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Last night was for scrubbing and cooking. The scrubbing (of the bathroom floor downstairs; it seems like no amount of effort and industrial solvent will get the stupid tiles to be un-stained) made me mad, the cooking made me happy; thankfully I did it in that order.

I made:

• aloo gobi more or less following this recipe (I wanted it to be wetter, so I added about 1/2 a can of coconut milk and a splash of water when I put in the potatoes & cauliflower)
• dhal, following the recipe from the Extending the Table cookbook
  Fry in 2 oil until golden brown:
  1 onion, diced
  1-2 cloves garlic, minced
  1 t ground turmeric
  1 1/2 t ground cumin
  1 t ginger root, finely grated (maybe 1 inch)
  1/4 t ground cardamom
  Add:
  1 C dried lentils (use the orange-red colored lentils, not the brown-green ones)
  3 C hot water
  1 t salt
  Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer until lentils are tender, about 45 minutes. Remove cover and simmer over very low heat, stirring frequently, about 20 more minutes, until lentils are mushy and thick, about the consistency of refried beans. Garnish with onions, thinly sliced and browned, or a squeeze of lemon. Serve with rice.
• rice
• and we had it with some homemade cilantro chutney that we needed to use up. I can't find the recipe I used for that, but it's something like this.

I also:

• steamed some beets so we can have them today or tomorrow
• roasted red peppers and did all the pre-cooking for the crock pot recipe that will be tonight's dinner - Savory Chick Pea Stew with Roasted Red Pepper Coulis from 125 Best Vegetarian Slow-Cooker Recipes

I was really tired when I went to bed -- I didn't even sit down after I got home until we were eating at 9 PM or whatever it was. But dinner was good, we have lots of leftovers for lunches, and we'll have something exciting made in the crock pot tonight. Today is the first time we're trying the combination of crock pot plus plug-in-timer.

I should note that while I was doing some of that cooking, Azure was doing the tedious process of applying floor varnish to the 900 square feet of wooden floor downstairs. I am really glad I didn't have to do that.