Indian feast

We invited some friends over for dinner last night, and we decided to do an Indian feast. My cousin, Aparna, from Chennai, has a food blog. She hasn't updated it in a while, but the recipes that are on there are great. We went all out and even bought banana leaves for our plates, ate with our hands, and thoroughly enjoyed some delicious food.

If you have never made Indian food before, it can seem a little daunting, as the number of spices in some dishes makes for a long list of ingredients. It takes a little time to collect all the spices too, and some can be a bit pricey, but once you have them on hand, all you need are some veggies and you are ready to go! Aparna does a nice job of explaining how to do everything, and I must say that all four dishes we made came out perfectly. The bread wasn't the greatest, but it was still good, and I am pretty sure it's lack of total success was my fault.

Here are the dishes we made with links to Aparna's recipes. Thanks, cousin!!!

Fried Cauliflower : this one is super fast and easy.

Vegetable Kurma: easy, delicious, and you can use whatever veggies you like

Curd Rice: a South Indian classic

Palak Paneer: this is a common dish in Indian restaurants in the US, a little labor intensive, but well worth it.

Butter Naan: mine didn't bake up quite right. they weren't as soft and fluffy as I would have liked, but I'm not faulting the recipe for that.

Those last three links are all to the same post where she did a Sunday brunch. Take a look, give one or two a try, and enjoy!!