Last night, while waiting for our pizzas to be made at our favorite local vegan pizzeria, M. and I spent some time looking through Appetite For Reduction, which was one of my Christmas presents. My goal is to make each of the 125 recipes at least once in the coming year, and with many of them already paired up, I realized this goal is easily accomplished if I (or we) make one meal every week or so. We decided go to Indian for our first recipe made, and so after choosing the Eggplant-Chickpea Curry (page 230), we also made the decision to make the recommended side of Cranberry-Cashew Biryani (page 67).
Although there is downtime involved, making these recipes was more time-consuming than most, which led M. to comment that it would be a perfect meal for making with dinner guests, particularly because there is so much to do, so everyone could pitch in with food prep. Then, during the 40 minutes of cooking, we could sit back and converse, etc.
However, the combination is worthwhile. The curry is admittedly a bit spicy (although we used chili pepper flakes as opposed to red pepper flakes) so we would scale back on that. We also left out the cilantro, since I am not a fan. Otherwise, the flavor is tasty, and hearty. Meanwhile, the biryani has a super colorful presentation, and the cranberries add a nice touch. M.’s inclusion of extra peas also did not hurt. On its own, more salt might be necessary, but when paired with the curry, the combination was excellent. The only thing missing was naan or bathura.
Made: December 28, 2012
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