“Does the house smell like an Indian restaurant yet?” I asked LeeLee, who was working at home, when I called around 2 o’clock this afternoon.
“YES!” he exclaimed. And that was good enough for me.
He spoke the truth. I verified this when I got home from work-plus-animal-shelter tonight and was immediately hit with all the wonderful aromas that garam masala brings to the table (so to speak). Yes, friends, tonight our Crock-Pot went international with a recipe for chik’n tikka masala I found over at The Kitchn. (Now, granted, the original recipe is for real chicken, but y’all know I’m no stranger to vegifying things!)
Putting everything in the slow cooker this morning took no time at all – within 10 minutes or so, the Crock-Pot was humming nicely on Low and I was dashing off to work! At lunch, I picked up some naan bread and some basmati rice, because when you’re going to enjoy an Indian meal for dinner, there’s no point in phoning it in. So when I got home from the animal shelter (it was a cat-petting night), I put the rice in the rice cooker and preheated the oven, then added some coconut milk to the slow cooker. Within half an hour, both the rice and the naan had finished their cooking process, and we were ready to eat!
I’ve never been great at cooking Thai or Indian meals – the complexity of their spices always seems to be just out of my reach. But this one hit the spot! Both LeeLee and I marveled at how authentic it tasted. So I may have finally gotten the hang of how to properly spice up these dishes, but only time will tell!
In the meantime, we’ll continue to enjoy the fruits of today’s labor – we’ve got plenty for leftovers tomorrow! I’m looking forward to it already.
:)