Another Indian Recipe

This dish is vegan. Unless you "contaminate" your food by using the same spoon to stir, when cooking multiple dishes. Otherwise, this is entirely meat-, dairy-, and egg-free.

This dish is also one of my favorite comfort foods. It's so good anytime, but I really love it on very hot days or very cold days.

Curried Garbanzo Beans

Tools
* medium heavy-bottomed sauce pan
* spoon
* knife and cutting board

Ingredients
* 1 onion, diced
* 1 Tbs minced garlic
* 1 Tbs minced ginger
* 1/2 tsp turmeric (I like a little more... adjust as you like)
* 1 tsp ground cumin
* 1 tsp Garam Masala
* 1/2 tsp chili powder, or to taste
* salt
* 1 can of garbanzo beans in liquid
* a handful of fresh, chopped cilantro for garnish

Prepare Curried Garbanzo Beans
Caramelize the diced onions; should take about 8-10 minutes.

Add all spices and cook to combine flavors for about a minute.

Add the can of beans with liquid. Simmer, covered, for about 20 minutes; you may want to add just a little more water (or broth of your choice) if the mixture becomes too dry. Uncover, cook a while longer, to absorb most of the moisture.

Serve hot with rice, garnished generously with chopped cilantro.

 

This food is made of WIN.

We got two savoy cabbages in a recent bag from Farm Share, and this is my favorite use for that wonderful, leafy bundle of yumminess.

Indian Stuffed Cabbage

Tools
* skillet
* heat-proof bowl
* dutch oven
* 13x9" baking dish
* knife
* cutting board
* collander

Ingredients
* 2 onions, split use
* 5 Tbs cooking oil, split use
--> use an oil with a high smoke point.
* 3 cloves of garlic, minced
* 1 can of minced jalapeno peppers
* approx. 3" fresh ginger, grated; split use
* 1# ground beef or lamb
* 1/4 tsp turmeric
* 2 tsp Garam Masala
* 1 or 2 savoy cabbages, depending on size
* 1 14 oz can of diced tomatoes OR
1 10 oz can Rotel tomatoes + peppers AND 1 can of tomato paste
* 2 Tbs lemon juice
* 2/3 C water
* sea salt and fresh ground pepper
* lemon or lime slices for garnish (optional)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Prepare the Meat
Heat 2 Tbs of oil in the skillet, and caramelize one diced onion. Takes between 8 and 10 minutes. Add the garlic, can of chillies/jalapenos, 1"-worth of the grated ginger; cook for another minute or two to blend the flavors and move to the heat-proof bowl. Set aside.

Add the beef or lamb to the skillet. Brown. Add turmeric and Garam Masala; cook for at least a minute or two to blend, then add the onion mixture.

Cover and cook for 20-30 minutes, making sure that any liquid is absorbed. Stir occasionally to make sure nothing sticks to the bottom of your skillet. Set aside once it's done; in the meantime, prepare the savoy cabbage while the meat is cooking.

Prepare the Cabbage
Core the cabbage/s. Salt the water in the dutch oven and bring it to a boil. Put the ENTIRE CABBAGE/S in the boiling water. Boil for about 8 minutes, then remove to the collander to cool.

Once cool enough to handle, peel off the large, outer leaves of the cabbage. They need to be kept whole, so they can wrap up the meat and onion mixture. Once you reach the leaves too small to use as wrapper, shred those!

Prepare the Sauce
Heat the remaining 3 Tbs of oil in the dutch oven, and cook the second onion, diced, to just translucent.

Add the shredded inner leaves of the cabbage/s, tomato, remaining 2"-worth of grated ginger, 2 Tbs lemon juice, and water. Season to taste with sea salt and fresh-ground black pepper. Bring this all to a boil, then reduce the heat to simmer uncovered for about 5 minutes.

Prepare the Cabbage Rolls
Spoon a little sauce into the bottom of the 9x13" baking dish.

Place a soup spoon-sized spoon of the meat and onion mixture onto the stalk-end of a cabbage leaf. Roll this end toward the tip of the cabbage leaf, tucking in the sides to make a neat package as you roll. Place the package in the sauced baking dish. Continue until you run out cabbage leaves. Leftover meat can be sprinkled over the cabbage rolls.

Cover the cabbage rolls with the sauce. Bake for 40-50 minutes.

Serve hot with rice, garnishing the cabbage rolls with the citrus slices.

 

Mmmm. Homemade Garam Masala.

It's ridiculous how easy it is to make this marvelous spice blend from India. Especially since the stuff that goes in it are spices I count as staples in my kitchen.

