Feeding the Beast

I've really been craving vegetables lately. It must be the change of seasons has me craving freshness or something, but I just have not been able to get enough. Add to that my insane craving for something with Indian flavors, and you have tonight's dinner. It began with a cauliflower. I wanted to do something with cauliflower, but I didn't want to run to the store. A quick go-through of my authentic Indian cookbook revealed plenty of exotic ingredients that I don't have on hand (nigella seeds, asofetoeda, black mustard seeds to name a few). So I picked up an Indian cookbook that I think I only have ever used once.

New Indian Home Cooking by Madhu Gadia, M.S., R.D. is something I received in a cookbook swap. While the recipes seem mostly authentic to me, they are of the low-fat variety, so I seldom pick up this book. (Not that low-fat is bad, just tends to be a bit bland to me.) But the extremely simple recipe for Phul Gobhi Salad caught my eye right away. Translated, it simply means stir-fried salad. And that intrigued me.

The only problem I had with it was that there was no Indian flavor to it. It was simply vegetables, stir-fried with salt, pepper, and vegetable oil. I wanted Indian. So instead of following the recipe precisely, I added about a teaspoon of cumin seeds to my hot oil. I toasted those up a bit before tossing in my veggies, and the result was lip-smacking. I barely cooked them, they were still slightly crunchy, but oh were they good. With some homemade whole wheat pita bread and cantaloupe, it was a more than satisfying veggie dinner.
I didn't quite use the veggies in the recipe. My blend consisted of cauliflower, red bell pepper, onions, carrots, asparagus, and green peas. It was perfect- but I bet zucchini would have made it even better. Another book to check off my list and just many, many more to go.

I also just realized that this great big bowl of veggies is full of antioxidants and such, so that means this is a perfect candidate for Sweetnick's ARF/5-A-Day Tuesday challenge. I almost always make a qualifying food AFTER she's posted the weekly round-up. Be sure to head over there and check out all the other heart-healthy submissions this week.