vegetable biryani

I have always loved Indian food, but I have come to biryani's late in life.  I am not sure if I never had them when I was younger, or if I never had a good one.  A friend used to own a small Indian restaurant here in Vancouver and biryani was the special one day, so I decided to try it.  It was a revelation, a soft fluffy rice studded with intensely flavoured morsels including nuts and dried fruit. Since then I often order it when going to an Indian restaurant and have been experimenting with making it myself.

This Sunday evening a neighbourhood friend invited us over, along with a few others, for a Texas hold em game and potluck dinner.  So I decided to make a vegetarian biryani to take along as I know they like  Indian food and I thought it would travel well.  I found the basis for this recipe at vegrecipesofindia.com
But I simplified it a little and had to substitute a couple of items.

First partialy cook the rice.


1 and half cup basmati rice
2 green cardamoms
2 cloves
1 small sliver of cinnamon
1 bay leaf
3 cups water
salt

All the recipes that I found for biryani say to rinse and soak the rice, I assume to remove a lot of the starch, so I rinsed the rice in a colander then soaked in a bowl of cold water for 1/2 an hour, drained it and put in to a pot with the remaining ingredients.

Cook the rice with the lid on until all the water is absorbed and it still a little el dente, about 15 minutes then fluff with a fork and set aside with the lid on.

1/2 medium sized cauliflower, florets removed

1 medium sized carrot, diced

1 medium sized potato, cubed

1 cup of chopped greeen beans

1  onion, finely sliced

1 green chili, chopped

2 tbsp julienned ginger

1 tbsp chopped garlic

2 green cardamom

2 black cardamoms

2 cloves

small piece of cinnamon 

1/2 cup of plain yogurt

1/4 tsp turmeric powder

1/2 tsp red chili powder/cayenne pepper

2 tbsp cashewnuts or whole almonds

1 tbsp sultanas/raisins/dates

3 tbsp olive oil

Whole spices in the vegetable mixture

Greens Restaurant San Francisco

If you are going to San Francisco, as well as wearing some flowers in your hair, you really should go to Greens Restaurant for lunch.

I say lunch because the view of the bay and the Golden Gate Bridge is priceless.  I went to Greens for the first time about 20 years ago, and I have been back every time I have been to San Francisco. We went on Saturday lunch time and luckily we had a reservation, because even after all these years you still do need a reservation.

Greens Restaurant is located in a converted warehouse at historic Fort Mason only a 15 minute walk along the waterfront from our hotel adjacent to Ghiradelli Square. It was a beautiful sunny day and we were lucky to get a table right at the large window which takes up the entire wall facing the Golden Gate Bridge.

View from the table

Saturday and Sunday at lunch time the menu is in fact a brunch menu. Greens is a Vegetarian restaurant that serves creative vegetarian cuisine using seasonal organic produce. The restaurant maintains a close relationship with local farms and endeavours to serve fresh local and in season.

Vegetarian option to turkey

Every year I have the pleasure of hosting my husbands extended family to Christmas dinner, this year it was 16 of us.  The numbers have been diminishing every year with grown children moving away to Alberta and sadly we have lost both my husbands parents and my mother.  But this year there was addition to the family my niece gave birth to a baby boy at 1:30 on Christmas morning. What a joy it will be next year to have a baby at Christmas, this year we had to make do with my rather prickly kitten.

Christmas Kitty

My sister in law is vegetarian, and so every year I try to make a dish that will give her some protein, and as she loves beans it often involves some kind of beans. This year I set my self a challenge to create a dish that would be full of the flavours of turkey but with out trying to imitate the meat and be completely vegetarian.  So this is what I came up with.

1 cup of black eyed peas
1 cup of small white lima beans
4 cups of water
1 onion chopped
1 large garlic clove sliced
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 vegetarian stock cube (try McCormick's vegetarian chicken stock cubes)
2 tablespoons of fresh sage finely chopped
1 stalk of fresh rosemary leaves stripped and chopped
1/4 cup of chopped parsley.
1/2 cup of fine breadcrumbs
zest of one lemon

Roasted potatoes and Brussels sprouts

Roasting vegetables that are usually steamed or boiled seems to be every where these days and for good reason.  Asparagus, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts all seem to improve with a little caramelising.  Brussels sprouts are actually in my opinion the king of the green vegetable kingdom, and I would eat them much more often if it was up to me.  I am afraid the rest of my family does not necessarily agree, they are willing to put up with them with a Sunday roast but that is about it.

But with my husband and father in Chicago for a few days I find my self on my own for dinners, so I can cook what ever I want.  This will often be eggplant or liver but it is the season of the Brussels sprout and I had one last potato from my garden to eat so I decided to roast them together.

This could hardly be called a recipe really just a suggestion.  Toss Brussels sprouts and chopped potato together with a little olive oil and some salt . I used about 2/3 sprouts to 1/3 potato.

The potatoes need to be cut quite small so that the sprouts do not get over cooked before the potatoes are ready.