room temperature as a kind of warm salad. The combination of the sweetness of the cabbage, the green chili, mustard and the earthiness of the turmeric is so satisfying. It makes a great side dish along with some rice and dal.

The Stuff

• 1 small head of green cabbage
• 1 small shallot
• 1 small green chili (jalapeno)
• 1/2 t brown mustard seeds
• 1/4 t ground turmeric
• salt, to taste

The Making

Quarter the head of cabbage and cut out the core. Shred into thin ribbons.

Slice shallot in half and cut into very thin ribbons.

Cut off top and end of green chili, split in half. Remove all seeds and white core. Slice chili halves into very small ribbons.

Heat a skillet to medium-high heat and spray with high-heat canola oil. Add shallot and saute for 3 minutes, add in green chili and continue to saute another 3-4 minutes, until shallot is caramelized. Add mustard seeds to pan, saute another minute or until the seeds begin to pop.

Add the cabbage to the saute pan and turn  well to mix in shallots and chili slices. Continue to saute 7 minutes, stirring occasionally, until cabbage is fully wilted. Sprinkle turmeric over the top and keep tossing cabbage to distribute the turmeric.

Once the cabbage is fully wilted and evenly coated with the turmeric, remove from heat. Either serve immediately or let cool to room temperature before serving.

Serves 4

On Christmas Day friends of ours brought us a pint jar with 2 halves of Meyer lemon preserved in salt. I’ve been kicking around the idea of a pulao using slices of of the lemon. The result was absolutely fantastic.

This dish could be made without the preserved lemon, but it adds such an amazing flavor to the rice that it is worth finding it, making them, or befriending people who make them and give you some!

The Stuff

• 2 cups* brown basmati rice
• Juice and grated rind from a large lemon
• 8 green cardamom pods
• 1 small shallot, cut in half, then into very thin slices
• 2 T Earth Balance (or your preferred vegan margarine)
• 1 t ground turmeric
• 1/2 t amchur
• 2 T cashew halves
• 4 cups* water
• 2 1/4″ slices of preserved lemon, salt dusted off and any seeds removed
• Additional salt, to taste (preferably the salt from the lemon if you have it)
• 3 T chopped, fresh coriander

The Making

Rinse rise and soak in water 10-15 minutes. Drain well.

Bring a skillet to medium-high heat, add Earth Balance and bring up to heat. Add shallot and saute 5 minutes, until the shallot beings to caramelize. Add in the cashews and continue to saute another 3 minutes before carefully adding in the well-drained rice. Saute the mixture for 5 minutes, stirring often, until rice begins to brown, then sprinkle ground spices over the top and mix in evenly.

Add rice into cooker pot along with lemon rind, lemon juice, cardamom and slices of preserved lemon. Add water in to the 2 cup mark f0r brown rice, close lid and set to cook.

After rice finishes cooking open lid, remove lemon slices, and stir. Remove any remaining lemon from the rind, cut up and return to pot. Slice rind into small pieces and add them back to pot. Stir in sliced up lemon and add salt to taste. Stir in fresh coriander.

*When I mention “cup” here it is referring to the measuring cup that come with the rice cooker. I also don’t measure the water with the same cup, I use the lines inside the cooker pot to get the right amount of water.

Yes, you can totally make this on the stove. Just saute shallot and rice in a 3-quart stock pot, add water, bring to boil, reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until rice is tender.

Serves 6-8

** This Recipe is Only a Test and is Still in Progress **

This recipe was inspired by a recipe we found in Kathy Hester’s book, The Vegan Slow Cooker. Her recipe calls for a slow cooked dal featuring a sweet potato, yellow split peas and chard. Check out this cookbook, by the bye, it is given us a lot of ideas for new ways to use our slow cooker.

During our first year of produce delivery we received enormous piles of it from Organics to You. We also had volunteers of it coming up all over the garden. We steamed it, braised it, baked it, put it in soups, stir-fried it…. and by the end of that season we had come to the rather embarrassing decision that we really don’t like chard. Beet greens too, for that matter. Mustard greens aren’t entirely a fave either, although I like them more than Christie.

