Spicy Summer Green Beans

After posting this recipe, I've received a couple requests for more veggie recipes. I hear that. I love my ice cream maker a little too much, perhaps. And cookies. Definitely love the cookies. A lot. But I go to a couple different farmers' markets each week and could definitely be sharing more of the summer's market-recipe bounty.

This Spicy Green Bean recipe is a big go-to dish in our house. We make it a couple times a week and eat it with just about everything. You may be a bit more choosy in your flavor-partnering, but we mix up all sorts of flavors, from all parts of the world. The spices used here are Indian-inspired. If you don't have these spices on hand, they stock them at Indian grocers, as well as at well-stocked grocery stores (or try this place online -- a great herb and spice shop). Feel free to eliminate the fenugreek if you don't have it (but I do recommend giving it a try -- it has a distinctive fragrance and flavor). You can change up the flavor a bit and add other things, like curry powder or chopped fresh basil at the end, or make it more or less spicy.

Chicken Tikka Masala

Continuing on my Indian food and memory kick, I made Bill's favorite Indian meal: Chicken Tikka Masala.  It is debated whether this is a true Indian dish.  If it is, it was invented within the last 50 years.  Some people believe (strongly) that it was invented in London or Glasgow.  A survey conducted in the U.K. concluded that chicken tikka masala is the country's most popular restaurant dish.  Whether it is authentic or not, it is a delicious marriage of fragrant Indian spices and tomatoes (still have some canned from last summer?) in a creamy sauce.    

Yogurt

I have a pile of cookbooks, journals, food magazines and recipe-related newspaper articles piled high on the coffee table right now.  With a day off I had a chance to go through them.  I didn't make it far.  For my birthday last month I got Pushpesh Pant's, India: The Cookbook.  I ended up reading this one cookbook my entire day off.  This is one incredible, 816 page encyclopedia of 1000 Indian recipes from all over the 1,269,219 square mile country.

I spent hours of pouring over everything from Kamala Phoolkopi (Cauliflower with Oranges) to Tulasi Sherbet (Sweet Basil Seed Sherbet) to Karipatta Chutney (Curry Leaf Chutney).  Inspired, I took a break and went down to my storage shed.  I rifled around for a while until I found a personal journal from the winter of 2001/02 that I spent in India.  I worked for a fabulous organization, Shikshantar, in Rajasthan.  Every day at lunch we would gather for a home cooked meal.  I took notes on the cooking procedures when I could: hand scratched notes of approximations as fragrant Indian spices, lentils, vegetables and herbs came together to form each delicious concoction.  Spicy stuffed baby eggplants, tamarind sauce, cilantro chutney, flattened rice snack, palak paneer (spinach and cheese), homemade yogurt, spiced tea.