A while ago now, Donna and her hubs Richard, and myself went a walkin'...along the Great Trail (aka Trans Canada Trail) down to the pretty town of Chemainus. It was a dark and stormy night...er...light and rainy day but we didn't let that dampen our spirits. It also didn't dampen our appetites. In fact it enhanced them. We were so hungry by the time we arrived that we promptly fell into the first restaurant we came across, that - so fortunately for us! - was also the most excellent Indian eatery.

Near the beginning of the hike, and soaked already.

As for myself? Well...

Somebody thought to bring an umbrella 😉 Photo by Donna
Photo taken by our gracious waiter, at Invitation Indian Cuisine.
Closeup of our food. Clockwise from top left: palak paneer, butter chicken, naan, eggplant bartha. Photo by Donna.

I hadn't had Indian food at a restaurant for over a year (not since I left Ontario) so this was especially delicious to me. And inspiring! I bought a new cookbook, determined to add some easy-to-make dishes to my repertoire.

The Amazon ratings and reviews sold me on this book.

The first thing I needed to do was to buy the spices necessary to make the garam masala spice blend recommended to use for the dishes in this cookbook. Thankfully it was almost Diwali, and everything was on sale!

Spices ready to go in the coffee grinder (which thankfully made the cut for the move!). Note THE BAY LEAVES.
Finished garam masala. Smells delicious around here already!

I started with the book's recipe for palak paneer. Which was simple and easy to make. Here is similar recipe, found online. Does not require a pressure cooker (although I recommend the pressure cooker version and the cookbook I bought - definitely faster and easier!).

Frying the onions and spices right in my Instant Pot-type pressure cooker.
Adding the spinach, under His Eye. 😉
Blending after cooking. (I don't mean for Seashell Jesus to photobomb my cooking adventures always, but I do have a very small kitchen. It's more of a hallway than a kitchen, really - so He will inevitably pop up in some shots.) Next step: add the cubed paneer.
Closeup of palak paneer, over basmati rice. Tasted almost as good as at the restaurant!

The next dish I attempted to recreate was the eggplant bartha. There was a similar recipe in the cookbook, but it asked for liquid smoke (which I didn't have) and I didn't want to do another smoky dish like last month's. So I went searching online, and found this one. It also called for a smoky addition (in fact all the ones I looked at did so I just gave up) but at least I had the smoked paprika it called for and that is the one I ended up using.

Ingredients for the eggplant curry, including my homemade garam masala in a repurposed condiment jar.
Tomatoes and spices frying on the stove.
Simmering curry, with roasted eggplant and coconut milk added. Smells heavenly.
Finished! And delicious with reheated store-bought naan. (I could not detect any overt smokiness in this dish. Yay!)

This eggplant curry was really delicious! I made a few changes to the recipe I used. I added cumin instead of the chili powder and I used 1 tablespoon of my garam masala instead of the cardamom and coriander. Next time I would cut the coconut oil and olive oil back to a couple of tablespoons each instead of a 1/4 cup each. It was just a tad too oily for my taste.

As always: please feel free to let my co-host Donna or myself know what's on your plate at your house, in the Comments of either Donna's or my post (or both, if you are so inclined!). Please check out Donna's post, here. She has written about her adventures with a guilt-free hot drink mix!

Remember: if you decide to blog or Facebook or Instagram about it, to use the tags #whatsonyourplateblogchallenge or #woypbc so we can find you out on ye olde interwebbs!

Rock spicily on,

The WB