Pile It High

There is something magical about the combination of ranch dressing and barbecue sauce.  Especially on a salad.  Also with croutons and coconut bacon.  

It's a lot easier to make salads for dinner when you keep crazy good salad toppings like these around.  I've eaten mixing bowl salads three times in the past week.  This one has locally grown baby spinach, chopped romaine, shredded yellow carrots, croutons, coconut bacon, locally made smoked blue cheese, baked tofu soaked in my bestie's homemade whiskey barbecue sauce, and ranch dressing. This is a filling salad.  Be sure you pile the spinach and lettuce high to balance all the rich toppings.

My buddy Jesse says I only like barbecue and ranch together because I'm from Texas, but I think everyone should try it.  I enjoyed this salad while watching an episode of King of the Hill.  Hank Hill thinks you should go prep some salad toppings now so that you're prepared.

His words of wisdom on tonight's episode: "Plan ahead.  Then when stuff happens, you'll be prepared."

Serious Vegetables

It's time for some serious vegetables.  For the past 2 weeks I've tried to only purchase fresh foods from the co-op.  I'm king of doing a pantry challenge, but instead of NO grocery shopping, I'm buying plenty of fruits and vegetables to pair with my various pantry items that need to get cleared out.

One of my current vegetable loves are the new microgreens from Finally Farms in Minnesota.  I really enjoyed this micro arugula with a little lemon and olive oil, but it really doesn't even need any dressing!  In the background there is a broccoli, mushroom and tofu scramble.

Here's the easiest make-ahead salad ever.  I cooked up a huge pot of quinoa and used about half in a salad and reserved half for other meals during the week. For the salad I added chopped up cucumber, carrot, parsley, basil and onion to the quinoa and dressed it with a lemon and olive oil vinaigrette.  So simple and so good.  We had this for dinner one night and brought it in our lunch boxes, too.

Easy Weeknight Meal

Easy weeknight meal: steamed broccoli, made-ahead quinoa tabbouli, crockpot beans with sundried tomatoes

Brown Rice to the Rescue

Ah, it's good to be back.  Not that I really went anywhere.

These past couple weeks were overwhelming.  I was super busy at work (tons of outreach work, plus hiring someone new!), Mike was injured while sledding and couldn't walk for a week, the St. Paul Winter Medallion Hunt started and then we all got colds.  That meant we ordered pizza 3 times in one week.  And picked up burritos at Mississippi Market.  And ordered Chinese.  I wasn't doing too much scratch cooking.

But I did manage to cook a big pot of brown rice and beans each week.  I think that's the only thing that saved us from ordering pizza FIVE times in one week.  Thank goodness for brown rice.  It goes with everything and is so filling it's practically a meal in itself.

One night I paired the leftover (planned-over) brown rice with cannellini beans, home-canned tomatoes and home-canned pickled red peppers for a unexpectedly popular dinner.  I sauteed some onions and garlic in lots of olive oil and then added dried thyme, ground fennel seed and dried basil from last year's garden.  Then I added the beans, rice, peppers and tomatoes and simmered until all the tomato juice was absorbed and it looked almost like a risotto.  Then I stirred in fresh basil (a real treat this time of year).  I'll definitely be repeating this dish-  Maybe next time I'll even write down the recipe!

Another night I had some leftover red beans, but no grains.  So I heated the beans up in a little bit of barbecue sauce, whipped up some ranch dressing and used both to top a fresh green salad with lots of red pepper strips (red peppers have been on sale at the co-op, so we're eating LOTS of them).  This reminded me of when I used to order baked potatoes at barbecue joints in Texas and eat them swimming in butter, barbecue sauce and ranch.  I like to think this is just a touch healthier.  

Another favorite leftover rice dish here, but this one I usually make for breakfast.  I like to heat up my griddle and throw on some mushrooms and Field Roast sausage slices (usually the apple sage ones).  Then I top them with leftover rice so that the rice basically steams over the browning mushrooms and sausage.  Just before serving, I mix it all together and sprinkle with lots of black pepper and a little sea salt.  Oh, yes.  Delightful.   I love savory breakfasts!

So there you have it.  Those are some of my favorite uses for leftover beans and rice.

This week is bound to be more relaxing and allow for some real cooking.  The Medallion Hunt is over (sad, but that means I'll sleep at night instead of tromping through snowy parks).  Mike is on the mend (he's able to walk and sit, trying to build his strength back up for work).  And me?  I'm still on vacation!!!

