Wednesday Fun!

Nothing like some giveaways and contests to liven up your Wednesday!

Mara is giving away some fabulously cute food blogger jewelry! Don't miss your chance to win one!

Hangry Pants is hosting an Element Bar Giveaway. Check it out and have fun creating your own bar!

I know it's been a while since I've participated in a BSI, but don't forget to check out BSI Corn, hosted by Burp and Slurp!


Have a great Wednesday!

Getting back on track . . . and a BSI entry!

Ahhhhhhh, what a nice break I had! Got lots and lots of relaxing done and although tomorrow is the start of another work week, at least it will be a normal work week.

Tomorrow will also mark the start of getting back on the weight loss wagon for many of us who were thrown off during tax season! I don't have a formal plan for this, since I don't want to get back into my all or nothing mindset and set myself up for failure yet again. I haven't decided yet whether I will go back to Weight Watchers or count calories instead. I think that I will focus on making healthy choices and watching my portion sizes for a couple weeks to ease into things.

I think where I do need a formal plan is for exercise. I met with my trainer this past weekend and he said if I want to see progress I really need to be doing cardio 4-5 times a week and strength-training 3 days a week. That sounds like a lot to me right now considering I haven't been doing much, but it's something to work toward. So I'm thinking about aiming for 3 days of cardio and 2 days of strength-training for a couple weeks and then moving up from there. Once I'm set on exercise I think the eating will follow.

Anyway, that's enough of that for now! Let's move on to the recipes. :)

First up are some mini sausage, spinach, and cheese frittatas I made for breakfast this week. I'm sure everyone's seen some variation of the mini egg quiches that South Beach Diet devotees swear by. This is mine, inspired by the egg muffins featured on Kalyn's Kitchen.




Mini Sausage, Spinach, and Cheese Frittatas

3 Jennie-O fully cooked turkey sausage breakfast links
1/2 cup fresh spinach, shredded
1/4 cup shredded cheese, any flavor
1/2 cup egg beaters
seasonings

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Take a silicone muffin pan and spray with cooking spray. I used a mini muffin pan that yields 12 mini muffins.

Heat up breakfast links in microwave, then cut each link into fourths. Place a fourth into each muffin well. Divide spinach and cheese among the muffin wells. Add whatever seasonings you want. Pour the egg beaters into each muffin well so that each is filled up about 2/3 of the way.

Bake mini frittatas for about 20 minutes or until egg is cooked through and cheese turns golden brown.

This makes 12 mini frittatas - I figured 3 servings of 4 mini frittatas each.

Next up is my submission for this week's BSI contest. This week's ingredient was lemon and I had a hard time deciding what I wanted to make. In the end I decided to tweak a tried-and-true recipe I've made a few times for a lemony couscous salad. I found the original source of this recipe via the WW message boards, which in turn came from this article. My first tweaking of the original was to substitute parmesan cheese for the feta cheese that was called for. For this week's BSI I thought about tweaking it a little more in order to get . . .


Lemony Spinach Couscous with Parmesan

1 cup uncooked whole wheat couscous
1 cup fresh spinach, shredded
zest of 1 lemon
juice of 1 lemon
1 tbsp. olive oil
1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Combine shredded spinach with dry couscous. Add 1.25 cups boiling water, stir, and cover. Let sit for about 5 minutes, then fluff with fork. Add lemon zest and olive oil, and stir to combine. Allow couscous to rest and come to room temperature. Now add in lemon juice and Parmesan cheese. Add salt and pepper as necessary.

This makes about 4 servings and tastes great cold or at room temperature.



A big thank you to Mr. Spice for taking this picture!

Yay for 4-day weekends!

I did it! I survived another tax season! This one really didn't seem as horrible as past ones, but working 55-60 hour weeks and working on Saturdays will still wear you down.

Didn't get to sleep in much this morning thanks to my allergies -- I woke up sneezing up a storm but thankfully the Claritin-D seems to have finally kicked in.

