"Cannellini bean sauce and herbed tomato sauce over carrot rice" and "Spicy Indian Cabbage and Green Peas" (Lisa's Kitchen)

I wanted to post before, but I had some troubles with my photo camera. Every time I try to do some shots, I finish with headache after struggling with the battery. I would have already posted another recipe, if I had batteries yesterday. But I didn't. And I had only one serving left of the dish, and no possibility to do a photo. I thought about cooking quickly something more, leave the leftovers of my fantastic gipsy pot for tomorrow, and photograph it then, but I was too hungry. And the stew turned so good that I couldn't resist. Therefore, I don't have a photo, and a recipe without a photo is like…like…well, words fail me, but I suppose you got it, didn't you?. Can you imagine a cookbook without photos? I can't (yes, I know, some of them don't have, you will tell me, but I don't buy that kind of cookbooks), as well as I can't imagine a food blog without photos.

I promise I will cook it soon again, because I still have half of a pumpkin left lying in the fridge. A gipsy pot is a stew made with chickpeas, pumpkin, pears, potatoes, green beans and a "sofrito" (tomato, onion, garlic and pepper fried lightly in oil), which is a very common start for many Spanish and Catalan dishes. Since I tried it, it became quickly one of my favorite dishes.

And now, let me explain about today's recipe. I decided to take part in my first food blog event! As a newly created blog, I need to advertise it, don't I? And what better way than taking part in a blog event? Last week, surfing on the net, I found a great site called "Is my blog burning?" According their own word, "Is my blog burning" , "keeps you updated with all the latest food blogging events and the best foodie links from across the web"

I looked through the events of this month, and I found one I liked. It's called "Tried and Tasted". The original idea is of Zlamushka's Spicy Kitchen: one food blog is chosen every month, and all the other bloggers are invited do choose one of it's recipes, try it by themselves and show the results. This month the featured blog is "Lisa's vegetarian Kitchen", and it's hosted by My Diverse Kitchen. Lisa has been a vegetarian for many years, and its specialty is the Indian cuisine.  You can find so many recipes in her blog that I didn't know which one choose!

At the end, I decided to try a very gourmet looking recipe: Cannellini Bean Sauce and Herbed Tomato Sauce Over Carrot Rice. Well, in fact I decided to try two recipes. The other one was Spicy Indian Cabbage and Green Peas

Cannellini bean sauce and herbed tomato sauce over carrot rice

I am not going to paste all the instructions again, because it's already all very well explained in the original post. Instead, I am going to comment the results and the little changes I made. I tried to stick at maximum to the original recipe, but at the end I couldn't, because I didn't have all the ingredients.

* I didn't have white beans, so I used kidney beans instead. It changed the color, but I think it didn't change the flavor too much.

* I omitted the butter

*I used a kind of red hot pepper which is very used in Catalan cuisine called "bitxu" instead of the red chilies. The one I used, was grown in my own balcony =)

*I used the same hot pepper in the tomato sauce as in the beans

*I only have seen maple syrup once here, in the department of "exotic" food, and I didn't buy it because the price was too "exotic" for me. I used glucose syrup instead, and it worked great

Spicy Indian cabbage and green peas

Like in the previous recipe, I am not going to copy all the instructions. You can get the recipe here.As regards the changes, I didn't have caraway seeds (I even know how they are called in Spanish) and I used curry powder instead of turmeric, because 70% of the blend was turmeric, and I didn't have plain turmeric.

The results:



I was quite happy with the resulting dish. I cooked both recipes as a part of the same meal, and ate them together: the rice and beans as a main dish, and the cabbage as a side. The result was a hearty and satisfying meal, and the most important, a very balanced one: you have complete proteins and a serving of vegetables, and the bean sauce is another way to eat your beans, perfect for the people who is not a huge fan of stews and pots (which is not my case, because I LOVE stews, but a little bit of variety never hurts) Putting one layer of each (rice, then the bean sauce and with the tomato sauce on the top) you get a very elegant looking dish (I think that maybe I am going to cook it the next time I have guests). The inconvenient? You need three pots, and if you are re-heating it, it can be a problem if your stove is little. In my case, I had to heat my family launch too, and I didn't have space enough. I had to heat first my food, take the pots out of the stove, and heat theirs. In other words, maybe is not the best dish to cook everyday (of course, you always can put it in the microwave, but I try to use it the minimum I can). But if I have to choose between the rice and beans and the cabbage, I would take the rice and beans. The cabbage was good, but not as good as the other recipe. The spice blend was not bad, but it was not the best I have ever tried. Maybe it was because I changed it a little bit, though.

I encourage you to try some of the Lisa's recipes too ;) They won't disappoint you!