Gathering the courage to make more Indian Food starting with Raita--Indian yogurt condiment

This past weekend I had the pleasure of shopping at Trader Joe's.  I have to travel three hours to get to the nearest store, so whenever I happen to be in Chicago, I always try to take advantage of it and stop at TJ's.  I even made two stops this time.  Unfortunately, they have discontinued my favorite Masala naan...so sad!  It was just such a yummy spicy bread.  I had planned on buying all of their stock and freezing it, but I guess people were just not as fond of it as I am.  Oh well, another recipe to try to figure out how to make.

Anyway, I did pick up some garlic naan, which means, tonight I'm cooking Indian.  I'm going to use a spice mix for Biryani chicken that I picked up at the Indian grocery store in Grand Rapids, Michigan--Spice of Indian.  That should be the easy part of the meal.  But I also want to make a Raita.  This is a yogurt based dish that is a nice compliment to a spicy dish.  I had it for the first time at Pal's Indian Cuisine, also in Grand Rapids.  They serve it with their Biryana.  After searching through the web, I'm not finding a recipe that I'm totally satisfied with.  I've been able to glean some ideas from the variety of recipes, so I'll be putting together these ideas to make my own.  I'll add to this post when I get started.  As of right now, I need to pick up a few ingredients:  English cucumber and Greek yogurt.  I already have an onion, some tomatoes, and hopefully, all the spices I will need.  I'm going to try to use the mint from the spindly plant growing in my garden.

Too be continued...

Good thing I stopped at a friend's to get mint leaves before I went to the store.  When she gave me a giant zucchini from her garden, I realized that I probably would have a few cucumbers growing in my garden.  So, I stopped home first and YEP! I had two cucumbers ready to be picked.  Bonus--So here's the Raita recipe. It turned out super tasty.  I could probably have just eaten that for dinner.  The Biryana was just okay.  I've got to realize that the pre-made spice mixes, even when imported directly from India, are never as good as what it would be if made from scratch.  I've just got to find more confidence in my Indian cooking.  So far everything I've made from scratch: samosas, naan, and now Raita has turned out yummy.  The only pre-made Indian foods that I've found are any good at all are the Kitchens of India brand.  Otherwise, most are just okay at best.  I think the big thing is that when it's made from scratch you can adjust the ingredients to fit your tastes.  That's what I did with the Raita.  I wanted to combine a recipe for onion Raita with cucumber Raita.  I decided to leave out the tomatoes this time as I don't recall ever having it with tomatoes in any Indian restaurants before.

Ingredients that I used (measurements are approximated--that's just how I roll) :
2 cups Greek yogurt
2 cucumbers--peeled, seeds removed (for the most part), and diced
1/4 cup diced onion (I used yellow onion, but pick your favorite)
1 jalapeno--seeds removed and chopped into very tiny pieces
1/2 tsp. minced garlic
1-2 TBS. minced fresh mint leaves--I used scissors to mince these
2-3 TBS. minced fresh cilantro leaves--once again, use scissors
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. ground cumin
1/8 tsp. ground mustard
dash of tamarind
dash of freshly ground pepper
pinch of white sugar
dash of red pepper

Steps:
1.  Prepare your cucumber and set diced cucumber on paper towel to dry for a bit.  Some recipes say to squeeze it dry, but then to add water to the yogurt to thin it.  I decided to not squeeze the water out of the cucumber and not add water.  I figured the natural moistness of the cucumber could thin the dip a bit.  That seemed to work perfectly.

2.  Dice onion, jalapeno and add to the cucumbers on the paper towel.  Mince your herbs and set those on top.

3.  In the bowl that you'll be serving the Raita, add your yogurt and stir in all your spices and sugar.  When these are spread well throughout the yogurt, stir in your vegetables and fresh herbs.  It will look chunky at first, but it eventually melds together nicely.

4.  Cover and chill in the refrigerator for at least an hour.  Stir before serving.  It gets a little watery on top, but the stirring redistributes everything.

5.  I served mine with garlic naan, and chicken and peas Biryana.  It was really good on top of both the Biryana (which was just okay) and the naan.

I think I'll try tackling Biryana from scratch soon and I'll blog about that.  But just look at the list of ingredients...Can you see why I'm intimidated?

