Okay, here’s the final – all polished up – version of what was served at the Cooking with Cat Ladies dinner to benefit City Kitties.
General Condiments
- Coriander Chutney (Mirch Masala)
- Tamarind Date Chutney (Deep Foods)
- Gobi Shalgam / Turnip Cauliflower Pickle (Sanjeev Kapoor’s Khazana)
- Coconut Chutney (Swad)
- Tomato Chutney (Swad)
- Mango pickle (Israel)
- Jerusalem Artichoke Relish (Mac & Cheese Review – local food blogger)
- Radish and Carrot raita (made by me from yogurt from the Hails Family Farm, who vend at the Clark Park farmers market)
Appetizers
- Black Bean Dip
- tzatziki
- Spicy White Bean Dip (using a jar of peppers & garlic – only thing I would change would be that when I doubled the recipe I also doubled the amount of sesame oil, and I think that was a little overpowering)
- (and I made matbucha, but ended up convinced that the eggplant dish was meant to be an appetizer, so that didn’t get served)
- Baked Achari Baingan (I loved this dish – it had a very distinct flavor. I did not use fennel seeds because I don’t own any. And I was surprised how much of the flavor came from the ajwain seeds because most recipes don’t call for nearly so much.)
- homemade pita chips
- mini papadums
- Baked corn tortilla scoop chips
- crudites – cucumber, cauliflower, radish, bell peppers, and sugar snap peas
Soup
- Coconut Chutney Butternut Squash Soup (to improve on the first version, I swapped 2 cans of full fat coconut milk for 1 can of full fat, 1 lowfat, and a quart of vegetable stock. I also ended up adding several kabocha squash (which I’d roasted to make peeling easier for the winter squash vindaloo but found that made them too soft and went back to try that one starting from raw) and the proportions were about 2 butternut : 1 kabocha by volume. I did not add any chutney or garlic. Huh… and no brown sugar. Oh, and there was lime juice because I’m on a kick where lime juice makes everything better. But other than that, it was exactly the same. And I debated between blending it smooth and leaving it chunky and decided that while smooth might feel more ‘professional’ that I really did prefer it chunky)
Mains
- Vegetable Biryani (link to sauce base) (Only changes I made were using brown basmati rice instead of white and omitting the saffron… and I think I’d completely run out of ginger by the assembly of the dish but the sauce base had ginger since I’d made that the night before)
- Winter Squash Vindaloo (made with Kabocha and a packet of vindaloo mix from Parampara – which turned out to be a very pleasing mix that made a paste from whole spices)
- Chana Masala
- Parippu (I used the recipe from The Food of India by Priya Wickramasinghe, but the recipe I’m linking is almost verbatim as you’ll see if you compare with the recipe I wrote out in the last post – followed faithfully except for the lack of curry leaves)
- Did I mention the Baked Achari Baingan?
- Hazelnut Tamarind Rice
Salad – Another year when people were too stuffed for a salad course. I count that as a win.
Dessert
- Vegan Carrot Cake (to which my father said, when I took him leftovers, “That’s not carrot cake; I don’t like carrot cake.”) (So this was an amazingly resilient recipe in which many things went wrong but I never doubted it would be delicious. The batter was delicious. I used a 9″ round cake pan, instead of a 9″ square one and didn’t think of increasing the cooking time until the middle fell out in unmolding even though the toothpick had come out clean. Well, only some of the middles (so they ended up a bit concave). And I didn’t unmold until after they’d cooled a bit, so I ended up cooking them for another 10 minutes after they’d quit cooking… and yet they were still moist and compliant. So changes I made on account of ingredient supply – I used 3/2 cups of all purpose and 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour; 1/4 cup of almond oil and 1/2 cup of olive oil; and I used pecans instead of walnuts. And then I had already made candied blood orange slices, and I had found some pretty Tangelos and candied them, too, and was a little worried since they ended up pretty bitter despite the sugar coating. But I took them to friends to sample, and they all approved me using them. So to tie in the citrus, I made a lime syrup to drizzle on the cakes before making an artistic citrus slice arrangement on top. Hopefully, someone will send me pictures.)
- Nutty Buttered Applesauce (and for the person with celiacs, I just whipped out a selection of my home canned applesauces (huh – which I’ve never blogged about.), and felt all swank offering to just whip up something easy. We went with the one with chai-themed seasonings. Put that in a ramekin, put some broken pecans on top, and a pat of butter to melt in – and that went in the over for as long as it took me to get everything else out and coffee started.)