OMG, I have great Indian cookbooks.

It's a sad fact that it takes me a couple of weeks to actually cook something once I think of the recipe. Generally, I buy most of the ingredients for a recipe, but not all of them, then don't make it to the store again for another week, and by then things are starting to turn south.

Luckily, there are frozen veggies & I do manage to keep us stocked in onions and garlic. And, I stocked up on Indian spices & dal (various kinds) last year, when I cashed in my yearly Amazon gc for these two books:

Healthy South Indian Cooking, by Alamelu Vairavan and Patricia Marquardt

and

An Invitation to Indian Cooking, by Madhur Jaffrey

Best. Purchase. Ever.

I love Indian food, but there is no place here in Pittsburgh that either: 1) is really great; or 2)delivers to our neighborhood. Much less both. And, it's cheaper to cook for us than to eat out all the time. And less greasy.

Plus, we get awesome lunch the next day.

So, I'd been planning to make Eggplant Masala (really good) from HSIC (see above), but ended up using the eggplant I bought to make homemade Baba Ghanouj (from a different cookbook - Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison (my Bible of Vegetarian)). We brought a middle eastern feast to a friends' house for an Equinox party on Saturday, and ate all the leftovers last night.

But back to Indian food. I know Drew loves Biryani, so I planned around that. Frozen chicken breasts? On sale at Giant Eagle, I think 1.79/lb for 3 lbs? Check. Cashews? I bought those too, but won't say how much I paid. Raisins? Check.

The instructions for chicken biryani have you make something else first - Garlic & Pepper Chicken (HSIC). So I made this tonight, along with Green Beans Poriyal.

Garlic Pepper & Chicken
paraphrased from HSIC

I used 3 lbs of chicken, and so had to multiply everything by 1.5 to make it even out. When I cook, I often estimate, so everything is sort of variable (I swear, I do not do this with science recipes). Cut the chicken up into medium (on the small side) pieces. Roughly chop up ~ 15 cloves of garlic. Chop up 1 med-lg onion, probably about 1 cup chopped. Measure out the following, preparing little cups/piles of spices (so you can throw spices in quickly while cooking!): 1) 5 small pieces of stick cinnamon, 2 bay leaves (crumbled), 4 dried chilis (I used Sanaam India Chili Peppers from Penzey's); 2) 1 tsp cumin seeds (I didn't have these so I skipped them), 3/4 tsp fennel seeds, 1.5 tsp urad dal; 3) 2 tsp ground black pepper, 2 tsp cumin powder, 2 tsp salt, 1.5 tsp curry powder, 1 tsp cayenne powder, 1/4 C chopped fresh coriander. Also put the garlic & onion together to be added at once. Finally, mince 2 tbsp on ginger root.

Heat 3 tbsp of canola oil in large skillet (I use my two handled Calphalon cast iron pan (thanks Kristen & Al!). When oil is hot, but not smoking*, add cinnamon sticks, bay leaf, & chili peppers (Group 1 above). Add cumin seeds, fennel seeds, and urad dal (Group 2 above). Add onion & garlic. Saute 3-4 mins & stir in 1 tsp turmeric powder. Add chicken & ginger. Cook covered over low heat until the chicken is partially cooked.

Add black pepper, etc. (Group 3 above). Stir well to coat chicken pieces. Add 1/2 cup of water, stir & recover. Cook over medium heat for 15 minutes. When done, serve over rice (Jasmine or Basmati - we used white Basmati tonight, but often we go for the brown Basmati, done in a rice cooker).

I tried some at this point, and it was already good, but I cut my chicken pieces to large, so it needed more cooking. Also, I was behind on the other parts of the meal, and the sauce was a little watery, so I turned the heat down a little, and recovered.

In the end, this was really tasty, but I definitely should have gone smaller on the meat pieces.


I also made Green Beans Poriyal (almost verbatim from Healthy South Indian Cooking, by Alamelu Vairavan and Patricia Marquardt
)

Again, keep in mind that things happend quickly when you start - so it helps a lot to group the spices together in small dishes. Silicone cupcake holders actually work really well for this purpose (thanks Mom!). However, I will let you sort out what goes with what :)

Boil 2 cups water, add 1/4 cup yellow split peas & 1/4 tsp turmeric powder. Cook over medium heat, uncovered, for 20 minutes, or until peas are done. Drain & set aside. Or, if you're like me, you'll start the next step before the peas are done, end up draining them too soon, then trying to figure out how to cook them just a bit more after you've already added them to the green beans.

