Meatless Monday: prep work and Punjabi food

So, over the weekend, I decided to try the method outlined in this article for what promises to be a week's worth of healthy dinners. I went shopping, got everything set, and now look forward to "easy" and "delicious" meals that aren't too much of a hassle to put together (thanks to the plan-ahead stuff).

Luckily for my meatless initiative, there are two meatless options in the plan. I'm actually pretty excited for the english muffin pizzas. I'd forgotten about the "muffin-pizza" as a culinary genre. Weirdly, though, I couldn't find eggplant at the store, so I'll be subbing in zucchini instead, which I think will be just as yummy.

The other option on the program for this week is a vegetable curry. Which is great, since I'm pretty comfortable with curries as a general rule. I used to work as a home-health-care aid for an adorable elderly couple who happened to be from Punjab. Savitri usually wanted me to help her make meals, and so I absorbed a lot from her about spice-ratios and the building blocks of curries, dahl and sarson da saag. One of her daughters even let me in on one of the key tenets of "the curry way": constant stirring of the spices, tomato, onion and herbs to make the paste. Every time I make Indian food, smelling the roasting spices in the pan and the sharp coriander leaves, I think of Savitri and her family and my time working for them.

What about you? Do you have a dish or a type of food you make that has a story behind it? Do you always make brownies, or spaghetti the same way because of how your grandmother made it? Do tell.