Hey look, corn and slow-cooker barbecue chicken!

Last Thursday, Nicole and I weren't really sure what to expect in our CSA haul. Even though we're firmly into October, we've still been getting things - like corn and tomatoes - that I sort of associate with late summer, and so far, we haven't gotten any of the root vegetables that we're still dying to bake into warm, yummy gratins and casseroles. We also felt like a challenge. So we made Indian food!

Here are the veggies we started with... hello, beautifuls!

Neither of us had ever attempted something quite as intimidating as Indian food before, so I scoured the Internerd for appropriate recipes. We hit up Sahadi's for spices before heading to the CSA. Turmeric, cardamom pods, cumin... and some garam masala that exploded in my bag on the way home, giving my shiny new apple haul a light dusting of garam masala that may or may not accidentally infuse the applesauce I'm planning to make tomorrow.

The recipes seemed easy enough, so I got a little cocky and didn't really follow any particular recipe to the letter. I couldn't find a mixed vegetable curry recipe that felt right, so I just sort of made it up as I went along, following the basic proportions of onion, garlic, ginger paste and spices to mixed-up veggies. We had the most gorgeous orange and yellow carrots, some wax beans left over from last week, some strange flat green beans and a couple of Japanese eggplant. I tossed in a little extra chili powder to make it spicy, and stirred in some yogurt towards the end to make it creamy, and in the end, it was tasty - if a bit too spicy.

Since we'd already bought the spices, and since Jessica and I are both suckers for it, we also made chicken korma with the same basic ingredients, sliced almonds, some butter that I didn't bother to clarify, a can of coconut milk and some more yogurt. The korma was definitely underspiced, but... you know, whatevs. I tried!

Served over basmati rice, we wound up feeding five hungry Brooklynites - and stuffing a couple of sample bites into a sixth - with leftovers a-plenty. I'm definitely not opening up an Indian restaurant any time soon, but I think we were all pretty happy with the results!

Veggie curry on the left, chicken korma on the right

Extreme closeup! This is actually kind of gross. I have to stop
photographing food after three glasses of wine.

This Thursday, we're planning on a goodbye-warm-weather barbecue at Nicole 2's place. I'm hoping for some eggplant to throw on the grill... and maybe some turnips for that gratin, finally.