Weekend in Pictures

This was our LAST short weekend with Dave. Woo!

It went by fast and included a lot of cooking (on my part) and playing trains with Eddie.

Here we go...

Saturday Dave worked at the rental house we manage for a few hours in the morning (no pictures) while Eddie and I played trains, went to the store, and prepared some of the many components of our Sunday Feast.

We blenderized the vindaloo garlic pepper paste, caramelized a ton of onions, marinated chicken, etc. Eddie is learning how to CAREFULLY stir food in pans and pots. He understands that it is very hot and seems to understand not to whip things around violently like when he's "pretend" cooking with Legos. That night we had pinwheel steaks. I filled them with kale and sweet potato greens (wilted them in microwave first), Swiss and Parmesan cheeses, purple basil, and sun dried tomatoes. They were super yummy, but took a lot longer to cook than I expected. And what would a day be without long stretches of train-playing with Eddie?Sunday Dave and I worked in the yard while Eddie took a nice, long nap. I removed all the tomatillos and green tomatoes I could find on the vines before ripping out the plants. Meanwhile, Dave strengthened and expanded the shelf in our shed so it can hold more (heavy) stuff, as evidenced below:
That afternoon I finished cooking up our Indian Feast. Eddie helped with the naan, from a safe distance:
I made tons of food, admittedly, but since we love variety, we treated it like a buffet. I doubled most of the recipes so we can have left overs for the freezer and one or two meals during the week. Dave took some food up to Gualala for one of his dinners. Hopefully his dad will have a taste, too.

Our dishes included: peach lassis (with canned peaches in pear juice since mangoes are expensive), butter chicken (made with less butter and mostly half-and-half), veggie vindaloo, raita, naan, and gulab jamun for dessert. I also pulled some pre-made spicy brinjal eggplant and saag paneer (recipe below, from my friend Geetika) from the freezer.

It was all soooooo good. The only thing I need to change is to make real mango lassis next time. Dave didn't care for the only-peach flavor. Since I'm terrible at cutting mangoes, I might look for canned mango or something and cut it with peaches, since they are super cheap.And, of course, we spent a lot of time playing trains on Sunday:
Geetika's Saag Paneer

• 2 T oil
• 2 t cumin seeds
• 2 T coriander powder
• 1 t turmeric powder
• 1 t chili flakes
• 1.5 t chopped garlic
• 1 inch piece of ginger root, grated
• 1 medium/large red onion, chopped
• 8-9 Roma tomatoes, chopped finely or pureed (or 2 cans tomato puree)
  

Heat oil in pan over medium high heat. Add cumin seeds and sauté until they begin to split open. Then add coriander powder, turmeric powder, and chili flakes, garlic, ginger and sauté until it barely turns golden. Then add onions and cook until the onions are pinkish brown. Next add the tomato puree. Simmer until all excess liquid is gone; continue to cook so that the paste fries and the tomato flesh eventually releases all its liquid, too. Transfer to containers to freeze if you like, or use as is. Geetika uses this curry sauce for her saag paneer dish (a few tablespoons curry for about 4 cups cooked spinach or other greens like chard, mustard, collard, etc.).