I'm not quite sure what to do with all this time off. I'm seeing my trainer today for a much-needed torture session. I ended up putting on some more weight this tax season and really need to get my butt kicked into gear. Tonight I'm meeting a friend to go check out this photo exhibit at Emory about Bangladeshi women. Sunday I have my massage and facial. That's it as far as planned activities. I'm very tempted to spend the rest of my time watching tv and reading. Very tempted. But I have a feeling I'll get pulled into doing stuff around the house that have been neglected these past couple months. Like cleaning. Blech.

One thing I will do this weekend is do a submission for this week's BSI contest! I've been so out of the loop the past few weeks so it took a while before I was able to get up to date on this week's host and ingredient. Krista of Krista's Kravings has chosen lemons as this week's ingredient. I'm very excited about this and can't wait to see what everyone else submits.

When you have a few days off do you go into couch-potato mode or do you keep yourself busy?

Spicy French Toast

Sunday mornings are a good time for me -- I get to sleep in a bit, have some quiet time for myself while Mr. Spice sleeps away, and I usually end up making us both breakfast, which is something I never get to do during the week.

This week's BSI is being hosted by Mark at Training Fuel, who chose eggs as the ingredient. Once I found out, all I could think about was making french toast for breakfast on Sunday. But this is no ordinary french toast I was dreaming of.

I've always preferred salty/spicy tastes to sweet. So is it any wonder that I prefer my french toast on the salty/spicy side? It really isn't that much of a stretch -- it's just a spicy omelet batter that you're dunking the bread into rather than a sweet batter. There are no powdered sugar and syrup toppings on this french toast -- I used sliced green chilis and spicy mango pickle to adorn my spicy, golden, eggy triangles.

Intrigued? Read on!

Spicy French Toast

Ingredients

4 slices bread
4 eggs, beaten
1 tbsp. sliced green chili
1/2 tsp. dried minced onion -- I was too lazy to chop up fresh onions today
1/2 tsp. ginger paste
1/2 tsp. minced garlic
salt
paprika
curry powder -- one of my few sanctioned uses for curry powder, as a flavoring not a spice

Combine eggs and everything below on list. Heat a nonstick pan over medium-high.

One slice at a time, soak bread in egg batter on both sides, then cook in pan until golden brown on each side. Make sure egg is cooked through all the way, or else you'll be putting it back into the pan to cook more like I had to!

Slice each piece diagonally and top with spicy ketchup, hot sauce, or hot mango pickle if you have any.

Serves 2-4

Less than 4 weeks to go!

The tax season countdown is still underway! Four more weeks to go, which is good and bad. Only four more weeks of long hours and being too tired for anything else. But only four weeks left to get a lot of stuff done -- we're probably extending a lot of returns as it is, but you still need to know if people are going to owe. The joys of being a CPA. :)

So this is why I'm being sporadic about posting. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to cook as much as I'd like, let alone pack lunches in my bento boxes. I try to keep up on everyone else's blogs during the day for some sanity breaks, so at least I have that to look forward to!

Reminding you (and me) of this week's BSI, being hosted by Christina at Dinner at Christina's -- cabbage!

Hope everyone's having a great week!

BSI entry: Sweet Strawberry Samosas

When Laura at Hey What's For Dinner Mom announced this week's BSI ingredient was strawberries, my mind immediately went to work on ideas. I had so many I wanted to try, but knew I needed to pick something that was fast and reasonably reliable.

I immediately thought of a sweet samosa. For those of you who have not had the pleasure of eating a samosa, I'm sorry for you. Imagine a rich pastry dough stuffed with savory fillings such as potatoes and peas or spiced ground beef, which is then fried to a golden goodness. The varieties are endless. Think of the Indian equivalent of an empanada and you'll get the idea.

