Yellow Socks

My posts of late have focused on fashion style but I always intended Elasticpantcity as a place where I would discuss lifestyle topics as well. 

So what else is cooking at Elasticpantcity? A whole lot of vegetarian meals. It's been a long journey but I have decided to say good-bye to meat and go green. In the last year, my in-laws started eating all vegetarian at home because my mother-in-law became a vegetarian and she's the one who grocery shops and cooks (My sister-in-law has been a vegetarian forever. Guess who's laughing now?) Her decision really had me thinking about meat or lack-there-of in my diet. I'm not going to discuss all the ethical and health reasons of why I became vegetarian (use the power of Google to find out more or read the China Study) but I will say that it is good for the grocery budget!

Although Ben is not prepared to completely commit to the vegetarian lifestyle, he's willing to experiment with meat-free recipes. Ben also loves cooking Indian and so we're fortunate that vegetarian Indian recipes are easy to find. The only down side to using a lot of tumeric is our kitchen is permanently stained yellow, as are my socks. 

Here's our most recent experiment. Since we made it up I'm going to call it, Chickpea and Cauliflower Tastes Better Than it Looks Curry. 

Ingredients:

Medium bag of chickpeas

3 Tbs. of olive oil

2 onions

3 cloves of crushed garlic

Tbl. of grated fresh ginger

Tbl. Tumeric

Tbl. Garam Masala

Sprinkle of Cayan pepper

Sea salt to taste

1 tomatoe

2 Tbs. of tomatoe paste

1 head of cauliflower 

Water

Steps:

Soak a medium bag of chickpeas over night. Rinse before use the next day and set aside. Dice up two onions, three cloves of garlic and grate a tablespoon of fresh ginger. Put the burner on medium-high heat and put 3 Tbs. of olive oil into a large saucepan. Add the onion, garlic and ginger. Add a Tbs. of Tumeric, Tbs. of Garam Masala, a sprinkle of Cayan pepper and salt to taste. Chop up one tomatoe and add to pan. Add two Tbs. of tomatoe paste. Add chickpeas along with same amount of water used to soak the chickpeas. Add finely chopped cauliflower. Cover and allow to simmer for one hour or until chickpeas are soft.

Yummers. I enjoy eating this with a whole wheat tortilla or rice. 

Levi has been loving our vegetarian cooking (It might help that I refer to chickpeas as cookies in his presence).