In this recipe, the snowy white cauliflower and the tomatoes and pepper flavors blend well. The cauliflower becomes buttery soft, and the tomatoes are reduced to a glaze. The edamame provides a pretty bright green contrast and provides a mild, delicious protein to the dish. Serve with well cooked brown rice and warm whole wheat bread.

Serves 4.

Ingredients

• 1/2 head cauliflower broken into 1 inch pieces
• 4-5 ripe large roma tomatoes (skinned and quartered)
• 1 cup edamame (available frozen in bags in the healthy food sections of groceries)
• 1/3 sweet red pepper, 1/3 sweet orange pepper, 1/3 sweet yellow pepper (or one full pepper of any of them) cut in strips about 1 inch long
• 2 tablespoons of ghee (or olive oil if you don’t have ghee)
• sprinkle of black mustard seeds (sprinkled lightly across the ghee)
• sprinkle of turmeric (sprinkle across the ghee)
• sprinkle of hing (sprinkle lightly across the ghee)
• salt and pepper to taste

Procedure

Heat ghee in wok, add mustard seeds and when they begin to pop, add hing, and turmeric. Add pepper pieces and stir fry a minute over medium high heat. Add cauliflower and continue stirring (so it doesn’t stick) over medium high heat. Fry the cauliflower until slightly browned. Add the chopped tomatoes and frozen edamame, reduce heat to low and cover, cooking until tomatoes are broken down and cauliflower is soft. If the dish starts to dry out too much as it cooks, add a few tablespoons of water to keep it moist. Salt and pepper to taste.

This soup is easy to make, cooks quickly, and is great with a good bread and a salad

Ingredients:

• 2/3 cup dried split red lentils
• 1/3 cup dried mung beans
• 1/3 cup dried chana or split peas
• 2 small potatoes cut into small cubes
• 4 mini carrots cut into 4-5 pieces each
• 3 chopped fresh tomatoes (skinned or not)
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1 tsp chili powder
• 5 cups water
• 1 tsp. sambar masala
• 1 cup spinach
• 1 Tbs. ghee
• 1 tsp. salt (add more after offered if not enough)

Procedure:

In a stock pot add the first 8 ingredients to 5 cups water. Simmer for 15-20 minutes or until the split peas are cooked through. The other two beans will cook faster. When all the dal beans are cooked, add the sambar and spinach.

In a small fry pan melt ghee. Add cumin seeds and fry briefly until they change to a darker color. Pour ghee with cumin over dal, and add salt.

Notes:

If you do not have all three dal beans listed, you can make this dal using just one or two of them. Whole Foods has all three of these dals, as do Indian groceries.

Ghee. Even though there is only a tablespoon of ghee in this recipe, it is an important ingredient. Can you make this dal without it and it will be good, but the ghee makes it taste very hearty and robust. Ghee is available from some grocery stores in the Indian foods section or at Whole Foods or an Indian grocery.

Sambar Masala is a spice blend that is available at Indian stores. It can be used in many other recipes, like curries.