Red Lentil Dal with Collard Green Saag
I made Happy Herbivore’s popular Indian recipes tonight (er…this afternoon): dal and saag. Super filling and spicy!
I pureed the collards with my stick blender and liked the smaller pieces a lot. Lindsay doesn’t normally stir yogurt into her saag (so she says in the recipe), but I love yogurt in hot things and put about 1/3 a cup into the collards recipe. It was quite good but I’m not sure I could taste the yogurt. Maybe I needed more! I just wish I’d had more to put on top of it all too but I used the last bit.
I took a LaraBar to class tonight but dinner was filling, so I’m not really hungry for it.
We got out of lab an hour early tonight!!! Lab is going better. I really like my lab group (Hi Marianna!) and this lab is a lot easier than last semester’s because we get to work in groups instead of singles, which is so much better for clean-up and the sharing of tasks. And the prof is being nicer – I think he likes me now 🙂
Hey all! I need some advice. I just started a new job (retail) where I’ll be on my feet 5-7 hours a day about 5 days a week. What should I do about changing my eating/exercise habits? I would assume that I would be burning more calories walking around, hanging things, carrying stuff, etc. than I was when I was much more sedentary. Also, when I get home from work my feet hurt and I’m so tired that I really don’t feel like exercising. Any suggestions? I’m guessing the obvious one would be to increase my calories and listen to my body about when/how much to exercise. Any advice would be great!
Love the mix of foreign & local ingredients/cuisines – yum!
Hooray for getting out of lab early!! Enjoy your night :0)
Mmm, love Lindsay’s Dal! My mom’s in love too. =)
Oooh, I love Dal the few times I’ve had it. I need to try this one, as well as the collard greens. The best collard greens I had were at Blue Smoke in NYC. Since then, the only other ones I tried were from a can and they smelt so bad, my roommates left the apartment until I threw them out. I bet these ones are better =)
Hey, I had Lindsay’s dal tonight, too! It’s a great recipe, and partly because it’s so adaptable. I omitted the onion and threw some yellow curry powder in there, and it was still delicious.
I need to try this recipe it is everywhere in the blogging world!
Yeah, dals in general are pretty forgiving. Instead of putting the yogurt in the saag itself, you can make a yogurt sauce with chopped cilantro, tomato, cucumber, salt, pepper and cumin and put that on top.
hi kath –
thanks for sharing the indian recipes! i love the flavors, but it’s always a challenge to find healthy recipes since they often call for ghee or a lot of fat. have you ever seen madhur jaffrey’s cookbooks? the “world vegetarian” one is great and she also has several focusing on indian dishes…
this is a totally unrelated comment, but i’m not sure if you saw my post about scones while you were away. i found these crumbly 250 calorie cranberry ones at trader joes — to give you an idea, they were so big i couldn’t even eat half with some butter/jam for a treat — i don’t know if you have TJs in your area but these might fit your bill!
Sarah ,
You’ve got the right idea about listening : ) I would definitely make sure to add a snack or two and just see how you do with exercise. Could you go in the morning before work when you’re fresh for something light? Is swimming or biking an option to rest your feet? While you are getting exercise in the store, your heart still needs to pump hard a few times a week to keep up your fitness levels too. I’d play around with your schedule doing trial and error and see what works.
Katie ,
I also omitted the onion : ) And only had yellow curry so I used that instead of turmeric 🙂
working ,
Thanks for the yogurt topping idea! I generally blob some on top and do think it’s more flavorful (think PB on the spoon instead of stirred in!) but with some extra seasonings it would be extra tasty!
smilesara ,
I did see your comment – sorry for not responding! I’m headed to TJ’s this weekend, so I’ll check them out. But I think I need to keep experimenting in the kitchen before I settle for store bought – just for the fun of the challenge and because I have about 10 more recipes to try!
Kath
Indian food, loooove it!
Smilesara, if you come across an Indian or Pakistani recipe that calls for ghee, you can cut the amount in half and use olive oil instead. I learned to cook from my mom and she never uses ghee and uses very little oil. The only thing is that you might have to turn down the heat when frying the spices to make sure that they don’t burn.
Oooh! I LOVE red lentil dal. one of my faves!
Yum! I’ve never made dal but LOVE lentils. That looks like a great meal 🙂
So what do collard greens taste like? I mean, how do they compare to kale or spinach?
Heather ,
Collards are much tougher and more bitter than kale and spinach. I don’t like them as much, but I appreciate them for what they are for a change. You should give ’em a try!
Kath