Anyway, when I make samosas, I don't make the dough from scratch because I'm too lazy. I've experimented with eggroll wrappers, phyllo dough, refrigerated pie crust, and puff pastry sheets. I also don't like deep frying, so I end up baking my samosas. Not 100% authentic, but it definitely hits the spot. Of all these methods, I would have to say the refrigerated pie crust produces the best result, but I noticed after happily scarfing these down that they tend to contain lard, which I try to avoid. Puff pastry doesn't produce the traditional look, but it's easy for me to use. Plus there are some Bengali snacks called "patties" that use puff pastry, so whatever. See my October Book Club Tea post for examples of "patties" and how from-scratch samosas look. My friend Lopa has perfected the dough for the ones from scratch, although she makes the Bengali version of samosas, called shingaras. Yes, I know I'm being confusing, sorry!

So back to my BSI entry. I have been toying with the idea of making sweet samosas for a while now. I figured using strawberries as the filling was the perfect opportunity to experiment. I was initially going to use phyllo dough but it's so fiddly, so I went to my reliable puff pastry dough. I thought of adding some chocolate to the filling because what goes better with puff pastry than chocolate? Think of pain au chocolat (chocolate croissants) and you'll see what I mean. The results were good. Very good. I may have to take the leftovers to work tomorrow so that we don't scarf them all tonight.



Sweet Strawberry Samosas
1 sheet puff pastry
1.5 cups strawberries, rinsed, hulled, and sliced
2 tsp. honey
2 tsp. sugar, separated
1/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 tsp. orange extract

Thaw puff pastry for 40 minutes.

While puff pastry is thawing, take prepared strawberries, and add honey, 1 tsp. sugar, and orange extract. Mix well, and let sit for approximately 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Line baking sheet with parchment paper and spray with cooking spray.

After puff pastry is thawed, cut into 9 squares. Take strawberries and drain any remaining liquid. Add chocolate chips and combine.

In each square, place approximately 1 tsp. of strawberry mixture in center. Fold up corners diagonally to form a triangle. Press edges shut. You may need to adjust filling amount as necessary so samosas are not over-stuffed.

Once all samosas are made, lay on cookie sheet. Spray more cooking spray or spray butter on tops and sprinkle remaining tsp. of sugar over samosas.

Bake approximately 20 minutes or until pastry is golden.

Let cool and drizzle chocolate syrup over samosas if desired.



Now as you can see, I definitely over-stuffed my samosas, since they burst open at the sides while baking. However, I still think they looked good this way, since now I don't have to cut them open to show the filling! :)

Sleep the impossible sleep

I seem to be having a hard time with this time change.

I haven't slept well at all the past few nights. Yesterday I felt like a zombie at work. This morning I somehow woke up at 3 am and tossed and turned until about 5 am. That's when I decided I might as well get up and do some yoga, since I missed the past couple days. I did about an hour and went back up to bed and managed to fall asleep finally, waking up in a panic around 8:30 because I'd forgotten to reset my alarm clock! Oops!

Anyway, I'm awake and at work now!

Has anybody else been having a really hard time sleeping lately? How do you stay asleep or go back to sleep if you wake up?

I hope to have a dinner picture for you guys tonight. I've been so tired from work I haven't been cooking much, let alone taking pics.

Here's a couple things going on in blog-land:

Laura at Hey What's for Dinner Mom is hosting this week's BSI

Heather at Heather Eats Almond Butter is hosting a Turtle Mountain product give-away

Missy at Missy Maintains is hosting an Erin Baker's give-away

See ya for now!

Who wants to be a BSI winner??

I do apologize for the lack of pics lately -- I've been posting from work, so no camera here.

Anyway, on to business! :D

As you know, I was waiting in anticipation for the submissions and I was not disappointed!

