Hello my friends from the meat-free side of spectrum! Here is a long overdue installment in our non-wimpy meat-free series, S/O/L/E Food Tuesday.

As regular readers know, I've jumped into the Twitter pool. Deep end. Happy to report the water's fine. I've met so many great food writers, sustainable food activists, gourmet home cooks, chefs, photographers, wine writers, it's been so fun. Like being at an ongoing virtual cocktail party, but it's much easier on the waistline. Unless of course, you hook up with my wino friends on Twitter, then you get into those Twitter Taste Live events and ...well, I digress.

Let's talk about a new dish or two to put into the meat-free rotation, shall we?

Ramps just sing Spring time and I love nothing more than grilling some with a little citrusy olive oil and salt. We usually have plans to do something else with them but we just don't seem to have any will power. After the first one or two off the grill, all caramelized and unctous and crispy at the same time; those plans are gone.

This may be the recipe that changes all that.

Ramp Pesto Mac and Cheese

Recipe:  Ramp Pesto Mac and Cheese

8 oz. fontina cheese

8 oz. mascarpone cheese

8 oz. asiago, grated

1/4 cup ramp pesto

1 lb elbow pasta, cooked until al dente

1/4 cup reserved pasta water

kosher salt, to taste

fresh cracked black pepper to taste

Cook pasta according to directions, drain and reserve 1/2 cup of the cooking water.  Mix cheeses (reserve about 1/4 cup of asiago),  with the reserved pasta water, until creamy, season with salt and pepper.  Mix pasta with pesto and cheese mixture and mix until blended.  Add to a buttered baking dish and sprinkle remaining asiago cheese on top.    Bake at 350 for about 20 - 30 minutes, until golden brown and lightly crispy on top.  Serve.  Eat.

Sensible Sustainability

This meal is a perfect example of the concept I call "sensible sustainability." Some who like to be more dogmatic about these things will talk about a purely locavore diet. (I note for the record these types often live in the bull's eye surrounded by Pacific Ocean fish, Napa Valley Wines, and year-round stellar produce.) If we truly followed that, true Italian cheeses would be verboten. And pasta too, unless you grow within a 100 mile radius of wheat, which I don't. I've heard people exhorting us to buy only domestic wines. But a European wine might have a smaller carbon footprint than a domestic wine from the West Coast for me.

So let's be reasonable, shall we? One of the easiest ways to "Green" your diet is to eliminate or reduce food waste. Reducing waste is an unsung hero in the arsenal of tools to combat global warming. (How many metaphors can I mix here?) Read about the low carbon diet and food waste impacts at the great Bon Appetit Management Company site or read my summary of the Low Carbon Diet here (links to BAMCO are included). 

Make this meal S/O/L/E Food by buying local, organic ramps. If you're in SF like Denise is you can get excellent olive oils such as Pasolivo.They grow Tuscan varietal heirloom olives and press them with local citrus for outstanding, prize-winning oils. We love to brush their Meyer Lemon or Tangerine oil on ramps that we grill. Reduce the impact by making only what you'll eat. Tough outer leaves can be frozen for stock. If you're ambitious, make your own pasta. That reduces the packaging used in the making of the meal and the carbon impact of manufacturing the box, trucking the pasta.

And the simple act of eating a meal, try one meal a week, meat-free has significant positive benefits for your health, the environment. Not using animal protein gets you that second vowel - E for ethical. (See Kim O'Donnel's excellent A Mighty Appetite here, for the recent news on other meat-free initiatives.)

So relax, enjoy and go say hello to my friends at ChezUs!

Our Contributors this week - ChezUs

Check out the beautiful ChezUs website here, for great recipes and fun posts. 

Denise and Lenny cook and shoot, eat and critique out of a small San Francisco kitchen. Their site has video, podcasts and more. 

 

Other S/O/L/E Food Recipes:

• Carrot Soup - Mom's recipe
• Goin' to a Gnudi Show Courtesy of Cake & Commerce
• Calas by Poppy Tooker
• Meyer Lemon Pasta courtesy of Haphazard Gourmet Girl

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Nothing like a little change to spice things up.

Too much, we resist. Just a little, we're intrigued.

This happens in love and in the kitchen - overlapping of circles in the great food/love Venn diagram, we can see gnudi right in the middle of Love and Kitchen.

