On the way to India, I made a slight detour

Well, things don't always go as planned in my life, or my cooking. While I have been exploring the cuisine of India, I am also currently OBSESSED with the Great British Baking Show, like I'm guessing some of you are. And what I'm most intrigued by is bread  and pastry crust. I used to bake bread occasionally about 10 years ago, and it's something that I really love. It brings back memories of my Nana baking bread in the winter, and timing it so the first pan was just coming out when I got home from school. She would make a couple of large square pans of rolls when she would make bread, and it was magical to have A WHOLE LOAF OF BREAD to myself. I could smell it before I got to her house from the bus stop, and I usually started running the minute I could smell it. I'd come in the kitchen door, take off my coat and put down my books, and wash my hands. Coming back to the kitchen, I'd sit at the table, and she would put a plate with a hot roll down in front of me. Of course there was butter involved, all melty and oozy. Fast forward to today, I made my first yeast dough in forever, and the end result was oil cured olive bread sticks (https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/olive_breadsticks_79125). Actually, they were more like mini baguettes, as I made them a bit too thick, and didn't bake them as long as they needed. Long story short, I'll totally make them again, and they were delicious. I haven't tackled pastry yet, but rest assured, that's coming.

Today I finally made it to India! I made what I think is very inauthentic veggie curry, but it's really good, at least when I was tasting it for salt and seasoning. Eggplant, peppers, peas, and carrots, all with garam masalla and coconut milk (a slight deviation from cream because dairy is not always my friend...). We're eating it for dinner tonight, so I'll keep you posted on how it was when it had a chance to think about itself. 

I'm off to  grab some more yeast - time to make something else that come out of the oven and smells of my childhood. 

Exploring the flavors of India

Although I'm an adventurous cook, I tend to stick to a fairly European / Latin / American style. I don't often explore the food of Asia or Africa. That's tended to be Walter's arena. However, I've  got a bit more time on my hands right  now since I was laid off at the end of December, so I've been doing some reading on Indian food, and I'm intrigued and excited.

As  I was reading one of our Indian cookbooks, I found myself thinking about how big the country is, how many regions there area, and how unique each of those regions is. As I paged through that book, I saw flavors from vegetarian areas and from places where meat is eaten regularly. I saw how the flavors were adapted to the English, when they were there. I saw how local availability affected what was eaten - fish on the coasts, meat in the north. And I read about how faith also guides what is eaten. Tonight's adventure is an eggplant curry, likely with saffron rice. I'm excited about shopping for the vegetables and spices (although truth be told, we have many of the things I need in our spice drawer), and about experimenting with the proportions of the spices to main ingredients. 

Most of all, I'm looking forward to exploring the culture through what I cook because I believe that you can't know a place or a people until you have eaten their food. The flavors, and care, and love that is put into each bite tells you about the people that prepared it for you, and for those that are making it for you. I'll let you know how it goes in the next entry!

Let's get this started!

It seems I'm always looking for a new cooking adventure. I buy cooking magazines and cookbooks, then read them over and over. When I feel like eating something in particular, I search the end of the internet for recipes and combine that with what I already know to create something tasty. Even when I go out to eat, I think about the food - how it was prepared, the ingredients, how it made me feel - and think of how perfect it was, or how it could have been better. 

That's what this blog is going to be about - my adventures in cooking and eating. Food is a big part of my life and I'm looking forward to sharing this adventure with you.