So that was the first thing we wanted to change. No chard, but we did have collards on hand and decided to use those instead for our green.I thought this was a good choice since classical saags often feature mustard greens or spinach. Collards have such a great combination of that mustard note with a green sweetness, that they’d be perfect against the rich, earthy dal.

Two reasons we changed out the pulse used. Kathy Hester calls for yellow split peas, which are easy to find and tasty. We happened to be out of them, but I’d just picked up a bag of channa dal when we were at a Desi market shopping for spices. Channa dal are split black chickpeas (really just a very dark brown) and they have a wonderful texture. You could just use yellow split peas, but if you happened to have a pan-Asian or Desi market, it is totally worth the trip to use the more authentic channa dal. You can find all the spices I mentioned while you’re shopping for this particular dal.

We go out fairly often for Indian food at family restaurants. One of our favorite places features various Southern India specialties, which are usually far spicier. With this palate we found the mix of spices used in Kathy’s recipe to be far too mild and tame to bear much resemblance to the richly spiced dals we’re accustomed to. Christie asked me to change up the spices to something closer to our favorite restaurant dishes.

The resulting dal still owes inspiration to Kathy Hester’s, particularly with the inclusion of a large sweet potato that eventually melts into a thick gravy for the dal. Her cookbook has been inspiring us to find more slow cooker recipes, this dal being one of the first.

The Stuff

• 1 small onion, medium dice
• 1″ fresh ginger, peeled and minced
• 1 1/2 cup channa dal, picked over and washed
• 1 large sweet potato, diced
• 2 bunches of collard greens or kale, de-stemed, washed and sliced up small
• 4 cups water
• 2 t garam masala
• 1 t ground turmeric
• 1/2 t ground cumin
• 1/2 t hing
• 1/2 t amchur
• 1/2 t ground cayenne pepper
• 1/4 t cumin seeds
• 1/4 t panch poran
• 1/4 t brown mustard seeds
• salt, to taste

The Making

Heat a saute pan and spray a little canola oil, add onions and saute 5 minutes. Onions should be translucent. Add the seeds and saute for a minute. Sprinkle in the powdered spices, and stir everything to coat the onions, being careful to not burn any of the spices. Saute for a minute, stirring constantly and heat all the spices. You will have a very dry mixture at this point with the onions well coated. I recommend a cast iron skillet for the kind of dry frying of spices this step takes.

Add sauteed onions and spices to the slow cooker along with the remaining ingredients. Cook on high for 9 hours. After 8 hours of cooking add the washed, chopped greens and let them cook into the dal. Stir occasionally to help the greens cook in evenly.

If you want to make this with yellow split peas you will want to cook on low setting and for less time, 6-8 hours.

You could make this a lot spicier by throwing in some dried, red chili pods. A channa dal we’re served at the South Indian place has little hot chili pods floating in it and the flavor is pretty awesome. A green chile, chopped small, would also add a pleasant spice.

Serves 6-8

This is something of a recipe in progress. That said, it is a very tasty and a lovely autumn dish. There will be future variations yet to come!

There will be at least one more variation of this dish as I’m not quite yet satisfied with the creaminess of it. It may just be that I want more coconut yogurt in it, but I’m also thinking I want about half the tomatoes. Right now it reminds me more of a variation on aloo gobi than the creamy korma I’m after.

Be sure to check out the new thing at the bottom… I’ve decided to start using data from NutritionData.com with recipes.

The Stuff

• 3 cups diced pumpkin
• 1 medium head of cauliflower, cut into bite-size pieces
• 1 large clove of garlic, minced
• 1″ of fresh ginger, peeled and minced
• 15oz canned, diced tomatoes
• 1 large onion, diced small
• 8oz container of So Delicious, Greek-style, plain coconut yogurt
• 1/2 t whole cumin seed
• 1 t ground turmeric
• 6 whole cardamom pods
• 1 c water
• High heat spray canola oil

The Making

Heat a 5qt. cast iron pot to medium heat, or use a 6 qt sauce pan, with lid.