Persian Stuffed Grape Leaves

When a coworker loaned me his old copy of Food of Life: A book of ancient Persian and modern Iranian cooking and ceremonies by Najmieh Batmanglij, I made a few copies of the recipes before I returned the book- And I'm so glad I did!  Turns out the book has been out of print for a while, but now is being republished in Feb 2011.  Judging from this recipe, I think it'll be a winner.  

Of course, there aren't too many vegan recipes in the book (except the pickles!).  But most are easily vegan-izable, like these stuffed grape leaves.  I LOVE Greek dolmas, the simple rice and dill stuffed grape leaves usually served cold with lots of lemon.  These are similar in that they use dill and lemon, but are much more filling because they have split peas or lentils in them, too.  I think these would be lovely with a tomato sauce on top, but I also enjoyed the unusual lemon and sugar coating.  

A recipe isn't totally necessary here, since nearly anything would taste good in grape leaves, in my opinion.  But here it is, with all of my modifications.

Stuffed Grape Leaves

1 cup white rice 

1 1/2 cups water

1/2 cup red wine

1 "Not Beef" bouillon cube

1/2 cup dried tomatoes (chopped if large)(dried apricots would also be good)

1/2 cup split peas or lentils

1 tsp. salt

1 cup chopped green onions

1/2 cup chopped fresh dill

1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley

Juice of 3 lemons

1/4 tsp. black pepper

3/4 tsp ground cinnamon

50 (approx.) jarred grape leaves, rinsed

2 Tbsp. Earth Balance or olive oil

2 Tbsp. sugar

Start by cooking up some white rice and some split peas or lentils.  For the rice, combine rice, water, red wine, bouillon and dried tomatoes in a saucepan, cover and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to a simmer and cook until rice is tender- very slightly underdone is okay.  Meanwhile, cover the split peas or lentils with water and simmer until tender.  I used chora dal (split white lentils) and they were done about when the rice was.  But depending on the legume you choose, it could take longer.  Drain the lentils if needed.

In a large bowl, combine the cooked rice and lentils, salt, onions, fresh herbs, the juice of 2 of the lemons reserve one), pepper and cinnamon.  Taste and adjust seasoning as needed before stuffing leaves.  

Preheat oven to 350F.  Prepare a 9 x11 inch glass baking dish by oiling lightly and placing 2 layers of flat grape leaves in the bottom.  

Then take 2 grape leaves, overlapping, and place about 1-2 Tbsp. of filling on one end.  Tuck in the sides of the leaves and roll towards you until the filling is sealed inside.  Place stuffed leaves in the baking dish, seam down.   

Once all the leaves are stuffed, dot the top with bits of Earth Balance or sprinkle with olive oil.  Pour 1 1/2 cups of water over the leaves and cover with foil (or an oven safe lid, if you have one).  Bake for 45 minutes at 350F.  

Meanwhile, mix together the remaining lemon's juice with the sugar until dissolved.  I know it sounds weird, but it's super good!  The final dish doesn't taste sweet, the sugar just cuts the acid of the lemon slightly.  Pull the grape leaves out of the oven after 45 min. and pour the sugar-lemon mixture over the top.  Cover and return to the oven for another 20 minutes.  Then the leaves should be tender and the liquid mostly absorbed.  

I recommend serving with something.  I didn't really plan out what to have as a side dish until I put these on the plate and realized how naked and boring it looked.  I threw together a mildly Middle Eastern salad with olives and herbs.  This would have been great with a really fun salad with pomegranate seeds and walnuts or something.  Or some bread.  

But for a quick snack, the leftovers are fantastic!  I've eaten them cold out of the fridge for a very satisfying mini-meal.  They've got grains, protein and greens all in one little package- pretty perfect.  Also, I'm confident that you could prepare everything in advance and just do the baking later in the week for an easy meal.  

On an altogether different note: 

The pantry challenge of 2010 is over.  I refilled my bulk jars (or at least many of them) today.  I'm proud to say that I was able to empty nearly all of them and get them washed- so this end-of-year pantry eating is pretty practical for a fresh start in the new year.  Now I'm pretty excited to have enough flours and nuts to do all the baking I want!!!

