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.

Tags: gluten free

This entry was posted on Friday, March 12th, 2010 at 3:24 pm and is filed under Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.