Pancharatan Dal With Gingery Acorn Squash And Potato Curry

Here's one of those perfect dal-and-subzi combinations that's fool-proof and easy to put together, especially on harried weeknights. But before I tell you any more, here's some news: Holy Cow! has a new home: www.holycowvegan.net. You can continue to catch her at the old url for a while, after which I believe Blogger will forward all visitors to the new address. This should be a seamless transition and hopefully one without any inconvenience to my subscribers.

On to today's recipes, Pancharatan Dal is an Indian classic and the Acorn Squash-Potato Subzi is my own invention. But they go so well together, you'd think it was a match made in food heaven.

Pancharatan translates to five jewels in Hindi, and the jewels here are those tiny, precious nuggets bursting with healthy goodness: lentils. You will usually find a variety of lentils in the Indian pantry but the five in this recipe are the ones most commonly used: Chana dal, Udad Dal, Tuvar Dal, Moong Dal and Masoor Dal.

Each of these lentils has a distinct flavor and texture that stands apart from the rest. Chana Dal is yellow, more rounded, and rather neutral-tasting which is why it is also often used to make traditional Indian sweets. Udad is tiny, with a white center covered by a black skin, and it turns smooth and slippery when cooked. Tuvar is a robust, flavorful lentil that is perhaps the base of most dal recipes. Moong is yellow and tiny and holds its texture better than most lentils. And finally Masoor, a tiny pink lentil and one of my favorites, has an earthy flavor that goes beautifully with meaty vegetables like eggplant and mushrooms.

Sweet Mango Cornbread

My Mango Cornbread was a happy accident. I set out Monday to make my Luscious, Delicious Mango Bread which never fails to win over friends and family -- even Opie loves it-- but then I picked an unlabeled (by me) jar of what I thought was whole wheat pastry flour and happily mixed it up with baking powder and salt.

Turns out it was white, stone ground cornmeal, the kind I usually keep on hand to make Southern Cornbread.

Not one to be discouraged and certainly not willing to start from scratch, I went ahead with the recipe anyway, but I did make some changes. I added some coconut milk for extra moisture and baked it in a square cake pan. The resulting cornbread was sumptuous and delicious, and I couldn't wait to share it with you.

Focaccia With Caramelized Onions, And The Common Sense Of Dogs

You've heard those amazing dog stories-- you know, the ones where the parent is hanging by the edge of a cliff, or has a heart attack in the middle of nowhere, or is about to get engulfed in a terrible house fire, and lo and behold! Fido, who never seemed to be good for anything but wagging his tail for a treat, suddenly morphs into Superman.

Or Underdog or Lassie, if you will.

He runs all the way to the nearest highway and barks down a passing car. Or he grabs the collar of his  hanging-off-the-cliff father and drags him to safety. Or he runs up the stairs to the bedroom to warn his sleeping parents about the fire that could kill them.

I've even heard of a dog that dialed 9-1-1. Or maybe that was in a movie. Whatever. You get the picture?

The point is, humans have for a long time believed in the miraculous power of dogs to come through for us in tough times. We think they'll do anything for us by any means necessary. In fact, we think they are just a little magic.

I was reading a newspaper article the other day about how two-thirds of American pet parents think their dogs have a sixth sense. The story was filled with people talking about how their canines sensed things before they happened, including dangerous, life-changing events.

Well, as an affirmed dog lover who has lived with more of these magical creatures than I care to count, I want to burst that bubble.

Dogs don't have a sixth sense, but they are unusually good at using the five senses they do have. And they are unusually smart-- more than most people ever give them credit for-- making it seem as if they have those extraordinary powers we humans lack.

For instance, dogs are keenly observant-- they watch you closely and unabashedly and read your body language better than you would ever be able to read theirs or anyone else's. Wonder why that  dog barked at you (after all you didn't tell him you are just a little afraid of dogs)? Well, because he could read it as clearly as if you had barked it to him by shrinking away just a teeny bit when he bounded up to you. Or by hulking down over him although he doesn't know you from Sarah Palin. Or thrusting a tentative hand in his face when he was least expecting it.

Opie can tell which car driving on the street is his Dad's and not just any car. He gets boundlessly happy and starts to dance around at the door even before Desi has pulled into the driveway. Sixth sense? No, but he has learned by now that Desi's car is moving slower than other cars do as they drive past the house. And he puts two and two together.

Pongalo Pongal!

A very happy Pongal to the south Indian readers of Holy Cow!

The word Pongal literally describes an overflowing, boiling pot of rice. Figuratively, it signifies prosperity and is a time to give thanks for everything you're blessed with-- an Indian Thanksgiving, so to say. And what better way to celebrate prosperity than with delicious food?

