Friends and Food

We had friends over and Pinch cooked dinner. I was out for some time and when I got back, nearly everything was ready!

He made dhansak. It was slurpalicious (did I just make this word up??!!!) but mildly spiced as compared to the kind he usually makes. Complementing it was cilantro-mint rice made by a friend. Pinch also made cucumber peanut salad (diced cucumber sprinkled with roasted peanuts, crumbled and garnished with lemon juice) and mango srikhand. The srikhand recipe came from another friend – it is really simple. Hang some yogurt (we got Trader Joe’s low-fat version) in a cloth and let the whey water drain out overnight. Now take the solid yogurt that remains and whip some mango pulp into it. If you feel that it isn’t sour enough, you can add some sour cream… Voila! I think our proportions need some tweaks though – instead of using 1.5 boxes, I should probably use 2 whole boxes of yogurt in order to get a thicker consistency. Can also add some sugar.

Then there were tall glasses of chilled fresh watermelon juice spiced with jiralu, corn chips with mango-peach salsa, black blean and corn salsa, spinach-zucchini muthia, rava barfi… by the time we got to bed, it was past 12 am.