The First Meal
Friday July 30th at 730AM - The movers came to our old house and began the hours long moving process. We thought it would take 4-5 hours. We packed everything ourselves except for the furniture. Hey, we not Super People. Anyways, long behold, 5 hours passed and we are not completely done. In fact, it was after 5 hours that the movers headed to the new house to transfer the stuff. Either they took their time or we had way more stuff than we calculated. Anyways, by the time the whole move was completed it was 10 hours and we were all tired and hungry. We tried to group the boxes in their respective rooms so we do not run around like headless chickens when it comes time to look for items. That night, we just decided to eat out since cooking was not an option.
The next night though my mom decided to make some curries so we could a nice home cooked meal. I realized you can eat out as much as you want but the meal can never be compared with what you make at home. The taste is too different. I point this out because the previous night we went to a vegetarian Indian restaurant (Chand Palace, Parsippany, NJ) and the cuisine and service was fine. Actually I haven't been there in years so it was a nice surprise to find the place more enjoyable this time around. My point is that some of the curries that I tried lacked certain ingredients (a little salt here and there). I started critiquing the items and realized that no matter where you go, you are bound to question the way it is made or the amount of ingredients used if it is not something you are used to.
On with the subject at hand, the "Just Moved In Curry" was prepared with the utensils and cookery we were able to unpack from the numerous kitchen boxes (as you may see in the pictures). My mom used a small pressure cooker to cook the curry. Mind you, you may use the pressure cooker when you are using fresh ingredients but if all you have are frozen veggies, then it is not needed. My mom used the bottom of the pressure cooker (the container part) to make the curry. When you are limited to ingredients available in your kitchen, you are really testing yourself on what you can make for dinner and you will be surprised at the results. Why you may wonder? You actually tend to cook better. At least that's what my mom figured out soon enough.
Ingredients:
Garam Masala
Crushed tomatoes
Small boiled potatoes
Frozen vegetables
Salt to taste
Procedure (from what I recollect):
1) She started out by sauteing garam masala in the cooker with some oil. Then added crushed tomatoes and let them cook a bit.
2) Next add the frozen vegetables. (Hint: Defrost the vegetables a bit before adding to the mixture.)
3) Add the boiled potatoes and cook everything together on simmer until it comes to a gravy consistency. Add salt for taste.
4) It should ultimately look like the picture below. I will add the exact measurements in a bit. Until then, please enjoy the story and the pictures which by the way I took with my phone since the camera was packed away.
I realized that in some cases, improvising makes the best dishes.
