Orange me HAPPY

This a delightful orange curry that is best with pork loin, chicken or scallops. It's thin and light.

Recipe:

1 tablespoon ghee
3 or 4 cloves
½ inch piece cinnamon stick
¼ teaspoon cumin
1/8 teaspoon cayenne
¼ mustard seed
1 tablespoon green ginger, ground
2 cardamom pods (seeded and crushed)
3 cups freshly squeezed orange juice, strained

Heat the ghee. Add the spices. When all spits and sputters, pour in the orange juice. Cook slowly. Simmer for 15 minutes. Add no thickener. Add no yogurt. This is a thin, clear curry.

I've made this a couple of times, I'll freeze the leftover curry in icecube trays for later use. ENJOY :)

Scrapping Recipes :)

Love is in the air!

A couple I know, Mel and Jason, are getting married in August in beautiful Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. They'll be moving to Pakistan and are limited to what they can bring with them overseas. Since they love to cook they asked the only gifts they recieve would be recipes.

So I decided to take a collection of my favorite Indian recipes and try my hand at scrapbooking. I decided to make recipe cards. From Joann's, I purchased some very pretty, pretty scrapbook paper that I cut down to 8 1/2 x 6 inches. Recipes were printed on good stock paper, cut to 4 x 6 inches that were glued to each page. I added some flare by framing the recipes with some odd pieces of paper.

The cost of this gift was under $30.00, time and effort was about a half day total. Tools I used include scissors, cutting board and stick glue. I'm hoping they will enjoy it as much as did putting it together for them.

If you are interested, I can create one for you. Provide me some recipes and your thoughts and I'll see what I can come up with for you.

Spinach Chickpea with Garlic

Lately I have been experimenting with vegetarian recipes that I have been grabbing off the Internet and many of my Indian cookbooks.

Following is a nice dish with spinach and chickpeas. It makes a nice side dish or lunch on its own. (I found this on a blogsite, so I cannot take credit for it as my own.)

1 15 ounce can chickpeas, drained
8 oz baby spinach, chopped
2 teaspoons olive oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 1/2 teaspoons cumin
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 lemon, juiced

Heat olive oil in a large saute pan. Add garlic. Saute until fragant and lightly colored.

Add spinach and saute till spinach begins to wilt.

Add chickpeas and saute until all the spinach is wilted.

Add the remaining spices, mix thoroughly. Continue cooking for a few minutes to allow flavors to blend. Stir.

Remove from heat. Add lemon juice. Stir.

Serve either hot or at room temperature.