Taste & Create: Thali - Garlicky Spinach Rice

Further catch up on my rather delayed Thali collection today... and this instalment is Garlicky Spinach Rice!

This rice comes out the most extreme, green colour - it's fantastic!! As I have mentioned before spinach is my favourite food; so this dish was always going to be a winner!

The three chillies ground into a paste (with more garlic, fresh ginger and water) give it a bit of a bite... So either label it as not for the faint of heart, or use fewer chillies to dial it down a bit...

This recipe is fairly similar to a Greek one I've presented previously; only with extra garlic and chilli and ginger added... Puréeing the spinach also make this final dish much greener than the previous one! I'd be hard pressed to pick a favourite out of the two; the Greek dish being much richer and this being more punchy - you should try them both out and see which you like better!

Taste & Create: Seduce Your Taste Buds Thali

Eugh. I feel like a Zombie. I've gone from unemployed to over-employed in no time flat! (Not that I'm complaining per se - I'm grateful for the opportunity to be earning some savings!)But I've got a looong week of 3 shifts/day for the next 7 days so this is gonna be a brief post to get the important things out there... :)

After next week I will fill y'all in on all the details!

I had fun with Taste and Create this month! I was paired with Padmajha of Seduce Your Tastebuds and my taste buds were most certainly seduced! PJ offers a lot of tasty looking vegetarian, Indian food. Rather than selecting just one recipe to try out - I decided to chose five, and make a Thali.

'Thali' refers to the plate used to serve this meal, and is basically either a metal tray with little dishes for many curries/chutneys or a single plate with indentations. The thalis we have are of the indentation variety.

Clockwise from top left: Tomato Raita, Aloo Fry, Garlicky Spinach
Rice, Sambar. Centre: Black Sesame Seed Chutney.

The recipes I chose were:

• Aloo (potato) Fry which was amazing my favourite dish of the five! Spicy, slightly crispy and the most beautiful shade of yellow. Yum yum.
• Sambar which is a sort of runny lentil dish that I'm not a huge fan of. And, although tasty, this particular recipe didn't make a convert out of me... my guests really enjoyed it though! I really enjoyed getting out the mortar and pestle to grind my own sambar powder though!
• Garlicky Spinach Rice does what it says on the package - it's the most lurid green colour! Just brilliant!
• Tomato Raita which is a little different for the cucumber/minty raita I'd usually make. It was fun and will no doubt feature on my table again!

and finally...

• Black Sesame Seed Chutney mine looked nothing like the photo - but it was super yummy!

Now, as students, some of the spices called for may be a little odd... but, if you can buy them in only the quantities you require, can be sourced quite cheaply! I especially recommend the Aloo Fry as a good flatting meal!

Final conclusion? This was fun! And with the exception of the Sambar (which is more a reflection on me, than on the recipe itself) I'll be making these recipes in the future! The Aloo Fry was the absolute star!

Egg Flop Omelette

Super healthy, super tasty breakfast...

Omelettes and I get along in kinda the same way that stir-fry and I get along... I like to eat 'em... but I kinda suck a cooking them.

My current theory is that this is because I like to fry my "fillings" and then pour the egg over them and cook it all together unlike a normal person - who either doesn't cook the fillings at all or cooks them separately from the egg part and actually using them to fill the omelette...

My may is easier - and requires less mess. But only when "mess" refers to the number of plates and pans required. The finished result invariably looks a mess... kinda like someone else already tried it and didn't think much of it...

But that's beside the point! Kat Omelettes are tasty and healthy. And that's what matters here. They involve egg, which is good for protein. Spinach (whenever possible) which is good for iron. Tomatoes, which I cook a bit to help prevent prostate cancer ( ;] ). And cheese which is good on everything. Oh! And they're cheap. And easy. Student-able. Yeah.

See how I managed to get the daisies in the background in perfect
focus? Yeah! Mad photography skills...

I dunno... Let's just read the instruction now.

Greek: Cheat

Back to online shopping fiascos... This one week I'd orderd a half kilo of pork steak so that I could make beautiful souvlaki for my flatmates... But they only showed up with 200 grams! Gah! Luckily I had a little pork schnitzel left over... Enter:

 Greek Marinated "Stir-Fry" on Cheat's "Greek Spinach Rice"...

Complete with Lemon Pip...

The original recipe comes from AboutFood.com - a brilliant website, everyone should have it bookmarked! And the rice recipe is inspired by a book we have at home, but this particular Cheat is all me!

Recipes follow the jump...

Spanokopita - Kat's FAVOURITE!!!

OM NOM NOM!!! Spinach is my favourite food! This recipe is not a traditional Greek recipe, as it uses Savoury Short Crust pastry instead of the more difficult, traditional Filo (Phyllo) pastry... Furthermore this time 'round I was short on Feta - so I've added a little salted cottage cheese to make it go further! Note the reference to salted cottage cheese - I once tried to make Spanokopita with cottage cheese and no added salt, it was BLAND! I think that, in theory, cottage cheese should work as a Feta substitute



Clockwise from top left: steamed spinach and asparagus, last night's left over veggies (not shown: aioli for veggies), dinner plate soon to be filled, classy Spanokopita with a bow tie, tzatziki - Greek, garlic and cucumber yoghurt sauce...

The recipe for Kat-Esque Spanokopita follows the jump...