Bag 'o Veggies

I can't believe I've never done this before.  This weekend I washed and chopped a variety of vegetables and threw them into a bag to use in a stir fry on Monday night.  I also had leftover rice to incorporate.  But Monday's plans went awry because of more snow and I ended up cooking something else.

Yesterday I arrived home late and decided to cook the stir fry for myself.  About 3 minutes later I was eating- crazy fast dinner!!!

The best news is that I still had more prepped veggies leftover, so I recreated the same thing tonight.  I think I'm going to start prepping a bag full of mixed vegetables to use every week- for a quick stir fry or even to snack on.  This week's bag contained yellow onions, carrots, celery, broccoli and cabbage.

This is especially nice for the nights I eat by myself and think, "hmmm... I could have hot chocolate, baguette and avocado for dinner, right?"  I tend to skimp on the veggies sometimes when I'm by myself.

Here's all that I added to my stir fry tonight besides the bag of veggies and cooked rice: ginger powder, red pepper flakes, the juice of 1 orange and tamari.    And somehow it was totally amazing.

Now I'm sitting back to finish my library book.  I'm a serious binge reader, and I'll do nearly anything to read a mystery book cover to cover.   I'm going to try to finish it tonight so I don't have to call in sick tomorrow (just kidding, coworkers!)  (kind of!).

Make Ahead Shells

This past week's "make ahead meals" included stuffed shells.  I'd be lost without these easy oven meals that I can prep on the weekend!

Weeks ago I found this "grand shell" Tinkyada pasta at some co-op besides my own.  Maybe Valley Natural Co-op?  Can't remember!   We love stuffed shells, but haven't made them in quite a while because that'd be really mean to Mike.  So I was thrilled to find some gluten free ones- especially Tinkyada brand, because that's our favorite brand.  

I very loosely followed Lucinda Scala Quinn's recipe from November's Living.  Basically, I just liked her idea of adding raddichio or cabbage to the shell mixture.  Great way to get more greens!  I would usually have just used spinach, but I used both spinach and savoy cabbage and it was great.  My favorite shell filling is the cashew ricotta from Veganomicon.  And, of course, homemade tomato sauce- This was my first jar from this year's batch- Yum!

And because I love Tinkyada pasta so much, here's a picture of our cat, Trouble Tinkyada.  She likes yarn.

 Another easy meal in my lunchbox this week was roasted carnival (or maybe acorn) squash with balsamic vinegar.  I paired this with all sorts of other veggies and soups in my lunches this week.

It's especially good cold with toasted walnuts and greens on top- Like a squash salad bowl.

I scooped some of this squash out of the peel tonight and added it to a hot skillet with leftover green beans and Tofurky Italian sausage.  Sounds a little weird, but it was amazing!  I will definitely be repeating that combination- sweet squash and spicy sausage with slightly crunchy green beans.  Wish I had more squash right now...

Two Easy Meals

I'm loving this cooler weather we're having because now I can bake things in the oven without having to strip down to take the heat.  Bring on the casseroles!

This week we enjoyed ratatouille over pasta.  It probably would have been faster to heat this up in a skillet, but it was nice to just pop it into the oven.  The ratatouille was basically just tons of roasted veggies- it was awesome!!  I put a cubed, peeled eggplant, 1 zucchini, 3 tomatoes, 2 carrots, 2 celery ribs, 1 onion, a head of garlic and lots of basil and thyme in roasting pans until everything was roasty-toasty-carmelized.  Then I just mixed it all together with some salt and pepper.  I did all this and precooked some gluten free pasta this past weekend, so on Tuesday night Mike just popped it into the oven!  Super easy and super good.  

Monday night was beans, rice and greens night.  I think I need to do this at least once a week.  This weekend I cooked up some rice and black eyed peas.  On Monday night I just warmed up the rice in a cast iron skillet and heated the black eyed peas with some tabasco vinegar (tabasco chiles preserved in vinegar).  The kale from the garden only took about 2 minutes to sauté with garlic and Bragg's aminos.  Then I drizzled a bit of tahini over everything.  

The kids totally loved this and it made a great meal in my lunchbox the next day- except that we ate all the kale!  There's never any leftover kale.  

Tofu and Millet

This post wins the prize for least exciting title.  Even though I do like both millet and tofu a good deal, they sound totally boring together.  But this meal was ridiculously good and came together really quickly.  Millet can be used just like couscous or rice in a pilaf or stir fry and it has WAY more nutrition!

