Indian Food and Creativity, by Mollie

One of my favorite things about Indian food is how warm and comforting it is. I think it shows vegetable-doubters how good a vegetarian diet can taste. And the miraculous thing is that just a change of a few spices can completely alter a meal.

I experimented with a couple of recipes from our beloved cookbook, The Green Way to Healthy Living - chapattis (pictured to the right) and naan. I tried using some chickpea flour in the chapattis, which really just made them taste like they had parts of mashed up chickpeas. And the dough for the naan didn't even rise. But the amazing thing? Both tasted so good (especially the naan). The naan ended up like thick, spicy crackers almost - which, while not at all the intention, fit perfectly with the rest of our meal and was, undoubtedly, Indian.

The last experiment I did - which was actually in this last week of November - was to try a puffed rice snack mix sort of thing which I had found online. Here's warning to my future self: don't try unfamiliar recipes when you're home alone and don't want to commit to making them correctly. By the time my father walked in the house, he became subject to the aromatic spices that filled the air and joined me in his coughing fits. Hastily opened jars of random spices covered the counter, and in the pan on the stove sat something that looked like pieces of carrot and onion surrounded by a substance that appeared burnt but was not. Which, when it comes down to it, I suppose that's really what it was. But you know what? Later in the day, when the mixture had completely cooled down and the only hotness that remained was that of the spices, it tasted pretty good. Not even just okay, but actually quite good.

I think the main thing that I've discovered over the month of October is how wonderfully flexible Indian food is. And it's quick, too - we discovered several new dishes that are more exciting because of their Indian flavor and more easily made than others we may have fallen for in our late afternoon after school stupor. I think that Indian food provides a great amount of creativity that will always - even if it doesn't rise or makes you cough in the process - turn out warm and comforting in the end.