Lightly spray the bottom of the pot and add the cumin seeds. Toast seeds for 30-60 seconds, until they are browned and fragrant.

Add onion and saute 5 minutes, add minced ginger and garlic. Sprinkle ground turmeric over all ingredients, add in cardamom pods and mix in. Continue to saute, stirring occasionally, for 5-7 more minutes. Onions should be beginning to brown and caramleize. Add diced pumpkin, reduce heat to medium-low, and saute for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add cauliflower and stir in.

Combine yogurt and tomatoes in blender. Process until smooth and creamy. Add mixture to pot. Rinse blender container out with the 1 cup of water, and pour into the pot. Mix everything together well.

Cover pot with lid. Reduce heat to low and let simmer for 25-40 minutes, until pumpkin is tender.

Serve by itself, with rice, or along with some dahl (I’m also working on a Rajma Masala dish right now). Just watch out for those cardamom pods, they’re quite shocking to get whole.

Makes 8 1/2 cup servings.

Nutrition Details

Serving Size: 1/2 cup
Calories: 66
Total Fat: 1g
Saturated fat: 1g
Sodium: 46 mg
Carbohydrates: 13g
Dietary Fiber: 4g
Sugars: 5g
Protein: 3g

• 1 small sweet or red onion (diced)
• 1 small can diced tomatoes (drained)
• 3oz grilled extra firm tofu (diced)
• 1 smallish cucumber, peeled, seeded, and diced
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1/2 cup slivered roasted almonds or cashews
• 1 tbsp curry powder
• pinch of saffron
• 1 lime
• chopped cilantro

Make quinoa as per normal, adding the curry powder & saffron in with the simmering water. While simmering, peel, slice and seed the cucumber, place in strainer and salt liberally to remove water. When quinoa finishes, let it cool to room temp, then combine all other ingredients. Let sit for at least 2 hours in fridge to allow flavors to meld. Serve cold topped with cilantro & fresh lime wedges to squeeze over.

I was inspired by a radish greens & kale saag a friend of mine mentioned recently and wanted to give it a try. While at the co-op I was thrilled with some gorgeous beets with lush greens and brought them home to try out. I am going to be making this again and soon, so a picture of this beautiful dish will be up soon.

Leaves & stems of at least 4 beets are needed. You should end up with about a cup of chopped stems and around 4 cups of leaves. I’ve also made this with a mix of beet greens and chard. Kale would be great… pretty much any greens will do!

The Stuff!

• beet stems, chopped
• beet greens, large leaves torn a little
• half a medium, sweet onion, diced
• 2 inches ginger, peeled and minced
• 1 teaspoon garlic paste or 2-3 cloves minced (out of garlic, oops)
• 1 T mild oil
• 1/2 t Panch Poran (check out a Desi shop for this)
• salt & lemon juice to taste

Saute onion in oil until it begins to brown and caramelize. Add in garlic, ginger and then the Panch Poran, cooking until fragrant. Then add in beet stems, a little salt, and cover. You may want to add a tablespoon or so of water to help steam the stems. After the stems start to soften a little add the greens and cover until they begin to wilt. Toss greens with stems and onions below to blend all together. Continue to cook covered until stems are cooked (we still like them kinda firm). Toss with a little more salt and lemon juice before serving.

A pudi, or “Powder” in Hindi, is part spice blend and part thickener used in many Indian dishes, especially soups or stews. Rather than breaking down all the spices, grains and legumes at the time of cooking a dish, like sambar, they are mixed together in a fine powder that can then be added when needed to a dish.

This particular pudi is used to thicken and richly flavor sambar, a lentil stew.

2 teaspoons chana dal
1 teaspoon red lentils
1 teaspoon brown lentils or yellow split peas
1/4 teaspoon peppercorns
2 Tablespoons coriander seeds
1 Tablespoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon fenugreek seeds
1 Tablespoon long-grain rice, raw
2-inches cinnamon stick
20 fresh kari leaves (or 1 teaspoon crushed, dried)
3 dried red chilies (stemmed, seeded, broken into pieces)

Preheat a large skillet, add all ingredients and toast over a medium heat until the mixture is very aromatic and the rice has toasted brown.

