Lovely Family Birthday Dinner

[pameladlloyd]

Karl and his boys spent all day cooking the most wonderful Indian feast for me. We had dahi vada, a mushroom korma, a cauliflower and pea korma, palak paneer, rice, cucumbers and tomatoes sprinkled with spice, and hard-boiled eggs, also sprinkled with spice. Plus, he baked my favorite lemon cake, using the recipe my mother and grandmother used to use. We had the whole family around the table once more and I loved having all six of my guys with me for the evening.

As a bonus, my copy of A Field Guide to Surreal Botany arrived today, just in time for Karl to wrap it up and present it to me. Which felt happily fortuitous.

I am replete, and happy.

Comments

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

What a perfect birthday!

May you have many, many more, all divine. Happy birthday!

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

Thank you. It truly was a lovely birthday. :)

[intertext.livejournal.com]

Happy belated birthday! All best wishes for the coming year.

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

Thank you! :-)

[handworn.livejournal.com]

Nice! It's always great when everyone gets together and works on something together, and has bread to break at the end.

How old are the boys?

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

We have five boys, between 16 and 26. The oldest two are mine (and no longer live at home) and the rest are Karl's.

[crinklequirk.livejournal.com]

Sounds wonderful! Glad your birthday was lovely - and yum, Indian food! Been a while since I've made any.

:)

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

Thank you. It was lovely.

What are your favorite Indian dishes to cook? We don't know that many people who make their own, unless they're from India. :)

[crinklequirk.livejournal.com]

I started cooking Indian food back in sr high or so, when Madhur Jaffrey had a cooking show for a while on PBS.

And of course, I started with the Indian rice pudding, which must be stirred for a very long time for each section of cooking - and which is so very, very worth it. :)

Tandoori chicken/etc. meat, including variations with chicken strips (great for potlucks if you keep it in a crockpot) and various other spice+yogurt (or mayonaise) or your-favourite-dressing-here;

halvah;

Jaffrey's re-fried potatoes (pre-cooked potatoes, then add the lovely cumin/sesame-seed/etc. spice mix as you fry it slightly) - and that became, with the addition of 'celery' seeds, the staple I bring to Thanksgiving dinner at my folks when I changed it to canned (only) French-cut (not reg.) green beans. All those spices - and even my Dad eats it!!

The rice, of course, with saffron if I'm lucky enough to have it, with peas if my daughter and son will allow it (they're under 10, so pickiness is of-the-hour variety), and especially Jasmine rice - it's so fragrant!

It's been ages since I could do any Indian cooking - and I'm afraid my time working in a neighborhood Lebanese-guy-owned corner store has added the twist of wanting slightly more Mediterranean foods, too. ;-)

Lots I cannot do, since I don't eat broccoli/cauliflower/brussels-sprouts/asparagus/ground-up-meats, and I'm allergic to okra. . . but of what I can, I LOVE Indian foods! And so filling, so healthy, flavourful, and really, cheap, if you've an Asian grocery nearby, particularly for the spices.

Now I want to drag out my old Madhur Jaffrey cookbook and have a go-to (Indian rice pudding followed by Norwegian krumkake = marathon stove time, lol)! :)

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

Some of my husband's favorite cookbooks are by Madhur Jaffrey. She's great. We eat foods inspired by cuisines from all over, too. I'm very fond of Middle Eastern. Last night, we had home-made tamales.

[jlundberg.livejournal.com]

Hope you enjoy Surreal Botany! And wow, that birthday dinner sounds amazing.

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

I'm sure I will! And, yes, my birthday dinner was amazing. My husband is an amazing cook, as are our boys becoming. :)

[k-10b.livejournal.com]

Happy Bday! Glad your boys can cook...it's a wonderful skill for a man to have. : ) Can you tell I'm married to one too?

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

Ain't it great? :-)

I think of cooking as Life Skills 101 material, but I really lucked out with guys that see cooking as a mission.