What to do ahead of time:  Cook up some millet and marinate tofu slabs in garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, salt and lemon pepper.

On dinner night you just have to throw the tofu slabs on a hot griddle/grill/cast iron skillet to brown.  Also throw some sliced onions and mushrooms on the grill at the same time.  Then heat the used tofu marinade in another skillet and add the cooked millet so that it can warm up and absorb the marinade.  Add 1 roasted red pepper and the onions and mushrooms from the grill.  A little sprinkle of salt and pepper is all the millet will need before serving alongside the browned tofu.  This meal should probably have some greens on the side, but I skipped the side veg tonight.  

I think I'm going to start mixing up a tofu marinade every week for an easy dinner!

Super Quick Black Bean Soup

Here's a make-ahead meal that I love once the weather starts cooling off.  It's just a bit cooler this week, so I couldn't resist a creamy black bean soup.  

All I had to do to make this possible on a weeknight was just pressure cook some black beans this weekend. That took all of about 5 minutes.

Then last night I sautéed some onions and garlic in olive oil, added the black beans, water and a bouillon cube and brought it up to a simmer.  Then I sprinkled in some yummy spices: cumin, coriander and a little cayenne pepper.  Once heated though, I used my immersion blender to puree it all.  My favorite toppings include pico de gallo, tortilla chips, avocado and pickled jalapeños.

My favorite part about this soup?  It's crazy rich in protein because it's basically all beans!  Plus, there's some serious fiber going on here.  I'm bringing it to work tomorrow to eat for second breakfast!

Cooling off

Ugh.  It's hot and and I swear it must be more than 100% humidity.  We're practically under water here in MN.  On days like this I need simple food that takes about zero effort and zero cooking.  Here's one of my favorite go-to salads.  It works good in a lunchbox, too!

Spicy Cucumber Peanut Salad

1 locally grown cucumber, diced
1 handful of roasted, salted peanuts
1 Tbsp. minced green onion
1 pinch red pepper flakes
~1 Tbsp. white wine vinegar
~1 tsp. umeboshi plum vinegar

Combine everything in a bowl.  Find a cool place to sit and eat.

New Life for Leftovers

I have a little problem with leftovers.  After about 3 days, they just feel old and stale and I mentally label them as contaminated.  I usually manage this issue by only preparing food for 3 days at a time.  For example, on Sundays I prep dinners for Monday and Tuesday.  And Mike's a master at using up leftovers in new dishes, so he can usually finish off anything that's left after that point with his lunches.

But this week my plans went awry with a nasty stomach bug and not having the kids here (it was a real blessing that the kids weren't here to get exposed to the illness... but that left me with lots of leftover food!).  So today I came home from work to find the fairly big bowl of potato salad made with gorgeous locally grown fingerling potatoes and a really delightful blanched pea and red onion salad that I made on Sunday.  That was 3 days ago.  And I'm just not as interested in eating this now.

I know logically that this food is probably fine, but I've spent the day brushing up on my Salmonella, E. coli, Listeria monocytogenes and Clostridium botulinum knowledge to teach a food safety training tomorrow.  And eating leftover potato salad just doesn't sound appealing after that!

So here's how my potatoes and peas found a new life:

I drained off the slightly creamy vinaigrette from the potatoes and tossed them with some onions in a hot skillet.  After the onions were translucent, I added the peas (they just had a bit of red onion and Earth Balance on them) and 1/2 can of light coconut milk and a generous 3 Tbsp. of Patak's mild curry paste.  After simmering for about 10 minutes, this was a whole new dish!

Plus, boiling for 10 minutes kills most of those scary bacteria I was reading about today :)

Back in Black

Usually my weekend meal-planning system saves me time and money.  Other times my weekend meal planning is a total failure.  This week, for example, I prepared a huge batch of black chickpea curry and brown rice with soy yogurt raita.

On Monday night Mike had already started cooking dinner when I got home and he didn't remember that the curry was what I planned to serve. I can't complain, though, because he's an awesome partner who cooks dinner for the family all the time.  So we ate pasta with broccoli and cauliflower in a lemony-tahini sauce.

Then on Tuesday the kids and I visited Mike's mom and went out for Chipotle.  Not what I planned, but delicious and the kids were thrilled.

It is now Wednesday night and I'm cooking up some pasta with mushrooms and spinach even though I still have about 8 cups curry and nearly as much brown rice in the fridge.  I've eaten it for 2 days in a row at lunch and I just can't eat it for both lunch and dinner in the same day.  Looks like this curry will need to get frozen or something!

