We went to the Farmer’s Market in Boulder on Saturday morning and picked up a few things that were available this early in the season.  We bought some purple potatoes, parsnips, and spinach.  We were planning on having steaks and roasted potatoes for dinner Saturday night and we didn’t have any specific plans for the produce we bought.  Thanks to teething, Jake took longer than normal to go down and while I was laying with him I came up with an idea for the produce.  We made a wilted spinach salad with roasted purple potatoes and shaved parsnips, with a maple mustard vinaigrette.

I have been making my own salad dressings thanks to the guidelines in the book How to Cook Everything.  After making Mark Bittman’s basic vinaigrettes I started to see a pattern and started experimenting with some of my own dressings.  This has been my favorite salad dressing so far! After eating it on our salads we fried some french fries the next day and ate it as a dipping sauce, which was also delicious.

For the salad:

I roasted potatoes in the oven with olive oil to coat at 450 for about 40 minutes or until crispy.  I like spinach better cooked a little bit, so I wilted it in a pan with a little bit of olive oil for a couple of minutes.  I put the spinach on the plate, topped with the roasted potatoes, and shredded parsnips, salt and pepper.

Maple Mustard Vinaigrette:

3/4 cups olive oil

1/4 cup white wine vinegar

3 tbsp maple syrup

1 tbsp spicy brown mustard

2 tbsp shallots

salt & pepper to taste

Add the white wine vinegar, maple syrup, mustard, shallots and salt and pepper to a food processor, and blend thoroughly.  Add the olive oil a little at a time and blend.  Adding the olive oil a little at a time should create an emulsion.

Enjoy!

I lived in Dallas for about 4 years before I moved to Colorado, and while I was there working as a consultant, I had my first experience with Indian food. I was working on a Saturday and my boss at the time took me to eat out as a way to thank me for working after hours. We went to an Indian food buffet, which are usually not very spicy since buffet food has to please the masses. Well for some reason this buffet was extremely spicy, and of course I felt obligated to eat a lot, since my boss was paying for the meal. Maybe my taste buds are more used to spicy food now, or maybe that particular buffet really was incredibly spicy, but needless to say, my first experience was not a happy one and I felt more like I was being punished than rewarded.

When I first started dating Jeremy, he loved Indian food, and after a lot of convincing I decided to give it another try. He had me order mild Chicken Tikka Masala which is about as Americanized as you can go with Indian food and we had a side of Vegetable Pakora to go with it - basically deep fried vegetables and onion rings. I was shocked to discover that I actually enjoyed this Indian food and wanted to eat more of it. Well, we now live about 1 mile from a really good little Indian food restaurant and ordered food all of the time from it up until a few months ago. And, I’ve branched out too, trying spicier and less American style Indian, and pretty much like it all now.

Now that I’ve been diagnosed with celiac disease we’ve pretty much stopped eating out. I’ve tried eating out at a few places since my diagnosis but apparently am just very sensitive, so for the most part we have just been eating at home. Consequently, we have not had Indian food in some time, and I’ve really been craving it!

Jeremy ran across these gluten-free sauces in our grocery store a few weeks ago and we’ve already had them for dinner several times now. They are made by Seeds of Change, are all organic, and the company promotes organic farming efforts. These sauces are also very easy and handy. We’ve tried two flavors, the Madras and the Jalfrezi, they are both tomato and pepper based and pretty similar tasting, but the Madras is spicier and the Jalfrezi has coconut in it.  Jake even liked his broccoli and cauliflower in the Jalfrezi sauce.

Quick and Easy Vegetarian Indian
2 cups of cooked brown basmati rice
1 cup broccoli
1 cup cauliflower
1 cup potatoes
1 bunch spinach
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 can Seeds of Change Indian Simmer Sauce

Cut your broccoli, cauliflower and potatoes into bite sized pieces. Set up a steamer with a couple of inches of water in it and bring to a boil. Add your potatoes to the steamer basket and steam for about 10 minutes, add the broccoli and cauliflower and steam for about 5 more minutes or until they are soft enough for your liking. In the meantime, add about 2 tablespoons of olive oil to a pan and heat on the stove top over medium heat for a few minutes. Add the spinach and stir around, then cover. Cook for 2-3 minutes and remove from heat. Add the steamed vegetables to the spinach and add the jar of simmer sauce. Serve over cooked brown basmati rice.