Week One: Inspiration Week
This week is all about using different things as your inspiration for great food.

I didn’t actually intend to make nearly the entirety of this week’s MoFo posts India-themed. In fact, I have a post inspired by a wholly different country ready to go, but I keep pushing it back because I can’t stop making Indian food!

Thus, tonight’s dinner: sundal. Sundal is a South Indian recipe, though not one we tried during our visit. But Vaishali’s spin on the dish adds North Indian kala chana, or black chickpeas, and a bit of a fusion twist by mixing the kala chana with quinoa. (I recommend reading Vaishali’s blog post about the recipe for a really interesting deep-dive into the dish and the holiday where you’re likely to find it!) I don’t quite remember how I stumbled on the recipe, but it looked like just the thing for an early September dinner. I love big-batch recipes you can then use as leftovers for lunch!

I originally thought I’d use plain old chickpeas rather than the kala chana, but since I needed some other ingredients from the shop, I asked Steven to pick up dried kala chana at Global Foods, our local world cuisine market. Alas, I should’ve also asked him to find fresh curry leaves, but I totally forgot, so this dish is admittedly even less authentic than it should be! I omitted the zucchini and subbed carrots instead, and augmented the green peppers with some purple peppers from the farmers market. I used frozen grated coconut (which is a total beast to handle, let me tell you) and some rogue mint that sprouted in the herb garden. It was filling and quite healthful, but I think I need to make it with the curry leaves; most of the seasonings got lost and all I could really taste were the black chickpeas. Next time!