Cool mixture and grind into a fine powder*

Sambar pudi will keep in the refrigerator for up to 6 months in an airtight, glass jar. 3 months if kept unrefrigerated.

*I have found that a small, electric coffee grinder works nicely. Run a tablespoon or two of raw, white rice through first to clear out coffee residue. After grinding pudi run more raw rice to clean again.

Still, no pictures. Really, I will get better about this. I also realize that it is December and Diwali is many weeks past now, but I am at least going to get my recipe for sambar posted!

Sambar, a lentil stew very popular in India, is one of my favorite dishes. Over the past few years I’ve been learning to make some of the foods I most enjoy. I try to read many recipes and if it is a dish I eat at a restaurant, I try to pay close attention to what I enjoy (or sometimes dislike) about the dish. After aloo gobi (potatoes and cauliflower, Indian style), sambar is high on my list of favorite Indian dishes.

The third part of my recipe, the oil and spices added at the end, is derived from the one in the Laxmi’s Vegetarian Kitchen cookbook. I really find this flavor to be so nice that I haven’t varied it much. In looking at other recipes this does seem to be pretty standard, a few differences here and there (more chilies, some other spices).

DO make the effort to get toor dal and fresh kari leaves (I like shopping for Desi items at India-4-U)! These particular details are part of what will make this dish taste like Indian home cooking. There are many steps to this dish and one step involves hot oil (very exciting), it is entirely worth the effort. I am very pleased to share that my sambar leaves my co-workers from Chennai smiling and happy!

This makes a huge amount of sambar — I often make it for office potlucks (like the one for Diwali this year). It freezes quite nicely too!

Sambar
makes 4 quarts

Step One — The Toor Dal

• 2 cups toor dal
• 5 cups water

Wash lentils and put into pot with water. Bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer until lentils are soft. The lentils will begin to break apart. If you are using a pressure cooker, the toor dal cook in 8 minutes.

The lentils are pre-cooked; half will be used immediately in the stew and will thicken it. The other half will be added at the end for more texture.

Step Two — The Stew Base

• 5 cups water
• 1 cup carrot in 1/4″ rounds
• 3 cup chopped cauliflower (Romanesco broccoli is also nice)
• 2 1/2 cups chopped, fresh tomatoes (yes, canned is OK, but if you have fresh, use them, it is worth the effort)
• 1 cup green beans, snapped into 1″ pieces
• 3 Tablespoons chopped fresh coriander (cilantro)
• 2 teaspoon sea salt (more or less, to taste)
• 1 teaspoon cane sugar
• 2 Tablespoons Sambar Pudi
• 2 Tablespoons tamarind paste (e.g. Tamco Tamarind)

Add water and chopped vegetables to large stock pot and bring to boil. Reduce heat, add half the toor dal, half the fresh coriander, salt, sugar, sambar pudi, tamarind, and stir well. Simmer, covered until vegetables are tender.

Step Three — The Exciting Part!

• 2 Tablespoons oil
• 1 teaspoon mustard seed
• 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
• 4 dried, red chilies – stemmed, seeded and broken into 1″ pieces (more or less of these to change the heat level of the stew)
• 30 fresh kari leaves
• 1/4 teaspoon turmeric

Heat oil in pan, add seeds and chilies and fry until spices are fragrant (mustard seeds may begin to pop). Add in turmeric and quickly incorporate. Add kari leaves in last (these will make quite a lot of noise as they fry in the hot oil, a splatter shield is useful). After leaves are frying scrape all spices into the pot of vegetables and lentils (again, there will be quite a lot of noise as the hot oil hits the stew).

Simmer the sambar for at least 15 minutes more to allow the spices, lentils and vegetables come together. Stir in the remaining toor dal & fresh coriander and allow to simmer again for 5 minutes before serving.

