T and I went to the library to get a new cookbook and when he saw the shelf that was randomly chosen, his face fell. Vegan food!
641.5636 takes you to the magical world of vegan cooking. Don’t get me wrong I know that vegan food can be amazing! I’ve dabbled with vegan meals after Beyonce’s 22 day vegan program and it was pretty great. Also follow Ruth Vaca’s instagram (@yourfriendlyvegan) and her food looks so good! So we soldiered on and picked a book by what I thought had the best the cover:
The book was vegetarian, not vegan but it was on the shelf so it still counts! And the recipe that we chose (lentils with eggplant and potatoes) was vegan.
Indian vegetarian cooking from an American kitchen was published in 1998, and did not get a ton of great reviews. There were lots of complaints about the seasoning being too bland. We agreed and ended up adding a lot more spices than the recipe had perscribed. Maybe Vanatha Prasad thought Americans couldn’t handle traditional Indian seasoning? Who knows.
Is that all??
My job for this dinner was chopping. I am terrible at getting everything close to the same size (better for even cooking) so I need all of the practice I can get!
The end result was pretty good, but not very photogenic. And it really could have used some chicken!
Let me know if you have a favorite Indian cookbook that we should check out!
BOOKSMART 
The two that helped me the most were Indian Cookery by Mrs. Balbir Singh (originally published in 1961!) and Maddhur Jaffrey’s World of the East Vegetarian Cooking. Both are extremely detailed with very helpful descriptions of techniques. And Mrs. Singh’s green banana ball curry and spinach ball curry remain holiday favorites in our house, although they take hours of work.
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The best food usually takes extra work! Thank you for the tips, I will look them up!
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