Samosas

Sometimes I crave samosas. They're usually an appetizer served at Indian restaurants. I found a website called Samosa-Recipe.com (pretty simple) which has the recipes for the fillings as well as the pastry.


I like the vegetarian samosas the best so here is the recipe:

1 Potato finely diced (5 to 10 mill cubes)
1 carrot finely diced - as above
2 cloves of crushed garlic.
1 Onion finely chopped
1 Cup of frozen peas
1 tblspn vegetable oil
2 tspn curry powder or your own spices according to taste (note: curry powder is @#$%ing DELICIOUS and it smells soooo good!!)
Salt, Pepper to taste.
100ml of vegetable stock.

Heat the oil in a frying pan, add the onion and garlic, mix in the spices and fry until soft. Add the vegetables, seasoning and stir well until coated. Add the stock, cover and simmer for 30 minutes until cooked.

Brian and I made this for dinner a few weeks ago. For the pastry, we used puff pastry (Pepperidge Farm). We didn't want to waste oil frying it so we baked it (more healthy alternative anyways). The reason why the picture shows some open samosas is because we didn't have a roller and couldn't make the flat circles...so we went with squares. I admit, I was a bit impatient (I was so hungry and the smell was making it worse) so I rushed on the folding and stuffing part so we could bake it quickly and eat it quickly.

It came out well; the ones that were fully enclosed sealed the flavor in really great (but was also piping hot). After we ate the samosas, we finished the rest of the filling by itself!

When I discovered Indian Buffets

Ok, not only do I love lobster, but I also love Indian food. This is more of a recent revelation which I have honed while in Boston. Luckily for me, Indian food is (usually) cheaper than lobster. Especially since I found a lunch buffet just a few minutes away from my base office!! I went the first time with my friend Liz who was still on summer break from teaching 3rd graders. The second time I went was with my mentor Vickie. Both times were delicious, although they did serve different things when I went those two times.

I always start out with a samosa, and end with the butter chicken.

$7.99/lb take out

The third time I didn't really have anyone to eat with so I opted for take-out. Lunch buffet is $8.99, and take out is $7.99/lb, which really adds up since I tend to pile up my Styrofoam box of yummies. However, this box lasted me for 2 meals, so really, it all adds up and I didn't over-stuff myself either.

Vegetarian Kashmiri Rogan Josh

Only starting to write this blog did I realize that Rogan Josh is supposed to consist of lamb. Oops. Most of the time I prefer my Indian food/curries vegetarian, I'm not sure why that is.

I purchased Kitchens of India's Spicy Tomato & Ginger Cooking Sauce (Kashmiri Rogan Josh) from Star Market. I've made this before, and it was so delicious that I wanted more. Plus, for a $3 jar, and some veggies, it produces at least four separate meals for me.

Ingredients I used:

- 3 small potatoes (old, but they still taste great)

- 3 carrots

- 1/2 green pepper

- 1/2 large onion

- jar of rogan josh

- dallops of yogurt

I boiled the potatoes to soften them up before mixing it with the rest of the veggies. Here is the picture before the sauce:

Looks so healthy!

 And this is the after-picture. The yogurt was added to try to dilute the sauce a little. I also added in some water because the sauce was more paste-like at first.

It's so fiery red

So delicious. Serve it in a bowl on top of a bed of hot steaming rice (straight out of the rice cooker!) and you're golden!!

Thanks to an inspiration from my friend Jenny, I will put my cooking/baking skills to work and attempt to make naan in the future! She found a great recipe on BBC.

This shall get me through the last week of classes and AP proctoring!!