Tools needed:
* bowl
* a well-seasoned cast iron skillet
* mortar and pestle OR coffee grinder
* jar or zip close storage bag

Ingredients:
* 4 tsp cardamon seeds
* 2 tsp whole cloves
* 4 tsp black peppercorns -- any other color will affect flavor
* 3 Tbs cumin seeds
* 3 Tbs coriander seeds
* 2 cinnamon sticks, roughly crushed

If your skillet is not well-seasoned, grease the cooking surface lightly with an oil with a high smoke point (I like safflower oil) or ghee.

Mix the spices in a bowl so they have even distribution when they're placed in the skillet. Heat the skillet while you're tossing the spices together; it doesn't have to be super hot. Toast the spices in the skillet on medium heat for about 10 minutes. Watch to make sure they don't scorch. Give the skillet a shake now and again, to keep the spices from sticking to your skillet.

Once the spices are browned, return them to the bowl to cool. They ought to be very aromatic at this point: your house will smell like a curry potpourri.

After the spices have cooled to room temperature, grind them finely in either a coffee grinder or mortar and pestle. It's a good idea to do this in many increments of small quantities rather than all at once. Transfer each little batch to a glass jar or storage bag.

Keeps well in the freezer.

Uses:

* in a wide variety of Indian and Pakistani dishes;
* add to canned chicken meat with mayonnaise, spread on bread with sliced tomato for a great sandwich;
* 1 1/2 Tbs + 4 oz. cream cheese + 4 oz. plain yogurt = YUM on a pita chip or cracker.

Enjoy!!!

If, for some reason, you ever decide to throw shoes at me...

...I'd like to request Doc Martens.

They're my favorite brand, I need to replace my fave pair of combat boots (LOVE those patented "Bouncing Soles"!!), but the entire line is very expensive. So I've put it off for the past, oh, 8 years or so.

Specifics: VINTAGE 1490 10 EYE BOOT, size 8 (US women's, or 6 in UK sizes) is the combat boot. But I also like:

* Lottie, an 8-eye number similar to the 10-eye combat boot, but painted all over with very delicate little flowers;

* Milly, a lovely slightly dressier boot, yet still casual enough for me. Easily worn with skirts or jeans, this one suits me perfectly! Especially in the wine color;

* Chloe is a shoe rather than a boot. And she's quite a knock out. Be carefull when throwing this one. Though it's a patented Doc Marten sole, which only means great support on the INSIDE of the shoe. I wouldn't want to be on the recieving end of one of these hot pieces of leather and rubber;

* Drew is a sassy variation on the Mary Jane, a shoe I've always loved. I love her even more in blue...

* Olga is a classic flat. What else can I say? A girl's gotta have some staples. Especially when dealing with punk classics.

These are my requests. You know, just in case you ever feel like lobbing a loafer.

 

Life-sized, no less.

Wow. Giant portait of all the living founders of the hospital. Including several we know and one to whom we are... Shall we say, very close geneologically. It's a really big photo.

 

OMGPUPPIES

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Sooooooooooooooooooo CUTE.

Each puppy has a different color collar. It's great, because it helps to tell them apart. There are 3 boys (Aki in green, Akoni in black, and Ando in blue) and 3 girls (Autumn in purple --she's feisty!-- Ayumi in yellow, and Amaya in red). More info HERE.

No, they are not for sale or adoption. The people who are raising them have posted information against puppy mills and even urge against buying pets over the internet. These puppies already have families waiting for them. They look healthy. They certainly get plenty of food and exercize, and they are well-socialized with humans.

Hooray for responsible dog owners!!!

 

Oh, GOD! Indeed, divine inspiration!

I love Cleveland Heights.

later edit: This is the one that came home with me. Marvelous. Went splendidly with spicy vegan spaghetti sauce and chicken parmesan. Afterwards, I had it with a Malley's pretzel bar. Another good pairing, and it nailed my PMS.

 

Sigh. *Phew*!!!!!!!

Wow.

This was a huge night.

We watched the election returns at the Winking Lizard, Coventry. Great place for sports, we knew that; it turns out to be a hoppin' place for election coverage, too!!

It was satisfying to have a support system for all the ups and downs of the evening.

The entire bar was sympathetic. Well, almost! There was one guy in our section that had opposing views. We were very polite to him, and we tried to make it seem like we were there for the Miami of Ohio v. Buffalo game. Except when stuff happened on CNN that was cheer-worthy which wasn't coincident with events on the football field in Buffalo...

I'm so grateful. SO grateful. This was always bound to be an historic moment. I'm just so enormously grateful it's turned out to be historic in a turn that seems most helpful to the country, rather than in a means that will keep the country on its current path.

I'm sure Sen. McCain is a fine man, I just don't want him in my White House. I don't trust his temperament, I don't like his policies, and I feel like his plans would have run this nation into the ground more even than the last guy did. I also feel like he's far too restrictive on the individual person, yet very liberal with business and industry. That seems at odds with nature to me.