• For the meat: 1kg lamb/ chicken cut into 2" pieces (if using chicken, use breast or thigh fillet)
• 4 large onions sliced thin
• 2 tsps garlic paste
• 2 tsps ginger paste
• 1/2 cup almonds
• 6 tbsps ghee/ vegetable/ canola/ sunflower cooking oil
• 1" stick of cinnamon
• 5 cloves
• 3 pods cardamom
• 8 peppercorns
• 2 tsps coriander powder
• 1 1/2 tsps cumin powder
• 1 tsp garam masala
• 1 cup yoghurt
• Juice of 1 lime
• 1 cup chicken/ beef stock
• 2 tbsps finely chopped coriander leaves
• 2 tbsps finely chopped mint leaves
• Salt to taste
• For the rice: 2 cups Basmati rice
• Hot water
• Salt to taste
• 3 drops orange food coloring (optional)
• 3 drops green food coloring (optional)

Source: http://indianfood.about.com/od/ricerecipes/r/mughlaibiriyani.htm 

Wendell Berry, boredom, blogs, and technology

So a new friend has me thinking about Wendell Berry again.  This evening I decided that I would pull up some old essays I had saved of Wendell Berry's that I thought I might enjoy reading later.  Well, I could only, easily, find one article.  My house contains four bookshelves and often smaller pieces of writing hide between or inside these books.  Believe it or not I gleaned almost fifty books out of my collection last summer, but then added probably twenty-five in the past year.  The collection evolves.  This solitary article happened to be "Why I Am Not Going To Buy a Computer" reprinted in The Sun literary magazine.  The article was originally published in 1987 in a collection of essays titled What Are People For? by the same author.


Irony enters here--as I was just priding myself on finally starting a blog again.  I had one quite awhile ago.  In fact, wrote 175 pages, when copied to a Word document, worth of posts.  But that blog is in my past and we won't revisit its content.  Lately, however, another good friend has been bugging me to start a food blog as I tend to tweak recipes or create my own.  People are always asking me how I did this or that when they sample my food, and I can only sort of remember.  Oftentimes, I have two or three recipes that I'm taking advice from at any given time to make my own recipe.  So my dear friend suggested that if I started a food blog not only would I help others duplicate the dishes they enjoy eating, I would help myself remember exactly what I did to create that particular dish.  Great idea; however, I'm single girl.  I cook, but I don't cook much.  A dish created on Monday can feed me for most of the week.  So, a food blog is just not something I can sustain.  Yet, I do want a record of what I do in the kitchen, so I'll probably have a few food posts here and there.

But back to my point, the desire to journal again has been spurred on by my summer boredom.  As a teacher, my summer is pretty open, but financially I'm limited in what I can do.  A lot of my money recently has gone into my home and toward my family.  Travel is limited, as well, by my part time job that has me working on Mondays and Saturdays.  Mid-week is always open, but the weekends are generally full of work, family, and church.  So, to fill my time, I've decided that I might as well start writing again.  I've been a writer intermittently all my life and am currently working on a novel.  I can't say I love writing, but it is something that I must do for survival.  I can live without it for bouts of time, but the need to write always resurfaces.  In school, I used to write everything out by hand with a pen in a spiral bound notebook and then later type my writing for submission.  I maintained this method of writing and journalling until well after college, but then slowly the ease of typing replaced this hard-copy first method.  '

Lately, I've struggled with how best to preserve my writing.  The ease of technology had definitely won me over in regards to the production of writing, but I fear losing my writing as technology progresses.  I still have several 3 1/2 inch floppy disks with writing on them from my college years, writing that I will probably never see again.  The paper copies of other pieces; however, still endure.  Currently, my novel exists on a flash driver, on my hard drive, and somewhere in email space, but even that doesn't seem like enough.  Should I be printing copies of the novel after every few pages I write?  Wendell Berry talks about the environmental impact of powering countless computers for writers when the same work could be done by a manual typewriter.  But would I write as much using this form?  The last entry in my handwritten journal is a over a year old.  Still, using this new blog as a way to journal, what is the permanence of this?  Will someone stumble over my blog upon my death like they will my old journals?  No-one will ever hold the pages in their hands, turn each page of words, and wonder about me.  I've never really thought about the environmental impact of writing as Wendell does, but I did do an online quiz last year that showed me that to support the way I live it takes enough resources for four people.  (I think this is the link for that quiz http://www.myfootprint.org/) That seems pretty selfish!  So, thanks, Wendell, not only must I now consider how to best preserve my writing, I must also consider if it's getting in the way of living as simply as possible.

