Our Christmas Day food feast was homemade Samosas. I love these. I love Indian food in general and according to my husband I make it too much. This is just a sample of what we had that day.
To make samosas you will need:
For the potato mix:
4 lg potatoes cooked, diced or mashed
1 tsp cumin seed
1 tsp coriander powder
1 tsp mango powder ( optional )
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp garam masala
1 c mixed veggies or peas
Once the potatoes are cooked you can either add the spices to the
potato and place in the fridge for when you need it or you can use a
frying pan to place a little oil in the pan with the spices and add the
potato, frying until all is mixed together.
for the dough:
3 c flour
2 tbsp margarine, room temperature
water
mix together the margarine and flour and add a little
bit of water at a time until you get a pliable dough that you
can roll out. Roll this dough out and make 4x4 squares.
Place a little of the potato mixture into the center of the dough. About
a tablespoon or so of mix. Close up the dough by pinching the edges.
If you have kitchen scissors you can cut off the excess dough and keep
rolling it out to make more squares.
Deep fry samosas or fry them in a pan with at least an inch of oil.
We brought in New Years Day with orange currant scones. I recently was
given about a pound and a half of dried currants and needed to do something with
them.
Here are the currants. Don't they look great?!
Orange Currant Scones. I gave them a triple layer of orange
icing glaze.
To make these scones you will need:
2 c flour
3 tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
1 c dried currants or raisins
1/4 c margarine
1/2 cup soy or rice milk
almost 1/4 cup of orange juice
1 tbsp of orange zest or 1/4 tsp orange extract
place all dry ingredients in a large bowl and cut margarine into
the dry ingredients with a pastry cutter or two butter knives.
Add the liquid and mix until all the flour and stuff is just moistened.
What I usually do at this point is take the dough, pat it down to a
height I want and cut off the edges to make a square. I then cut
triangles into it. Place the shapes onto an ungreased sheet pan.
Bake at 425 degrees for 8-9 mins.
For the orange icing glaze, I just added some orange juice to
powdered sugar and used a pastry brush to place the glaze on.
One of my recent goals was to try and find a cheaper margarine that
was not hydrogenated and was also vegan. I almost succeeded. I say almost
because I don't know if I can bake with this stuff yet. From the same
people who brought you Earth Balance, its Smart Balance light.
Its a dollar cheaper, its non hydrogenated and its vegan! The container says
its not recommended for baking but I will put this to the test.
I checked out the nutritional information and its also a bit healthier than
Earth Balance. Check this out.
Nutrition Information of Smart Balance Light
Nutrition Information for Earth Balance Original
I know the pics are not all that great at showing the whole
thing. I'm sorry.
I'll let you know how the Smart Balance does with baking.
Finally today we took a trip to
The Wild Cow for lunch.
I almost forgot to take pics of what we ate. Here you can see
my huge bite taken out of the veggie burger. I think it had rice
and black beans in it. Toppings were sliced white onion, tomato,
and romaine. I added ketchup. Tortilla chips were a side.
My husband had 3 sides. Hummus with chips, mashed potatoes
and gravy, and portebello mushrooms.
My son had 3 sides. Mashed potatoes w/gravy, 2 bean chili
and vegan mac&cheeze. They both fell in love with the chili so my
husband ordered some and my son had another serving.
If you've never been to The Wild Cow before its a cute place
but pretty small so expect it to be a bit crowded.
You find your own table and you order at the register. They will call your
name and you get up to get your food.
We were lucky enough to sit at the bar where we got to check
out all the action.
All of the food was pretty good and I am definately going back.
The cost was pretty affordable too considering it was vegan and
vegetarian. Not overpriced at all.