Here was the line-up:

Mara at What's For Dinner: Basil Chavrie-Stuffed Burgers

Sweetie Pie at Just Sweet Enough: Sunny Basil Orange Salad

Beadie at What I Ate Yesterday: Spinach and Mushroom Stuffed Shells

Laura at Hey What's For Dinner Mom: Pesto-Glazed Vegetables over Feta Infused Polenta

Brandi at BranAppetit: Basil and Strawberry Scones

You guys did a great job with your recipes and I cannot wait to try them all. It was very hard for me to choose, so I enlisted some outside help (husband, a couple coworkers, a couple friends).

Everyone had at least a couple favorites, but in the end there was one clear winner.



And yes, I'm dragging this out on purpose!



Who is the winner?











Drumroll . . .

BRANDI!! Brandi's entry of Basil and Strawberry Scones definitely drew everyone's attention because of the intriguing and creative combination of ingredients.

Congratulations! Email me when you get a chance so we can get details hammered out.

Wait!!

I'm not done yet! I still have to pass on the BSI torch!

Please join me in congratulating Laura at Hey What's For Dinner Mom. Laura's blog is a pleasant new discovery for me and I love her focus on healthy but delicious foods. I'm excited to see what she picks for the next BSI contest!

Congrats again, Brandi and Laura!!

Weekend plans and BSI reminder!!

I actually have some hint of a life this weekend, yay!!

Tonight, Mr. Spice and I being all intellectual and catching a foreign film at the High Museum of Art -- we'll be watching Africa Paradis. It's in French but has subtitles, which is good since my French is a bit rusty now. Le bwahahaha.

Tomorrow I'm at work for a few hours and then we're going to try to watch Watchmen depending on how tired and brain fried I am. I would like to enjoy some of the nice weather we're supposed to be having this weekend. It's supposed to be near the 70s. Remember, last weekend was the weekend of thunder snow. What huge swing in temperature!

Sunday, don't have much planned, which is just how I like my Sundays. :D

Oh and of course I have to remind you about getting those lovely BSI submissions in! Midnight Sunday evening is the deadline!

What are YOUR plans for this weekend?

Reminder about BSI: Basil!

Sorry, don't have much to talk about today, work wiped me out.

Just wanted to get in a reminder about this week's BSI contest -- I've already received a couple submissions and look forward to more!

Yet another busy day

I'm well in the middle of tax season right now, but there is an end in sight! I believe it is EXACTLY six weeks until April 15th! Wohoo! It's going to be a rough six weeks, but I will be sooo happy once it's over. The firm gives us the 16th off and I'm strongly considering taking the 17th off and just having a much-needed 4 day weekend.

In the meantime, I try to keep myself sane by taking frequent trips to blogland during the day. By doing so I have discovered some cool contests going on! Who doesn't like free stuff?

• Sweetie Pie at Just Sweet Enough is celebrating her 50th post by giving away some yummy looking snacks here.

• Alisa at One Frugal Foodie is giving away a HUGE variety of goodies like breakfast cookies, brownie bites, granola, and mini cookies here.

• Katie at Chocolate-Covered Katie is giving away an entire case of Jocolat here.

And of course, this is your friendly reminder about this week's BSI contest! Your lovely basil creations are due by midnight on Sunday, March 8th. I already cannot wait to drool over the entries.

A long delinquent lunch post!

After seeing all the yummy oatmeal combos people keep posting, I was inspired to do one this morning. Last night I took oatmeal, vanilla almond milk, cherry Craisins, and some slivered almonds and put it in the fridge to soak overnight. This morning after yoga, I heated it up and proceeded to add some brown sugar and some orange marmalade.

Sounds good so far, right?

All that anticipation as I was making it, and after I took a couple bites I just didn't want it. It tasted fine, but I was running late for work and for some reason I changed my mind about the oatmeal. So it's sitting in the fridge for tomorrow. I forgot to take a picture of it too.

Part of the reason I was running late was that I was packing my lunch and since I haven't done a bento pic in a while I was busy taking pictures and then uploading to Flickr.



Not only have I not done a bento post in a while, but I haven't used my little sandwich box in forever! I forget how handy it is!

