good job, mom: indian dinner (from space)

Kohlrabi is this winter's New Vegetable. How have I never eaten it before? It's right there in the middle of the January wedge of my food wheel (buy one for yourself!). It is a space alien vegetable and I ate the greens last week with eggs. Normal, greens. Whatevs.

I wanted to do something more interesting with the bulb/tuber of the thing. Somehow I knew India/Pakistan had the answer. The recipe site format is completely annoying, but visit nonetheless because this recipe is tight. (Tight?? Who said that?)

notes: if you don't have asafoetida, use two cloves of garlic. if you are gringalicious and don't have cardamom pods, leave them out. if, for the same reason, you fear the amount of red pepper called for, reduce at will. I didn't have a pre-mixed garam masala, so i substituted some tandoori mix. oops, shoulda used the curry powder! (on a cardamom note, did you know Bombay Creamery closed?!? I just learned that this weekend. no more rose/cardamom ice cream sundaes. sadness.)

Back to dinner: delicious. Trim the kohlrabi well or it gets stringy and yucks. If you burn the everliving shit out of half of it (like i did!), trim the burned parts and keep going. The vegetable was headed to the compost bin anyway, so whatever makes it into the gravy is how do you say? gravy. 

Serve with lentils and yogurt if you happen to have them around. or soak up the gravy with any old bread. YUMMEH.

MIA helped me cook Thai food

oh my GOD i was bored with butternut squash. i love squash but sweet squash is a key baby food and i feel like i've been steaming squash non stop for the past year-even the munchkin was spitting it out-BLEH.

so when a coworker gave me some of her curry with acorn squash in it, i rejoiced. for serious.

SING THIS WHILE YOU COOK - you'll understand soon...


i found a recipe. i like how flexible she is with the ingredients, and that it doesn't include "curry paste". you know the thai ladies aren't buying jars of curry paste, why should i? anyway, i also took the opportunity to enjoy the bounty of bay area markets and learn about kaffir lime leaves and galanga. there was some old lemongrass in the fridge, too...

things i changed: sub 325 degrees, use one .5 lb fillet of cod (not farmed, not endangered). round two included turnips, carrots, broccoli. i have no idea how long i cooked it, whoops. i put it in a pie dish because i need a casserole dish :/

it's delicious. baby likes it too. but i forgot the butternut. whoops. so after i cooked everything, i pulled out the chunks and replaced them with slivered butternut (the thinner the slice the easier the knife goes through?!discoveries!). baked for approx 20 minutes at 375.

TO MAKE THIS EASIER-

there's no reason ( i don't think?) that you couldn't make a ton of this stuff and freeze jars of sauce for the next time. one day i'll try that.

And for more homework- GROW YOUR OWN
thaitable says "If you live in a nice and warm place with no frost try grow galangal in your yard. It has beautiful flowers that resemble orchids."