No: I think justice was done today. The right one for the job got voted in. I thank God moment by moment for the grace of this day.

 

Election Day, part 13: SWEET! SWAG *still* means "Stuff We All Get"!!

I scream, you scream, we all scream for FREE ICE CREAM!

Thank you, Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream!! It was very yummy. Rick had the eponymous Cherry Garcia, and I nearly finished the very delicious Phish Food. Rick was delighted to finish that for me, as I intended.

 

How In America...???

This is gross.

I'm sad and desperately angry.

Saturday, Rick and I were winterizing the front yard when we were approached by two different Get Out the Vote pollsters. The first simply made sure we were going to vote, checked first to see if we'd already voted, and ascertained that we knew our voting location. He was also campaigning for Obama, and since we are sporting an Obama-Biden yard sign attached to our porch railing, that was pretty straight-forward.

The second pollster checked our names against the "registered voters" list she was carrying. Rick was there. A woman who hasn't lived in our house since before us is there. I'M NOT.

I'm not on the voter rolls.

There were no answers available from the poll worker.

I can vote tomorrow by provisional ballot. It will not be counted until the second count of the votes, the count which certifies the count according to the Constitution, and even then it may not count.

I am furious.

What makes it worse is that I suspect that it is because of my last name.

During the last presidential election there were a large number of voters removed from the rolls, ostensibly because they were "redundant" or "non-voting" or "believed deceased" or other lame excuses. Almost all of the names happened to be Hispanic-Latino names. One of the names removed was my husband Rick's name.

Rick is not Hispanic. Rick is not Latino. Rick is a mix -- a beautifully American mix -- of mixed European heritage on his mother's side and Filippino on his father's side. Filippino is not Hispanic or Latino. The Republic of Philippines is in Asia. If he can extract anything separately from that already honorable heritage, it would be a mix of very far-back Chinese and indigenous Island tribes.

So this year, aparently, it's MY turn.

I'm not Hispanic or Latino, either. My background is a Euro-mix, mostly British with a good dose of Swedish. But here's the thing. It shouldn't matter what a person's heritage is when covered by the curtain of the voting booth. It's supposed to be anonymous, anyway, right?

I suppose I should take comfort in the obvious fact that they didn't track me down to look at me to verify my ethnic status before eliminating me from the voting rolls. Anyone reading this who hasn't met me in person, you should know that I have strawberry blond hair, hazel eyes leaning toward green, and pinkish skin that burns severely in the sun, the sorts of traits that make strangers comment on my Irishness near St. Patrick's Day and Scottishness near Bobby Burns' Birthday or quote Braveheart to me.

Still, no one should be denied their right to vote based on their ethnic heritage. Not me. Not my husband. Not countless others that I don't know that have also been denied, that have surnames similar to mine.

Blind bureacrats desperate for power don't care about any of that. Nor do they care about justice. Because if they did, they wouldn't be tampering with the consititutional rights of citizens of this country at election time.

On the other hand, the current president and his administration have treated the Constitution like a bathmat. So there's really no big surprise there, right?

All the more reason for the current administration to be eliminated as fully as possible; so now, more than ever, I hope like screaming heck our next president will be Barack Obama. We need someone we can trust.

Until such a time as we get a trustworthy leader (it won't be John McCain, that lying, cutthroat, trash-talking jerk!!), this is not the America I know.

 

 

Seriously. Think hard about this, and think about the misguided values this person embodies.

Again: consider this woman's values. Consider that she is teaching her children these values. Then consider what you would think if you heard the average child in Kindergarten saying "Oh, we don't really need the polar bears. They don't matter."

That's not a stretch. It's just rephrasing the issue.

I don't want this woman anywhere near my White House.

 

Silliest Moose Since Bullwinkle

Wedding festivities have kept me from watching this stuff live, like I usually do. Even Daddy said he would have liked to have at least caught Weekend Update. So for anyone else who missed SNL, here's a sliver of Weekend Update, featuring a very slight cameo by Sarah Palin.

 

We Now Return You To Our Previously Scheduled Election Season, Already In Progress.

Wow. This guy is TOTALLY speaking to me. Now if I can only borrow my dad's video camera on election day.

And manage to *NOT* get arrested. Or physically assaulted.

Oh, man, I miss Fanny Lewis.

 

Just some fun and mindless entertainment today.

A fun break from the election hoopla. A little nostalgia, a little video game mash-up!

Anyway, it's Mel's fault. She mentioned it on Facebook today, and I can't get it out of my head. This has to be the ultimate earworm, because it comes with flashing lights and pictures. I can't stop dancing to it.