Today's lunch is a turkey, havarti, and spinach sandwich on whole wheat bread. I have a small campari tomato and some strawberries on the side. Not pictured are some peppercorn ranch Sunchips and the last couple squares of my dark chocolate with orange peel.

Hope everyone has a great day!

P.S.

Sweetie Pie was kind enough to remind me to remind everyone about this week's BSI, which is BASIL! You have until midnight on Sunday to submit your creations, which I look forward to drooling over.

The perfect weekend . . . and a special announcement!

Can I just say how perfect this past weekend was? Minus having to come into work on Saturday for a few hours, of course! :)

Saturday afternoon after I got back from work, I relaxed a little and dozed off for a bit. Then Mr. Spice and I attended a Thrashers hockey game -- we haven't gone to a sporting event in a while. It was great! We splurged and got seats that were in the middle section, which I felt made a difference, since I was actually able to see what was going on! The energy at the game was great and what made it even better was that we managed to win during the last minutes of the game.

Sunday as you know, we had a bit of thunder snow to liven up the day. It was the best kind of day to stay in and do absolutely nothing. I cooked a little and watched a LOT of TV. I also did some yoga and felt fabulous afterwards, I'm really glad I decided to take part in the 31-day yoga challenge at Carrots 'n' Cake. I'm looking forward to getting back into yoga and hopefully being more consistent with it.

Oh right, I promised you a special announcement!

I was very pleasantly surprised and honored when Sweetie Pie at Just Sweet Enough asked if I would like to host the next BSI! I've just recently begun participating in BSI and it's so much fun! What a great way to challenge one's culinary creativity! Not to mention it's a great way to discover other people who love food as much as I do.

It was really hard deciding what ingredient to pick for this week's contest. In the end, I decided that this week the ingredient will be BASIL!

Basil not only smells and tastes great, but it is also good for you! I did a little research at The World's Healthiest Foods site and was surprised to learn that:

• The flavonoids in basil provide DNA protection and may also have anti-bacterial properties


• A component of basil's volatile oils may have anti-inflammatory effects that may provide relief for people suffering from such problems as rheumatoid arthritis or IBS.


• Basil is a good source of vitamins A, C, and K, as well as a good source of iron, calcium, potassium, and magnesium!

Here are the rules for this week's contest:

• You can use basil in fresh or dried form


• You can use basil seeds
  
  

To enter the contest:

• email your recipe and photo to spiceaholic80 @ gmail.com OR


• post the recipe on your blog and email me a link

The deadline to sumbit an entry will be midnight, March 8th -- which is also when we start Daylight Savings Time, so I guess that means that's one hour less to submit an entry!

I'll update this post with submissions as I receive them -- please check back for updates!

The prize will be an assortment of Indian spices as well as a surprise!

I'm really excited to host this week's contest and cannot wait to see what everyone submits!

Sorry for the lack of pictures -- I'm typing this up at work. Shhhhh!

** Like I promised, here are the current entries for this week's BSI contest:

Mara at What's For Dinner: Basil Chavrie-Stuffed Burgers

Sweetie Pie at Just Sweet Enough: Sunny Basil Orange Salad

Beadie at What I Ate Yesterday: Spinach and Mushroom Stuffed Shells

Laura at Hey What's For Dinner Mom: Pesto-Glazed Vegetables over Feta Infused Polenta

Brandi at BranAppetit: Basil and Strawberry Scones

Playing with your food can be fun!

Especially when it leads to something yummy to eat!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I planned to participate in this week's BSI contest, hosted by Nicole at Just Sweet Enough. This week's ingredient was black beans, which I happen to like quite a bit. I just wasn't sure what I wanted to make. I figured there would be a lot of submissions for soups, burgers, dips, etc. which all sound great, but of course I wanted mine to be different. I thought long and hard and finally came up with something! Go me!

I know I yak a lot before I get around to the recipe, but I like to explain the background and thought process. So keep reading if you want or skip ahead to the recipe.