For now; however, I'm drawn to the keyboard.  My words are flowing after a long drought, and I feel that relief that comes from scratching an itch--almost pleasurable.  I'll work on the figuring out the best way to not lose these thoughts to our too quickly advancing world of technology.  Honestly, I think it's time to purchase an external hard drive; hopefully, there is at least a decade or so before that type of storage become obsolete.  Maybe an old fashioned 3-ring binder of printed pages would also be a viable back up system.

Jalapenos in the Garden

Too say I am a lazy gardener is an understatement:  I plant plants, not seeds; I water daily; and I weed occasionally--very occasionally.  But despite my lack of effort, the garden still produces miniature bounties.  It seems that after the first vegetable comes into being, a waterfall of veggies follow.  So last week, the first zucchini did not just pop into existence, it exploded, growing from a peachy yellow flower to the size of a small child's arm in the one week I was camping.  It was joined by two yellow peppers and several green tomatoes just crying out for the sun to tan their skin red.

Sometimes, I even forget what I've planted. These treats, these surprise vegetables, are what I enjoy the most--tiny treasures offered by the garden as a "thank you" for the very little I do to foster its growth.  I once heard a quote, I believe it's from The Talmud, that stated that every blade of grass has a tiny angel above it whispering "grow, grow, grow."  I believe my plants also have these angels, because they couldn't do it with just me.  Thank you, God, for allowing me the gift of plants growing in my backyard, plants that offer me delicious nutrition simply for giving them a place to grow.

Today's surprise was two jalapenos hiding under an overhanging tomato plant.  My brain instantly had them roasting on the grill stuffed with cream cheese and wrapped in bacon.  Yum.  It also reminded me of this poem I wrote a few years back after another visit to the garden.  It's based on a poem by one of my favorite poets, William Carlos Williams, who wrote "This is Just to Say." That poem, I believe is one of the most romantic poems of all time.  This poem is based on his poem "so much depends" about a red wheelbarrow sitting in the rain.

My Poem for William Carlos Williams

so much depends

upon a sharp

knife,

clean dishes,

fresh tomatoes

picked from the garden

last night.

Obviously, I've been repressing my need to write, as I've popped out three entries in the last few days, and I have quite a few topics spinning around in my head.  My handwritten journal may feel neglected, but the ease of typing my thoughts is over-riding my pen.  In fact, I have a blog about that coming up soon.

Intelligence vs. Faith

Faith is definitely something that has been on my mind often these days.  It perplexes me how I can't even date certain people because of how I believe, either in my refusal to bend to their faith or their refusal to allow me space for mine.  Some days I so strongly want to be one of those people who follows with blind faith, but yet there is something about me that gets in the way.  This is where I question whether it is my curious intelligence that questions everything, that wants to research, and find the hard truth.  Or, is this questioning some sort of temptation, some sort of evil at work in my life pulling me away from the true path to God.  Maybe, faith, for me, would be easier in a different location of the world, where I would see less paradoxes in what it means to be a Christian as defined by people in my neck of the woods.  So, today, I'm going to list a few of the paradoxes I see locally in people who claim to be strong in their beliefs and good Christians.  I'm not signalling any one person out; these are just general things that I have observed.  These are the type of things that have pushed me away from the traditional Christian church, because buying into these beliefs would tear apart my heart.

