A Feast for a King or Queen!

On Friday I was having lunch with a wonderful Indian lady that I work with, I mentioned to her that I have been craving GULAB JAMUN (Neil calls them Indian Timbits) my favorite Indian dessert. As the conversation went on she mentioned that she buys her desserts at Indian Sweet Shops. I was stunned I have never heard of such a thing. After a little more conversation I became aware that there is a whole Indian Mall in N.E Calgary with Indian groceries stores, sweet shops, jewelry stores and fabric stores. That night I told my sister and she said 'let go' so on Sunday afternoon along with the snow and cold we sought out little India. The first stop was the Delhi Sweet Shop, I ordered my Gulab Jumun however after this I was feeling a little lost so I ordered an assortment of desserts as well as 4 pieces of naan bread. We explored a few Indian grocery stores buying a some spices, exotic fruit, roti, paratha, fresh paneer and few other items. Our last stop was the Village Sweet Shop and Restaurant where we bought samosas. The car smelled of Indian cuisine and we had not even started cooking. We decided that we would make butter chicken with ghee and Silk coffee creamer so it was dairy free and cauliflower chickpea curry. To go with our curry we had partha, roti, naan, samosas, rice and sweets. If you would like to the recipe for "Dairy Free Butter Chicken" please email me otherw as I am just providing my recipe for the Cauliflower Chickpea Curry:

2 Tbsp of Oil

Mix 1 tsp of ground cardamon, 1 Tbsp of coriander, 1 tsp of black pepper, 1 Tbsp of cumin, 1 tsp of tumeric, 1 tsp of Garam Marsala, 1 Tbsp of mango powder together in a small bowl.

Heat oil until very hot (have fan on) once oil is hot add spice mixture and keep stirring until the mixure turns slightly brown, add 4 cloves of garlic, 1 large onion continue stirring until onion is slightly soft. Add 1 large tomato (chopped) cook down until you have red sauce, add 1 small head of cauliflower and 1 cup of chick peas, salt to taste. Cook for another 20 minutes until cauliflower is soft, you may need to add water to keep this from burning. You also may need to add more of the spice mixture if the taste is too weak. Serve over basmati rice.

The meal was very good we ate so much we could barely walk, the GULAB JAMUN was better than I expected, the other Indian Sweets no so great. Overall we had a great day exploring little India, trying new food and cooking a feast fit for a King and Queen.