We very often find a new love that captures our imagination and inhabits our dreams and our dinner tables. Like any fresh crush of love - a new dish can make us come back too eagerly, perhaps too frequently. So it is with gnudi. But gnudi-love is innocent love. And any damage can be made better with a little sauce and a glass of wine, yes?

Gnudi - what the heck are they anyway? 

Gnudi ("nude-y") are like the yummy insides of ravioli minus the pasta. Or, maybe think of them like gnocchi ("nyocki") the main difference being the amount of flour and kneading. While gnocchi have flour and a bit of rolling and pinching, gnudi achieve their pillowy quality minus the mound of flour. This is certainly good news to anyone with gluten allergies or for those who just want to explore another pasta-type of option.

So here's the wonderful thing about food writers and bloggers - they love to share. I may be a gnudi - novice, I may be miles from home in Denver, but I can still bring you a beautiful, meat-free recipe courtesy of Ms. CakeandCommerce. Linsey often writes for the gluten-free audience. She has graciously re-vamped a recipe to add gluten - talk about a friend! 

See her gorgeous site and recipes. Photography's nice, too! Here's the recipe:

Gluten-free (or not) Gnudi

Now go have your own "gnudi show." Enjoy!

Thanks Linsey!

 

 

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The kind of locavores I like are the sensible ones. You know the kind who will serve you Florida grapefruit in Boston, in winter.

Now a true locavore will stick with only locally grown foods, meaning in Boston winters we'd be limited to root vegetables from a cellar. I'm not actually certain where they'd come down on hydroponics or greenhouse grown. I know I've read that for most greenhouses, there are other issues which make some sustainability experts look at them askance.

I like to talk about Sensible Sustainability (maybe I should ™ that?)

Here's the idea: it's better to have ten people making small changes than to have one person being totally, perfect in their execution of the sustainable/organic/local/ethical eating lifestyle. If we're interested in making changes for the health of our local environments, for the global environment (not that the two are actually separable), then many food activists would have us eschew any food that does not come from our local food shed. That is, if it doesn't grow near you or is out of season, forego it.

While I understand that goal, I also choose to support small family farms, organic farms that are doing the right thing, even if it's far from me. I think we all should make informed choices and be thoughtful about them. So I won't eat a tomato in February. I'll wait for the luxury of a locally grown summer tomato. I'll enjoy my root vegetables (have you tried roasted brussels sprouts yet?) and I'll also enjoy the occasional citrus in winter. But I'll try to make sure it's from an organic farm at least. That's my compromise. I'll buy rice that doesn't grow near Boston, but it's an organic heirloom varietal from Koda Family Farm.

The citrus I've enjoyed lately include Florida grapefruit, Cara Cara oranges, Meyer Lemons and some Blood Oranges. I try to balance the non-local choices in other ways, so that on the whole, I feel I'm making progress. I'm eating less beef. I try to reduce, reuse, even if I don't recycle. I cut down on food waste and packaging. I don't buy much that's highly processed.  

Another option for "Eating Green" 

For those who want to take more action, here's a great resource. Family Green Survival is an interesting program that's kind of hard to wrap your head around, at first. When I first read a blurb about the man who founded it, I thought "what's he selling?" The answer, surprisingly, is nothing.

He doesn't want us to wear his T shirts proclaiming our green cred, or to buy his water bottles, or his wrist bands, or send donations. He wants us to take simple actions and to reflect.  

Family Green Survival is designed for participants to show deep personal commitment to ‘green living’ and to develop empathy for the world’s low income and poor population. They will send recipes and guidelines to help you make this step.

Gopal K. Kapur, the founder of the program, encourages empathy, not guilt. And action and reflection, rather than complacency or indifference. For example, take one day per month. Just one day. Eat as much of world does: with no prepared foods, no plastic or paper products, no microwaves or even stoves. Minimally processed, as close to farm-to-table as possible, focus on vegetables.

In this way, we can reduce our waste, calm our lives, for just one day. We can take a break from our normal harried and often wasteful food preparation methods. Then we can reflect on the impacts of our food choices. 

I was prompted to think about this program once again, when I read Ali at Ethicurean's post about the near debilitating anger she faced and how volunteering at a local soup kitchen helped to heal that anger.  

Ali cites a US Food Policy blog on hunger: 

• At some point in 2007, 11.1% of U.S. households were food insecure. 
• In a 30-day period, 6.3% of households were food insecure.
• Fifty percent more U.S. children went hungry in 2007 than in the previous year. 