What I decided on was like an homage to and a slight twist on a childhood favorite of mine (it's still one of my favorites). I have always loved what we called Aloo Chops, which are breaded cutlets made of out of spiced-up mashed potato and usually encase a filling of ground meat. Sometimes they were made without the filling. This seems to be a popular Bengali snack food and has also made appearances at dinner parties. It's really good, trust me.

I've made straight up aloo chops before, so I knew the procedure. I first thought about using black beans for the filling, but decided that since the ingredient for BSI was black beans they should have more of a starring rather than support role. Then I came up with the idea of using mashed black beans and potatoes to make the chops and forgo the filling. Now I was on to something!

So last night after work I stopped at the store for some ingredients and set to work. The playing with my food part was as I was gleefully mixing everything up with my hands and forming the chops. It was so much fun, it reminded me of when I used to play with Play Doh. Don't worry, I refrained from making little animals or whatever it was I used to make.

I have a hard time coming up with titles for stuff, so I wasn't sure what to call this recipe. If I just wanted to be simple I would call it a black bean aloo chop, but that doesn't sound very glamorous, does it? How about this?

Spiced Black Bean and Potato Cakes

1/4 cup chopped onion
1 green chili, thinly sliced (do not use jalapeno or bell pepper, only the thin or serrano peppers)
1/2 tsp ginger paste or minced ginger
1 tsp. minced garlic

1 can black beans, drained, rinsed, and coarsely mashed (you want some identifiable chunks)
1 large potato, boiled or microwaved, peeled, broken into large chunks

2 tsp. ground cumin
1/2 tsp. ground coriander
1 tsp. paprika or chili powder (use cayenne if you really want it spicy, but use less)
1 tsp. garam masala
1/2 tsp. amchur (dried mango powder, substitute lemon juice or omit)
salt to taste
bread crumbs

canola oil

Heat about 2 tsp. of canola oil in a large frying pan over medium high heat. Add the onions and cook until translucent. Add the green chili slices if using, then the ginger, and garlic. Cook for a couple minutes, adding water if needed.

Add the coarsely mashed beans and potato, and combine thoroughly. You'll end up mashing the beans and potatoes a little as you combine, and this is fine. Add water as necessary to keep the mixture from drying up.

Take a large bowl, and add the bean and potato mixture. Add the spices and use your hands to mix everything up. Taste and adjust spices as necessary to your liking. Add water as necessary to keep the mixture from drying up and to incorporate the spices. You are going to end up with a wet dough at this point. Add bread crumbs as necessary to stabilze the dough so that it doesn't fall apart.

Now for the fun part. With your hands, form the dough into a large ball. Divide this into eighths. Take each eighth and form into a large ball, working to make it smooth. Then take the ball in one hand and use the other to flatten it from the top. Don't make it too flat, you want these to be thick and substantial. Use your hands to smooth the edges. These will look like hockey pucks when you're done -- see picture below.



Once you've made the cakes, let them sit on a plate for about 20 minutes to set up.

You can cook these a few ways:

If you want to make them like traditional chops, you can dip in egg and bread crumb and then fry. I didn't want to mess around with all that.

You can also bake these.

If you fry them, you have 2 options. You can take about 2 tbsp. oil and heat and then fry, but be careful since the cakes soften considerably when they fry in the oil, so be careful when turning them over. The second option is the one I ended up liking the best -- just "dry" frying in a hot pan so that they got a nice brown crust.

The verdict? I liked these a lot! They tasted like the aloo chops of my childhood, but the beans added a new dimension to them and made them more substantial. Mr. Spice ended up liking them too but suggested I make them more spicy next time. I have to confess to eating 2 almost as soon as they were out of the pan. Since I liked the way the dry fried ones looked, I used those for the final photos. :)

Enjoy!

Just a quick hello

I'm here, I'm here! Just really busy with tax work and trying desperately not to get sick.

