Dal-Lazy

I sure have been the reluctant cook lately! Sheesh. I can't seem to muster the whatever to get me arse in the kitchen to cook. I have been doing some cooking, but have been depending more on precooked pouches that I just have to heat up. I must admit, most are great tasters, but the point is I have been lazy. At first I thought they might work out as an addition to a meal, helping to cut down on my prep time. A pot of steamed basmati, a dal preparation and perhaps a pouched paneer dish would make things right. But now...I'm just slipping by with the pouches and rice. Shame on me. As pentance, I am right now soaking toor dal for a lemon dal, as well as a pot of rice.

Shame on me!

Okay, it's not that bad, really. I did cook up a dish from a green pepper dal (with yogurt) the other night that was a bit on the sweet side, and a batch of green tomato chutney.

On Saturday I had my first bout with nasty ghee. It wasn't that old and I had opened it just a few weeks ago. I should have been more careful as it was all bubbly in the jar, and the aroma was sort of waxy, not really pleasant like good ghee. However, lacking any experience with the stuff, and since it was a different brand than I've used before...

Fortunately the 'sick' didn't last long and wasn't very intense, just a nasty taste and a short wave of nausea. Nice topic for a food blog, huh?

One frustrating element of cooking in such a radically different regiment than I know culturally is that I lack basic, simple know-how. I know an experienced cook would know right away that ghee was bad, and that when a recipe calls for capsicum, it means sweet peppers and not green chili peppers (both in the same species), and which type of cardamon is required for a particular dish, green or black. And what about a lemon-sized ball of tamarind? Here lemons at the stands can be humungus, no doubt thanks to Monsanto and all the demons they are releasing on us with their scientifically modified foods.

I don't think people realize how corporatized our world is becoming, has become. The rich do rule, the rich being corporations who are stealing our resources and hording all the wealth. We are slowly turning into some global nightmare. I have heard that Monsanto has unleashed demons on Indian farmers. I want to avoid politics in this blog. This poorly edited video tells the story. Monsanto Video.

Go soak some dal!