And we food writers can rail against high fructose corn syrup and processed foods but some people will happily eat the food we warn against. They don't have a choice. Family Green Survival is about walking the talk. Being the change. It's one way. It's worth reading about and reflecting on, even if you don't take the challenge.  

 

 

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Okay - so there's no Bobby Flay involved here - but please don't leave the room. I've got important news on the chun yao bang front here...

What they are, are not and where to find them:

First, for the uninitiated - scallion pancakes are really more of a dough based fried bread, than a pancake. It's unlike the pancakes we eat for breakfast or the pancakes you'd see on a Korean menu, which are made from an egg batter and often contain oysters and vegetables. Korean pancakes have more in common with Japanese Okonomiyaki.

Chinese-style scallion pancakes are folded, repeatedly along the lines of a Law Student's Puff Pastry or even a Suprisingly Easy Croissant dough. But, they are not made from a yeast dough. I have a bunch of scallions to use, maybe I'll give it another shot. First attempt was not so fantastic. It's not such a difficult thing to make, but being so close to Chinatown it's just too easy to go buy them elsewhere; a huge disincentive to frying anything here. Chances are good a photo of my attempt will appear soon, nothing like deadlines to throw one into a fit of cooking inspiration!

Scallion pancakes are a Northern Chinese invention which explains why the Gourmet Dumpling version is best, their menu draws more from Northern China. For example, their XLB or xiu long bao - soup dumplings are superb, and another example of the Northern Chinese representation on the menu. The second place and third place finishers in the scallion pancake are Southern.

Because C'town is so close, it's often my default for good, quick, cheap eats. In the span of the last 72 hours or so, though unplanned, I had the opportunity to taste three versions of scallion pancakes, nearly back-to-back. Here is my recommendation: 

1. Gourmet Dumpling - light crisp layers, no oil on surface, good scallion distribution.

2. Hong Kong Eatery - this rendition was also light and not oily, but it may have been dry-fried, just not quite as crispy as Gourmet Dumpling's.

3. Taiwan Cafe - this version is inconsistent, unfortunately the most recent serving I had was a little too doughy and a bit oily. In fairness, another time it was quite good here, but still not as good as Gourmet Dumpling's consistently crispy and delightful rendering.

Fried Food Facts:

A couple of things can go wrong when frying anything. Not the least of which is a kitchen disaster, please fry safely. But in terms of fried food when dining out look for clean, non-oily food. 

1. Oil must be clean and changed frequently. If it's not, your fried foods will taste heavy and possibly will taste of other things fried in it. If the restaurant is trying to cut corners you're in trouble. Old oil cannot be made to taste good.
2. The second thing that can go wrong is the temperature of the oil. An unskilled fry cook will turn out greasy food when they've rushed the frying process. Too much oil will be absorbed, whereas if the oil is the proper temperature, very little will remain on or in the food. Even if the oil is fresh, it's not something you want pooling on your pancakes.
3. Types of frying: there's deep frying - the food floats in oil, in a deep vessel like a dutch oven. Think french fries.
4. Shallow-frying - a much smaller amount of oil is used in a skillet. Falls between a deep fry technique and a sauté.
5. Pan frying - usually refers to something fried on the stove top in very little oil. Sautéing is pan-frying, more or less.
6. Oven frying - this isn't really frying at all. It's meant to make health conscious folk feel better about the baked food they're substituting for the more desirable fried foods they really want and we all crave. It's like losing a competition but getting a ribbon for effort or something. Just don't call it frying, it's baking or roasting.

What type of oil you use and your technique will both go a long way to making delicious and healthy (okay, healthier) fried foods.

To read about other Gourmet Dumpling meals:

• Eats, Shoots and Leaves
• Giant Jellies and Delicate Dumplings

 

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Winter food for Locavores

Scotch, chocolate, wine, coffee, rice - the list of reasons I cannot be a true locavore or 100 mile diet proponent is endless. Fortunately, for those of us who enjoy eating well and trying to do eat sustainably, there are options. Supporting local farmers is getting easier, too.

Did you know there’s a local CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) you can buy into for the winter months?

• Drumlin Farms CSA includes a work requirement, which not all do.
• Stone Soup Farms - with pickup spots convenient to various parts of the city. (Thanks to Sam for the tip!)
• Here’s another great tip: Harvard Medical School includes the Center for Health and the Global Environment. Teaching medical students about biodiversity and the global benefits to patients and our environment is its goal. It provides a New England Eat Local Wallet card which shows month by month what's in season.

