Eat, Drink & Be Awesome

After hearing some good things about it, I recently picked up Dreena Burton's Eat, Drink & Be Vegan. I like it enough to be interested in getting her other two books, but not any time soon because I have TOO MANY DAMN COOKBOOKS already.

Anyway, I was in an Indian sort of mood, so I made the Zucchini Chickpea Tomato Curry and Cucumber Mint Raita. NOM!



For the curry, the cook time is short enough to keep the green beans crunchy, which is super awesome. And the seasoning is perfect. I think it may be a bit spicier than the Red Lentil Cauliflower Curry from Veganomicon, but it's still very good (if I had to choose between the two, I'd pick the VCON one, though. Sorry! Thankfully, I don't have to!). I ate this for lunch every day for a week, then made myself switch over to something else and freeze the leftovers (the portions are very generous as listed). I finally came back to my frozen curry yesterday and it was such a treat. I ate the last portion today and my belly is still doing a happy dance (metaphorically speaking).

The raita was really interesting. My brother came downstairs while I was grating the cucumber and asked what I was doing. When I told him, he said "That's the stupidest ingredient ever. Cucumber doesn't have any taste. You're doing all that work for nothing."

O RLY?

I had him smell the grated cucumber when it was done, and he couldn't believe what a strong fragrance it had (I don't know how he could miss it). Mixed in with the mint, it added a very fresh, cool flavor to the yogurt. I know raita is supposed to be served with roti, but I ate the curry over rice and didn't want another carb, so I just threw it on a basic salad (usually using much less than pictured below; I just wanted to make sure it photographed all right). It was splendid.