Curry Partay

Staying up until 6am is not necessarily the best idea I’ve ever had.  Nor is following up a few glass of red wine with a few too many glasses of vodka/cranberry/soda.  Needless to say most of Saturday was a write-off.  A lot of sleep, a very patient dog, a gigantic Coco Cappuccino and deli-made pasta salad saved the day.

As did my friend Laura.

My friends Jamie and Chris decided to throw a potluck with an Indian curry theme.  While this sounds like an amazing idea I realized that I have really never ever cooked anything Indian!!  Oh nooooooes!

Thankfully Laura came to the rescue with one of Chef Heidi Fink’s recipes!  North Indian Tomato Curry (with Cauliflower and Chickpeas).

My biggest concern was actually cost.  I was very worried about having to purchase many spice ingredients I didn’t have on hand to make the homemade curry powder and garam masala.  Thankfully Laura had very recently made fresh batches of both and brought me a spice gift package!!

Including fresh curry leaves!

And black mustard and whole cumin seeds…

Due to my super duper late night I pretty much slept the day away on Saturday and thanks to some glitches with my Blackberry I wasn’t hearing text messages or phone calls and actually slept right through the time Laura and I had planned to get together to work on the recipe.

Doh!

She was a superstar though and still met me later in the day to help walk me through everything.  Honestly, she pretty much cooked the whole thing…but seeing the few tricks up her sleeve make me confident I’ll be able to do it myself next time!!

I am very pleased with how this turned out.  So flavourful! 

Along with this I also did a fresh and simple Kachumar Salad.  Sweet onions for the win!

The veggie slicing took some time but I arrived at the dinner party just in time to eat!  We had such a beautiful variety of contributions and everything was delicious!

Dinner Guests:  I want that Butter Chicken recipe!  Um, and the naan while we’re at it.  Oh, and the tandoori.  Ah well, throw in the raita recipe too please!  :)  and Alex:  What was your dish with the egg??

Admittedly I avoided the cocktails.  One night of drinkin’ is enough for me this week.  Lordy.  I did indulge in a second serving of almost everything and two too many cookies though.  Fooooooood.

Some sort of ridiculous Wii game kept us all rather entertained for the remainder of the evening…

…before I brought myself home and tucked into bed for a much needed 12 hours of sleep.  Major props go out to Chibi who totally let me sleep as much as I needed.  My dog is clearly a rock star.

I’m teaching her well.  zzzzzzzzzzzzz.