South Indian women cook up a feast in their kitchens this day, but there are two dishes that are the centerpiece of any Pongal celebration: Venn Pongal and Sakkarai Pongal. Or, Savory Pongal and Sweet Pongal.

I have blogged my Pongal recipes before, but this time I wanted to try something a little different-- I wanted to make a vegan "ghee" (clarified butter) to use in them, because ghee is usually added to both kinds of Pongals to give them a unique flavor.

Leek And Potato Soup

There's something about snow that makes me just crave the fragrant, piping-hot, allium-infused hug of a leek soup.

Out here in the Washington area we are preparing for what the weather gods and goddesses (on TV) say will be the coldest January in decades. But so far so good. We have barely dodged a couple of major snowstorms, leaving the snow-seeking Desi chagrined and me happy as a squirrel. And no, don't take that to mean I don't love the snow. It's just that I love it more on the weekends, for reasons anyone who works for a living can well imagine.

Yesterday, after a stressful ride home -- my car's windscreen and mirrors iced over by a nasty wintry mix that preceded a glorious snowfall-- I was simply desperate for the comfort of some soup. I was in luck, because I had a leek on hand. And potatoes. I also had some cilantro which, I knew, would add the perfect mix of tang and bite to the soup.

Cook That Book: Silky Chickpea Gravy From Appetite for Reduction

Once upon a time, before an army of vegan cookbooks took over bookstore shelves, there were three that  nearly every vegan cut his/her teeth on: Vegan with a Vengeance, Veganomicon and Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.

The cupcakes book, I think, was the first vegan cookbook I ever bought. I still remember how delightfully surprised I was at just how perfect the eggless, dairyless cupcakes turned out. Instantly, I became a fan of the two authors, Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero (who also cowrote the other two cookbooks I mentioned above)

So when I recently got a copy of Moskowitz's latest cookbook, Appetite for Reduction, I couldn't wait to start cooking. Losing some weight has been at the top of my goals for this new year, and given how much I hate the idea of  being told not to eat something, Moskowitz spoke to me eloquently in her foreword:

"Healthy cooking doesn't have to mean deprivation. It doesn't mean restraint, it doesn't mean willpower, and to hell with the idea of "being good"."

Hooray for that!

Variety is a must to spice up any diet and this book is filled with fresh, healthy recipes, including several for soups and salads but also for heartier, heftier courses made with beans, tofu and tempeh, pasta, and comfort foods like chili and stews. There are also dishes from around the world, like Red Thai Tofu, Arabian Lentil & Rice Soup, and 2nd Avenue Vegetable Korma which, Moskowitz explains, is ready in 30 minutes and is based on a dish she would eat at Madras, one of her favorite New York City restaurants that has closed down since.

I almost made the Korma first because-- as I've said on these pages before--Desi will eat anything with the word "korma" in it. But then this Saturday I was looking for something light for lunch I could make in a hurry, like a gravy that I could just drizzle over a baked sweet potato, and I remembered a recipe I'd seen in this book that had seemed healthy, easy and something for which I had all the ingredients on hand. Silky Chickpea Gravy.

Besides, what can possibly be more appealing than gravy for a weight-watcher?

Poori Bhaji

Poori Bhaji(puri bhaji) is about as delicious as Indian food gets: and by that I mean pick-your-fingernails-with-your-teeth-to-devour-every-last-crumb delicious.

This is pure comfort food: the kind that gets made at every festive occasion in an Indian kitchen, no matter where in the world that kitchen is. The kind that kids carry to picnic lunches, the oil from the poori making transparent blotches on the newspaper it’s wrapped in. And the kind I feel like eating when I will settle for nothing short of pure perfection at the dinner table.

It wouldn’t be stretching the truth to say that there are perhaps as many versions of Poori Bhaji as there are Indian cooks. Although the poori, or the puffy, deep-fried bread, remains more or less the same except the addition of spices in some cases, the bhaji, or the vegetable component, varies drastically. It’s almost always made with potatoes but everyone puts their own delicious spin on the versatile spud: gravied, dry, spicy, mild, tangy with lemon, or alive with the spicy pungency of curry leaves.

When I lived in Bombay, one of the most popular places to go to if you were craving a plate of Poori Bhaji was Pancham Puriwala, a famously crowded and unpretentious dhaba/restaurant that sits not far from the grand Victoria Terminus railway station. According to Busybee, the now-dead but still-entertaining chronicler of Bombay’s eateries, it predates the British-era VT building and was started by an immigrant from Agra in north India who singlehandedly cooked and sold his Poori Bhaji more than 150 years ago.