Christmas Eve--Indian.

My family and I decided to make Indian food for Christmas Eve. We used to do a traditional Christmas Eve dinner, but since various scheduling factors have shifted our real emphasis from Christmas Eve to Christmas Day, Christmas Eve has become more of a warm-up party for us. Since then, we've started to make creative foods like Mexican and Indian on Xmas eve. This was a good opportunity to have a rematch with Chana Masala (see 'Curried Humility' entry), to see if I could make it a bit more edible this time. It worked out well. I also made homemade Roti, an Indian flatbread, and I thoroughly impressed myself. It was actually fairly simple. Again, mom made spiced basmati rice, which was great. We had some mango chutney, which I never got a photo of. We also has some Indian cocunut rice pudding with raisins and pistachios. It all turned out pretty well.

My Aunt came down from Manhattan for dinner today. It was nice to see her and cook for her. I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of the family tomorrow.


Chana Masala (stewed chickpeas and potatoes w/ indian spices) with spinach. I took the photo really close because any wider shot didn't really show you the food anymore.



Spiced basmati rice with cinnamon, cardamom and cumin.



Homemade roti (indian flatbread, thinner than Naan) with vegan butter on top.



The whole shebang together with mango chutney and white wine.



Indian rice pudding with coconut milk, raisins and pistachios. I would have liked to use golden raisins, but didn't have any around.



Ye ol' hearth.


hat tip to Manjula's Indian Vegetarian Kitchen for helping me with the Roti. Here's the video. It puffs up when its cooking and forms an inner pocket like a pita. It looks really cool. Here's Manjula's video:


stay tuned for Xmas dinner tomorrow night!!!
happy holidays everyone!!!