Taste of India

We have an upcoming trip to Seattle and Vancouver with friends Kaity and Hunter. Seeing that we hadn't done any planning, we decided to do some brainstorming over dinner and drinks. Genius right? We started our discussions on the right foot with some INDIAN food. We had Beef Curry over rice, a Zucchini Salad, homemade naan and raita followed up with apple crisp.

Zucchini Ribbon Salad with Lime Juice, Red Chile, and Peanuts

Homemade Naan. The oven method worked surprisingly well.

Beef Vindaloo

White rice soaked up the beef vindaloo gravy quite nicely. The fresh, HOT Naan was excellent when dipped into the cool, refreshing Raita (a cucumber yogurt salad). Traditionally, Naan is cooked on a hot skillet or on the inside of a tagine, however the oven method worked surprisingly well. I recommend heating your cookie sheet up to temperature before putting the dough on it.   If you like zucchini and some spice, I definitely suggest trying the zucchini salad.

Kaity has recently discovered her green thumb. She bought a new house and decided to breathe life into the empty gardens in the backyard. A couple months later and YOU SHOULD SEE HER GARDENS NOW! They're fully stocked with lettuce, carrots, tomatoes, peppers, herbs, etc. I'm so jealous. This is a stark personal reminder that I couldn't even keep my two beautiful potted plants alive. Some people have just the right amount of TLC to produce a backyard farmers market and Kaity happens to be one of those people.  I'm grateful that I live right down the street because sometimes there's just an overflow...

Kaity and HER carrots!

 

Kaity planted seeds for the pumpkin-shaped carrots and ended up with a mix. Gardening is full of surprises.