Month 11 day 14: This dinner brought to you by the color yellow

Today I made:
Buttery Pigeon [yellow split] Pea Dal (Mitti Handi Dal), Food & Wine December 2010
Spiced Potatoes (Aloo Bhaji), Food & Wine December 2010
Served with Trader Joe's garlic naan and chai tea (decaf Tetley's British Blend simmered with cloves, cardamom, a cinnamon stick, and milk)

Today I made an Indian dinner. The grocery store didn't have quite exactly all the spices called for, or pigeon peas for that matter, so we had to make a few substitutions, but it ended up being pretty good. There was a lot of tumeric in everything, which is why everything is so yellow. Also a lot of cumin seeds. These are both pretty quick recipes, taking about 30 minutes of hands on time each (the peas take an additional ~30 minutes of soaking first), so that was nice. They were pretty flavorful too. I didn't have quite 2 lbs of yukon gold potatoes, so I threw in a sweet potato (a white-fleshed kind) in just for fun. It looked identical to the normal potatoes, but every once in a while you'd get a very sugary piece! Kind of fun.