Generous Servings

I had the best Indian food I have had in the Denver area on Tuesday night, and it was not at a restaurant. It was in a cooking class! My husband gave me the wonderful gift of a cooking class at Generous Servings

as one of my Christmas gifts this year, and I went to one on vegetarian Indian food. Wow.... The class was well organized, informative, and most of all, super fun! We made a wide range of dishes, and got to take all the recipes home with us. This class was completely hands on, and I loved it. I'm going to try to get back there really soon.

We made:

Curry with Potatoes, Cauliflower, Peas, and Chickpeas
Garam Masala
Basmati Rice Pilaf
Potato and Pea Samosas
Red Lentil Dal
Paneer
Palak Paneer
Cilantro-Mint Chutney
Tamarind Chutney
Naan
Mango Lassi

Everything turned out perfect. I feel pretty confident that I could make most of the things again at home. The ones I think I might need to practice on my own family with first are the Tamarind Chutney, and the Samosas. The Samosa dough seemed a little tricky, but at least I've played with it now, so I know what it's suppose to end up like. I just don't do as well with recipes that turn out a little different each time, as this dough I guess does.

The Tamarind was so interesting. It looks like this:

And there is this whole long process to getting out the fruit pulp that you want. You can buy it in blocks of pulp, and then you still strain it. However, that chutney was amazing. So if I do have some friends over and try to make all of this some night, it would be worth the effort.

If you live in the Denver area, check out Generous Servings. They have a lovely coffee shop, with fresh made from scratch pastries (hard to find these days), and then you can peek into the kitchen where they do cooking classes next door. The bar of the coffee shop looks into a long wall of windows into the kitchen, so you can watch them making pastries, teaching a class, or the owners of the cupcake shop next door (who rent kitchen space from them) making their cupcakes. Better yet, sign up for a class! You can take one on your own as I did, and meet some fabulous new people who are also foodies, or you can get a few friends together and they will teach a private class for you. They have everything from High Altitude Baking, to Knife Skills, to Ethiopian. You can't go wrong.

Mango Lassi

Serves 2

1 cup chopped mango

2 cups plain whole-milk yogurt, preferably Greeek-style

1 Tablespoon lime juice, or to taste

1 tablespoon sugar, or to taste

Pinch of salt

3 ice cubes (optional, they drink them room temp. but us Americans tend to like it just a bit chilled)

Blend all ingredients in blender until smooth