Boston has a wonderful S/O/L/E community and a growing one at that. We’ve evolved enough to know when someone’s just greenwashing us (mashup of whitewash and being inauthentic about being green = greenwashing). With my new feature, the Non-wimpy S/O/L/E Food Tuesday column, I’ve sought to share meat-free meals, recipes and dining out alternatives for friends and readers who want to broaden their culinary horizons.

If you are freaking out because you've invited someone to dinner and then discovered they're vegetarian, read this great post, Help! My friend is a vegetarian!, on Carrie & Danielle.

Once you've learned the steps to acceptance, sit back and enjoy...

...Parsnips and other root vegetables

Root vegetables of local origins are available, even if you don’t subscribe to a CSA (see below). Many farms will store them in root cellars (essentially cold, dark cellars) through the winter months. This is how folks did it before we warmed up the environment with all that carbon fuel and began flying and trucking stuff all over the country.

Parsnips are a favorite of mine and have never quite gotten their moment in the spotlight. Here are a couple of ways to use them:

• In soups - they add a nutty sweetness that I adore in chicken soup. I once served some to a friend’s father. He giggled at the first bite. I had no idea why, but it was like watching this man transformed to a child (remember that scene in Ratatouille?) He said “Parsnips. You have parsnips in your chicken soup!” I wasn’t sure if this was okay...then he smiled and said it reminded him of his grandmother’s soup.

Parsnips - nutty and slightly sweet (like some of our favorite people)

• Parsnips and Carrots - I made this for Christmas dinner with our Capon. Steam roasted in butter and water, glazed with sugar and butter, then finished with a tablespoon or two of cream and sprinkling of chervil.

• Parsnips are lovely mashed with potatoes, in soup, in roasted vegetable melanges. Fried matchsticks sprinkled with a little celery salt they are irresistable.

Celeriac - another under appreciated root vegetable

Celeriac is on the right.

Henry Patterson’s Favorite Celeriac

• medium onion
• minced garlic to taste
• 8 white mushrooms
• a bulb of celeriac
• large tomato (or 2 smaller)
• 4 leaves of kale (ours are still out there, frozen on the stalk)
• olive oil
• salt & pepper
• a couple of sage leaves (optional, sub other herb of choice)
• fresh lemon

 

1. Slice up onion and mushrooms crudely:
2. Peel and cut celeriac into pieces like french fries (big julienne?)
3. Saute these with minimum of olive oil, good salt & pepper until softened
4. Add dice of tomato and saute another minute
5. Chop and add the kale and sage over this mixture, cover to steam the kale until brilliant green
6. Squeeze half a lemon over, toss all together and serve.

The celeriac is what makes this great.

Not local, but delicious - Meyer Lemons

This week I want to share another lemon dish (see the pasta and the lemon cake) because it’s delicious and because I got another box of lemons - I mean “office supplies” - from the in-laws.

Lemony Risotto (adapted from Bon Appetit)

• 2C of risotto (we got a deal on Carnaroli at Bina Alimentaria!)
  ~6 C of hot liquid (use light vegetable broth, the cartons are often very strong and would overpower this delicate risotto, combination of veg broth, water and wine would work. We used chicken broth)
• ~3 TBSP Butter/olive oil mix
• Shallots - one large or two small, chopped fine
• ~1/3 - 1/2 C  White wine
• Lemon juice, lemon zest (probably added juice of 1.5 Meyer lemons and zest of two)
• 2 TBSP parsley - chopped fresh
• 1/3 C frozen peas
• knob of butter
• 1 C Grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

Read about the basics of Risotto Perfetto here. Simple dishes require good quality ingredients as each will be prominent. 

1. Put broth on to simmer
2. Chop shallots, parsley, zest and juice your Meyer Lemons
3. Grate the cheese
4. Soften shallots in butter/olive oil
5. Add rice before shallots brown, stir to coat. Adding splash more oil if necessary.
6. Add wine stir to ensure even absorption.
7. Begin adding hot broth a cup or so at a time. Stir to incorporate.
8. When rice is nearly done, add peas, lemon juice, zest.
9. Finish with cheese, knob of butter and parsley.
10. Serve and enjoy!

 

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Great news! 