Even though I'm not ready to ONLY eat this curry for the next 5 days, it is really good.  I scored the black chickpeas (made by Timeless Foods) at Linden Hills Co-op.  I used this recipe (Bengal Gram Curry) except used more chickpeas than the recipe suggested.  I used the whole package.  I wouldn't recommend that.

Inspiration...But No Proof

So I found inspiration yesterday- I flipped through Bryanna Clark Grogan's Nonna's Italian Kitchen and Jae Steele's Get It Ripe and was ready for something different.  I'm glad I prepped nearly everything for tonight's dinner in advance, because I didn't count on waking up and feeling really crappy.  After spending most (all) of the day on the couch, it was a relief to have dinner practically already made.  Otherwise it would have been a pizza night for sure.

Here's what I did yesterday:

• I marinated some tofu overnight in wine, tomato paste, garlic and Italian herbs.  
• I cut the broccoli and mixed up a lemon, Earth Balance and salt sauce.
• I mixed up the "No-fredo" sauce for the pasta (I added a cornstarch slurry to thicken it- Thought it was a bit thin prepared according to the recipe).

So tonight all that was left was:

• Put the tofu in the oven to bake.
• Steam the broccoli over the boiling water for the pasta, cook the pasta.
• Heat the sauce.
• Pour lemon-butter sauce on broccoli and no-fredo sauce on pasta.  
• Serve.

Super easy!  I didn't even have to get out my cutting board.  I wish I had photos, but after this little bit of off-the-couch-effort, I was pretty beat.  The kids kept saying, "Are you sure you don't want to take a picture of this?"   I think another night of rest and I'll be back in business.

Make Ahead Meals- Curry and Mexi-Bake

As my pantry items dwindle, it's becoming even more important that usual to make meals and ingredients ahead of time.  Mike ended up buying some rice last week because he had to make dinner quickly for the kids on Friday- I can't really blame him.  He didn't really sign up for this pantry challenge.  I pretty much just imposed it on him.  But we agreed that if there are pre-cooked grains and beans ready to use, he won't be tempted to shop.

This week's theme is boring pantry ingredients made interesting with spices and home-canned fun ingredients. I've planned a curry and a Mexican themed casserole.

I found a 1/2 box of Alter Eco brand Fair Trade Ruby Rice in my pantry today.  I thought I was out of rice about a week ago, but found this, some arborio rice and some sushi rice in little bags.  Since I also had some more lacinato kale frozen out in the garden, some canned jackfruit and a couple potatoes, it seemed like I could throw those all together to make a curry.  Everest makes an amazing jackfruit curry that I've ordered the past 3 times I have gone there, so if mine is half as good as that one, I'll be happy!  The spices I used are: cumin seed, mustard seed, fennel seed, turmeric, garam masala, salt.  For the sauce I used some dehydrated coconut milk, a jar of home-canned tomatoes and a jar of home-canned harissa.  So far it smells good...

The casserole consists of a layer of polenta (the last of it!), a layer of mashed pinto beans and a layer of home-canned tomatillo salsa mixed with an extra can of tomatillos.  The beans are seasoned with garlic, chili powder, cumin, coriander, epazote and Mexican oregano.  And salt.  Can't forget the salt.

I'm starting to wish for some oil now.  I have a smidge of coconut oil and a bottle of sesame oil left.  No more canola oil, olive oil, local sunflower oil or grapeseed oil. Wonder what popcorn will be like popped in sesame oil???

We also just ran out of nutritional yeast and are almost out of regular sea salt.  I have plenty of Hawaiian pink salt and other fancy salts to use, though.  I might have to break down and buy salt and oil in order to use up the rest of my beans and grains, though!  Since I've made it 2 weeks, now I'm wondering if I can do 3 weeks.  But I might go crazy before then because I just used the last of the cumin.

I'll take some pictures of these dinners plated, because the photos of them packed away in their Pyrex containers are less than appealing.

This Week's Make Ahead Meals

I didn't do as much prep work for this week's make ahead meals...And I really should have.  Tonight was the first night of basketball practice, AKA crazy night.  From now on I need to plan on a dinner that is ready in about 15 minutes or just give in and get Chipotle!

