Last month I got to go to San Francisco for the very first time! I absolutely love seeing new cities. It was a quick weekend trip and one of the highlights was renting bikes and riding over the Golden Gate bridge to Sausalito. I also had a blast going to the Ferry Plaza Farmer’s market – I seriously love a good farmer’s market!
A few months ago VegNews did a little spread about San Francisco and some of their favorite eateries in the Mission District. When I realized that we were staying just a few miles away from the Headquarters I asked my hubby if we could go and find it – and possibly eat at one of the recommended places. I had to ask REALLY nicely, since we were there celebrating his 40th birthday and since the idea of vegan eateries isn’t all that appealing to him :). Luckily the other couple we were with have recently transitioned there diets more closely to mine than his!!
Well he obliged and we drove around with our friends until we found it. This was it:
Yep, that’s all. Just a cute little awning. They laughed; I was slightly disappointed 🙂 Oh well – wasn’t exactly sure what I was expecting to see anyway!
I had a copy of the VegNews suggested restaurants to choose from and we all finally agreed on a UDUPI PALACE. It was a little Indian restaurant and the description of a scrumptous 2 foot rice crepe is what convinced me. When we sat down and looked at the menu my hubby was a little dismayed to see that it was a COMPLETELY vegetarian restaurant. (I giggled a little inside and wanted to say – “Now you know how I feel!!’ – I refrained).
Well here is a picture of the Paper Masala Dosa we ordered. Inside is a bowl of some of the BEST curried potatoes that I have ever had. The dipping sauces were wonderful and everything was delicious. We all left delighted with our restaurant choice – my sweet hubby included!
Well once we got home I had a serious itch to try and create at least a portion of the food that we ate. I decided to start with the potatoes!
As luck (or divine providence 🙂 would have it, the next weekend my husband and I discovered an Indian spice store less than 10 minutes from our house (104th South and 1100 West in South Jordan, UT).
I LOVE LOVE grocery stores (in fact when we travel I often would rather go and see the local grocery store than the local museum!) – especially stores that are completely unfamiliar to me..like Indian. I had so much fun going down each aisle. We bought a few fun things and this potato masala spice was one of them. I was anxious to get home and whip up a batch!
I found a great recipe on the back of the package that I wanted to try.
I started with about 2 pounds of baby potatoes from the garden. I washed them (left the peels on), cooked them in my pressure cooker and mashed them with a fork.
Then in a saute pan I cooked:
1 large anaheim pepper, chopped
1 tsp of fresh ginger, chopped
1 onion, chopped
I cooked these for about 5 minutes and added 4 tsp of the masala spices and the juice from 1/2 a lemon.
Next I added the mashed potatoes to the dish and stirred it all together.
That’s it! Really quite easy! And it was SO SO delicious. A bit on the spicy side, but there is sugar in the package also, so it offset the spiciness a little!
The kids thought it was great (as long as they had a glass of water close by) and it is something I will definitely make again.
Source: WFM 1-10