I've just learned that the Dewey Square Farmer's Market will be returning this summer! Don Wiest, Chair of the Boston Public Market Association, wrote me since I've been an advocate/pain in the arse to anyone that would listen. Imploring anyone to understand this neighborhood loves its market and wants it back.

Thanks to the Boston Public Market Association's work, the Greenway Conservancy and City Hall, as well as some private sponsorship, it looks like we'll have our Farmer's Market up and running once again!

Follow here and the LDNA blog to see if we manage to get Don or someone from BPMA to come to an upcoming LDNA meeting to give us an overview of where things stand with the permanent year-round market plans. Don asks that we let the BPMA know what the Leather District residents' preferences are for days to open the market.

 

 

→ Please take a moment to take this poll - Dewey Square Market Days - and let us know your preference for days. I've also created a place to write in other information you think is relevant.

Alternatively, you can write me here or Chris Betke through the LDNA blog. The important thing is to let the Board know that we are here, ready to support our market!

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Okay kids it's my day off. The one per year I'll take!

Here's a delicious - vegetarian - Meyer Lemon Pasta recipe, courtesy of Eddie at Haphazard Gourmet. Eddie and her sisters write a crazy good blog about food, food safety, life, and were huge supporters of Teach a Man to Fish, contributing a fun recipe with one of my favorite things of all times...

Pomegranate seeds

 

They also have been supportive friends in many other ways. I'm grateful.

To read more about Meyer Lemons, see this week's post on Suite, here.

Enjoy the Haphazard Gourmet Meyer Lemon Pasta - toss some blanched green beans into the pot after the pasta's gone and you can erase all the fat from the dish. Okay, that's just a birthday fantasy. But it rocks. Really.

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This week, I'm all about meat at my house. This helps my turning veg and exploring veg (veg curious?) friends, not at all, I realize. So I'm looking around for inspiration. Here are some ideas.

1. Frittata - This is an easy and elegant meal I wrote about here, Frittata Makes Elegant Egg Dinner.

2. Stratta - Think of this as cross between a souffle and bread pudding, but savory. It's a classic Christmas morning breakfast since it's made the night before and simply popped into the oven when you're ready to unwrap gifts, say. By the time you're done, the stratta is too and you have a lovely sit-down breakfast. Stratta typically has buttered bread, bits of meat and/or veg., some cheese and a cream/milk mixture. Here is one recipe: Christmas Morning Stratta. Substitute Fakin' Bacon for the ham or Canadian bacon, or make it all veg (cheese/mushroom/pepper would be nice) and enjoy. Here's another version from SFGate, using mushrooms, Custardy Strata takes Center Stage.

3. Cassoulet - Creamy white beans, baked in French country style. Here's one recipe, it sounds delicious for a cold wintry night. Vegetarian Cassoulet. I recently made a non-veg version and it was heaven. Thanks Eddie for this suggestion. I can't believe I forgot it so soon after making mine!

4. Shepherd's Pie - Here is a vegetarian version of Shepherd's Pie that's perfect for New Year's Eve/Day. Lentils are used instead of the ground beef that is traditional. Lentils are a New Year's tradition as they are thought to bring prosperity, resembling coins as they do. 

These last two would be suitable for vegans as there's no need for dairy or egg in either. The first two use eggs, butter and cheese so you'd have to be ovo-lacto vegetarian to eat these or do some serious modifcations.

Just discovered another resource, too. A fellow Examiner, Shannon Cain Arnold, writes a Vegetarian column. Check out Shannon's column here, and be sure to look at her resource guide for more inspiration.

Don't forget to check my Examiner column, too. Food Culture happenings, events, deals, tips and more almost daily fresh content. Click on the red Examiner badge to take you there or just click here.

 

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This is one of my favorite tofu preparations. I don't say recipe because there hardly is one. You'll forgive me, I know, you're used to that by now... Today I'll take you from Japan, to Mexico, to India and finally to France. All in one bowl of tofu!

This is warm and satisfying and vaguely Indian, as I prepare it. It comes from a recipe I had years ago from some hippie veg cookbook, if I had to guess I'd say Diet for a Small Planet or Laurel's Kitchen.