Heat 2 tbsp canola oil (I used 1.5, as I had just reseasoned my other cast iron skillet, I figured I needed less oil) in a skillet over medium heat. When oil is hot, but not smoking**, throw in 1 tsp black mustard seeds and 2 tsp urad dal. Stir very quickly to distribute these through the oil, then cover and heat until the mustard seeds pop. When the popping slows/stops, uncover and add 16 oz. frozen green beans. You could use fresh, which is what the original recipe called for, but mine went bad, so I used back-up supplies. If you use frozen, watch out when you put them in, since the moisture + really hot oil doesn't always end well. Add 1 tsp minced fresh ginger, stir, and cook 1-2 mins over medium heat. Add 1 tsp salt & 1/2 tsp chutney powder*** and stir. Cover the whole thing & cook over low heat for 5 minutes.

Add cooked split peas & 1/4 cup powdered coconut. Mix well & remove from heat, covered, until ready to serve. Or, when you suspect the split peas aren't cooked, add ~ 1/4 cup of water to the whole thing, cover, & cook on low heat for another 8-10 minutes. You have the time, because you forgot to actually turn the rice cooker on, so you've got another 20 minutes before dinner. Pour youself a glass of wine, do some dishes, or just catch up with your SO while you wait.



* This is how every single recipe in this book starts. Pretty much.
** Ha! Told you.
*** I don't have this. I don't even have any idea what it is.

Rollercoaster

Wow, grad school really stinks emotionally. I've been up and down on a daily basis the last few days, and kind of crippled by how hopeless my situation feels. I think alot of the drama is coming from the uncertainty that lies ahead of me - another move to a new place, a whole new set of people to get to know and work with - and I knew I would be anxious about it, but just had forgotten what this feels like. And on top of the stress-to-get-finished, it's getting the better of me.

I finished counting all the cells I needed to for Project #3, and made up tables, and wrote the Methods section of the manuscript for it. But when I looked at my numbers, one of my cases stood out as having really low numbers. I think it's because I lost a section or two from the LDT, where the greatest concentration of these cells are. So, at the least, I have to run more immuno on this project, and count a whole nother* set of cells (rrggghhhh, I thought I was done!). At the most, I may end up having to do more surgery anyway. And then more immuno, and then more counting.

Meanwhile, the other project I have has completely imploded, one of the antibodies isn't working right at all, and the microscope I need is broken. So, zero progress on that one.

I think I've gotten better at dealing with these kinds of frustrations, but at this point, I'm just wondering when it's going to end. I mean, it has to at some point, right? But I just can't imagine what that will be like.

So, I'll keep working at it, I will greatly enjoy the few days off I'm taking in April, and, hopefully I will graduate sometime before the end of the fall.

* why isn't this grammatically correct?

New efforts

I don't make resolutions. I think the only New Year's resolution I've ever made is to quit smoking, but that never generally even gets out of the gate. I might have once resolved to stop gossiping; unfortunately, progress on that one has been slow as well.

But I think I still manage to challenge myself in a lot of ways. I always joke at work that science was my worst subject in school, but it's actually true. I'm not really of fan of academic pursuit, yet continue in that path because I feel the training is necessary. I bought a house that has turned out to be a constant challenge (administrative and constructive), and it is probably beyond my actual abilities to renovate (but we'll get there anyway, it'll just cost more than we were prepared for in the beginning). I've studied two foreign languages (and am trying to pick up my third), moved to new and completely unfamiliar places, and pretty consistently picked the hardest options I could find, school/career-wise. There are times when I really wonder what is wrong with me when I look back upon the choices that have led me to where I am in life, but secretly, I am pretty pleased with things. I obviously don't make horrible life choices, but the benefits from them can be difficult to point out.

My newest venture has been a return to knitting. I received some bamboo needles as a gift a few months ago, and I dropped into Michael's** on a whim a couple of weeks back. I picked up a book of sweater patterns, and some yarn, plus some extra yarn that I liked & that had a hat pattern on the back of the label. All the patterns seemed pretty simple, and since I've only ever previously knitted rectangular things, I figured they would be a good next step.

I started a simple sweater last week, and immediately discovered that my casting-on technique is not actually right. Also, I didn't remember how to purl correctly. And I never learned how to read knitting patterns. Thankfully, the internet is here. So, I've had remedial knitting learning, and learned to increase stitches across a row. Here's what I have so far:



It's the back section, and once it's 15.5" long, I have to start doing something else, "binding off" maybe? In the end, it should look like this:



At the very least, I should have a new sweater in about two years :)



**Incidentally, that place has now been added to my mental list of dangerous stores (e.g. Target, Ikea) that always end up costing multiples of the amount you thought you were going to spend. On the plus side, I picked up some Nephew gifts that I think are pretty cool, and my "Christmas box" now is packed full of stuff that can be given when I can't think of anything in December.