• Many local Christians are Anti-Immigration and anti-welfare--refusing to share our bountiful resources here in the United States--I know that our system is not perfect, but it seems to me The Bible tells us to share and to not discriminate.  James Chapter 2 talks much of our responsibility to the poor as Christians.  I'm afraid that when we close in on what we have and keep it to ourselves not only does it cut us off from each other, but it cuts us off from God, for where believers dwell in community of all types we find God.
• Homophobia--I have so many problems with this....by condemning someone's behavior you automatically turn them away from the Church.  I do not believe that being gay is a sin, but even if you do believe that it is a sin being discriminatory to someone who is gay is completely wrong.  We are all sinners; they simply have the unfortunate curse of their "sin" being more public.  We all have jealousy, most of us where not virgins when we entered the covenant for marriage, we covet what we don't have, we've lied, the list continues.  In being human our nature is sinful, yet through the grace of God we are forgiven.  Why is it, then, that humans, sinners, should be the ones to judge which sin is better or worse?  I guess, in a way, isn't this judgement also a sin?
• Mission work and evangelism--I don't understand why doing good has to be dependent on converting non-believers to Christians.  Why can't we just do good things for people and thus model what it is to be a Christian without pushing it on people?  If they see glory in our beliefs, then we can be there to help guide them along.  I can't come to terms with only giving food to people after they've sat through the Bible School message.  Just be good to them.  In addition, it hurts me to see Christians condemning other religions, when there is so much beauty and wisdom to be found in other religions that also recognize a supreme and good higher power.  We should learn from these faiths, rather than condemn what we either do not know or do not understand due to our own ignorance.  We don't have to embrace them, but we should at least honor them as another expression of faith.  Through modelling this, maybe we could have more harmony in the world.
• Stewardship of the Earth--I don't understand why so many Christians feel that the Earth can be used and misused and that what they are doing doesn't hurt the Earth.  I was once told that if you believe in Global Warming, you support the anti-Christ!  That statement doesn't even make sense.  How are the two concepts even connected?  Why is it anti-Christian to support scientific understanding of changes in our atmosphere?  In a way, I almost think it's a sin to not recycle and try to conserve our resources.    As the Lord teaches us that our body is a temple and should be treated as such...isn't the Earth the Lord's temple and shouldn't it also be honored in the same way?  Look around at all the beauty and resources we have on Earth...Aren't these direct gifts from God?  Aren't we called to be stewards of all that he blesses us with?  Wouldn't this make sense for us love and honor God's Earth in the same loving way we honor him?

• These things lead me to the common belief that Jesus's death gives us a free ticket to heaven.  I don't believe that faith alone wins us the grace of God.  I believe that is only part.  I also believe that we must strive to be good people.  God calls us to be like Him....we fail, yes, but we should always strive.  I also believe that people who strive for goodness in the world, but may lack faith, will have a chance to know God, even if it's not in this lifetime.  I don't believe that most of the world is condemned to a fire-y eternity, simply because they were not born Christian or believe in God a different way.

I don't know how to come to terms with my beliefs.  All I know is that I believe in a good God--a God that leads science, understanding, wisdom, and even curiosity.  I don't believe I'm a bad person by questioning.  I feel that in a way I'm being lead by God to do more research, to find more commonalities, to find an inner peace between the influence God has on my intelligent brain and my compassionate hungry-for-faith heart.

I would just pray that I as I move through this exploration of faith, the people I love would give the me the grace to undertake this personal journey on my own terms and a love me now matter how I come out, as I love them just the same.

My next blog will be something much lighter--possibly I'll write about writing or maybe my exploits in baking.

Questions of Faith

When people say they are struggling with their faith, it often means that they are struggling to find faith--to believe. They have lost it somewhere along the way, usually due to trauma, heartache, some sort of unexplained loss.  I'm quite the opposite.  I am struggling with my faith, because I have too much faith.  I can't seem to exclude beliefs in order to favor one over the other.  This struggle was intensified last week, when my spiritual leader came out of the closet as an atheist.  He admitted to being an atheist for the last twenty years.  How is someone who does not see any God, lead someone like me who sees God everywhere?

With a breaking heart, I have decided to leave a community where I had found a home for several years.  When I first started attending this spiritual gathering, we focused on Christian beliefs, but then also incorporated wisdom from other religions.  It was a perfect fit for me as I believe God is too big to be contained by one religion and that there are multiple pathways to salvation as long as you strive to do good in the world and love God in whatever form you see Him.  I personally choose to live my life as Jesus would, because I believe He gives us the best model of what it means to be God-like.

Unfortunately, this place I had called home, a place that spiritually recharged me every week, under the leadership of its minister has moved closer and closer to using only science as it's guide for living.  I am a science-person.  I understand science gives us great wisdom, but I believe that everything we learn through science ultimately come from God.  And still even with the spiritual intervention in the world of science, I feel the presence of more in the world beyond what we can research.  I've felt the spirit move in me many times, and I can't deny that.  I've felt the divine through miracles I've experienced, times of solitude in nature, and through meditation.  I'm extremely energy sensitive and can feel my own spiritual energy channeling through my chakras when I take time to meditate on this.  I know the science of our bodies running on electrical impulses, but when you feel waves of energy pulsing through your body when you stop to listen, this is definitely more than science.

I'm sad to leave a place where I could talk about God and the idea of spiritual energy in the same place, a place where you were welcomed as an atheist, a Christian--gay/straight--it didn't matter.  I think it will be a struggle for me to find a new home, but I need a place where I can still be lead as a Christian, even if I'm this stumbling, overly-accepting version of what it means to be a child of God.