No yummy sandwich concoctions the past couple days. Wellll, I take that back. I did make one at work yesterday that involved spicy 3 pepper hummus, fresh spinach, red onion, and tomato. But I was at work and no camera and I think people would think I'm weird for taking pictures of food at the office, so you'll have to visualize the yumminess of the sandwich on your own. Maybe I'll recreate it this weekend.

Oh and stay tuned for my entry in this week's BSI contest, hosted by Nicole at Just Sweet Enough.

Panchphoran Potatoes and Kale

I've been doing a lot of lurking on food blogs recently and have noticed various contests going on and thought it'd be fun to participate in one of them. One of the contests is BSI, which stands for Blogger Secret Ingredient. So particpants prepare a dish based on that week's secret ingredient.

Beadie over at What I Ate Yesterday is hosting this week's BSI contest and has chosen kale as the ingredient. I thought this would be a great opportunity to try my hand at one of these contests. Plus I've never eaten or prepared kale before, so that makes it even more interesting!

Since kale belongs to the same family as cabbage, cauliflower, and broccoli, and I like all three of those vegetables I felt good about trying it out. I thought I'd stick to somewhat familiar terrain and prepare it with Indian spices.

Panchphoran is a typically Bengali spice blend that consists of five spices -- hence the name, since "panch" means five. The spices that make up panchphoran are fenugreek, cumin, mustard, fennel, and nigella. The spices are in whole form and are mixed in equal proportion.

In our family, we didn't use it a whole lot as far as I can remember. My mom would make a few vegetable dishes with it. When I started cooking, the first time I used it was to try a recipe for Achaar Gosht, which is beef cooked in Indian pickling spices -- the spices all happened to be ingredients in panchphoran so I used that.

Anyway, I've recently tried to make the vegetable dish that my mom made that used panchphoran in it. In our family we typically called most mixed vegetable dishes "bhaji." The last couple times I've gone home I've watched my mom make it and wrote down what she did and tried to recreate it, with no success. For some reason I couldn't get the hang of tempering the panchphoran properly. You have to get the oil hot enough so that the spices crackle but you don't want to burn the spices and everything else that goes in the pan.

When I decided to prepare a bhaji today using kale, I didn't have high hopes given my past success rate. But surprisingly, it turned out pretty good! I ended up buying a small bunch of kale at Publix since I wasn't sure if I was going to like it. I had some leftover baby yukon gold potatoes from last week's Valentine's Day dinner, so that went in as well.

I've called the recipe Panchphoran Potatoes and Kale, but you could use any kind of vegetable you want. If I were talking about this dish with my family, I would just call it an aloo and kale bhaji.

Panchphoran Potatoes and Kale/Aloo and Kale Bhaji

2 tbps. canola oil
1 heaping teaspoon panchphoran
1/2 onion, finely sliced
1 tsp. minced ginger paste
1 tsp. minced garlic
1/2 tsp. ground cumin
salt to taste
1 cup potato, cut into 1/2 inch chunks
1 small bunch kale, rinsed, cut into small pieces

Heat the oil in a large pan over high heat. Toss in a spice or two to see if the oil is hot enough -- the spices should sputter and pop. When the oil is hot enough, add the panchphoran, and stir, letting it sputter and pop for a few seconds.

Reduce the heat to medium high and add the onions, stirring constantly. Be very vigilant so that the spices and onion don't burn - reduce the heat if necessary. Cook until the onions begin to turn brown, then add the ginger and garlic. Keep stirring, add the ground cumin.

Carefully add the potato and kale, stirring to combine thoroughly. Add some salt, then add about 1/4 cup water so that the vegetables and spices don't stick to the pan.

Lower the heat to about medium low, cover, and let cook for 15-20 minutes, until the potatoes are tender. Check every now and then to stir and add water as needed. Once the vegetables are done, taste for salt and adjust as needed.

Makes 2-4 servings, depending on how much you like veggies!

Enjoy!