Wow, a whole year's passed by...

And I've been crazy busy!

I'll see if I can't fill in many of the blanks here soon, but I have to share a recipe first:

Matthew’s Chole Dal# for Pressure Cooker#

Ingredients:

• 1.5 cups dried chickpeas
• 2 Tbsp cooking oil
• 15 oz can diced tomatoes
• about 1 inch piece of fresh ginger, grated or chopped
• 2 -3 medium cloves garlic, chopped or pressed
• about 2 cups fresh spinach chopped roughly
• ¼ tsp Hing
• 2-3 Tbsp curry powder, your choice, taste dependent, I like hot
• at least two fresh chiles, chopped, again your choice but I like ‘em hot and use 2 large or 3 small Serranos
• Salt to taste at end
• Cilantro garnish to taste at end

Instructions:

1. Wash chickpeas and soak in 4 cups of water overnight. Don’t drain this water, these aren’t like beans and the soaking water has much flavor left in it.
2. In pressure cooker on Med-Low heat, heat oil for a few minutes and add Hing and curry powder, then let saute for a minute or two. This should sizzle a bit, but not burn.
3. add in garlic, ginger and chiles, and let them saute another couple minutes, again watching not to burn.
4. Add can of diced tomatoes, and tun up the heat to Medium. This should start to get to a low boil, and you should let this go for a few minute to reduce the liquid by about a third.
5. Toss in chopped spinach, stir it through and let it wilt a minute or two.
6. Add the chickpeas with the soaking liquid, stir and raise the heat to high.
7. Place the lid on pressure cooker according to your pressure cooker’s instructions, and wait for the cooker to reach the appropriate pressure. This recipe is based on 15 psi., but if you cooker doesn’t go that high you may need to cook a bit longer.
8. Let cook at pressure for at least 15 minutes, then turn off heat and let pressure release naturally, no cold water or manual release.
9. Check chickpeas for desired tenderness, and cook longer if not as tender as you like.
10. Finally season with salt to taste, I use about 2 Tbsp Kosher salt.
11. Garnish with cilantro and serve as desired. Options include simply plating as a side on another dish, or as I like it, as a main dish in a nice bowl with some good flat bread on the side, and sometimes some roasted or boiled potatoes. This would also work well with rice.

This has been a great recipe, and I'm trying to include many more high protein lower carb dishes in my diet. In the last 5 months I've lost about 32lbs. I'd like to lose another 25 or 30, but we'll see.

Anyway, cooking's been fun again and I'll likely be adding more recipes and possibly some videos soon.