Lisa's Moong and Tamarind Dal

"....they are also a wise choice if you are looking to shed a few pounds." This is what Lisa ends her post with this particular Dal recipe. And its true. Like I've mentioned before, I'm working on reducing my carb intake and this works perfectly for such a diet. Well, it actually did :) And to boot, I love tangy food. I love tamarind. I squeeze lemon in everything and try to use tamarind in every other thing I cook. When I saw, on Lisa's blog, this particular recipe, I knew it was a must-try. We bought Moong Dal for the first time and well, it was kept unused. Now, we are on an 'empty pantry and fridge' before we shop challenge every month. So, we found these and I made Lisa's Moong Dal and Tamarind way before this event came up. Since we are running out of time to try her scalloped potatoes - that is my dream recipe from Lisa's blog, we decided to post this for the Tried and Tasted: Lisa's kitchen hosted by Aparna this time around, a continuation of Zlamushka's admirable initiative! We just added some Sambar powder to add the extra spice to the Dal and its amazing how tasty it was. This is a keeper of a recipe, and a regular at home now. I've already made it thrice since :)

I also want to take the opportunity to say something about Lisa's blog. I'm amazed at the amount and frequency with which she churns out healthy Indian vegetarian food which does not involve chicken tikka or curry powder. I personally think this shows how open she is to other cultures, other cuisines. And I really admire her for making the effort with some very Indian ingredients. Her dishes are healthy, authentic and very local, just like most Indian food is. Thank you, Lisa, for opening my eyes to my own culture.

Also, thank you, Priya for the award. We love you too :)

P.S - A has bookmarked the Red Wine Biscotti! :) Only, since we don't drink, I don't know what he is going to do about the Red Wine ;)

Cucumber-Almond Soup

As a kid, I hated eating cucumber and did not touch them for several years. I felt they had no flavor or anything to offer to my sophisticated palette :P But then, as we grow, we become wise(r) :D and grow in size physically, literally and mentally. And sometimes, the rate of your physical growth demands you eat cucumbers. Only cucumbers, at that ;) That is how I started eating cucumber and have grown to like the fruit (?)

So the dieting mind of mine was elated to see a different version of the regular Raita in Suganya's blog - Tasty Palettes. It seemed rich, what with almonds and I decided that this was what I wanted to try from Sug's blog. Its a different thing that I've made the Gnocchi, the mushroom pizza and all kinds of other stuff from her blog. But if anything helped me keep track of my diet, it was this cucumber soup :) I made a couple of changes to it, though. I added some red onions and coriander or cilantro to just jazz it up! And boy, do I regret not eating cucumber all these years or what!

This one goes out to the Tried and Tasted- Tasty Palettes event hosted by Curry Leaf this time around. The event was started by Zlamushka of Zlamushka's Spicy Kitchen. Thank you Sug, for this simple recipe. It made my day on a really hot, boring afternoon! I made some sweet potato crisps to go with it and it looked so pretty, that I decided to showcase that too.

Since this time, AFAM is exploring the potential of cucumber, this dish is also participating in the AFAM - Cucumber event held at Neha's Tasty Recipes and conceptualized by Maheshwari of 'Beyond the Usual' fame! Almonds...hmm..I saw a nutty event somewhere. Hmm..here! This one makes its way to you too, JZ!

Take it away, ladies. It was worth it :) And I swear, I didn't think of all these events when I made this. I made this purely because the cucumbers were rotting, and it was hot and I was just way too bored to cook. I hope my pictures have done justice to Suganya's fantastic pictures!

P.S - I'm a linker par excellence no?