For tonight I had a special request for dinner: baked potatoes.  The kids are nuts about the baked potatoes at grandma's house, so I found out what she does special.  The secret is to rub onion salt all over the outside of the oiled potato before baking.  Then mix in Earth Balance with the center of the potato after baking.  Sounds like a winner!  What's that?  You don't have onion salt?  Me neither.  You can just mix onion powder and salt or you can chop an onion and then rub salt in the juices.  Or dehydrate your own onions, pulverize them with a mortar and pestle, and then mix them with salt.  I took the first option.

On the side we're having the Tangerine Baked Tofu and the Roasted Masala Brussels Sprouts from Veganomicon.

So here's how you can make this ahead:

• Prick the potatoes with a fork, rub them in olive oil or Earth Balance, and sprinkle them with onion salt.  Wrap in foil and put in the fridge until ready to bake the next day.
• Mix up the tofu marinade and add tofu.  Marinate in the glass baking dish that you'll use to bake them in the next day.
• Mix up the cornmeal/spice blend for the sprouts.  Wash and trim the brussels sprouts and store in a container you can use to mix them up with the spices and oil the next day.  
• On dinner night, put the potatoes in first- they can take up to an hour.  Then add the tofu after about 15 minutes.  Last, add the sprouts about 20 minutes later. 

Sorry for those who don't have Veganomicon.  Let this just be reason 8,265 you should buy it.  And this meal still takes an hour to cook, but the dinner night prep time is very little.  So you could put stuff in the oven while doing math homework with the kids or cleaning the house or during commercial breaks while eating ice cream in front of the TV.

Make Ahead Meals- Baked Penne

Baked pasta dishes are so easy to make in advance. I'm sure it'd be just as easy to just have pasta and sauce for a quick weeknight meal, but there's something extra rich and comforting about baked pasta.

Tonight we're having gluten-free baked penne with tofu ricotta. Here it is before baking:

It's super easy! First, cook up your gluten free pasta. I used Tinkyada brand GF pasta in a penne shape, but any type would work.

Then prepare a batch of tofu ricotta. You can use the recipe from Veganomicon or just wing it. I just threw a few cloves of garlic, a block of firm tofu, lemon juice, salt and parsley in the food processor.

Before you strain the pasta, pack a bunch of baby spinach in the strainer. Then it'll partially cook while you strain your hot pasta through it.

Then mix everything together (ricotta, spinach, pasta) in a big glass baking dish.

Top with 2-3 cups of tomato sauce (I used some home-canned sauce) and some fresh tomatoes if you have them around still. My green ones from the garden are slowly ripening and I had enough to top this dish. I think I'll add some grated cashew cheese just before baking it tonight. Anyways, put this in the fridge until you're ready to bake it.

Bake at 350F, covered in foil, for about 20-30 minutes or until warmed through. If topping with cheeze, just finish in the broiler for a minute or two to melt it.

Make Ahead Meals- Crockpot Dal

Without making meals ahead of time (or at least making the major components of meals), we'd either order pizza or eat what the kids have started calling "leftovers thrown together in a pan" on Monday and Tuesday nights. I'm trying to get better at really planning meals for these 2 nights. I was doing really good for a while and then fell off the meal-planning wagon.

Here's what we ate tonight:

Basmati rice with crockpot dal and raita

(My spell-check only recognizes the words "rice", "with" and "and" in that meal)

Here's how I put together the dal...approximately! It was super flavorful and packed with veggies.

The night before, combine the following in your crockpot:

2 cups of split peas

6 or so cups of water

Let soak, with the crockpot off, until the next morning. Then, before work, add:

1 bunch lacinato kale, chopped

4 small tomatoes, chopped

1 onion, chopped

1 cup chopped carrots

Then in a small cast iron skillet, heat 4 Tbsp. (1/4 cup) of canola oil (you could do less, but this is for a LOT of dal!). Add:

1 Tbsp. cumin seeds

2 tsp. mustard seeds

1 Tbsp. ground coriander

1 tsp. turmeric

5 cloves garlic, minced

1 Tbsp. salt

When seeds start to pop and garlic is fragrant (not burned!), pour the oil into the crockpot with other ingredients. Cook on high for about 8 hours.

Then, all you have to do when you get home from work is cook some basmati rice (super quick) and stir together chopped cucumber, minced cilantro, plain yogurt, lime juice and salt. It makes a really tasty raita to serve on top.

Look for another make-ahead dinner tomorrow!