Which is no bad thing!!

 

Vote, Canada! ...or something...

I get "Savage Chickens: Cartoons on Sticky Notes by Doug Savage" in my email every weekday. Subscribe by clicking HERE.

Know what makes this cartoon funnier/sadder? The Canadians know more about our presidential candidates and the policies they espouse than we do. And we sure know nothing about theirs.

Quick!!! Name 3 Canadian... er... um... do they have presidents or prime ministers???

SEE???? (Answer: prime ministers. And the current one is likely about to be voted out for an abundance of reasons, not least of which is his close association with the Bush Administration.)

Don't whine to me about that. There's still time to get more educated about our issues and the facts about our candidates. Less than three weeks to go til we get our chance at the slots in the booths!!

While we're at it, it's a good idea to get to know our global neighbors. The most immediate ones would be Russia (some of us can see them from our houses...), North and South Korea, Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Mexico, and Cuba.

Hmm. Was that a longer list than you expected? We're really not so isolated.

And the world continues to shrink.

 

New and Improved Silly Caterpillar!

Edited and improved Silly Caterpillar!
Originally uploaded by sunspotting.

Now our silly, smiling caterpillar has an environment! See the grass, flowers, and mushroom!

Wow, this was so much fun. We learned a lot about building a good ecosystem for our little caterpillar. Sure looks happy to be there.

 

It's so funny...

...when I get a call out of the blue like this from my husband:

"So this minivan that I'm next to? It has 2 Shaker Heights Hockey stickers on it. One of 'em says, 'Hockey Moms for Obama'! How do you like that?!"

And he hangs up, both of us laughing.

He doesn't need an answer. We both like it quite a lot.

 

The AntiCraft Samhain Issue Is Published TODAY!

Time for The AntiCraft to publish! It's a good one. Again. As usual.

Our theme this quarter is called "Broken Bones", and it celebrates the Latin American festival Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead).

This is not a morbid day to wallow around in pathos and mourning. It's a day of bright colors and cheerful, festive music, generous food, family gathering, and celebration. It's a day to go and share the year's experiences at the gravesite of the people who have passed on, whether recently or long ago. In fact, sometimes it can go on for two days.

So click on the link and see what we have to say, craftwise, about celebrating the memories of the ones we love!

 

Ever wonder what the view's like from the *outside* of the stewpot?

This Canadian folk-rock singer-songwriter (no, his last name isn't also hyphenated), Luke Doucet (see?) has a great song. It sums up what a lot of people globe-wise have been expressing about our humble election: what happens on our election day will affect them, so it'd be cool (useful, even!!) to be an American for a bit.

If you click THIS LINK, you'll see lyrics.

If you click THIS LINK, you'll hear a story about Canadian patriotism encapsulated by song, yes, but stick with it and you'll hear Luke Doucet's song, "I Wish I Was American". Don't worry, it's less than 5 minutes total, and the bit about Canadian patriotism is all to set up the song.

The song itself has a poignant message but rousing tune. Very catchy.

Makes you think. Know anyone who's not using their vote? Someone overseas (or over the border, at least) would really like to use it.

If you don't vote after hearing that, there's something very wrong with your sense of civic duty and American Pride. Let your conscience tell you who to vote for, but for the sake of all that is baseball, hot dogs, and apple pie, VOTE.

 

Joss Whedon's at it again...

So on Wednesday I finished a book I picked up on Tuesday. A nice, thick adventure/suspense book: The Book of Fate. Brad Meltzner sounded familiar, I was sure I'd seen his books on other shelves.

While that's likely enough, where I've seen his name at home is on the cover of DC's The Justice League comic books. This novelist has dipped his talented toes into the exciting world of serial stories. (MORE than his toes; his heart is chasing the dream of saving Superman's house in the Glenville neighborhood of Cleveland.)

He's good, too.

So, (again, because I know I began the post with "so",) to my amazement, our local NPR station has a local arts and culture program every weekday at noon, and on the same Wednesday as the morning I finished The Book of Fate, who do you think they were interviewing??? That last link is the podcast of the entire Around Noon show; don't freak! The interview with Brad Meltzer is the very first thing.

Fateful, indeed.

His new book is called The Book of Lies. He recommends that you listen to Mars from Holst's suite The Planets while reading. Not that the plot demands it, but hey! If you have an author recommending a soundtrack for his work, aren't you just a little curious to see how it goes along with the book? I think that's kinda cool.

Here's something else that's cool.



I love LOVE seeing Joss Whedon not only being cited as an "Authority," but the way they credit his authority-ness. Brian K. Vaughn, too.

Now, if you need me, I'll just be getting back to searching for Tooth Fairy cash. You know, it's not just bed pillows you should look under...