Seasonings

As far as I'm concerned winter is here. Christmas has been expressed at my company and our corporate halls are decked with boughs of plastic holly. As an atheist I used to get distressed by such displays, but this looks really festive. It cheers our entrance up. I am a pagan sympathizer though, so perhaps I'd be outraged if I was involved with a monotheistic religion. Along with any emotional responses to red ornaments and enormous ever greens these items also send signals to my seasonal sensors. A wreath signals winter. I'm expecting snow any day.

I don't see Fall and Spring as full blown seasons. They are the atmosphere through which we travel before we land at our destination season. Perhaps I'm too goal oriented or centered on the future, but to me Fall and Spring mostly hold the characteristics of their respective target seasons Winter and Summer. Fall fell once the leaves left the trees.

Since it's getting colder I don't want to putter around in my garage so the Honda project is getting put on hold until I get a wild hair again. I wonder how this is going to effect my exposed carburetor. I'll cover it in oiled rags today. To fill that need to putter around and assemble things I've started cooking. I love working in my kitchen when it's cold out. Something about cold weather and runny noses gets me cooking. It's all warm and cozy in my kitchen, although the food I cook isn't necessarily comfortable. The timing is perfect: I've decided to pay off my credit card and get my general finances whipped into shape which means I'm going to start dumping my money in the bank rather than on a restaurant table where I normally leave it.

My favorite foods right now are Indian and Thai - really anything creamy and spicy - so I decided I'd learn how to cook dishes I'd normally eat at a restaurant. I never thought I'd be cooking Palak Paneer, but there I was last night pureeing spinach and sauteeing cheese that doesn't melt in ghee. Ghee is clarified butter in a solid form, looks like yellow shortening, and smells a little gross. I'm not sold on using it as a cooking fat just yet, but I'm sticking with it at least until I get to know it better. The moral of the story is that it's actually pretty easy to cook this stuff. The recipe I used for Palak Paneer is old skool having the cook use fresh spinach rather than frozen, roast fresh cashews to make a powder, and boil a tomato rather than use canned. I never realized how much I like tomatoes. Since it took so long to get all these things accomplished I think next time I'll be taking the short cuts; at least on a weeknight. I was cooking for 90 minutes. The result was really good especially considering it was the first time I'd made it. I believe the hardest thing about Indian cooking is getting all the ingredients. The greatest obstacle is finding a good recipe that translates what the spices are. I had no clue what dhania-jeera is, but coriander and cumin is no mystery. Thankfully, I live and work near two Indian groceries so picking up that wild no-melt cheese wasn't too difficult.

This weekend I'm returning to my cooking roots and tackling my favorite Indian bread product, na'an.