Here's the basic framework:

• Take firm tofu and slice it, press it between paper towels or clean dish towels to remove as much water as possible.
• Fry in annatto oil* with some minced or pressed garlic (those frozen cubes from TJ's work well.)
• Add turmeric if you like and/or if you don't have achiote oil.
• Leave the cubes to brown on each side, you're essentially building a little thin crust on each cube.
• Toward the end sprinkle on Nutritional yeast (adds big nutritional wallop to vegan diets supplying complex B vitamins and amino acids meat free diets can lack) and soy sauce to taste.
• I also added my Punjabi Garam Masala (made from Raghavan Iyer's 660 Curries) and cayenne. (I believe the original had oregano which seems a bit odd to me now...?)

What you end up with is savory, spicy, nutty and nutritious tofu. 

You could add grated ginger, caramelized onions would be delicious, too. Throw in some peas. You can see this would be quite versatile. Next time, I think I'll start by popping mustard seeds in oil before frying together. 

 

To Mexico and France

* Annatto oil is easily made at home. Achiote is another name for annatto which looks like this:

Mexico - Achiote or Annatto Seeds, Store the oil in a bottle in the fridge, use the oil whenever color as well as a warm, slightly nutty flavor is desired. Arroz Amarillo or "yellow rice" is made with achiote oil. Molé Coloradito is also made with achiote oil.

France & England - Annatto is used to color English Red Leicester cheese, some cheddars, and French Mimolette (impressed the heck out of the cheese guy today when I asked if this cheese - new to me - was colored with annatto!) Mimolette is made in Lille, France from cow's milk. It's said it was de Gaulle's favorite and goes back to earlier leaders who had it made in France to resemble Edam. (See also C&Z's broccoli and Mimolette soup.)

 

The shape color and pocked rind sometimes resemble a cantaloupe. The unsettling factoid I just learned researching this bit for you dear readers, is that the pock marked rind gets that way through the nibbling of cheese mites. They are brushed off before the cheese is packaged for human consumption, of course, but I kinda wish I didn't know...

Annatto is also used to color lipstick and other cosmetics as well as butter and margarine.

So there's half the world in a bowl of tofu. Bon appetit! Buon provecho! Someone's gotta help me out with an Indian version - Vah?

Speaking of Indian, do check out this great site VahRehVah.com with so many great Indian dishes prepared on instructional videos. The Chef has great enthusiasm and energy, it's really infectious to watch! If you'll excuse me now, I've got to go make pani puri...

 

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I met Sangita at the Povo panel event. (See Povo/Blogger) You can see loads of pics of the event, listen to me wax eloquent about the state of blogging and tell me do I really gesture that much?

Sangita writes BostonVeggie.com and introduced herself after the panel broke. She's also on Foodbuzz. This North Indian dish is her mother's recipe for Mushroom Mutter (or Peas.) This sounds perfect for a day like today! Why not have this delicious warming curry over Koda Farms Rice? I found Koda Farms' Nirvana Blend (Indian spices, mixed rice, grains and more) at Slow Food Nation and used it in my Indian Potluck. All their rices and Nirvana Rice blends are delicious. Even their brown rice rock and that is saying something.

Take it away Sangita!

Mushroom Mutter -

This is one of my favorite dishes to make, especially in the cold months,  the spices and flavors just warm you up. It is easy to make, healthy and it tastes great.  I use non-fat yogurt as a thickening agent but you can also use cream. This dish can also be made vegan with the omission of yogurt or the cream.  Here is my recipe, enjoy!

Ingredients:
 
1 8 oz package of chopped white mushrooms
¾ 14.5 oz can of stewed tomatoes
2 cups frozen peas
2 tsp of coriander powder
1 tsp of turmeric powder
1 tsp of chili powder
1 tsp of Garam Masala
2 cloves of garlic chopped
1 tsp of shredded ginger
1 tsp of sugar
3 tbsp of yogurt
3 tbsp of olive oil
¾ cup of water

Heat the olive oil in the pan. Then add the onions & garlic and sauté them until the onions are golden brown. Add the tomatoes and 3/4 cup of water and stir all the ingredients.  Add the coriander, turmeric, chili, and garam masala to the dish and mix all the ingredients well. Add the peas, mushrooms, shredded ginger, and sugar to the dish. Whisk yogurt in a bowl until it is of a smooth consistency, and then add it to the dish.  Cover the pan and reduce heat, and simmer until the peas are soft and tender. Garnish with parsley or coriander. Serve with roti, “Indian bread”  rice or bread.
 
Servers 2-4 people

 

Thanks Sangita - this is probably dinner tonight!

Now go check out Sangita's site everyone and discover the Vegetarian Boston you never knew existed.

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