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Sunday, December 5, 2010

Green Split Pea Dal with Coconut-Turmeric Rice

Oh my goodness. My kitchen smells so amazing right now!

Let's start with the glorious Cocoa-Dusted Sweet Potatoes I've just finished making:


These are awesome! I found the recipe over at Heather Eats Almond Butter. Right now, she's about to wrap up her week of sweet potatoes and this little gem of a recipe was posted earlier this week. I LOVE IT. I've went through most of my sweet potatoes thanks to this recipe! I'm going to save my last one to eat another way (maybe Hawaiian baked?). The only thing I did differently than she did was bake my potatoes on parchment paper rather than aluminum foil. The bottoms burnt on foil. I also found that mine only took about 25 minutes to be completely cooked, but my oven runs kind of high. Anywho, if you like sweet potatoes, you should definitely try them like this!

Another reason why my kitchen smells so good:

Dal is never photogenic.
Green Split Pea Dal with Coconut-Turmeric Rice.

This recipe was pretty simple to make. The flavorful dal paired perfectly with the creamy coconut rice. Dal is usually made with yellow split peas, but I prefer the green ones (mostly because they're a lot easier to find in the grocery stores here. Lol). If you haven't had much Indian food, this recipe here is a nice introduction!

Green Split Pea Dal:
1 c. green split peas, rinsed and picked through
1/2 Tb. coconut oil, liquid
1 onion, finely chopped
1/2 Tb. garlic, minced (about 3 cloves)
1 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. coriander
1/4 tsp. ginger
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/8 tsp. cayenne (can use less)
3 c. vegetable broth and/or water
1/2 tsp. sea salt, or to taste

1. After rinsing and sorting through the peas, bring them to a boil, and let them boil for 3 minutes.  After boiling, turn them off and let them soak, covered, for one hour.

2. At the end of the soaking hour (right before you put on the peas to cook), saute the onion and garlic in the coconut oil over medium-high heat until nice and soft, about five minutes. Add the cumin, coriander, cinnamon, and cayenne and let them cook another two minutes or until fragrant. Set aside.

3. Drain and rinse the soaked peas. Add the vegetable broth and/or water and the spiced, sauteed onions. Bring to a boil, then cover, reduce heat, and simmer for about one hour and 15 minutes, or until the peas have broken down and a lot of the extra broth is gone. Salt to taste at the end.

Coconut-Turmeric Rice:
1 c. long-grain brown rice or brown basmati rice, rinsed
1 (6 oz.) can coconut milk (about 3/4 cup)
1 3/4 c. water
1/4. tsp. turmeric
1/4 tsp. salt

1. Bring rice, coconut milk, water, turmeric, and salt to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer for 45 minutes. Stir before serving with dal.

A meal that contains 3/4 a cup of dal served with 3/4 of a cup of coconut rice provides you with 16.8 grams of protein and 15.3% of your daily iron. Toss in a sliced tomato-onion-cucumber (soy) yogurt salad to round out the plate and you're set for a tasty, wholesome meal!

On Monday, I think I'm gonna be making some more Indian food, though this time I'm leaning towards more of a hot tofu curry. We'll see. Have a great day!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I swear I could live off of dal...I usually use red lentils, but will have to try split peas!

Courtney

Bianca said...

Hey!!!! Guess what? You just won the Caribbean Vegan giveaway!!! I used random.org to pick a number and you're it! Email me at bphillips[at]memphisflyer[dot]com with your address and stuff. And I'll pass it along to the publisher. Congrats.

And btw, those cocoa-dusted sweet taters look crazy awesome. OMG!

Jess of Midwest Vegan said...

Sweet!!