This was a really easy open-faced sandwich that I’ll likely start making somewhat frequently.

I made this delicious, simple Indian dish once for Taste & Create. But, my version of bread was lacking in flavor, texture… just wasn’t very good. And, produce wasn’t in season, which changes everything. So, I made it again. Here’s the link to the Bazaar Jaisey Aloo recipe.

The only thing I did differently was use 3 nicely ripened, large, fresh tomatoes that I chopped instead of the canned tomatoes I used in the past, and I added a chopped zucchini… just because.

I served this with some homemade naan. Delicious dinner.

Naan! It is so good. I still haven’t been to India, but the best naan I’ve had was in the Indian neighborhoods of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Now I’ll be making a delicious version here at home, thanks to my Rustic Bread Class at the Culinary School of the Rockies.

As you can see from all of my naan balls, this recipe makes a lot of naan. I just froze whatever I wasn’t eating and plan to re-heat it at 250 on a pizza stone. Easy.

Ingredients:

• 25 oz. all purpose flour
• 2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
• 1 TB sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 TB Kala Jeera seeds
• 8 oz. warm milk (100-115 degrees)
• 3 oz ghee, melted
• 7.5 oz plain yogurt
• 1 egg
• extra ghee

First of all, you might need to get yourself over to Savory Spice Shop to buy some Kala Jeera seeds. Mail order them if you need to. Savory Spice Shop has everything!

Start by mixing the warm milk and yeast in a bowl and let it sit and foam for 10 minutes or so.

In another bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, melted ghee, egg, yogurt, and kala jeera seeds. Then, add the yeast mixture into this and knead (in your KitchenAid mixer) into a pliable dough that isn’t too sticky. Let this stand and double in size.

I refrigerated mine over night because that is what we did in class. I let it come back to room temperature the next day, divided it up, and rolled it into golfball sized dough balls. Cover the dough balls with a damp towel and get your oven HOT! 500 degrees hot! Make sure you have your pizza stone on the bottom rack and remove other racks to give you room to maneuver.

Roll out the dough balls on a lightly floured surface to approximately 1/8 inch thick.

I like to make an assembly line- as 2 or 3 are baking on the stone, I’m rolling out another 2 or 3 for the next batch. After a few minutes on one side, they’ll start to poof out. Flip them and wait another couple minutes for them to be perfectly done.

Brush the tops with melted ghee and sprinkle with sea salt. This is a real show-stopper.

I served my naan with Bazaar Jaisey Aloo. Enjoy.

As an adult, I realized that I really do like brussel sprouts. However, I hardly ever eat them because I find the seasonal, local, fresh brussel sprouts so much more delicious than anything you’ll find in a store, so that limits the availability to just a few weeks each year.

Lucky for me, it’s that time of year. Here’s what I made:

I washed all of the tiny bugs off of my sprouts (they just come along with all of my market-fresh produce. oh well). The pound of sprouts I bought from Ollin Farms were small, so I left them whole, and coarsely chopped 4 leeks. I tossed them with a couple TB heavy whipping cream and a little maple syrup, then put them in a 375 degree oven for 25 minutes or so.

They came out beautifully tender. I sprinkled a little sea salt on top and couldn’t get enough of them! I am planning on re-creating this same recipe this week as I take advantage of brussel sprout season.

If you live in North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, or Georgia, then consider yourself lucky. You have access to Annie’s baked goods and I am quite envious out here in Colorado.

I discovered Annie’s Naturally Bakery last summer in an Ingles (this just cracks me up because the Spanish-speaker in me keeps wanting this store to be pronounced- inglés… the Spanish work for English. However, it is like In-Gulz…). Anyway, my sister and I went to buy food for our family reunion in NC and we were pretty amazed to find such high quality baked goods at the local supermarket.

So, I was quite happy this year when my parents picked me up from the Asheville airport with a bag full of Annie’s cookies and a loaf of slices spelt sandwich bread. Way to go mom and dad!

Annie’s cookies are perfectly delicious and border-line health food! Well, they are if you compare the ingredient list to pre-packaged cookies. These are as close to homemade as you can find outside of my very own kitchen!

And their breads are fantastic too!

Annie’s bakes breads, cookies, cakes, etc. the way baking was intended to be done. I’m already looking forward to next year’s trip to NC just for the cookies!