Garnish with additional fresh coriander. Serve with rice, cream of wheat pilafs, and pappadum.

I suck – again, no pictures! I will just have to make some of these again and photograph.

Two of my co-workers are here from India and they came up with the idea of having a big lunch to celebrate Diwali. This is a huge, multi-day festival celebrated across India; a time for big gatherings and lots of food. My co-workers missed this celebration working in Portland, Oregon, so decided to bring it to their American teammates.

When I started looking at recipes for desserts I noted that they all contained dairy products. This is pretty standard for Indian sweets, so I never have any now (oh, how I miss gulab jamun). The only way to ensure a sweet at a potluck, should I desire one, is to make them myself. Not being really familiar with any of the sweets in the recipes for Diwali I thought I’d try out the recipe for cashew cardamom cupcakes in Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. I hadn’t yet and have always thought it sounded tasty.

A couple of days before the potluck I stopped into my favorite Desi market, India-4-U, to pick up fresh kari leaves for making sambar. While purchasing these I was chatting with one of the owners, Alka, about my plans to make the cupcakes although I know they’re not traditional.

She looked at me and said, “Oh, you should make besan ladoo!”

I know what besan is, but a ladoo?? Alka assured me it was easy, if time consuming, to cook the besan. She knows I’m vegan and that I have something I use where ghee is called for (hoaray, Earth Balance). She said that ghee was the only non-vegan thing in besan ladoo, so I should have an easy time of it. Besan ladoo, she insisted, we the best thing to make as a sweet for a Diwali party.

Right. Once home I stashed the kari leaves in the fridge for sambar making later and did a little research. After a few Google searches I found a recipe that sounded like the rough ingredient list Alka gave me: besan, ghee, sugar, cardamom, cashews and raisens. The only problem — no pictures and the recipe directions ended with the notation to, “shape into ladoos”.

Uhh… Google image search to the rescue! Moments later I discovered that “ladoo” meant “little ball”.

As Alka had said, it was pretty easy if a little time consuming. I followed the recipe and directions exactly, substituting the amount of Earth Balance for the ghee, and after many minutes the kitchen was scented with the nutty aroma of the toasted flour. I added the sugar & cardamom and immediately found a problem.

I had a pan of toasted, cooled besan, a bunch of sugar, a fair bit of cardamom, some chopped raises & toasted cashews. It smelled wonderful, however, there was no way that it would be pressed into any kind of firm shape!

Since ghee is clarified and Earth Balance is a vegetable fat, something was lost in trying to do a direct substitution. What I’ve learned is that when substituting Earth Balance for ghee the amount should be doubled! This worked fine and the results delighted Indian co-workers who said I got them just right. They were thrilled to get a handmade sweet they associate with home.

The Recipe

Besan Ladoo — Vegan Style!

1 cup Earth Balance (**use soy-free)
2 cups gram flour
1 cup evaporated cane sugar
1 teaspoon powdered cardamom
1/2 cup of chopped raisins and cashews

I toasted the raw cashews and set them aside. Once they were cool I chopped up these and some raisins for the 1/2 cup.

In a large frying pan melt 1/2 the Earth Balance over medium-low heat and add in the 2 cups gram flour. Keep stirring with a spoon, making sure there are no lumps, until flour has turned a rich, dark tan and smells very aromatic — at least 10-15 minutes. Take off heat and let cool.

Once the besan has cooled add in the sugar, cardamom, cashews and raisins. Mix together so that all ingredients are well incorporated. Melt the other 1/2 of Earth Balance. Drizzle Earth Balance into other ingredients, keep mixing and adding Earth Balance until the dough can be pressed together in a small ball and retain shape when set down.

Form dough into small balls, ladoos, and plate. Should be kept refrigerated if not being served right away. Makes approximately 24 ladoos.

**Note: I am not sure at this time if I could have just toasted the gram in the full amount of Earth Balance. Since I discovered after all the other steps were done that I needed more Earth Balance, this is how the steps went. I will amend this if I discover I do not need to do the Earth Balance in two parts.